Dead Bunnies
A while back, Luke and I bought rabbit on a bit of a whim. Mom was paying, and they didn't have venison, so why not, right? I just got around to cooking it tonight. Never again.
First of all, it is rather disturbing to open up the packaging and sort of unfold the animal to find something that still bears a resemblance to my childhood pets. Also, while the package had said that it came with the giblets, I figured they would be in a nice, convenient little bag, like in a chicken or turkey. Oh, no. I opened up the rabbit to find the liver and kidneys still inside and (semi-)attached. As if that wasn't bad enough, the liver was dislodged and fell out into the sink when I was rinsing out the rabbit. At least I had an excuse to not cook it (like Luke wanted me to do).
So after I mostly got over my initial misgivings, I still needed to figure out how to chop the thing up. No one online had any instructions, so I pretty much relied on feeling around for joints and trying to remember Mom's lesson on how to cut up a chicken. (Before I had to start cooking my own meals, I would get pretty squeamish just touching raw meat, so half of my memory is wondering why I would ever want to touch a raw chicken, let alone chop it up.)
Eventually I got the legs chopped off, but I had no idea how to go about carving up the main body. Luke and I ended up calling Mom for help. After she had a good laugh at my expense, she ended up telling me to just cut off any meat I could get off the bones. That ended up not being very much, since the rabbit was fairly lean, especially compared to a chicken.
About an hour and a half later, I was able to enjoy rabbit cacciatore.
I'm sticking with chicken next time.