The Incident Involving the Dead Chicken

My sister sent me a really yummy-looking recipe that called for a whole chicken to be rubbed all over with spices and stuffed with a quartered lemon. Here it is: http://www.thelittlekitchen.net/2011/02/03/whole-chicken-in-a-slow-cooker/ (See? I can be a helpful blogger!)

Since I am ALL ABOUT easy recipes, I decided to make it. However, after this morning's ensuing fiasco, I have comprised a list of reasons that left me with this conclusion: I wouldn't survive half a New York minute on a farm. "Aw, Kris, I thought you were a tough girl." I AM TOUGH. AS PUDDING. Now, the chicken in this recipe was, like, a WHOLE chicken. The kind with a bag of quivering giblets in it. And the neck stuffed inside of the chicken's body, looking like some kind of awkward, inside-out....phallic...body part. For the record, chickens that are dead and have no feathers...are kind of freaky looking. They're all pale and headless with their awkward little wings. So yeah. Here's why I'm probably never going to be able to make this again, even though it was, like, the best meal I've made in a really long time. (As in, the last week.)

1) After nearly forgetting how many days the chicken was thawing in the fridge, I decided at 8 AM this morning that I absolutely MUST make this chicken today. And I only have 7 minutes to do the prep work. Lucky for me, hubs was willing to accommodate and assist my whirlwind preparations. MY HERO! (He insisted I put the hero part in the story. And it's true.)

2) As hubby rolls up his sleeves and plops the chicken in the sink to rinse it and pull out the *gag* giblets, and *double gag* cut off the *shudder* chicken's neck, I realize we are wearing twin faces of revulsion.

3) Hubs plops the rinsed corpse onto a plate so I can pat it dry with some paper towels. As I move my hands toward the pale carcass, an alarm in my head starts clanging. DO NOT <clang> TOUCH <clang> THIS <clang clang clang> NASTY SLIMY THING. My hands immediately retract. I try to go for it again. My hands again retract. Hubby laughs. I concentrate harder. CLANG CLANG CLANG.

4) After I somehow managed to survive the horror of patting the chicken dry, I then had to rub garlic and spices all over it. Essentially, giving the chicken an all-over body scrub-slash-massage. I got through this part with just a  few dry-heaves and with shrieking kept to a quiet minimum.

5) After I used barbecue tongs to jam the quartered lemon pieces inside the dead beast, (I refused to put my hand inside that thing) I needed to transfer the chicken to the crockpot. There's no easy way to complete this task except by just picking it up and putting it in the crockpot. Simple, right?

6) I grabbed the chicken, holding it at arms-length, hauled it up, gag-screamed, and practically threw it into the crockpot. The memory of the bones mushing all around under my hands haunts me hours later.

Ironically, I can have the most horribly gross conversation while eating a meal and not be even slightly fazed. However, somehow, the thought of a naked, floppy, goose-bumpy chicken was enough to make me act like a total side show. Well, at least hubby was amused. I'll close this little story with a heart-wrenching clipperoo of our g-chat conversation later in the day:

 Chris:  dinner will be yum yum.  :-)

 me:  I hope.

 Chris:  That was fun making it this morning. You are hilarious

 me:  It was a disaster

 Chris: it was insanely fun. you were so utterly appalled by handling the chicken, and you were like whirlwind x10

 me:  hahaha

 Chris:  your life brings endless joy to my life

 me:  did you tell your coworkers?

 Chris:  nah. Your aversion to touching a chicken is my little secret

The Whirlwind

Sometimes while I am doing stuff around the house, I'll hear hubby suddenly start laughing to himself. "What are you laughing at?!" I respond, resenting the whine I hear in my voice, already knowing exactly WHAT he is laughing at. It's me, of course. You see, dear reader, I have a problem. And admitting the problem is the first step to....oh, heck. Screw it. I refuse to change! REFUSE! I am a REBEL! A wild and free warrior princess who rules her castle with an iron fist! (Oh my gosh, hubby married a nut-job. Too bad for him he didn't figure it out until after he said "I do". HA! And now he's stuck!) Well, at least my cooking's pretty good. Minus the recent incident whereby a cup of brewed coffee grounds ended up in a recipe that called for brewed coffee. Not coffee GROUNDS. What. In the heck. Was I thinking. It actually wasn't that bad, if I ignored the little grainy bits that kept getting stuck in my teeth. Yum! Coffee ground sludge. Hey, it builds character. (Isn't that what moms are supposed to say after something highly unpleasant happens to their kid? "MOM, Johnny gave me a wedgie in the bathroom at recess, and then he did a flushie on me." What's a flushie, you ask? It's where some big bully with armpit stains and dried boogers on his collar turns you upside-down over the toilet and dunks your head in the water and then flushes, laughing gleefully like an evil troll, and then drops you and steals your lunch money. Oh, honey, it's all right...it builds character. I'll tell you where you can take your character. My soaking-wet toilet-water head non-lunch money wedgied self does NOT induce CHARACTER-building!)

Well, now that I've gotten THAT out of my system, back to the problem at hand. That is, the side of my personality that we shall forevermore refer to as, simply, The Whirlwind. The object of hubby's laughter. I may have mentioned it in a previous post, but when I start doing something, like cleaning up around the house, suddenly it becomes extremely important to start a chain of events that absolutely MUST be completed RIGHT THEN AND THERE. I can't just put away a pair of shoes and then sit back down and relax. Oh no. That would make too much sense. I put away the pair of shoes, and then reorganize the shoe rack, spot a leaf on the floor in the living room, sweep the living room, then since the broom is out, sweep the kitchen. Notice a cup on the counter, put it in the dishwasher, run the dishwasher, the sink looks dirty, OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO CLEAN THE SINK RIGHT NOW, WHERE IS THE BLEACH? IT'S IN THE LAUNDRY CLOSET. Go to laundry closet, get the bleach out; crap, there's a load of laundry that needs to get done, start the washing machine. Walk away from the washing machine, spot dust on the dining room table, wipe it off. Wait, why I am I holding a bottle of bleach? OH. YES. The kitchen sink. (I promise, I am not this insane when I am not The Whirlwind.)

Today, I made the irrational mistake of wandering into The Pit, a.k.a. hubby's office a.k.a. the spare bedroom. Sometimes I pretend in my head that hubby is like Pig-Pen from Peanuts, a cloud of dust and disaster following wherever he goes. In case he's reading this, JUST KIDDING!! And if he isn't reading this, I'M TOTALLY SERIOUS. Haha, just kidding. Or not. Anywho, I was walking into The Pit to tell him about something, and immediately my eagle-eyes noticed several things at once that needed to be straightened up. And The Whirlwind sprung (sprang?) forth, and it was an unfortunate sight, for since I noticed all these tasks to be completed simultaneously, the little neurons in my brain freaked out and could not decide what needed to happen first. So this is what happened instead. I staggered awkwardly toward a large empty cardboard box that was on the bed, tripped, knocked something else onto the ground and then stubbed my toe on it, somehow managed to shove the cardboard box off the bed as I fell on top of the bed in agony about my toe, clutched my toe and gasped "I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay" as my face jammed onto the bed, my upper lip mashed up toward my nose and cat hair filling my mouth. 

Well, I'm off for the night. I need to go fold the clean laundry. And start a new load. And there are jackets on the armchair that need to be hung in the closet. And....oh my gosh. I am so annoying. Someone PLEASE give me a flushie and steal my lunch money. It builds character.