Have you ever eaten venison?Venison, or deer meat comes from something that is not raised in captivity but rather killed in the wild. I acknowledge our connection with nature when I am able to eat venison. I respect that a life was killed, and I am thankful for the gift the deer gave of its flesh.I have been lucky enough to have eaten quite a lot of it in my past life in Canada.I have been even luckier to have enjoyed it many times here in Japan.The venison I enjoyed in Canada was due to friends who did hunting. I, myself have only gone hunting once in my life. Guns are dangerous, I am clumsy and the further the two of us are from each other the better.Here in Japan, I've also been lucky in knowing farmers who've killed deer on their farms and have shared the deer meat. The meat is fresh, wild, and free of commercial feeding, having lived in the wild and often having eaten food grown by farmers.Often I've cooked venison in stews, but today I decided to braise the meat. Currently I'm in the middle of Michael Pollan's wonderful book, Cooked in which he talks about braising food, amongst other cooking. The Netflix series about the book was wonderful, and the book is also enjoyable.I braised the venison long and slow, meaning that it took hours (and hours) to cook, but it was cooked at a very low temperature. I sautéed vegetables slowly, then browned the meat, put the meat on top of the vegetables, with seasonings. About one half of a bottle of red wine was added and the the pot went into the oven for its long, slow cook. The end result was meat that is very tender and a very rich gravy.There were leftovers because it was such a large piece of meat. However, my feeling is that within the next 24 hours, a lot of the meat will disappear (along with it's gravy) meaning that by Monday when some of us will need weekday lunches, there may not be a lot of it available.Good thing I've got another venison roast in the freezer.