I'm sorry I suppose, but I still remember chortling inside when a dear friend cooked me a perfectly nice dinner of pasta and red sauce, salad and garlic bread - and consulted a cookbook every step of the way.

Perhaps that's because I began my forced culinary education at the age of 11, in Chicago. It was the same summer I almost died in a poorly-attended oxygen tent while hospitalized with pneumonia - and later in two huge gulps read "Ball Four," Jim Bouton's hysterical baseball-insider tell-all (mostly set in Seattle, by the way).

I learned to cook early because my Dad's repertoire was limited to a few specialties: salmon patties, meatloaf, and some faux-colonial mish-mash called "Colonel Rosenberg's Curry" (green peppers, onions and sliced hot dogs fried in oil with curry powder). It tasted better than it sounds. There was also "salad:" lotsa Iceberg with about a half-jar of Hellman's.

Dad has changed his diet for the better, and eats out all the time now. No wonder there's still a 34-year-old, properly sealed Ball Jar of dill pickles in his kitchen cupboard, that I made in junior-high home economics class. The dill leaves are still green, and never fail to undulate most attractively. The mustard seeds are still that nice pale yellow. I wonder if the pickles, in fact, might yet taste really great, like a finely aged wine. But I don't want to chance it.

Every time I go back to the old homestead, I'm nonetheless drawn to the cupboard to check on the pickle jar, which to me signifies the order of the universe. I think I'll eventually donate it to the Museum of Science and Industry, in Chicago, where I worked as guide-lecturer summers during high-school.

Anyway, I started with Hamburger Helper. Years passed, and I kept cooking. Intuitively, after a while. Occasional failures still, but I've been pretty good for a while now.

Cooking seems to me a fundamental part of life. Here I bow in respect to the French, Italians, Spanish, Mexicans, Brazilians, Cubans, Chinese and Indian peoples - plus many other ethnic groups.

They understand what fewer and fewer Americans do: that the family table is as sacred a place as church, synogogue, or mosque. And that garlic is an essential life force.

So this weekend, reading the delightful, meaty biography of French master chef Jacques Pepin, "The Apprentice," I found myself inspired all over again. As a young chef in training, he worked in a restaurant kitchen with a huge old wood-fired stove. No marked temperature settings, no recipes. All was by touch, feel, and tradition.

I've always said, "feel your meat." As Pepin notes, the thumb method is unsurpassed. Reading his ode to the perfect roasted chicken and sauce, I deployed my Weber grill in a special way, instead of the oven. It turned out nicely.

What follows is not a recipe per say, but try it out sometime.

Get your Weber going. No gas grills allowed, or lighter fluid. Use one of those special metal cylindrical devices with a big handle, and newspaper scrunched into the bottom compartment to light the charcoal briquettes above.

Get a nice free range chicken, rinse, dry, and spinkle generously all over with salt, fine black pepper and Herbes de Provence. Stuff with about six peeled garlic cloves and two sweet onion quarters. Toothpick the cavity closed, tuck the wings under. Place the chicken in a rectangular, disposable heavy-duty foil baking "dish" (two for $1.99 at the grocery store) that's just big enough - wiping the dish first with an olive oil-moistened paper towel.

ROASTING THE BIRD: When the coals are ready, spread them around the perimeter of grill's bottom platform in a circle, and then put the next layer in (the one upon which the meat usually goes). Place a thin, rectangular triple-fold of foil down for a bit of insulation, then the foil baking dish right on top, with the chicken's breast side up. Cover the grill, making sure to rotate that little wheel on the cover so the smoke comes out. This is called the "indirect" method of grilling on the Weber: it simulates an oven, but imparts a subtle, smoky flavor. A very nice way to go.

Cook for an hour-plus, checking occasionally by pressing. The top will be nicely golden even before you're done, so listen to your thumb.

ZE SAUCE: Lay out a small, wire colander. Make a quick and dirty chicken stock: saute the chicken liver and neck that were packed in the chicken's cavity in some olive oil with salt, pepper, onion stems and skins, plus Bay Leaf - in a small saucepan. Add water to cover and simmer about 20 mins. Melt a few T unsalted butter in a pan, turn off. When chicken is fully cooked on Weber remove to 205-degree oven in kitchen, but first strain pan juices into melted butter. Raise to medium simmer, then add 2 T flour, whisk often for several minutes until the roux is light gold in color. Then add strained stock, a few T white wine. Heat to medium-high, then immediately lower to a light simmer and reduce to medium thin consistency. Add more stock if necessary (from your pot, a can or carton). In last 3 mins., add fresh green herb such as lemon thyme, thyme, tarragon.

TO SERVE: Remove chicken. The outer flesh will have a nice, slight pink tinge. That's a sign of smokiness, not undercooking, assuming you've done things right. Cut into quarters or eighths with cleaver. Serve on platter with the roasted onions and garlic; sauce in gravy boat on side. Baguette and Ceasar salad, too.

THIS is living.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at May 2, 2004 10:11 PM

---

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/269

---

---

---