Braised Rabbit with Coriander Seeds, Green Olives, and White Wine

Vegetarians can be an off-putting lot. I should know. I was one for years. I'd beat you with a carrot if you suggested I eat meat.

I'm still in sympathy with the cause. But I eat meat. We should talk about that dichotomy sometime.

Anyway, earlier this year I was on L.A. NPR to talk about our HAM book, the drop-dead funny cookbook (no lie) about all things piggishly back-ended (look for it here). I made some cracks about raising and eating our own pig. Very light-hearted stuff, despite its being about death.

Afterwards, I got about many requests from people in LalaLand to be facebook friends. Wow, I thought, NPR has quite a following out there.

Until I discovered they were militant vegetarians. And started writing horrible things on my wall. And posting videos of animal slaughter. And sending messages to all my facebook friends about what a nightmare I was.

I cleaned these people off my lists as quickly as I could. Bruce and I talked about it. Decided it was a strange quirk. And went on our way. Until he twittered two weeks ago about making rabbit for dinner. And got word-lashed and then unfollowed by a bunch of similar types who thought his meal choice was unethical.

Again, the ethics of eating meat. Let's talk about them sometime. But for now, I'd like to share with you the rabbit recipe that got him defriended and unfollowed. Because it's so darn wonderful. Every single bite of its four servings. If you've never eaten rabbit, now's the time. It's autumnal, comforting, light, and savory. What could be better?

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Rabbit Braised With Rosemary And Olives

Relationships are odd, no? We shack up, sure, individual space becoming suddenly (and oddly) collective. And we make certain promises (sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit). But then there's the rest, the stuff we don't really know about until it happens--or even know about until after it already has happened. Like the ways we change each other over time.

One of the first meals I ever made for Bruce was rabbit. He, Mr. Trained Chef, had never prepared it himself, had only had it once at a restaurant. But he was game. (A good thing because, as I recall, I didn't even ask.) And he relished the meal. So began the complicated dance in which each of our rather set food tastes--me, the food writer who'd been all over on assignment and he, the Johnson and Wales boy--began to morph, adapt, and meld.

These days, he's the king of the rabbit braise. And he may have come up with a winner off the cuff the other night.

One note: our rabbit was already cut-up in the package. If you want to make this dish, you'll also need one cut up into about 9 pieces. Listen, the anatomy can be tricky for the uninitiated. There's a whole discussion of how to cut one up in COOKING KNOW-HOW, complete with step-by-step pictures. But if you're squeamish, ask the butcher at your market to do it for you.

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