MAHOGANY CHICKEN

Today's post was written by Chris, yesterday afternoon while the scent of smoke and Spring were drifting down the stairs. He'd remarked that the chicken was "lookin' mighty good," and went up to take a picture or two. When he returned, I asked if he'd just sit down and write the steps and the method to this family favorite---we've been known to have four to six of these beauties beneath the lid of the Weber, as we gather the clan and set the tables outdoors.

Mahogany Chicken begins with real charcoal, preferably Kingsford brand. Real charcoal is the only way to go. Gas is something you put in your gas tank to go get your charcoal. Your chicken should be a fryer size of about 4 lbs. When you wash and dress or trim your chicken make sure the body cavity is open to allow the heat access to the inside.

A chicken of this size will cook completely in approximately one hour in a good kettle grill as shown in the picture. The chicken will cook more evenly if indirect heat is used. You can see from the picture that my grill has two charcoal compartments that keep the heat to the sides.
The kettle design will direct the heat in a circular enveloping pattern that will cook the chicken without burning.

I turn the chicken once in the one hour's time it takes to cook. I also keep a small pan of water between my charcoal containers. The water boils the entire time. This keeps the chicken moist and tender. As long as the water boils the chicken can not dry out. Keep in mind that every charcoal grill is different and cooking time can vary.

If you want a real smoke flavor you can put a couple hands full of wood chips on the coals when you first put your chicken on the grill. Make sure the flames from the chips are not directly under the chicken.

Your bird will be done and ready for the sauce when the legs move freely. I put the sauce on both sides of the bird about five minutes before it comes off the grill. Make sure you keep the bird between the charcoal or the sugar in the sauce will burn. You can sauce the bird twice in five minute intervals if you like a lot of sauce.

If properly done the leg meat will pull off the bones and the wings will slide off easily. The trick is to not overcook the chicken.

Indirect heat in a good kettle grill, boiling water for moisture and a good sauce make for a nice tender juicy bird. Add a fresh Vidalia onion sandwich, baked beans and a cold glass of tea and try to save room for some dessert. Supper’s ready.

I'd already made a little skillet of "baked" beans---sauteed onion and bell pepper, glugs of the same Sweet Baby Ray's that went onto the chicken, a little brown sugar, and two leftover Turkey Brats, grilled earlier in the week, cut into teensy dice. A little Tupperware of Potato Salad, with Special Syrup, celery seeds and lots of mustard, and my part was done.

And it WAS "Mighty Good" chicken---meltingly tender and slipping from the bones.

Summer's coming---time for GRILLING! (To Chris, any time is grilling time!)

PS Later in the day: I just clicked to enlarge on the picture of the whole grill---you see that SECOND SET of little chrome legs just behind the legs of the Maroon grill??

That's the STAND-BY black Weber kettle, just in case . . .

FRIDAY FRIVOL

Not-quite-sunny this morning---hope the yard guys can get the cleanup and mowing done tomorrow after this week's thunder-and-windstorms. The whole yard is full of sticks, twigs, and fallen leaves, and the patio is much the same, with the addition of bee-jillions of tiny green berries from the enormous tree overhead. They hitch a ride into the house and downstairs on your shoe-treads, and then catch you unawares in your sock feet---ouch.

And we still haven't put a seed in the garden. DS got it tilled almost three weeks ago, and it looked perfect on Saturday when he finished---I could not wait to get going with all the big basket of seeds (not to mention the twelve boxes of assorted bulbs which Caro gave me for an EARLY MD gift so we could get them put out---they're still in the bag, patiently awaiting the planting). The rains have not been every day, but they have been fulsome and persistent, so that wading into that big circle of turned earth would mean a cloddy mess and lost shoes.

So here we wait, for the drying and the sun.

Breakfast with tee-ninecy banana-nut muffins---the little bags of Martha White just-add-milk-or-water mixes are excellent, and one bag makes six regular or the tiny dozen muffins. Two minutes to get them in the oven, and they're out when the bacon's finished. I measure the milk into the big Pyrex measuring cup, dump in the mix, and just stir it up from the bottom. The handy pour-lip and a rubber spatula, and the filling of the tiny wells of the pan is easy-peasy.


