The Magical Roast Chicken

I believe Julia Child routinely preached that there was nothing finer than a roast chicken. She was right – there is really something quite special about a roast chicken. For me, a roast chicken is my comfort food, it would be my last supper and it's Proustian effects - the dozens of memories that are only ever resurrected by the smells and sounds of a roast chicken cooking in the oven - are just some of the finer things about a roast chicken.

The house I grew up in was architecturally ideal for roasting a chicken. If I stood in the upstairs hallway on any given Fall Sunday evening, I could smell the tarragon, the herbed butter and that delicate roast chicken fat cooking in the oven. If I listened very closely, I could hear over the Broncos football game the crackling of fat drippings on the bottom of the roasting pan.

A roast chicken, accompanied by mashed, or smashed, potatoes and a Fall vegetable is immeasurably magical to me. The meal becomes so much more than the taste of the chicken. A roast chicken means that it is a new season, the evenings are crisp and the days are shorter. But, perhaps more importantly, a roast chicken means a family dinner.

On Saturday, George's brother, who is a chef in New York City, made a delicious roast chicken (a picture is included). He stuffed the skin of the chicken with a truffle-herb butter spread that added a golden crispness to the skin that when bitten was immediately humbling. At first bite, I was transported back to when I was 13, quietly sitting in the upstairs hallway of my parents house on an October Sunday, enjoying the smell of a chicken roasting in the oven, listening to the slight crackle of the drippings in the roasting pan, and hearing the sounds of an instant replay detailing a Hail Mary thrown by John Elway. There really is nothing finer and magical than a roast chicken.

Until next time…