A Beautiful Turd

It's 7:38 PM and I am outside with a scotch and a cigar licking my wounds because my roasted chicken didn't turn out right.  I am being a petulant turd.  Did you ever see "A Beautiful Mind"?  The scene where John Nash loses at the board game  -"The Hubris of the Defeated"  he claims the game is flawed, his play was perfect.

My roasted chicken was flawed, but my play was not perfect:  whole chicken, stuffed with fresh thyme, onion, lemon.  Seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper.  Oven baked for eighty minutes at 375...  it should have cooked all the way through.  It did not.  Damn.

Why?  AAAARRRGGGGHHH!  Well, I fucked up.  I ran out of propane for the grill.  I ALWAYS do this on the grill.  The grill thermometer reads 375.  It takes about an hour and twenty minutes on my grill.  I move to plan B... the oven.  Specifically the oven at 375.  Not the same thing...

My play was not perfect.  Nope.  Not done.  

I got impatient.  We are hungry.  Took it out, carved the breast meat.  The bird was giving me the bird.  Hahahaha!  You carnivorous bastard!  Still pink!

I'd love to say I microwaved the somewhat uncooked chicken, topped it with a marvelous sauce, poured more wine and salvaged the evening.  Nope.  Not suave.

The most recent issue of "Food & Wine" magazine has this sweet recipe from Grace Parisi for Scallops with Grapefruit and Bacon.  (I would give you a link here, but there is none!  God, could this day get any shittier?)  She (is awesome by the way...) says cook bacon at moderate heat until crisp ABOUT 3 MINUTES!  There is no freaking way bacon is going to be crisp on my stove after just 3 minutes!  Maybe hers, but not mine!

Lesson learned:  adjust times to your cooking modulus.  I have cooked bacon on my stove often enough to know that CRISP bacon is going to take longer than three fucking minutes.  I know the desired result.  Duh.  Bacon.  Crisp.  

I also know my stove.  And my oven.  And my grill.  The first rule in cooking something great (or at least good) - know your kitchen.  Then think about what you are doing.

The good news... tomorrow we will eat again.  I let you down, but I will be better.

By the way, John Nash turned that game theory into a Nobel Prize.

That chicken?  It's gonna be some awesome soup...take that you poultry bastard.  Until we eat again...  Peace.