But not revenge

If we were on Family Feud and you were J. Peterman or Al from Home Improvement and you were to ask me to name the least exciting meat, I would probably say "chicken" right off the bat. Seriously, chicken. I think I bear a greater enmity toward chicken than I do toward things that I actually do not eat. I mean, at least lobster and mussels usually look good even if they taste to me like sea water that has gone up my nose. Chicken breast always seems, in the words of an angry food writer, to be "the skim milk of the protein world."

Then again, Thomas Keller says that chicken is the best animal in history and that everybody starts with chicken as their first food memory and loves it unconditionally, so I'm ready to admit that perhaps I am wrong in this judgment.


So this week I rediscovered the joy of roasting a chicken. It's not just the meat--especially if you're a moron like me and accidentally roast it upside-down--it's the process, the ritual, the rain of salt, the hot bubbling drippings, the hour of anticipation, the crack of the knife piercing the skin, the clear juices flowing from the wound, the forest air as rosemary hits the pan. It's cutting off the first drumstick and carving out some white meat and sharing with friends and eating the rest with your hands.

But wait, there's more. Yes. Then it's time to make chicken stock. So right when you're getting ready for bed you take the chicken bones, stick them in your biggest stockpot, and roast them while you're brushing your teeth. You cover them in water, turn down the oven heat as far as it will go, and go to sleep. You wake up eight (six?) hours later and your whole house smells like chicken soup; seriously, the air is moist and heavy and redolent of snow days, like chicken fat is stuck in the cracks of the walls. Yes. Then you open the oven, skim the foam from the stock, toss in a quartered carrot and onion, and get ready for school, or work, if you have a real job that helps people.

Oh, and then comes the sensual part. Perhaps this description will make you wonder whether it's a good idea ever to become sensual with me, but here goes: After you've strained the stock and stuck it in the freezer, you take the chicken carcass and you start pulling it apart, disarticulating, dissecting, picking, searching for all those little bits of meat that got boiled off the bone, and you save those, because after all, it's good chicken. Well, kind of--at the same time, it's not really good chicken, because all the flavor is in the stock, so it tastes like nothing. But, like I said, it's not about the meat, it's about the process.

So yesterday I had this leftover chicken (but not chicken) hanging out in my fridge, and I was leaning back in my chair at work and it came to me, much like the theory of relativity--chicken mole. Perfect, since it was Taco Tuesday. I got home around six, and yo, I like having a pantry, and I was really proud to just wing this out of things I assembled from my pantry and have it all done before it was dark outside. A caramelized onion, some sesame seeds, toasted walnuts to stand in for pepitas, garlic, cumin, a few spoonfuls of last summer's tomato sauce I defrosted, some hot peppers that I pilfered from my roommate and blackened. Blend it into a paste, fry the paste in oil, whisk in some chicken stock, slowly now. One brick of bittersweet chocolate, throw in the chicken, and shred it.



Plus corn tortillas, leftover guacamole, and pickled red onions. Forty-five minutes, two pans, delicious. Yes.