It’s Just A Chicken

It is truly amazing of what you can do with a few ingredients and a little time. As the world turns inward with the coronavirus pandemic, a whole new spectrum of culinary options unfold. Our week started with the social distancing mandate that ended my practice of daily trips to the supermarket. After stops at Costco and Kroger we had the basic ingredients to keep us well fed for a month. In hindsight it was amazingly cheap.

The availability of basic groceries was really pretty good in Memphis. I was talking to friends out on the eastern end of Long Island NY and they referred to finding eggs to scoring eggs. It was almost like finding eggs was like finding drugs. At Costco I even bought a two month supply of toilet paper (one Costco pack) with no problem. The cost of buying groceries in bulk was inexpensive considering it will feed us for a month.

The one Roast Chicken dinner had a cost of $7.30.

(Apologies for this over analytical recap of ingredients, but you can take a guy out of financial analysis but sometimes you can’t take the analytic out of a guy)

Not only did the roast chicken feed 3 people well, it became the genesis of four additional entrees that will provide at basis for at least another twenty meals.

Just A Chicken Meal Plan

The prep time for the Roast Chicken meal was 20 minutes. After peeling and chopping, I added the vegetables to the bottom of the pan with a good sprinkle of kosher salt, freshly ground pepper and 2 cups of chicken stock. Then we roasted the chicken at 400 degrees for an hour and 10 minutes. When the chicken was done, I plated it along with the vegetables. I then added another cup of stock to the pan, scraped up the brown pieces, reduced it by a third and then thickened it with corn starch. Voila!

After dinner, the leftover chicken went into multiple directions.

The chicken carcass went into a pot along with celery, onion, carrot, potato and water to make a very tasty soup for the next night.
A portion of white meat was set aside for Declan’s (16 months old) lunch (see below)
The remainder was shredded and boxed off to become the basis for the lasagna and ravioli

This guy loves his Gramp’s cooking

In the end, we had a wonderful chicken dinner. The beauty of this type of cooking is that not only can I feed my family, but I have been making up care packages to drop off with less culinarily adept friends. So while we are not exactly socializing over a meal with friends, we are practicing social distancing and making a few friends pretty happy. Its not Just a chicken.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

You Don’t Realize How Good You Have It

You don’t realize how good you have it till it is taken away. I Never Thought I Would Say This. It is not a good time to get together with friends to socialize over a meal. There I said it. The coronavirus has changed the rules of the game. This is temporary. Life as we know it will return. Things are returning back to normal in Asia and they will return to normal everywhere else. When they do, we need to make sure we get together with friends to socialize over a meal

Right now, instead of socializing over a meal with friends, we need to be thinking about Social Distancing. I had never heard about selfies growing up and Social Distancing is certainly new to our vernacular.

What does Social Distancing mean?

If you google it we are told:

Social distancing is a term applied to certain actions that are taken by Public Health officials to stop or slow down the spread of a highly contagious disease.

There is a great article in The Atlantic.

While we are dealing with the Coronavirus there are new rules:

Dinner parties of more than 4 people don’t make sense
You should be keeping a personal space of at least 4 feet
If you go to the gym use a sanitizer before and after touching equipment
Try to shop at times when the store is less crowded
Keep your hands away from your face
Wash your hands
Wash your hands
Wash your hands

Right now, it is all about reason and common sense versus panic and hoarding. People are going CRAZY! Situations like what we are going through right now, bring out the best and worst in people. The local markets here in Memphis are a perfect example. Last week I saw a man buying 12 bottles of Isopropyl alcohol. He was hoarding. Today you can’t find isopropyl alcohol anywhere. Saturday (yesterday) you couldn’t find a potato anywhere in Memphis. Sunday (today) the shelves are restocked. It reminds me of September 11, 2001. I remember talking to my sister who worked in the city that day. She said as she walked the streets, it was really weird. It was really quiet, and what was really really weird, New Yorkers were being nice to each other.

Speaking of common sense, you might want to enjoy a glass of wine. The funny thing is that with all the panic buying, the supply of wine hasn’t been an issue here. The stores are well stocked and my guess is that production continues.

For now, have the glass of wine, plan your next supper club dinner party for after the coronavirus and enjoy a good laugh.

What Is In A Name?

Have you ever wondered: What were they thinking? when reading a menu? I certainly have:

Traditional Italian restaurants in Chicago are famous for selling “Garbage Salads”. Last I checked, most people wouldn’t think of eating Garbage.

I Recently saw a restaurant promoting their weekly fish special as their “Deadliest Catch”. Of course, it is a play on the TV show, but who would want to eat something linked to death and dying?

It’s all about promotion. When you are writing a menu you are trying to get your guests attention, but more importantly, you our trying to whet their appetites. Some tricks of the menu writing trade include:

Using French…calling something a hors d’oeuvre sound a little better than an app.
Citing an ingredient as Organic appeals to some. I see Organic and think that without the use of pesticides there is a better chance that it has bugs in it.
Today Local is overused. My favorite was hearing a “Citi-ot” (Idiot from NY City) ask a farmer at a farm stand in Eastport NY if his pineapple was local. Granted Long Island is an island, but winters there are not quite the same as the Hawaiian islands.
Quite a few things are promoted as Heirloom. I see something being promoted as an Heirloom tomato and I wonder if the tomato will be left in someone’s will?
Using Italian always works. Quite a few cuisines are polarizing, (Not everyone likes Korean kimchi) but just about everyone loves Italian food.

Then again what do I know? I learned about marketing working for Maxwell House Coffee back in the day when we used the same actress that played the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz as Cora to promote coffee. As a kid, that Wicked witch scared the heck out of me. She still scares me. It could explain why I don’t drink coffee 40 years after working for Maxwell House.

I wonder how many consumers saw the connection?

The moral of this story is that you might want to stick to terminology that has food appeal when writing menus. For me, the thought of eating garbage or risking death, simply doesn’t work when making a menu choice. Then again blood sausage has been around for a long time

Featured Image is of Ela and Lucien Vendome with Susan Kenny in front of the Ugly Mug coffee shop in Memphis…PS they don’t sell Maxwell House Coffee