And a lovely lemon-chess pie into the oven this cool morning---it perfumes the whole house with the zest and sweet sugary smells. Pay no attention to that raggedy crust---I roll it VERY thin so that it stays very crispy and crunchy all around.

And that's about it, except for the dishes and the dryer calling my name. But not very loudly. If I listen carefully, there's just a whisper in the distance, like echoing bells receding into the forever, whilst on this cloudy day, all these lovely colorful blogs of sunshine in the South and other people's pretty houses and parties and dishes are a welcome clamor.

And I must answer. Happy Weekend, Everyone!!

JOURNAL JOTTINGS

Random quotes written in my journal---they are the words of bloggers, friends, people whom I'll never know and whose words have touched a place in my heart, or caused a smile with their wit or their cleverness or their own heart-felt thoughts.



But motherhood is NOTHING like the card isle at Target AnitaO at Women's Colony


You all, I have just about decided after years of observation…there in not much ,a team, of determined men can’t do if they have backhoe. Gloria Christensen, of the Hinds County Gazette.

Everyone has their way of doing things...I listened to my heart with mine. Not what others told me. Dr. Spock was a great guide for many things..but otherwise..I raised mine by heart. My friend Mona, of Wspr Sweetly, on Raising Children

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company. Unknown

I just took my camera in hand and walked around my yard, for there is where my simple beauty lies. Molly in her yard at sunrise. Read more: http://mollyscountrycolorshomeplace.blogspot.com/2010/04/finding-beauty-fridaylittle-wonders-and.html#ixzz0lvehSMQW


I cook big, so I need company to eat it all. Jeanne @ Backyard Neighbor

On her own Mother: You might root for her, but you wouldn’t post bail...too risky. Mrs. G., of The Women's Colony

And drivin’ out to Antoine’s, for the Sunday Eggs Sardou . . .line that will fit into a poem or a country song someday---scribbled down months ago by me.

When I make a sandwich, after I put the two halves together, I give it a little pat.
KEETHA of WriteKudzu

And from Stephen King, from The Shawshank Redemption, in one of the brightest spots in a grim-spotted movie, of prison and of gray and of the beating-down of the humanity within. Andy Dufresne, convicted of murders he did not commit, had been given the task of administering the prison library.

He took on the small, dim space, with its creaky book-cart of handworn, many-times-read books and its dusty corners, and by writing to organizations and pestering the state legislature with something like a letter-a-week requesting funding, he was sent boxes of used books and records.

On one particular day, the guard stepped out for a moment, and Andy took out a big old slick black record from its worn sleeve, set it on the turntable, started it playing, and turned on the intercom/public address system for the whole prison---house and yard.

The men elbow-deep in hot laundry suds stopped their labor; the kitchen cooks and the machine shop grease-monkeys and the floor-moppers and the guards all looked up in wonderment as those silvery notes floated out over the gray walls and bare-trodden yard, as if they were seeing the very angels in the air who voiced the melody.

And Red, who was Andy's best friend---a pragmatic old lifer played by Morgan Freeman (imagine that rich, honey-syrup voice narrating the words), says:

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it.

I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSzatzy8WvM

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

I SO apologize to all who have been trying to comment, and who have found a glitchy spot in the works of this magical machinery.

I've had several e-mails about having trouble getting the comments to work, and I do hope that whatever it is or was, it will be resolved soon. I LOVE hearing from everyone, and I hate that you've had problems with this.

I've encountered that several times, usually on the same blogs, and it's very frustrating to try and try, getting the same old can't-do-it results. I DO hope you won't give up!!

And I've been having problems myself, with two of the blogs I check in on every day---Colorado Lady and The Women's Colony. For the past few days, both of them are nothing but a great expanse of page, with the whole shebang of the content condensed into a two-inch margin smushed off to the side, with just enough of the pictures and words to be tantalizing, and the rest just out of reach.

I'm gonna get Chris to have a look at all of this when he gets back.

And PLEASE let me know if you're having trouble---I treasure each and every comment and e-mail from all of you.

Speaking of the not-getting-through: Does anyone know what happened to Alice of Tea In My Cup? She had the most wonderful little vignettes and recipes and plans every day for all different kinds of tea parties, with enchanting photos and all sorts of welcoming occasions.

