By Donna Boetger, Guest Blogger for Foodies Like Us

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a pushover for any menu item that includes foie gras.  Whenever I go to a high end restaurant my eyes go right to the appetizer section and I look for an offering of foie gras. I was shocked to learn that foie gras translates from the French to “fatty liver.”  I seem to remember seeing that ominous term on my last physical exam print out and hearing a “tsk tsk” from my physician. Could there be a correlation to eating too much foie gras? Sacre bleu! It’s not like I have foie gras every week or even once a month.  Known for living on the edge, though,  I am not going to change my deeply entrenched and hard earned food preferences and start resisting  my favorite slice of heaven. Besides, it’s possible all the butter, Devon cream, crème fraiche, Stilton blue and slices of prosciutto ingested over the years should be included in the list of more likely suspects. Pretty good rationalizing, huh?

Picture a violin solo serenading you as this duck goodness melts in your mouth...

There is something so sensuous about the silken texture of the lovely duck or goose liver as it melts on the tongue.  I’ve seen many creative presentations and one that still stands out in my mind was a couple of years ago when my husband and I attended the West of the West Culinary Festival and the chef from the Fairmount Princess served foie gras wrapped in cotton candy on a stick. It might sound a bit incongruous but the combination of sweet with the tender cube of foie gras was truly out of this world. Several years ago we were fortunate enough to taste foie gras in Strasbourg, France, which is considered the home of the world’s finest foie gras. It was served simply with a baguette, sweet butter, the foie gras and cornichons. Sitting at an outdoor cafe by the cathedral in Strasbourg noshing on foie gras, sipping a lovely white wine…it doesn’t get much better than that.  Café Bink’s in Care Free has a delicious foie gras terrine that I’ve ordered several times and Kevin Binkley regularly offers foie gras at Binkley’s.  His torchon of foie gras is marvelous.  Chef Vincent Guerithault at Vincent’s on Camelback does his Southwest-French fusion bit beautifully on foie gras with caramelized pineapple. Debra Knight at Mosaic prepared a lovely foie gras on a recent visit. I don’t remember all the ingredients now – possibly because I went far away somewhere into a state of ecstasy – but I believe there was some red grapefruit  and butter involved and the plating was a work of art. I managed to snap a photo before it disappeared.

Quick, snap a photo before it gets inhaled!

Controversy does abound on the subject of foie gras. Many states now are outlawing the production of foie gras because animal activists consider it cruel to fatten the geese or ducks by force feeding them in a manner that causes their livers to swell. I am an animal lover but I can’t muster much indignance over the process.  If it produces succulent livers that taste like heaven on earth then they must be destined to be eaten . I will ignore the PETA folks and my fatty liver be damned. If I must go to that great French bistro in the sky then let it be by a torchon of foie gras.  Even better with cotton candy.