Goose

Dead Animal For Dinner. Not Roadkill.

My dad brought home a goose for Thanksgiving. It was a gift from his friend who recently returned from a hunting trip. I first saw the goose in the kitchen sink, wrapped up in a garbage bag, it's wet body sticking to the plastic. 

I told my dad, "No one is going to eat that. It's terrifying, in it's plastic bag. Do you even know where it came from?"
"It's from Sacramento." He said.
"That makes it worse. If it were from Nevada, I'd assume it had a normal goose diet, now I'm imagining it at McKinley park, eating dried squirrel poop and day-old bagels."
"There is nothing wrong with day old bagels!" He replied.

Kiki pulled up a chair as my dad brined the goose, and kept asking, "How can we bring the goose back to life?"
I suggested a walk, fresh air always rejuvenates. She didn't get the joke, and as usual, I was laughing all by myself. Hearing the family talk about the dead goose made Kiki curious about death, and she started asking about our deaths, with most concern on when it would happen. We were all stumped, and feeling unequipped at answering the question, we told her, never.

The goose didn't fit in the overflowing fridge so it got a seat with a view, on the back porch, in the frigid temperatures. That night, it was moved to the garage to keep it safe from coyotes.

Brining with a view

The next day, my dad and Kiki made a seasoning for the bird, and it roasted in the oven. I was very surprised to find it looks more like beef than chicken. My dad was weary of anyone willingly serving themselves a piece of the goose, so he put a slice on everyone's plate.
I tasted it, and had it not been in brine for 24 hours, and dosed in a salty layer of seasoning, it would have tasted foul (get it, fowl.) I could not mentally hurdle the image of the dead animal's body in the sink, so the one bite was plenty.
Kiki ate the most out of everyone. This made my dad beyond pleased, and left the rest of us feeling a tad inferior. Whatever concerns Kiki had for the goose's life didn't seem to deter her from eating it.
Since Thanksgiving, Kiki has been hung up on the idea of death. I've given her better answers to her questions, that will help her shape a definition of life.
She hasn't asked any questions about eating the dead. Maybe it's evidence of human instinct to be carnivorous. A natural superiority complex, overlording all animals. Either way, her lack of inhibition toward eating the goose makes me think she'd have been an excellent leader of the Donner Party, and my dad could join her, as the head chef.