She suddenly said, "I'll be back soon," and never returned. For almost a year, I'd still go to the site every now and then, and look my eyes full of a Christmas Tea or a Baby Shower Tea, or a wonderful celebration of a birthday or anniversary, but all of a sudden, the site says "You are not authorized."

It's nothing personal, of course, for she probably did not realize I was ever there, but it's sad to lose such a wonderful site, with no recovering the beautiful of it. And I'd really like to know if she's Okay---I hope she's still hostessing, still preparing those dainty viands and exquisitely-set tables. It would be nice to know it's still there. Somewhere.

I hope she knows how much I enjoyed it, and how much I miss her.

BRIGHT MEMORIES

Spring memories of my Mammaw are of fresh-turned earth, upturned by her little hand-plow, lots of small green things beginning their upsurge into the garden and flowerbeds, and the fresh clean scent of her Ivory-Snow-washed dresses, clean and crisp in the morning's heat. She was my most definite and positive maternal figure, and a lot of my memories of her center around the kitchen.

I don't think I've repeated a post during the year-and-a-half I've been posting, but this one came to mind when I was reminiscing about Mammaw just now, and it carries a great deal of our relationship in it---the closeness, the little and big chores done together, and the sweet, bright memories I have of her.

This image is from the Internet, and I cannot believe I found it---I know those are lemon drops, but squint just a LITTLE bit, and imagine that they're tee-ninecy little fingertip squeezes of crushed pineapple, set just SO into the little daisy petals, and you'll be looking at the cake I'll remember for all time.

This memory of Mammaw has a bright yellow hue, of the kitchen walls and the hot afternoon sun through the uncurtained windows, the egg yolks, the exotic pineapple, and the big Pyrex mixing bowl. I hope that all my family will someday read and savor and try to capture that lovely, sweet-scented, sunlit essence of baking with my Mammaw:

In the big Hoosier cabinet, redolent of vanilla and spices and good baked things, there was always that three-layer pineapple cake with 7-Minute, waiting on that same battered shelf every day of my young life. Mammaw made one every Friday afternoon, after she had cleaned up the noon-dinner dishes and mopped the kitchen floor. I got to sift the flour from the built-in sifter in the cabinet, and measure it out, along with the baking powder, sugar, salt and soda. And sometimes I would go out to the chicken yard for four fresh orange-yolked eggs (a MUST for cakes---they made the layers a lovely deep gold).

She'd crank up the big old Sunbeam mixer and get that cake in the oven in ten minutes flat. The whites would go into the top of the double boiler with cream of tartar, water and sugar, to be beaten every minute of the seven minutes. I did the careful timing, watching the little red second hand of the old white Bakelite Philco clock as it made its slow journey. The runny, slimy whites mixed into a magical, creamy concoction the glossy-white of mountain snow (though I had never seen any, save on the insurance-company calendar placed yearly over the same lighter-than-the-rest rectangle on the kitchen wall).

A "tall can" of Del Monte crushed pineapple was drained in the big strainer and further squeezed as dry as possible by hand. The layers were placed one by one on the big round platter and sprinkled with the pineapple syrup, then smeared with the white frosting. Onto the frosting went tiny fingertip dabs of the pineapple, little clumps all over the surface. All the layers were stacked this way, then a final coat of the frosting, with the requisite swirls and curlicues, with the last of the pineapple dabbed all over the top.

The Friday-night cake was elegant and beautiful, its golden layers falling tenderly beneath the knife. The Sunday cake was a little disheveled, with its frosting beginning to droop a bit, and the little pineapple divots sinking further into the snowy cushion. By Monday, the frosting had taken on the receding look of Winter's last snowfall, with craters and show-throughs and bits of brown crumb emerging through the white, but the taste just got better and better, the layers moister and more flavorful.

The Midweek cake, what there was left of it, was still standing, though the layers were listing to one side, testament to their valiant days of patience in the dark of that cupboard; the frosting was just bits and crumbs of crystals, sugary crunches that fell prey to all passing fingers. The crumbs left on the platter were gummy and drying, better than the best bar cookies or lemon squares or chess diamonds.

Thursday night, the scrape of fork tines claimed the last rich, fruit-essenced bits, and the week was done. Friday was cake day, and all was right with the world.