"The domestic duck can be found in a person's household. The meat of the duck is used for food as are the duck's eggs. Its feathers and down are used to make pillows." That's what it says in Walla-pedia. But the battle over the ducks in our household has already entered the chronicles of our shared legacy. The chef waited patiently for the period of family birthdays in February so that I would be so busy that I wouldn't notice that a brace of ducks had entered my house.

When we cook pets, I always remember the swans in my grandmother's backyard in Kfar Galim. Two females and a male, a triangle destined for trouble and dangerous liaisons. They used to quarrel so much that all their feathers were plucked; they were very un-petlike. My grandfather decided that the time had come to get rid of the participants in the screechy backyard battles, and invited the slaughterer to take them. When the youngest of his daughters, then five years old, returned home, she immediately asked, "Where are my swans?"

"You know what?" said my grandmother with utmost seriousness. "They were so sick and tired of themselves that they simply asked to be slaughtered." The explanation seemed very reasonable to a five- year-old.

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When I discovered that there was a duck cooking in a baking pan in my house, first of all I felt betrayed. Long ago I had made my position on the subject of cooking animals from fairy tales clear to the chef.

"You're confusing a duck and a goose," he said, trying to evade the trap.

"That's true, and I think I'm not the only one," I said, and this time I opened Wikipedia: "Duck is the common name for a number of species in the Anatidae family of birds." I also found the touching sentence: "Ducks are mostly smaller than their relatives, the swans and geese."

Thus I saw that we were getting involved here with an entire family and with a flock of its relatives, as well as with Nils Holgersson and wild geese. Despite my protests, which were about the size of the demonstrations against selling furs in front of Hamashbir and Castro, only without the nudity, the chef carried on and put up duck soup, too. Meanwhile I went to a video store to bring the Marx brothers film, "Duck Soup." When I returned I was assailed by a strong smell, because even more than in the case of preparing chicken, cooking ducks generates smells that travel great distances. A similar vapor must have enveloped the shtetls where they slaughtered geese left and right, and made soup, a roast for the elder daughter and a pillow for the younger one, who would hopefully get married soon. I lit bushes of dry sage in order to get rid of the smell, but the combination of sage and duck created the smell of a church suffering from faulty maintenance.

"It's an exceptional delicacy," he said, stirring the pieces of duck in lemon grass. "Would you like to taste it?"

"No." I said, turning my back.

He placed the roast duck on the table and traveled to the North. When I returned home the weather had changed from mid-spring to winter, the window in the living room broke, and I was sorry that he wasn't around to fix it on the spot. I wrapped the duck in aluminum foil and placed it in the refrigerator. Someone had played around with the temperatures, and the next day, when the chef returned, he found it frozen.

"Look what happened because of the evil eye you put on me," he hissed at me, and without him seeing, I smiled.

"It's very hard to find fresh duck in the city," he said while making Turkish coffee for me. "But there is a reliable source."

And this is how the chef's morning began:

The telephone rang.

"Hello, Fogras," said a hoarse voice on the other end. "Fogras" is a distortion of Foie Gras.

"Do you have fresh ducks?"

"Yes." A sigh of relief.

"Where can I get them?"

"Nowhere."

"What does that mean?"

"Come and take from here."

"Can I come and take them?"

"Not today, try tomorrow."

The next afternoon the chef tried his luck, he recounted. Jabotinsky Street, 45 minutes from the Elite junction in the direction of Kiryat Aryeh. A metal statue of laborers, holding hands in a circle, greets you at the junction at the entrance to the Kiryat Aryeh industrial zone. Three traffic lights, another 20 minutes, an hour passed and he was suffocating in the car, regretting this whole business with the ducks.

"At two there won't be anyone in the factory," the chef recalled them saying.

1:50 P.M. The chef parks alongside a building bearing a faded sign: "Foie Gras." Silence.

There is no smell in the air testifying to the fact that there were ducks here in the morning. The gate is locked. A Haredi guy senses something, gestures toward the building. "Second floor, to the right."

The chef goes up, and enters the right-hand door to a cubicle separated from another room by an old door. A woman of about 40 is sitting behind a table that fills the entire room, knitting. That's not her hair, it's a wig, he thinks to himself.

"Are you the one with the ducks?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Two, if possible."

"Moshe, bring up four," she says into the MIRS.

Ten minutes later the door opens. In the entrance stands Moshe, wearing a disposable plastic apron, panting from the climb up the stairs. He is holding four white bags; on each is a picture of a duck. He hands me the bags, they're heavier than I thought.

