Roast chicken

Eastside Road, October 18, 2010—

NO TIME TO COOK, no time to shop, no time to think; we're in last-day mode, when you're packing and cleaning up and making ready for winter and rain and there's not much time left. Prune the garden. Clear out the fallen fruit. Wash all the clothes. Cover the firewood. Pay the bills. Put away the fruit-tree props, clear a pathway through the workshop, put away the flytrap. Oh, and continue clearing out leftovers from the icebox.



So it was "Rotisserie Chicken" tonight, bought at the supermarket. I don't think we've done this ever before except once, last June in Paris. This one, bought at Raley's, was no worse, seemed to me. A whole chicken, net weight exactly 32 ounces (I wonder how they do that: it's printed on the label, all the chickens apparently exactly the same weight), flavored with salt, pepper, paprika, coriander, mustard, celery seed, garlic, onion, and fine herbs (so much better than the coarse ones), and injected with up to 18% of a solution of water, salt, carageenan and garlic powder.

(Hmm: up to 18%. That must be how they get every chicken to weight exactly the same.)

Well, it was edible, even rather tasty, in a heightened sort of way. The accompanying potato salad was a little gloppy, and the dinner rolls were quite sweet. The green salad was, of course, delicious.

Martini — why not? — and a glass of vin rouge de pays de l'Herault, Mas de Daumas Gassac, 2008, left over and forgotten in the pantry since October 8!