Chicken Dinner

I was being rather productive last Monday morning when I had to hustle out of the house for my mid-day Feldenkrais class on the West Side.  Traversing this skinny island does not look like it would take much, but on the 79^th street bus it becomes a 45-minute passage.  I drop what I’m doing at 11:30 to run out the door to get there in time.  The night before I had put a frozen chicken in the fridge to defrost for the night’s dinner, and I left it out on the counter while I was home to speed up the process.  Somewhere on the bus, I couldn’t remember if I had put it back in the fridge before I left. 

It had been a happy chicken.  Before becoming my chicken it was at the farmer’s market, and before then – one presumes – at a farm.  Some big beautiful farm somewhere upstate. I spent the $15 on it not only with the hopes of a wholesome, locally-sourced, sustainably-harvested, lovingly-slaughtered meal for me and my mate, but the promise of a more chickeny chicken experience.  Something that would taste of bird and grain and grass and not Styrofoam or antibiotics. 

I mentally bargained with my chicken as I sat on the bus.  You can’t be defrosted yet, surely you’ll do just fine on my tile counter for an hour or two until I get home.  The more desperate I got, the more manageable my chicken’s situation seemed to be.  It was wrapped up in plastic, that will hold the cold.  My mother used to leave meat on the counter all day, surely I would be okay this time.  Though the chicken was squishy to the touch when I left, I assured myself that the 3 hours that my trip would take still could leave it with ice crystals on the inside.  Surely cooking it would kill any germs.  Surely I wouldn’t be poisoning my little family.  But I did put it back in the fridge, didn’t I?

I hurt my shoulders in Feldenkrais.  The method, a less-popular cousin to the Alexander technique, appears to be a sort of extremely gentle yoga for middle-aged women and the occasional young person, like me, who has managed to develop pain just from how they move doing day to day tasks.  Yet a class, which looks like a bunch of people rolling on the floor, can leave you feeling released, taller, more comfortable, and somehow more willing to believe in yourself.  But I spent the time thinking about my chicken, my inability to take care of such a simple task, how this must reveal many other character defects, and how I surely I would be a terrible mother someday.  I thought about my chicken, bloody at the joints, blue in the veins, turning into another pile of wasted American food.

Returning home at 3 pm, I raced up the stairs, hastily unlocked the door and rushed into the kitchen, where my gleaming white counter stared at me blankly, as if asking what the fuss was all about.

The chicken was snuggled in plastic on its customary shelf in the fridge, still with ice crystals inside.  It was a fast roast for a small bird, yielding a beautifully burnished skin.  The meat was lean and chewy, but very flavorful, and was a texture foil to the tender squash and onions we roasted along with it.  I put the bones in the freezer – I just double checked – to make stock.