A meditation on the food that means home to me, and my ongoing battle with one pesky rooster
It finally feels like the Christmas season to me. I still have work to do before the end of the year, but it’s going to be winding down soon, and I’ll have more time to enjoy the finer things. Often it takes me a while to pop my head up, because I’m usually busy with work until suddenly I’m not. I wake up one day, and it’s Christmas. It felt like it showed up early this year.
It snowed yesterday morning, which most definitely helped. It’s hard to get into the spirit of the season when it’s 50ºF and sunny, although one doesn’t like to complain about such things, especially in front of anyone from Chicago. This morning, it’s still cold and grey, but I am safely indoors, with music playing and a fire crackling. I’m going to have another cup of coffee, then I’ll get dressed and go outside to do some chores.
The chickens need their water changed, their feed checked, and their bedding replenished. I also need to reattach a light inside the coop that requires me to almost crawl into the coop and screw the bracket into the wall. It’s gonna take a bit of unusual contortions from me physically. All the while, I have to watch out that Huey Newton doesn’t get in any good licks. It’s become a given that he’s going to attack me.
If I’m wearing jeans and standing, he can’t really do that much to me, but it doesn’t keep him from trying. I usually just use my foot to keep him away. I don’t use force, but enough to keep him back. It’s more blocking than kicking, but he doesn’t quit easily, and sometimes I have to be more forceful than I would like with a six-pound bird.
I’ve seen videos of farmers dealing with an overly aggressive rooster by grabbing them and holding them down on the ground against their will, then pushing its head to the ground, which mimics what a dominant rooster would do. The idea is to make them understand that you’re not a threat to the flock, but are, in fact, the dominant Cock of the walk. I tried it once, but clearly it didn’t take. Presumably, you have to do it every time he acts aggressively, but I’m not sure I have the time or patience for that.
I feel good about the Christmas gifts I’ve chosen for the family, but not confident that anyone will necessarily appreciate them, at least not immediately. Everyone is getting a book, which is not exactly a shiny, noisy toy, fashionable item of apparel, or piece of trendy home decor. They’re getting a book, which, unless you’re a voracious reader, is not always cause for excitement.
Each book has been thoughtfully considered and carefully chosen, and will be personally signed, but that won’t excite everyone. I feel like I’ve moved into that grandparent stage of giving gifts that no one wants, and I’m okay with that. It’s good to know what your lane is. You might even say that I’m lowering expectations for the future. Don’t get too excited, it’s Uppie and Grandie’s Christmas. It will probably be educational or practical, or something.
Someone once told me a story of getting a handmade travel iron cover from a great aunt or something like that. They didn’t even own a travel iron, but now they had a crocheted cover for one. I’m not sure why you would need to cover a travel iron, or how that would work exactly, but that’s what they claimed to have received as a gift. Who am I to question them? On the other hand, it does beg the question: Who travels with an iron, no matter what the size?
Took care of the chickens, and Huey was as big an asshole as always. I don’t think he could actually hurt me if he tried, unless he got to my face, but that little fucker kicks hard, and it hurts more than you would think. I almost always let him get in one good kick because I keep hoping he’ll give up one of these days. It hurts enough that I begin kicking him away again, and I keep telling him that one of these days I’m going to have enough and it’s going to be the end of him.
We would all be perfectly fine without a rooster, I explain. He’s a useless accessory, a romantic appendage. He’s messing with the wrong guy, I keep telling him, which is precisely what I believe he’s thinking about me, but chickens aren’t known for their deep thinking.
I got the solar light in the coop secured, so I feel better about that, and so far, the new waterer is working like a charm. It’s a problem if we get long-term freezing weather, because beyond the water freezing, of course, and the chickens not having much use for ice, I’m not sure if below freezing temperatures will break the waterer itself. It’s just plastic. I’m hoping that as long as I don’t overfill it, it will have room to expand and be fine. Fortunately, we don’t get too many days that get below freezing anymore, so I’m hoping for the best.
I also gave the hens a luxuriously fluffy layer of bedding made of pine shavings, both on the floor of the coop and in the nesting boxes. It smells like Wood Shop in there. They’d lay an egg on the dirt if required, so I’m sure they give a shit, but it makes me feel better. It just feels like a better place to lay an egg. Huey can suck it.
