What I Did On My Sum­mer Vaca­tion, by Roast A. Chicken

I admit it: I get on food binges.  Obses­sions.  Well, sort of fads, where I’ve made some­thing once, and enjoyed it so much that I want to make it again and again RIGHT AWAY, and then try to fool my fam­i­ly into think­ing I’ve done some­thing dif­fer­ent, by mak­ing lit­tle adjust­ments.  They are rarely tak­en in by this sophistry, and pret­ty soon John says, “Here we go again.”

The lat­est?  Every­thing on a let­tuce leaf.  It’s a com­mon-enough way to eat in Thai­land (or at least that’s what I hear, nev­er hav­ing been clos­er to Thai­land than a take­out menu from that place in Tribeca).  Larb is eat­en this way, that I do know, hav­ing made it myself (check out that recipe index, folks!), a love­ly con­coc­tion of ground chick­en sauteed and tossed in a love­ly spicy, minty vinai­grette.  Then you pile the chick­en on a let­tuce leaf, along with cilantro leaves, cucum­ber, spicy sauces, crushed peanuts.

Well, here’s what hap­pened to me to put me on my present let­tuce kick.  The super­mar­ket had an enor­mous spe­cial on oven-stuffer roast­er chick­ens.  So I bought one.  And prompt­ly under­stood why they were on spe­cial.  Because it was 100 degrees out­side and just about that inside, too, once my oven had been at 350 degrees for the req­ui­site three hours to cook this enor­mous, Dol­ly-Par­ton-breast­ed bird.  Yack!  SO HOT.

The thought of eat­ing that HOT roast­ed chick­en was about as appeal­ing as sug­gest­ing to a woman fresh from her first labor that big fam­i­lies are nice.  The chick­en was sad.  No one want­ed him.

Until I had my brain­wave.  Let him cool off!

Roast Chick­en in Let­tuce Leaves

(serves at least 6)

1 oven-stuffer roast­ing chicken

var­i­ous fresh herbs: rose­mary, sage, sum­mer savory, thyme, what­ev­er you have

splash white wine

2 tbsps soft butter

1 lemon, cut in half

sea salt and pepper

2 red bell peppers

1 large cucum­ber, deseeded

2 bunch­es spring onions (scal­lions)

2 large hand­fuls chives

2 large hand­fuls cilantro (corian­der)

1 cup pine nuts or sliced almonds or crushed peanuts

var­i­ous sauces, just from jars: Hoisin, satay, hot chilli, horseradish

Place chick­en in a large roast­ing pan on top of the fresh herbs.  Pour wine over,  smear with but­ter, stick the cut lemon inside, sprin­kle on sea salt and fresh black pep­per.  Roast at 350 degrees for three hours, or until the wretched lit­tle timer pops up.

Tear chick­en into strips, pile all the lus­cious, juicy bites (com­plete with crispy, salty skin, of course) on two plat­ters, along­side a huge pile of Boston let­tuce leaves.  Boston is per­fect, I find, because it’s more pli­able than Romaine or ice­berg, so you can real­ly wrap things up in it.  Wash it well and put through a spin­ner so the leaves are nice and dry.

On two more plat­ters, offer strips of cucum­ber, red pep­per, spring onions, chives.

Put the pine nuts or oth­er nuts in small bowls, and dit­to with the sauces.  Make them reacheable by every­one at the table.  Now dig in!

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I can­not con­vey ade­quate­ly how 1) deli­cious, 2) fes­tive, 3) cool, 4) indi­vid­ual this din­ner is!  It’s per­fect for a par­ty, espe­cial­ly if you’re not sure exact­ly what your guests like, because every­one builds her own let­tuce sandwich.

And here’s a thought: when you’ve pulled all the love­ly meat from the chick­en, throw him in a large stock­pot with all the detri­tus from the roast­ing pan, plus an onion or two and some cel­ery, cov­er with water and sim­mer for three hours or so.  Salt to taste, then strain.  It’s the per­fect chick­en stock.

Which is good, because say you’re com­pelled to make this dish the very next night too, since Shel­ley and her fam­i­ly are com­ing for din­ner.  One of her fam­i­ly can­not eat wheat or dairy, but rice is a def­i­nite yes.  Steam your bas­mati rice in your home­made chick­en stock!  It is DELI­CIOUS, so com­fort­ing and homey.  Rice makes a very nice addi­tion to some­thing in a let­tuce leaf.

Keep in mind that you are aim­ing for max­i­mum mess.  Every­one needs a LARGE nap­kin.  The first bite is quite civ­i­lized.  Every­one looks pre­sentable.  Then the sec­ond bite… pine nuts tin­kle to the plate.  Sauces drip down fin­gers, pep­pers start to ooze out the end as you try des­per­ate­ly to keep the let­tuce wrapped around every­thing inside.  DIVINE.

We had SUCH fun that night.  A night to remember.

Let’s see, when I’ve been able to tear myself away from pil­ing things on let­tuce, I’ve been keep­ing my eyes peeled for baby Gary!  As you all know, our back­yard here is graced by the almost dai­ly pres­ence of a big, fat brown ground­hog named Gary.  But we’re rethink­ing the nomen­cla­ture, as a tiny baby ver­sion has sud­den­ly appeared this sum­mer!  Boy ground­hogs are not appar­ent­ly known for their domes­tic­i­ty or father­ly instincts, so we’re hav­ing to re-assess Gary as pos­si­bly Gari­na.  John sighs in frus­tra­tion as fruits that have man­aged to “go off” emerge from my kitchen to be placed with­in Gary’s reach.

And she emerges, squat and sus­pi­cious, to crawl to the bowl and inves­ti­gate.  Mel­on is par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar.  Once I put out some peach pits and skin, in a dar­ling lit­tle ceram­ic bowl I brought back from Isles­ford, Maine, and she lift­ed the bowl up in her hands and made as if to take the bowl back to her home in the wood­shed!  I had to stomp my foot slight­ly to get her to drop it, and just eat from it decent­ly so we could watch.  If I ever get a pho­to, rest assured I shall post it.

Mean­while, Avery’s been rid­ing up a storm, with her lat­est train­er, Lynn, a no-non­sense, get-it-done-NOW sort of lady who runs an amaz­ing horsey place in South Car­oli­na, in case you’re look­ing to buy, sell, train, do just about any­thing with a mane.  Avery’s usu­al train­er Amie had the temer­i­ty to give birth a cou­ple of weeks ago, and she intel­li­gent­ly asked Lynn to come up and cov­er her class­es.  It’s been a hoot.  Sad­ly we did not bring with us from Lon­don a cam­era that is any good at motion shots, so I’ll have to leave you with this image of the sta­ble… it pret­ty much says it all.

And we’ve of course been for ice cream, more times than I can count.  But Sun­day was spe­cial, because it was Kate-Across-the-Road­’s first ice cream cone!  She is such an old-fash­ioned-look­ing lit­tle girl, all big blue eyes and ringlets, but her per­son­al­i­ty is 100% in the Now.  She has a wicked­ly life-affirm­ing smile, with all her teeth lined up and dim­ples ready, and an accom­pa­ny­ing sil­very laugh that makes it absolute­ly impos­si­ble not to tick­le her.  She liked her ice cream, but she liked being with her Idol, Avery, even more.

I even broke down and had pos­si­bly the best ice cream sand­wich EVER, made on the premis­es, minty and fresh, with that sort of cook­ie tex­ture that sticks to your teeth and reminds you of all the sum­mers of your mid­west­ern childhood…

How do you sup­pose it would taste wrapped in let­tuce?  I’ll get back to you.