Sunday morning, my calves hurt. This is a result of spending too much time with chicken on Saturday night
I don’t mean the cutsy chickens that Karen and Henry have.
I’ve met all 14 of them and have shredded carrots for them, given them feed and taken
eggs from broody hens.
Neither do I mean the Hallmark stuffed Chicken Mama hen that
plays an egg-laying “Whoop There it Is” ditty called “Squawk There it Is” as
it flaps its wings and lays three plastic eggs over in over. Henry got two of
these for his non-existent February 29 birthday, and H2, my cousin’s son, has
played them in unison.
My calves are aching from standing on my feet from cooking
herbed chicken Lousianne from noon to 10 p.m. yesterday. Sixty pounds of
chicken breasts. I sautéed each one three minutes a side in two sticks of
butter and the put them aside.
After that, I did the herbed part – thyme, parsley and
something called marjoram (not to be confused with margarine, although we did
confuse this earlier – I had never heard of the spice) tossed in with a cup of
onions, celery and (sorry, Dana), two cups of mushrooms.
That gets thrown in the pan and then, after it thickens I
added a giant thing of cream of chicken soup, white pepper and some Texas Pete
(although Slap Your Mama works, too). Once it “smells right” (instructions per
Karen), I put in about a cup of cup Sauvignon Blanc until it was done. (This is
subjective, but worked.)
I did about 15 pieces at a time – it kept the proportions
easier – and although we’d penciled in doing it Saturday and Sunday, I just
decided to only do cleanup once and just marched on through it. I am the hero
today. Holy smokes, it was so much chicken.
Eventually, this will get combined with a really good rice
mixture – and baked together.
It is fabulous. I mean, this is the greatest chicken I’ve
ever had. If the only way I could be guaranteed of eating this dish again would
be as a last meal on death row, watch your back. It’s that good.
Life in Augusta
is fun as I’m hanging out here at Karen and Henry’s, preparing for a mammoth
party on Tuesday. Still juggling some Hope Village
stuff on the side, but that really was on the side yesterday – the wayside.
I’ll get back to that this afternoon, but for now it’s just good food.
Unfortunately, my first day in town I wasn’t able to enjoy
it. I’ve been really good on my every-other-day Coke and didn’t have any tea
that first day, so therefore no caffeine.
But it didn’t occur to me the headache and subsequent motion
sickness was anything more than that. After all, I was a passenger in a car for
the first time in awhile, and I’m in Augusta, not Minot. Therefore, hills. This is more of an
up-and-down motion than Minot.
WAY more of an up-and-down motion.
Started feeling really bad but we decided to try out a new
burger place at lunch. It’s a stepped-up Five Guys-ish place called the FarmHaus. Very
cool layout and organic foods. It wasn’t just “lettuce” it was “Organic
Something Lettuce.” Ditto for all the topics, one of which included garlic.
The burgers were really good (although, I must say, Tom
topped it last night with whatever he made – that was THE best burger I’ve ever
had) and dual-pattied. In general, a ton of food for $10 (the special,
including fries and drink).
But after one bite (or two, if you count the dual patties),
I didn’t feel so good again. Since I was in good company (Karen and I also had
H2 and a friend alone), I just chatted until I felt OK and ate really slowly.
And drank tea. Lots of tea. (This important fact will come
up later. In more ways than one.)
But I still wasn’t feeling all that great, so I opted to
take the burger and fries home for later. It was a good burger.
Karen got a new F150 for her birthday. It’s a fabulous truck
and I really like it. Got to drive it a little the second day -- I am just made for one of those things.
I would much rather be in the driver seat than the
passenger. We got back in after lunch and immediately the nausea came back. I
freaking hate migraines.
Not sure how bad I looked, but we were in the left-hand lane
(not so conveniently, at a stoplight) and Karen asked if I was OK. I said we
really needed to get into the right-hand lane.
As soon as the light turned green, she hit it and then
swerved over. It’s hard to know if that was the best course of action, but it
set me over. I totally puked. I had the right idea and held the tea glass in
front of me, but I’d filled it up just before we left so there wasn’t a lot of
room.
And, just so you know, it’s hard to aim for a tea glass,
open a door and unbuckle a seat belt at the same time. And really, how do you
prioritize?
I had the window partially down, so I even went for that
after the initial backsplash.. Oh, man. All over my jeans, my shoes and socks,
the floor mats, the step bar thing, the window and the door. But not the seat,
which was good.
Fortunately, everything on the Ford was easily cleaned with
a hose. Of everything, the shoes – my suede Redheads – suffered the most long-term
damage. But they’ll live, as will I..
It really was mostly tea. I’d eaten maybe a third of the
burger and four French fries.
Fortunately, Karen didn’t throw me out of the truck. I felt
so bad (although not nauseous) after tossing my cookies, but she let me stay
and I even got to drive it the next day.
Of course, I’m pretty
much a rented mule for the rest of my time here, but that is what I signed up
for.
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