Welcome back!
I’m happy to announce that my few months away from regular posting have shown me (once again) how much my brain, body and soul benefit from routine. I am starved of creative expression and genuinely miss sharing my life with you through words.
That being said, I’m struggling to make a decision about how often and when to post. I’m 95% positive I’d like to return to a weekly essay with a monthly podcast thrown in but I’m curious…
Please vote!!
I’ve been off of Instagram since March and can still claim absolutely zero desire to return but my craving to share has not gone away and Substack still feels like an authentic place to publish my essays, podcasts and reels.
So!
Please click which day you’d like my newsletter to hit your inbox and I will keep posting podcasts mid-month.
I am forever brainstorming how best to serve my Paid Subscribers but plan, for now, to keep everything free. If you have ideas of what you’d like to see as someone who supports me through a paid subscription, PLEASE let me know!
Note: I am currently working on a PDF guide of menus, prep and shopping lists, recipes and tips on how to cook for large parties for multiple days. See: retreats, family vacays, etc. and plan to offer that to my Paid Subs when it is completed. Also don’t forget, Paid Subscribers get my cookbook, Pretty Easy: All the Recipes I Know by Heart AND my 10 step manifestation guide that is awesome and practical.
Alright, let’s talk about chicken…
Nothing makes me feel more accomplished as a home cook than claiming my mastery of one very good pasta dish and the ability to roast a whole chicken.
The obsession with getting good at cooking was born of two iconic (to me) movie moments.
The first from Heartburn. After reading and watching the famous spaghetti carbonara scene, (you know the one… Meryl and Jack in bed slurping pasta she’d effortlessly whipped up in the middle of the night) I decided I had to learn to cook lest I miss an opportunity to prove my sexiness through pasta.
The second, from my favorite movie of all time, Amélie. Watching Dominique Bretodeau carve his freshly roasted chicken and savor the succulent oyster bits, fully altered my brain chemistry for the rest of time. I will forever romanticize savagely pulling apart a roast chicken.
⬇️ Watch this entire clip because all of the food scenes in Amélie are divine but you’ll find the chicken part I’m talking about at the end.
After these two scenes shaped me, I knew what I had to do. And while it would take me until my later 30s to land on my most favorite pasta dish, the roasted chicken came surprisingly easy.
One single Google search in the late 2010’s led me to the famous Thomas Keller Method. When recently I searched his routine again, I was surprised to find out that over the years I’ve grossly simplified TK’s technique into something farrrrr simpler than the already simple recipe.
I don’t baste afterwards or slather the bird in butter (although both sound amazing) and my trussing skills are very much below average but, these chickens come out perfect every time.
The trick is to put it in the oven and leave it.
Boy, do I love an old school iMovie edit. Chef’s Kiss…
Preheat your oven to 450.
Let your chicken reach room temp (honestly you don’t have to do this but I always do.)
Pat it dry inside and out. Very dry is very good.
Heavily and I mean HEAVILY coat all sides in salt (and whatever other spices you like.)
Put chicken in a roasting pan and roast for 50-60 minutes never opening the oven.
Pull it out when breasts temp at 160. (chicken is technically done at 165 but it’ll keep cooking once you pull it out.)
Let it rest a good 20 minutes before carving.
Enjoy!
See you in a week or two as I slowly but surely find my way back into this routine.
Hope you are having a romantic and wonderful start to your summer.
Talk to you soon!
xo, Brittany
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