dinner

i'm just now realizing that the way i grew up is much more the exception than the rule. of course, i knew that in many regards, but i'm speaking specifically about family dinners. when i was a kid, we ate dinner at the table together. every night. and i don't mean it in a norman rockwell sort of way, necessarily. i just mean that we did. like it or not, pleasant or not, it was a ritual and it was a rule. (or was it an exception? hmm.)

now, as an adult and as a mother, having a dinner together as a family is something i find in my self-evaluation as a successful parent or a failure. i love to cook and i love to cook especially for my family, and whatever wandering stragglers we can fit at the table. (it's a small table, i'm sad to say. so we have to crowd around. but that's on my 'next house' list to rectify.) but at any rate, more nights than not we eat together, a meal i've prepared. and the not-nights, we still eat together as a family, but those are meals i haven't prepared. and fend-for-yourself nights only occur when there's a babysitter or i'm incapicitated and ill.

so, by my standards, i succeed in this criteria on the mom-assessment. most of the time.

enter: tonight's dinner.

well intentioned, but disaster nonetheless. i bought a whole chicken to roast.. and remembered using a recipe not long ago that called for a fruit inserted into the chicken before baking it. unfortunately, i couldn't remember either where i found the recipe, where i've stashed the recipe, or what the fruit was. that should have been the first sign that things were not to go as hoped.

i have a counter full of small tangerines, left over from last weekend's fruit fest, so i thought to myself, 'maybe it was an orange...' and stuffed one in there. but first, let me just say, this was the most unusual chicken i've ever seen. the breast side had very little meat on it. it had a nice arch and the legs nicely tucked alongside, but truly this beast wasn't well endowed.

but i greased her up anyway with some olive oil, stuffed her with an orange, sprinkled with seasonings and put her in my favorite roasting pan for what should have been a delicious meal, some time later.

much later.

after repeated checkings and repositionings and a steady nudge on the temperature of the oven, it occurred to me that maybe the bird was upside down. but no, the bottom side of the roasting chicken was flatter than a pancake. surely not the breast. but wait.. when i cut into it, there's definitely white meat there. lots of it. and on the breast side (or the back side??) there's nothing. must be something about those organic chickens, i mused.

i know this sounds like i'm a novice in the kitchen. like perhaps i've never cooked a bird before. but truly, i have witnesses. this bird was unlike any other chicken i've ever seen, bought or been served. ever. (nance, can i get an amen on that?)

after flipping it over, and another nudge on the thermostat, it finally reached an acceptable level of pink/white balance for me to comfortably serve. (of course, some had to be microwaved to appease my guests.. but i'm braver than most with raw poultry.)

it tasted only marginally better than it looked. which wasn't great. for the record, i don't think an orange was the right fruit.

and that's just the chicken part of the disaster.

i never serve white potatoes. i don't even know the difference between the ten different varieties of potatoes that aren't sweet. i generally just pick up the sweet potatoes and move on. but for a change, and as a concession to my children, i thought i'd make homemade mashed potatoes. i do know how to do this. and i did it just fine. but i refuse to put in two sticks of butter and a quarter cup of salt...and so they were rather potatoe-y. ie. bland.

the good news is that the boys will be happy to see sweet potatoes back on the menu.

everything else turned out fine. though there wasn't much else there to mess up. the failure of the white side of the plate overpowered the success of the colored side.

i think i mentioned once that stone soup was a favorite book of mine as a child. it came to mind as i cleaned the kitchen, so i threw the carcass of that mutant chicken into a pot of water and i'll have you know, it won't be a total wash.

and as for my mom-grade... misery loves company, you know. and perhaps these are the sorts of meals that will be more memorable in the long run anyway. (one of my clearest meal memories from childhood was when i negotiated to never have to eat liver again if i ate it that one time. clear as a bell.) so while i get an E for effort and an F for edibility, i give myself an A for making meal memories.

d: more memorable, edible, meals with my family
b: the soup will be fantastic. i just know it.
g: meals together, be they victorious or disastrous.