Chicken Jerusalem

Artichoke hearts, boom, it's suddenly Israeli.

This is my style of cooking. Fairly careless. As he went along I kept waiting for him to toss in some herbs then finally he drops in some scallions.

Everything is better with wine and butter.

And I mean everything.

Except possibly cereal.

I think artichokes are an example of making food out of a weed.

It's a huge thing with a tiny edible portion.

Artichokes are weird fer'ner food.

We ate the leaves. You steam them, then pull off the leaves one by one, dip them in melted butter, and pull them between your teeth, so you end up with a huge pile of steamed pointed leaves with Bucky Beaver teeth scrape marks in them. And you're still very hungry.  It's weird. All that for so little. Then finally the heart, but underneath the fuzzy hairy choke. The weed is ridiculous. And that proves people were starving and went for anything. And now they have chic-status. Too expensive for too little to bother. Boo.

I think this cook got his little bitty artichoke hearts from a tin. Or maybe frozen. Plus there were only three. Too few to change the title to Chicken Jerusalem.

I thought he said at first chicken breast with bone in. That makes a huge difference because cooking with the bone adds considerable flavor. But then he whipped out two flattened boneless breasts.




I have an anecdote of pathos and woe.

I went through such a chicken breast phase.

Hammering them flat was a problem at my last apartment. The pounding resounded to the apartment below.  I had to go down there and tell them I'm just flattening a few chicken breasts. The noise is brief. Soon it's all over. But now they could visualize what was happening up there and have a laugh.

It's a very good thing to cook. It's good and it's fast. With butter and white wine you cannot go wrong. Add anything that you like, any other vegetables, any herb,  and it's fantastic. Boom. You're a chef.

Just like that.

I talked to a friend about coming over to dinner. During this chicken phase. I had already hosted some half a dozen people separately. Very intimate. We had a great time. Each time.

Because they're right there when I'm making it. They see the whole thing as it happens.

John Gruenzwik.

I think that's how to spell his name.

He told me, "Okay, so long as you cook anything but chicken."

!

How did he negate the one thing I had in mind?

It blew me away. Stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Why?"

"Because I ate s-o-o-o-o much chicken I'm sick of it."

I could easily make anything else. Just switch to steak or fish. He loved sushi. We could make that from beginning to end. He didn't negate turkey. I can do a million things with pork. But he still blew my mind by negating the one thing I was thinking about at the time.

It set me back.

In my mind.

I still can't get over that.

Time went by.

More time went by.

John died.

At his reception his previous wife told me he suffered terribly before he died.

He fell and broke both his legs.

He fell again and broke his arm.

The guy was in terrible shape.

Truly horrible suffering shape.

I told his wife, "OMG! This whole time I thought he was just being quiet."

She scowled at me harshly. I've never see her scowl. She's always been very sweet to me. But now she is scowling. At me.

I continued, "As I was being quiet."

She reversed and smiled at me. I felt relief.

Poof. Now he is gone.

I cannot express the loss that I feel. The sense of wasted time. John was fantastically funny and entertaining and unusual.  Had I only just called then I would have known what was happening. I could have made dinner at his house instead of at mine. I could have included his friends and his family. It could have been private, or it could have been something else. But I wasted that time and lost track. And all that happened quickly within the span of a few months.

I could have helped him in certain ways. But I didn't even know of his troubles.

Because I didn't even bother to call him.

Because he told me not to make chicken.

Of precisely this sort.