kis·met \ˈkiz-ˌmet, -mət\ - noun; often capitalized
1. fate.
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"We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language.
That may be the measure of our lives." - Toni Morrison

"Growing up Southern is a privilege, really. It's more than where you're born; it's an idea and state of mind that seems imparted at birth. It's more than loving fried chicken, sweet tea, football, and country music. It’s being hospitable, devoted to front porches, magnolias, moon pies, coca-cola... and each other. We don't become Southern - we're born that way." - Unknown

13 May 2010

we're regular chefs

Do you know what's better than ice cream? Mango sorbet. That's what's better than ice cream. And now this next part has nothing to do with neither ice cream nor sorbet, but it's food-related, so that should count for something, right? Cooking is incredibly fun (and tastey) so today we tried something new. We made lemon-garlic chicken and au gratin potatoes, all by ourselves. It turned out really good, and I'm quite proud of myself, but it was definitely an adventure. The remainder of this post is a recollection of my harrowing journey of being left to fend for myself, preparing the chicken, whilst Spencer made the potatoes.
The recipe called for half of a chicken. We got thighs instead because we didn't want to deal with half a chicken. Now, I'm not squeamish when it comes to raw meat, but for some reason, chicken gets to me a little bit. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, I prepared a butter/garlic/lemon zest paste to go with the chicken, and it smelled divine. I was tempted to eat that alone. Now, some may call me a wimp. I didn't have to kill or butcher the chickens myself (we bought them already packaged from the grocery store) but I was thoroughly grossed out by this chicken. **ATTENTION, MOM: now is the time when you may want to stop reading and skip to the end** All was well when I got the package off of the counter. The chicken stared up, harmless looking enough, as I cut the plastic film with my knife, careful to not let anything touch the counter. Then all hell broke loose (In my mind, of course. I had to play it cool; what would Spencer think if I was suddenly freaking out over a few pieces of chicken?) As I picked one of them up and flipped it over, I saw it. There it was: the thigh bone. Gleaming up at me like some horrid shiny, wet snaggletooth. It was grotesque. I almost gagged. Then I noticed the blood. Not a lot. But still, enough to notice. And as if that wasn't horrible enough, I then had to scoop up the paste and shove my fingers in between the meat and the skin, and spread the butter paste around. I was positively squirming the entire time. It was so bad that I almost didn't want to eat the chicken any more. I'm sure I was extremely entertaining to watch, though.
Now that I've portrayed that food in such a terrific way, let me assure you that it really was delicious. It tasted wonderful, and we'll definitely make it again. (But perhaps the next time, I'll take over the potato cooking).
Afterthought:
In retrospect, that anecdote really isn't terribly interesting (unless you have a good imagination and can picture me in the kitchen being all squeamish over some chicken thighs) but it was still pretty harrowing when you compare it to the rest of my rather ordinary day.

3 comments:

scchesleys said...

I get grossed out by raw chicken too. It's just nasty! Remind me when you're home, I've got a really lovely family recipe for sour cream scalloped potatoes.

Karen said...

Okay...I should have heeded your warning! EWWWWWWWE!!!!!! I know you have never seen any raw food with bones in our house, so I am sure that this was a harrowing experience! haha. The sauce sounds good, maybe you could make that when you come home, only with boneless chicken breast! Maybe by then I will feel like eating chicken...for today, I think I'll eat vegetarian.LOL

lotusgirl said...

I'm laughing here. harrowing. Bahaha! I have a great imagination. I can just see you there.