Until yesterday, I was a goose virgin. Even though I’ve eaten some pretty peculiar things over the years—including guinea pig—I’d never eaten goose before, and I’d certainly never cooked one. But it occupies a romantic place in my imagination. Perhaps because I’ve read too much Dickens?

So this year, when I spotted a goose at my supermarket, I thought—it’s about time. I bought it and then waited until yesterday to cook it for our New Year’s Day feast.

I put out a call online for goose recipes, and the one that intrigued me the most came from David Shaw, who recommended multiple approaches. What caught my eye was the Spiced Roast Goose with Dried-Fruit Pan Sauce. I think it was the fig, apricot, and prune stuffing that tempted me more than anything else.

Here’s what the goose looked liked before the cooking began.

What I hadn’t realized when embarking upon cooking a goose was how labor intensive the process was. Oh, prepping it for the oven was comparatively fast and easy, but a goose gives off so much fat that I was required to check on it every thirty minutes to skim off the excess to a) reserve it for later use, and b) make sure the oven didn’t burst into flame. Unlike other types of roasts, which can be fairly effortless save for occasional basting, the goose required my constant attention.

But it was worth it. Here’s what the bird looked like about four hours after it went into the oven.

Those skewers tucked under its wings contain the figs, apricots, and prunes that didn’t fit inside the bird.

I had another helping of goose for lunch today, and will probably do the same for dinner and then lunch tomorrow. I can’t see cooking a goose often, both due to the cost and the effort, but next time Christmas and New Year’s rolls around, I could see trying again.

Though come to think of it … there’s always a suckling pig.