Growing up, Christmas dinner didn’t really exist because our big meal on Christmas was breakfast, which my father was in charge of and took half the morning, or so it seemed. He made scrambled eggs, French toast, broiled toast, bacon, and two kinds of sausage: links and patties. I can’t think of anything else we might have had, not even a potato dish, but it always seemed like a grand affair, and it took forever. You see, we couldn’t open our presents until breakfast was over, dishes and all, so the wait was interminable.
Still, that’s what I remember most.
If we did happen to have a big holiday dinner, it would have looked strangely similar to our Thanksgiving. Roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, and green beans. I always chalked up the simplicity and no-nonsense approach of our holiday meals as a byproduct of my parents’ midwestern upbringing, as well as their lack of real interest in food, but I’ve since discovered that it was driven largely by my mother having to work, often right up until the holiday, and that was all she had time to do.
Either way, simple meals are my comfort meals. The big breakfast itself was nothing particularly special, other than the unusual assortment of choices. It was mostly timing and tradition, but it leaves an impression. It’s a link to our past.
I doubt most people think of pizza when they think of Christmas, but I do. Yesterday I made pizza for my wife Jane, her sister Bernadette, and their collective best friend Bonnie. It was their own little Christmas party, and I acted as chef and chaperone. I built them a fire and kept it going, manned the Christmas playlist, and made the food. They cocktailed and carried on, and I mostly tried to ignore what they had to say. It’s a cliche, but it’s a lot of she said this, and he did that.
My wife loves my pizza, and because it’s fairly labor-intensive, and I can only make so many pizzas at a time, my invitations to the chef’s table are extremely limited. While all the grandchildren have been here for pizza, neither of my daughters nor their husbands has ever even had it. Only a handful of people usually get to enjoy it. Their friend Bonnie had heard all about it and had been angling for an invitation for a while now. This was her big chance.
Anyone who cooks for someone else is giving something of themselves, so it’s a love language of sorts. It’s definitely how much my wife shows her love to her family. I don’t think it’s any different for me. I’m happy to do it and enjoy the appreciation that comes from transforming a few simple ingredients into something transcendent.
I have eaten at some truly great restaurants and have had hundreds of mind-blowing dishes, but my most memorable culinary delights have been the simplest. Pommes frites. A perfect omelette. Risotto. Foie gras on toast. Perfectly cooked chicken wings. My wife made roasted tomato soup the other day, and it knocked my socks off. She served it to me with a grilled cheese made with sourdough bread she had baked.
I mean, come on.
The pizza was bangin’, as we like to say, and the night was raging success. Everyone slept over, nothing got broken, and no one argued. I went to bed early and woke up early, then cleaned up, made coffee, and built a fire. By the time everyone else woke up, it was as if the night had never happened.
I’m back inside, showered and powdered, in my finest linen and wearing a warm scarf, sitting in front of the fire and smelling dinner starting to waft out from the kitchen. Jane is making roast chicken, two chickens in fact, along with mashed potatoes, and probably several vegetables. I heard her toss around the possibility of biscuits and maybe even a pie, but we’ll see. I’m not really a sweets person, so pie is rare, but biscuits are a real weakness for me. I have to request them sparingly, or I’d be as big as a house.
While I love a good steak, there’s really nothing I like better than a well-roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and either corn, green beans, or broccoli. Toss in a biscuit, and that’s a home run in my book. While I have been impressed with many a well-prepared dish at fancy restaurants around the world, I am never more satisfied than with the food I get at home. We don’t have to dirty every pan in the place to make a good meal.
Simple works just fine. Good ingredients, well prepared.
These are chickens from our local meat market, usually smaller birds around the 5–6lbs mark, which is the best size. It’s a chicken, after all, not a turkey. Seasoned and stuffed with herbs, a lemon, and garlic, it’s roasted slowly. I prefer a different method, which is to cook it in a cast-iron skillet on high heat, but it makes a mess of the oven, and Jane prefers to cook them slowly.
The potatoes get milk, sour cream, and pickled jalapeños before being whipped to a heavenly delight. The vegetables, which I’m shamefully not that big a fan of, I add to the mashed potatoes on my plate like sprinkles. You put coarse sea salt and fresh ground pepper on all that, and you’re in business. Now pass the butter and the biscuits.
I’m starving.
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