At the risk of sounding like one of the Beverly Hillbillies I'm going to confess that this dish kind of reminds me of something my grandmother used to make when I was a kid - roast raccoon. That's no lie, it's not even an exaggeration. We ate a lot of strange things at my grandparents house. For the record, it was all good. They were country people and products of the depression. My grandfather was a hunter and fisherman and my grandmother was a hell of a farm wife. She once saved me from a blood-thirsty and crazed fighting rooster. That story is elsewhere on this blog, something tells me it's probably got to do with a chicken recipe.

If my memory serves me well (and it usually does) roasted raccoon looked like roasted turkey only reddish brown with four drumsticks. There were of course, potatoes and carrots. I imagine a dinner like that will freak some people out, but it was good. Everything the woman cooked was good.

Annually there's a big clam chowder festival a short drive from my house in Newport, Rhode Island. For a stretch there I attended every year. It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see how different restaurants and organizations approached making what they considered a good chowder. There were New England, Manhattan, Bahamian and Seafood styles as well as a few others including a pretty good quahog chili one year. 

They offered different categories to compete in, and in the seafood chowder contest one restaurant reigned supreme and that happened to be the restaurant I hung around at and eventually met my wife at. They made a great chowder, no, they made a phenomenal chowder! It was so good and they won this contest so often that eventually they were politely asked to retire from competition to give other establishments a fair shot at the prize. 

Ah, what a great restaurant and chowder, but things change. That is why I am going to offer you a short lesson here on economics. The restaurant of which I speak is doing rather poorly these days and I don't think it will be around for long. I'd like to explain why.

I would like to tip my hat to my wife for the inspiration for this recipe. While she is not as passionate about cooking as I am, she does turn out her own really good dishes when she feels inclined. One of the areas of cooking where she surpasses me is with the venerable crock pot. She is a crock pot master and I am just a humble student.

Beyond a stew, I don't think I'd be able to coerce much good from a crock pot. Not so with my wife. She has produced all manner of wonderful things from crock pots. From tasty dishes like the one the recipe below finds its roots in, to delightfully gooey and delicious chocolate desserts. There are no clinkers in her cadre of crock pot cookery creations! So, unlike many homes in which the crock pot either collects dust or is relegated to warming cocktail weenies or beans at parties, our crock pot sees regular use.

Recently, she created a version of a Thai dish she found in one of her crock pot cook books. It was of course delicious and pretty authentic tasting. I loved the rich, satay-like peanut sauce and at some point mid-dinner, after my compliments and comments regarding its various delicious aspects I got the idea to take elements of the recipe in a different direction. My idea was a Japanese and Thai fusion of sorts.

As I was preparing this dish last night and transcribing the final version of the recipe, I came to a surprising realization: In my house, we go through a lot of alcohol just for cooking purposes.

For instance, this recipe calls for 3 cups of Marsala wine. That is quite a bit of wine (but worth it!), and we tend to keep two big bottles handy. We also keep big bottles of Port wine for a couple of pork recipes we cook frequently. Then of course there's Penne à la vodka which doesn't earn a name like that for nothing! In fact it's the ONLY reason we keep vodka in the house.

This list goes on and on. Bailey's Irish Cream for French toast, Chinese wine for Chinese sauces. Two kinds of sake for teriyaki and tonkatsu sauce. Cognac for steak diane, as well as regular and cherry brandies for a variety of flambés. Portuguese cachaca for Azorean chourico bombeiro and surely more that doesn't readily come to mind. That's just the specialty stuff. I couldn't even calculate how many bottles of white or red wine we go through a year for marinades, deglazing and sauce building!

I wonder what chefs did during prohibition?