Fried Chicken Nirvana
Since one of our friends was given the boot by his wife (deservedly), my husband decided to take over Sunday night cooking. He has been cooking for about 5 years now and has become quite good at it. What began as a genuine attempt to be more helpful around the house, has developed into a weekly adventure for him in that he has come to the realization that the chef writes the menu. Thanks to the South Beach Diet, I rarely make pasta. John decided that it really could be fun to pull out the hand cranked pasta machine that Mom had given us years ago and went on a four year pasta binge. On a given Sunday you could walk into my kitchen and see hand cut pasta draped over the top of my cabinet doors or little raviolis drying on the counter and John proclaiming that this was the best yet-- that he'd finally rolled it thin enough. Of course there have been some not so great Sunday meals, too. Like the time that one of the standard poodles helped himself to the pasta, or after three trips to the grocery, dinner didn't make it to the table until after 8:00 (our daughter goes to bed at 7:30), and of course, the time that Louis, the crazy poodle, snatched a rib eye off the counter and raced around the yard taunting us with it. My dear husband is now on a quest for perfect fried chicken. The chicken last week was perfectly acceptable southern fried chicken, it could have used a little more salt, he just forgot to make any side dishes. This week, John is more confident about the chicken, he has the basics down, just needs some tweaking so he goes to the master of complicated, Thomas Keller of the famed French Laundry, for his recipe. As this one requires a twelve hour brine, he started last night making the brine, cutting up the chickens, etc. I' sure that the chicken will be delicious and I'm impressed that he would even attempt a Thomas Keller recipe, but it's just too bad that my grandmother isn't around to teach him to make fried chicken because I seriously doubt that even Thomas Keller's could be better.