"You're lucky," says Moshe, and the woman puts down the knitting needles and does a calculation on the computer. "NIS 30 per kilo," she says.

"Look at the date," says Moshe after the chef pays. February 16, 2007-February 16, 2008. "I took them out for you from the opening of the freezer compartment."

The orange sauce described here is also very suitable for roast chicken. The following recipe is for four portions.

Duck is edible for up to sixth months, and as long as the weight does not exceed 2.5 kg. The chain stores offer only frozen duck, which has a sharp flavor and is drier in texture than fresh duck, but still makes for wonderful eating. The frozen ducks are sold in plastic bags. In order to thaw them out one places them in the refrigerator, still in the bag, for two to three days. Anyone in a hurry should put the bag in a bowl of water at room temperature. In four hours the duck will have thawed. Tear the bag open, rinse the duck well inside and out, and dry.

1 duck, frozen or fresh, about 2.5 kilos

Remove the fat from the inside of the duck, divide the wings at the joint. Put aside the lower part of the wings, a bone covered in skin, for the stock. Remove the neck and put aside for the stock.

The skin of the duck is essential for roasting, it keeps the meat moist. This skin is covered with pinfeathers, which should be removed as much as possible, with a knife. Then make nicks in the skin, horizontally and vertically, so that the heat of the oven can penetrate the meat and roast it.

4 oranges (remove outer peel with a vegetable peeler or sharp knife, slice into very thin strips)

black peppercorns, coarsely broken

Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. Put in the orange peels, cook for 2 minutes and drain. Transfer to ice water for another minute and drain again; place on a towel to dry.

With kitchen thread, preferably flax, tie the ducks' legs to one another and attach the wings to the body.

the lower wing bones of the duck, halved

the neck, quartered

Or: 4 chicken wings and two necks

2 tbs. olive oil

1 medium carrot, peeled and sliced into rings

1 medium leek, white part only, sliced into rings

1 medium dry onion, sliced into rings

4 garlic gloves, coarsely chopped

1 piece of fresh ginger, about 3 cm. long and 3 cm. wide

1/4 stalk lemon grass

4 sprigs of parsley

1 sage leaf

1/2 bay leaf

1/2 shata pepper

4 rosemary needles

3 cups of mineral water

10 black peppercorns

sea salt

You will need a heavy steel pot, 24 cm. in diameter. Saute the wings and the neck in the olive oil over a medium flame. When they brown add the onion, the leek and the carrot, continue to saute until their color becomes stronger and they begin to secrete liquids. Add the water and the other ingredients. Bring to a boil, remove the foam, turn down to a low boil. Cook for two hours, without a lid; at the end about 1.5 cups of liquid remain. Strain and transfer the stock to the freezer for 30 minutes, where the cold will separate it from the fat, which will float to the top and congeal. Take out of the freezer and remove the fat with a spoon.

Preheat the oven to 230 degrees Centigrade, using both top and bottom elements. Place the duck on a rack, breast side up, in the middle of the oven, with a pan below it (that can later be used on top of the stove) to catch the fatty drippings. Close the oven door and roast for 20 minutes. Total roasting time is about 100 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to 180 degrees, and every 15 minutes turn the duck over on one of its four sides. There will be a lot of fat dripping off, but there's no need to brush the meat with it.

The aroma of roast duck will fill the house; you may want to open the windows. The duck is meanwhile becoming increasingly golden.

About 20 minutes before the roasting is finished, prepare the sauce.

3 tbs. white sugar

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1 cup duck stock (or chicken soup)

50 gm. cold butter, cut into cubes

the rest of the orange peels

1 peeled orange, cleaned of the white inner rind and cut into cubes

In a small heavy pot, mix the sugar and the vinegar; bring to a boil over a high flame. The vinegar evaporates quickly, and the remaining syrup turns golden brown. When it turns the color of a brown bread crust, pour in the duck stock or soup, and add the orange peels. Continue to reduce over a high flame for about 5 minutes. The sauce will thicken; add the cubes of butter, stir. A smell of chocolate wafts from the sauce, its color deepens. Add the orange pieces and stir. Turn off the flame.

The roasting time is over. Remove the duck from the rack and place on a work surface.

2 cups of fine red wine

Remove the fat-collecting pan from the oven and pour out all the fat. Place the pan on the stove over a high flame and pour in the wine. Reduce until there is almost no liquid left. Add whatever remains to the orange sauce; reduce for about another minute and pour over the duck. Serve immediately and divide among those sitting at the table. If you prepare the sauce to accompany a roasted chicken or two, perform the same operation in the pan where the chickens were roasted.