Chicken is perfect. I roast a chicken at least once weekly. During the colder months, odds are I’m poaching a second one every week, too. Alone, chicken is elegant, yet utilitarian. Paired with a pungent spice mix, or a funky marinade (I’m looking at you, lime/chili/fish sauce, you goddamn beauty), chicken is confident enough to take the stage. Sure, it’s not a meat that gets the masses on their feet the way beef does—it’s not U2 bringing a bloated stage show to your hometown. Nor does it have a cult following, like pork does, from the bacon fetishists to the chin-necked BBQ titans. Chicken doesn’t fly that high. (For the quadrupedal cultists, keep it moving. I’ll be with Marshawn, taking care of my chicken.)
At some point in my 30s, I witnessed someone say: “I’ve reached the age where everyone around me speaks in clichés and platitudes.” That statement was damn near prescient, because I was also going through the phase of my life when I realized the same thing. As I got older, my friends got older, too, and the world just didn’t seem as vivid as it once was. We’d become hesitant to reveal those sensitive parts of ourselves that can encourage newness. Now that I’m not all that much older—but a bit wiser—I realize that these clichés and platitudes are the marks of hard-earned lessons. I just hadn’t lived them yet.
An example: people aren’t the idea you hold of them in your head. Try as you might, you can’t change them so they live up to that idea.
Chicken breast is underrated. When I hear people say they hate chicken breast, I generally assume they just don’t know how to cook it. (I assume the same when I hear them say that about turkey as well, TBPFH.) Chicken breast is unforgiving, but if you give it attention and care, it’s also rewarding. Here’s my method:
Take a Dutch oven, fill it about halfway with water, add some aromatics, and bring it to a boil. Drop the whole chicken in breast down, and turn the water down very low. Try to hold at about 180° Fahrenheit for about an hour. The key to the whole process is constantly checking the temperature of the water. Trust me, if you take it for granted, you’ll lose it. The breast can quickly become the soulless, protein punchline we all expect it to be. But if you invest in it, the reward is a delicate, clean piece of meat. *extremely chef’s kiss*
I’ve been on the move a lot since Labor Day. I’ve only been in Chicago proper for about 14 days since September. That’s a lot of time spent staring out of buses/planes/Lyfts, lost in thought. Recently, while flying somewhere over the Atlantic on my way to Riyadh, my mind drifted from my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist, and without realizing it, I reached the decision that I don’t believe in love at first sight. Honestly? Haven’t for a while. A cocktail of cynicism and pragmatism has changed the mind of this once-romantic country boy.
My favorite chicken preparation is grilled. There go the legions of fried chicken fiends, clicking away from this blog, alarmed and disgusted. Fair enough. In grilling, there are just so many elements to introduce that can affect the end product. I am a high-heat guy—fast, aggressive, traumatic. Over hot coals, the chicken goes through a metamorphosis. It surrenders to the blistering temperatures, releasing its golden, rendered fat. Once the fat hits the coals, it turns from liquid to gas, and returns to the chicken skin as searing flame. A loss becomes gain, and change precipitates change. I love seeing the development of that black char, adding the perfect amount of bitterness.
Love implies some sort of passage of time. Otherwise, it’s just folks bumping into each other, getting all horned up over nice eyes and pattable butts. This phenomenon—which, every December, makes Hallmark a whole shit ton of money—is closer to dumb luck than divine intervention. Over time, I’ve begun to think of love at first sight as a game of Keno. It’s natural to invent an idealized version of a person. In fact, some people are lucky enough to get most of it right. And like Keno, the more you get right, the more you win.
The additional advantage of chicken on a grill is the flexibility of the heat control. I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about propane or gas grills, except to say “King of the Hill” is genius, easily the most underrated show from the past 50 years. With coal or wood, you get another tool in your arsenal to transform the chicken through flavor. Grilling over direct heat is explosive, aggressive. Indirect heat is passive; it is cooking through suggestion. This leisurely technique puts the bird more on your timetable, allowing for the opportunity to snack on a cheap charcuterie plate, enjoy a few beers, and have conversations with friends in the interim. All of this, plus the promise and anticipation of a delicious, lightly smoked bird in the near future.
Would life be better if we could change the people we thought we loved? I don’t know. I’m just a part-time food and feelings writer. I do know it sucks that you can’t. And it fucking sucks more to know that you can’t, but then to try anyway.
Every time I work through edits on a Beer is Offal post, I can’t help but think there are folks (maybe my folks—hi, Mom!) who read this stuff and think, “Jesus, man, who hurt you?” The answer is simple, though: I did. I do. I hurt myself when I forget to use my towel-turned-hot-pad, grabbing a skillet freshly out of the oven, overly excited to carve the chicken that roasted in it. I hurt myself when I choose not to listen to my common sense, hoping things will be different this time when I know they won’t be. But the only way to remedy those examples is to learn the lessons from my past, and change myself.
