Friday, January 2, 2009

One of my Favorite Posts from 2008

I was looking back through some of my early posts when hardly anybody was reading my blog and thought I'd share one of my favorites with you (although it didn't get a single comment when I wrote it back in July). Here...for your reading pleasure...

A CHICKEN FRYING FAILURE

We were reminiscing last night about some of my early culinary mishaps when Hank and I first got married. I still cannot fry "real" chicken...that is, chicken on the bone. Over the years I've learned to do pretty well with chicken tenders...soak them in Texas Pete, shake them up in self rising flour with some salt and pepper, fry them in the deep fryer until nice and golden brown. Yummmmmmmmy! They are one of Legare's favorites.

I don't like to think that I've ever been a disappointment to anyone, save a nice sweet lowcountry grandma...not my own, thank goodness. WAY back in the day when I was a fresh-faced newly married 21 year old first year high school music teacher, one of my students, a great big football player named Abe, overheard me lamenting to another teacher that I just could NOT fry chicken to save my life. On my first attempt, I had dredged it in corn meal (a la fried fish) rather than flour, and bless Hank's sweet heart, he tried to eat it, but it was scorched on the outside and raw in the middle. I'd seen the error of my ways regarding the corn meal, but dredging it in flour didn't produce any better result. The next time it was done in the middle and soggy on the outside.

It had never occured to Abe that a grown woman might not be able to fry chicken and this new information troubled him. He showed up the next morning (a Friday) with instructions from his grandmama written down in pencil on paper yanked out of a spiral notebook. His expectation, and hers as well, was that I would practice over the weekend and report back on Monday morning. I was young and used to following instructions from my elders so I did just that. If we'd had a smoak alarm back then, which we didn't, it would have gone off twice. When I messed it up on Saturday morning for the first time, I went back to the grocery store and started all over again on Sunday. It was sad...I wanted to cry...How was I going to report back to Abe and his grandma that I had failed?!

Abe was at my door before school started on Monday morning for a full report. He shook his head in disappointment as I spared not a single detail of my efforts...there was no denying that I was a Chicken Frying Failure. On Tuesday morning, there was a message in my box to call Abe's grandma. She made me recount my process step by step and told me to try again. My report on Wednesday was no better. On Thursday afternoon, she showed up in the office with a tin plate of fried chicken (still to this day the best I've ever had) for Hank's supper. She had rallied the troops and another grandma was there with a macaroni pie...the school secretary brought broccoli casserole and the custodian's wife sent a banana pudding. They were afraid that Hank was starving. I eventually mastered the macaroni pie, broccoli casserole and banana pudding, but I remain, to this day, a REAL Chicken Frying Failure. Thank goodness for chicken tenders.

16 comments:

  1. LOL - Oh this make me want to start a run on fried chicken post! I still can't fry chicken!

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  2. My grandma would have loved your sweet story. I miss her so much (and her cooking). She would be close to 108, if she were living.

    I knew there was a reason that I never attempted fried chicken, besides the fact that I was raised on baked chicken breasts.

    ONCE my mother fried onion rings. That was fun. I did make fried shrimp on my 21st birthday. No, wild drinking night for me. LOL I was excited to fry shrimp! Other than those two times, I have never been around oil. I know, weird, but true.

    My younger sister lives in Mt. Pleasant. Is that near to you? I will have to ask her if she has learned to make the foods. I have a feeling she hasn't.

    What is macaroni pie???? Anything with macaroni sounds like a treat.

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  3. Love this story! I can't fry chicken either!!!

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  4. That is a precious story! I am so glad you brought it back to your new readers. Love it!!
    I too am a frying failure. The only thing I can fry is green tomatoes and squash. If meat is involved forget it. Luckily, Adam is a wonderful fryer and cream gravy maker. Two things this Texas wife CAN'T do. Shocking isn't it?

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  5. Making good fried chicken really is an artform. Seeing how messy and unhealthy it is, I'm glad to have an excuse to just bake or grill it instead!

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  6. LOL I have to admit I've never even attempted to fry chicken. I figure that's what all those fast food chains are for!! And luckily my hubby doesn't like it fried. WHEW! If a Southern Lady can't do it...I know I'd be doomed!

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  7. LOL! Only in the South!!! Bless your heart!

    How did you like Rhett Butler's People, btw??

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  8. That story is so cute! Oh my gosh! I have never tried to fry... I hate to say it...

    They brought y'all food? Now that's hospitality!

    And I will surely give you a visit on Tuesday... and Thursday. Thanks! :) You know you're one of my favorite bloggers out there... cheers!

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  9. Too funny!!! My Bonus Mom was really frustrated the other day because she was couldnt get her fried food to brown. So I had to teach her the error of teflon and frying food. You need a REAL pan to fry! hehe

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  10. That post is so wonderful!! I think there are dishes/foods that stump all of us. Mine is homemade biscuits - I use bisquick or canned/frozen. I can fry chicken and make wonderful gravy with NO lumps I might add. I have had others tell me that they cannot make gravy! Be glad you can't fry chicken...it isn't good for us anyway :-)

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  11. I love it. I once told a student (pre-marriage, pre-children) that the reason I didn't have children was because I would forget to feed them. This bothered her, so she went home and told her parents. The next day she stayed after class to tell me that her mother wanted me to know that children won't let you forget them. Little did I realize how true that was.

    I want to know the recipe for frying that chicken!

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  12. What an adorable story! I understand why this was one of your favorite posts. My DH is from the East coast, and at first he had a hard time understanding the whole "food and South" thing. Now (after 28 years) he not only understands it, he LOVES it lol. Kathy

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  13. I can fry up some chicken pretty well-especially for a California girl--but then I learned from my Grandma who was a Kansas gal.

    You're right--it was a post that needed re-posting!

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  14. This is perhaps one of the cutest newleywed stories I have ever heard. I cannot fry chicken either, but my fiance can...go figure.

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  15. This is perhaps one of the cutest newleywed stories I have ever heard. I cannot fry chicken either, but my fiance can...go figure.

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  16. This is perhaps one of the cutest newleywed stories I have ever heard. I cannot fry chicken either, but my fiance can...go figure.

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