“this usurped beard”

An amaz­ing night at the Don­mar, watch­ing Derek Jaco­bi as Malvo­lio (the yel­low stock­ings! the smile!) in his ele­ment, in an unex­pect­ed comedic turn in “Twelfth Night.” The last thing Avery’s con­sti­tu­tion need­ed, on Thurs­day night, after a week that includ­ed the inau­gur­al fes­tiv­i­ties late into the night, was anoth­er adven­ture before a much-delayed bed­time. But just you TRY to get tick­ets to the play on a week­end! It can’t be done. So there we were. It is with­out a doubt one of the most enjoy­able the­atre evenings of our expe­ri­ence, so go if you can. A mar­vel­lous jester with a beau­ti­ful voice, quite a con­vinc­ing pair in Vio­la and Sebas­t­ian, but Jaco­bi is the star, big sur­prise. At times he had the demeanor of Lane, the famous­ly unflap­pable but­ler of “The Impor­tance of Being Earnest,” or Bunter of Lord Peter Wim­sey fame, but then the appear­ance of the life-chang­ing love let­ter brings out all the humor. You’ll love it. Avery was in heav­en. As we clapped and clapped, she said soft­ly, “That’s def­i­nite­ly what I want to do.”

To think I played Vio­la in col­lege! How could I have so lit­tle mem­o­ry of the play? Every once in awhile a line came back to me, but let’s be hon­est, it’s 25 years ago at best.

What else has been hap­pen­ing? A cou­ple of failed din­ners (nev­er buy cheap prawns for a fan­cy Thai dish, some­one print that on a t‑shirt and sell it; not enough cream in tonight’s car­bonara, but still edi­ble), punc­tu­at­ed with a sub­lime if mis­tak­en ver­sion of my ever-chang­ing “slow-braised chick­en.” Two weeks ago I asked John to put it in the oven for me and we arrived at home that night to find that a recipe that called for a CUP of white wine had been trans­formed into one includ­ing an entire BOT­TLE of white wine, as well as the usu­al table­spoon of but­ter used to rub the inside of the pot being trans­formed into an entire BLOCK of but­ter, about a half cup. THAT was a nice ver­sion of the recipe!

The lat­est inno­va­tion occurred when yes­ter­day I put togeth­er the dish, clapped the lid on, and left the house to take Avery to the ice rink. Then I called John and said in shame, “I for­got to put the chick­en in the oven. Would you turn the oven to 120C [240F] and stick it in?” No prob­lem, it was on time.

Some­thing, how­ev­er, prompt­ed me to call sev­er­al hours lat­er to check to see how the chick­en was going. “It should smell mar­vel­lous by now!” I assured him, and was sur­prised to be met with total silence. “What? Is it over­done?” I asked. “You won’t believe this, I am SO sor­ry,” my beloved said. “I turned on the wrong oven.”

So… slow-braised chick­en became FAST-braised chick­en, and in two hours at 200 C, 400F, it was love­ly. Not quite as melt­ing, but love­ly. And the chick­en soup for lunch today was sub­lime. So fear not, you can do almost any­thing to this recipe and be home SAFE. Good luck, and remem­ber: a mis­take is only a vari­a­tion, told the wrong way! Avery and I decid­ed that if I had­n’t called home that after­noon, and we’d been will­ing to wait about two weeks for din­ner, we’d have had “REAL­LY Slow-Braised Chicken.”

Slow-Braised Chick­en With Root Vegetables
(serves four for din­ner, plus soup)

1 large chicken
1 bunch fresh thyme
3 parsnips
5 cloves garlic
1 onion
3 carrots
hand­ful new potatoes
1 bot­tle nice white wine
1 cup chick­en broth
butter
Mal­don salt and black pepper

But­ter the inside of the large pot. Place the bunch of thyme on the bot­tom and put the chick­en BREAST DOWN on top of it. Sep­a­rate your gar­lic, peel it and whack a few cloves with your knife, then slice your parsnips, onions and car­rots as you like them. Throw them all around the chick­en, with the pota­toes. Pour a good cup of wine over all, then the chick­en stock. Sea­son it all well.

Place in a very low oven (120 C, 240 F) with the lid on. Cook for at least three hours, but any time after three hours the oven may be turned off and the chick­en left to rest. Just before serv­ing, turn the chick­en over very care­ful­ly (it will tend to fall apart) and remove the broth-soaked skin and dis­card. Place a pat of but­ter on the breast and put the lid back on so that it melts. When you are ready to eat, carve the bites you like best and serve with a baguette to soak up the juices, while drink­ing the rest of the wine.

Pull the extra meat from the bones and save them for sand­wich­es, then cov­er every­thing in the pot with water and sim­mer for at least two hours for the best chick­en soup of your life.