By Barbara Taylor Sanders
Many years ago, “Gourmet” magazine (now Epicurious) featured an amazing, glazed chicken arrangement on its cover. It motivated me to invite friends over for a cookout to try this complicated recipe and show off my gourmet cooking skills. Little did I know how it would all turn out!
To save money, I skinned and de-boned ten whole chicken breasts. The exotic recipe called for expensive spices, so I bought them across town in a specialty shop. Three separate sauces were prepared and cooked in advance. One cooked-down sauce was marinade for the chicken, one sauce was to glaze while slow cooking, and another sauce was to pass after the chicken roasted to a golden brown. In addition, the breasts were stuffed with a minced pecan mixture and wrapped in bacon – a time-consuming preparation. If you count the de-boning, three made-from-scratch sauces and the two-hour drive time to buy the expensive, exotic spices, I spent about fifteen hours on this one chicken recipe.
On the day of the cookout, not leaving anything to chance, knowing my husband wouldn’t have the coals just right, I took matters in my own hands. I fired up the coals in the outside grill about two hours before our guests arrived.
Related: “Puttin’ On the Dog & Gettin’ Bit” by Barbara Taylor Sanders
My crowning moment was to be the glorious honey-glazed chicken. As we were ready to dine, my friend Susan was standing next to me tossing the salad. We were elbow-to-elbow at my kitchen island as I sliced up hot garlic bread with a very long, sharp, pointed knife. My husband was outside with the other two men, grilling the glorious, marinated chicken breasts.
Suddenly, my husband barged back into the kitchen, talking in a shaky, odd voice. Outstretched from his arms was the large white platter of chicken. “You won’t believe this,” he began, with eyeballs ablaze. “You can ask the guys, if you don’t believe me – honest to God, all I did was put the lid down for thirty seconds! When I opened it back up, the chicken looked like this!”
He cautiously set the dish of charred chicken on the counter in front of Susan and me. Every single delicately bacon-wrapped chicken breast had been singed to a coal black ball. The platter was adorned with what looked like an ensemble of charcoal briquettes!
My legs buckled. I gasped. I had a swooping desire to flee the room in tears to force our guests home. My jaw dropped. Those sweeping, surges of emotions took my breath away and left me completely frozen. Susan broke the ice.
Leaning to my ear, Susan whispered in a teasing, singsong voice, “You know, the first one to forgive will get the blessing.” I resisted the urge to stab her with the long, pointed bread-cutting knife held in my hand. As a response to her timely sermonette, I shot her an “if looks could kill” instead.
Once we scraped the charred crust off, the chicken was cooked enough to eat. My huge regret was not taking a picture of the blackened dainties to send to the editors of “Gourmet” for the cover of their next issue. I’m finally learning that whenever you try “putting on the dog, you always get bit!”
