I didn’t panic until I cut open the plastic wrap covering the chicken. Bloody juices oozed into my sink. Holding my breath, I reached inside the clammy cavity and pulled out a long, thin package of giblets. Some part of my brain knew I was supposed to preserve them for a gourmet purpose, but I couldn’t hold them for more than a second without tossing them into the trash.
I rinsed the bird under the sink and patted it dry as the recipe instructed, telling myself the worst was over. Siri had stopped responding to my dictation requests. I had enabled her for the first time this afternoon, for the sole purpose of taking notes while my hands were covered in salmonella. But all she registered was my useless opening statement: “The scariest part was cutting open the chicken.” No, Siri, that was not the scariest part.
I am 40 years old and have never cooked a whole chicken. Yes, I regularly roast thighs and stir-fry breasts and boil assorted body parts into chicken soup. But a whole bird frightens me. How do you know it will cook evenly? How do you season it? How do you reach inside it without gagging?
Turning 40 makes you consider a lot of things: the state of your career, your fertility, your retirement account. On a good day, only…
