Roast Chicken

About a week ago I e-mailed my dad a recipe for roast chicken. A very yummy easy recipe. When you read his reply it might give you an inkling where I get my sense of humor from. :o)

Dear Rachel:

I will give you the benefit of a doubt when I say thank you for your well intentioned recipe for roast chicken. You mentioned that you have several other recipes you would like to share with me. If they are anything like the roast chicken recipe, please do not bother.

The recipe for the roast chicken was the worst recipe in the world. The chicken was terrible and I tried to follow your recipe to the “T”.

The recipe starts out with the instruction to “get a whole chicken”. I had no idea where to get a whole chicken but our neighbor has a whole passel of chickens so I thought they might not mind sharing one with me. Last night, after dark, I went over to their yard and picked me out what looked like a nice fat chicken. I popped it into a sack I had with me but the dang thing cackled, shrieked and carried on until my neighbor came out with his shot gun. Now my neighbor is kind of old and his eye sight aint what it should have been for shooting a shot gun. Lucky for me his eyes is getting old or I would have got myself buck shot. Instead, my neighbor missed me but made a direct hit on his milk cow. The milk cow was just minding her own business, tail side toward my neighbor, when he let fly with the shot gun. I have no idea why the cow carried on as it did because it still had three teats left. Last I saw of that old cow she was bellerin and hollerin at the top of her lungs. I never heard anything louder unless it was the neighbor’s dog when the cow run over the poor thing.

Well I carried the chicken back to the house and into the kitchen. Like you said, I had a rub already made up from the ingredients you prescribed. Now can I ask you a serious question? Have you ever tried to put a rub on a chicken when the fool thing is jumping around, pecking and screeching at you? Have you? Huh?

Well I got it most done. Getting the rub onto the chicken under its feathers was quite a chore but that was nothing compared to what was to come. Your recipe said to rub the chicken both inside and outside with the rub. I tell you, when that cayenne pepper hit the inside of that chicken it really did the trick. That chicken run around the table like a jet plane with its after burner turned up too high. It got away from me a couple times. One time it roosted on top of the grandfather clock and now you ought to see the mess I have to clean up.

Well the worst was yet to come. I heated up the oven to 250 degrees and talk about being uncooperative. That chicken just wouldn’t stay in the pot. I tried and tried but the dumb thing had other ideas – especially with its tail feathers already singed. I saw a cook show once where they put a turkey into a plastic sack to cook it. I didn’t have a plastic sack so I jammed the chicken into a pair of your Mom’s pantyhose. I thought we could wash the pantyhose out after the chicken was cooked and they would be none the worse for the experience. It still didn’t quiet that bird. It kicked and flopped around something terrible.

Finally I popped the chicken into the oven. Talk about carrying on. That chicken obviously didn’t read the recipe and didn’t know what was going on and its part in the whole drama of the thing. However after a while, it got a bit quiet in the kitchen. I thought, finally now I can wait for this “yummy” chicken Rachel promised.

Just as I was getting comfy and waiting for the five hours to pass, there was a terrible smell. At first I looked for the dog to see if she was sick or worse. Nope, she was fine except she was kind of holding her nose and hiding under the bed. After some inspecting, I discovered the smell was coming from the oven. I thought that was probably because the rub was taking hold of the chicken.

As time went on, the smell got worse. You should have seen the face of the police officer when he came to see if we was all right and I explained that I was cooking a “yummy” chicken according to my daughter’s special recipe. The police man kind of caught his breath and wiped the tears from his eyes before he left in his police car.

Five hours later, I opened the oven. Now Rachel, have you ever seen what five hours of baking does to chicken feathers, let alone to a chicken. I am telling you, that chicken might have been “yummy” but there was no way I was going to taste it. Those feathers was all parched and kind of black and there was green stuff oozing from the chicken. Didn’t look “yummy” to me.

So, please keep your dang recipes to your self. I don’t want to get buck shot and I think your taste buds are different than mine.

Love: Dad

P.S. Do you know how to remove baked on chicken poop from an oven?