*Not Suitable For Vegetarians
The nicest thing about my new apartment is the size. It’s a two floor condo with a nice kitchen, dining nook, living room, balcony and a half bath upstairs, 2 bedrooms and a full bath and storage room downstairs. My NYC two bedroom apartment would fit comfortably in the living room. Maybe even on the balcony.
The kitchen is a dream. It’s not my mother’s gourmet kitchen but it has tons of counter space and THREE people can actually fit in there comfortably. Hell, Doni and I have held a dance party in there, that’s how roomy it is. You could not do that in my old kitchen without knocking yourself out against the stove and lighting yourself on fire.
We’ve slowly been furnishing it and it was only last weekend that we acquired a sofa and coffee table but the lack of furniture hasn’t stopped us from having people over and picnic on the dining room floor. We’ve hosted a couple dinner “parties” with Monica and Grace and they included deliciousness such as spaghetti squash, eggplant, cheese, and vegan chocolate cheesecake (ah-mazing). Outside of an incident with the spaghetti squash where Monica almost knifed herself in the stomach, there hasn’t been much squealing or unpleasantness about cooking.
Until Saturday night.
It was my night at home, the first one in a while and I had decided I was going to make my mother’s Rosemary Chicken with roasted potatoes and asparagus. I had been talking about this meal for a couple nights and finally had the time to prepare it. It sounds delicious right?
I’ve ALWAYS enjoyed this meal…when my mother makes it. My only experience with a whole chicken is a cooked whole chicken.I hate handling raw chicken cutlets, etc but nothing will EVER compare to a raw, whole chicken.
NOTHING.
It was the most traumatizing experience of my life and I think my live-tweeting of the event is the only way I can properly show you how I felt (read from the bottom up):
The organs were one thing. It was disgusting but it wasn’t toooo bad. When I discovered the neck though, I may have shrieked, tweeted, then called my mom in a panic being all WHAT THE HELL DO I DO WITH THIS THING!? And proceeded to have a freakout of epic proportions.I think I was put on speaker phone because I could hear my dad and my mom dying of laughter in the background, particularly when my mom pointed out that I had to CUT OFF THE BUTT, a part that I had yet to discover. I also discovered feathers while on the phone and squealed a good deal about that as well.
IT. WAS. TRAUMATIZING.
With some (or a lot) of pressure from my mom, I even attempted to cut off the neck but I couldn’t get through the bone and I was so disgusted, I threw it in a pot, lathered it up with lemon juice, rosemary, garlic powder and paprika and then threw it in the oven as fast as I could. (After taking pictures of course, while avoiding having to look at it’s neck.
Peeling the potatoes was a breeze after that.
The meal turned out to be quite delicious (and the smells heavenly) and I’ll have chicken for days now but seriously. NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN. I will eat pretty much ANYTHING at least once (I’ve eaten ox tongue, snails, reindeer, octopus, squid, salmon eggs, salmon skin…and want to try alligator and sea urchin) but having to deal with a raw chicken….definitely the most disgusting.
I think this is what I get for buying a $2 chicken on sale.
Here are some more pictures for your pleasure:
After I had won the battle.
The meal.
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OH. MY. GOD. That’s kind of hilarious. I’m glad you learned your way through it, but holy hell – that’s awesome!
Call me weird, but I kinda find cleaning a chicken relaxing.
Ohhh yikes. This? THIS is why I am a vegetarian. I can’t handle the this-is-dead-animal part, among other things. A raw vegetable never made me feel nauseous (though I am willing to entertain the thought that such a vegetable might exist — I just won’t eat it!).
I am so glad you didn’t give me THIS recipe to make yesterday! I can imagine you typing up the recipe now…
“Wrestle chicken for 10 minutes.
Cut off Butt and neck.
Pluck stranded feathers.”
I was definitely peeing my pants reading your tweets. And this is also why I’ve yet to cook a whole chicken. GROSS. I would totally make Dave do it. Hell I make him cut chicken cutlets for me! But – the final product does look delicious!
LOL Oh wow! Yea the nice thing about being vegetarian is when you don’t eat this stuff you don’t have to prep it either- it definitely puts you at less risk for emotional damage
I’m traumatized even thinking about handling a whole chicken! icky.
But… can we get that vegan chocolate cheesecake recipe???!
Yeah, the neck and the innards are DIS.GUS.TING. The neck especially. So gross. I don’t mind handling raw beef or pork, but raw chicken is really hard for me to stomach. Luckily my boyfriend LOVES to cook whole chickens so I let him take care of that.
Um, I highly recommend you STAY AWAY FROM SEA URCHIN. I will also try anything once, and there are hardly any foods out there that I find revolting, but sea urchin is in an entirely different realm from the disgusting foods from which I stay away. Just sayin’.
OMG! I could NEVER handle dealing with a whole raw chicken like that! You did a GREAT job! And the photo looks like the meal was delicious!
Hahhaa, I had an experience like this not too long ago. I’ve only handled chicken breast since, not a whole raw chicken. It looks incredibly good though.
One of the things i still don’t like to do even though I love to cook? Handle raw chicken. And if I buy a whole chicken!? I can’t handle looking at the neck/it’s spine or any of that other grossness. Your dinner looks fabulous and your apartment sounds ah-mazing. Must look into flights.
Sounds like it was a real fight, but the result looks delicious…
Just popping in to tell you to stay the hell away from sea urchin, but I see Stevie beat me to it.
Trust us, it’s nasty.