Les sots l'y laisse

Yesterday was a big adventure. This week feels like it has lasted for a year, and it's been about quadruple the usual number of social engagements that I usually have. It was great to stay in last night. After two months of trying to schedule something, we finally had dinner with the friends who had taken us to the Metz Christmas market.

I warned Laura & Chris ahead of time: I had never cooked a chicken. I had, on occasion, ruined a chicken breast. I don't eat much meat; I don't often cook meat. We'll see how it goes... I wanted to do a "poulet roti" (rotisserie chicken), because they're a classic piece of French cuisine–basic family food. I found an adapted recipe in a French magazine (and by "adapted" I mean "roasted instead of rotisserie"), and it's shocking how simple this is.

This was my first time buying meat to feed other people, and I was nervous. I wanted to go to a nice butcher, but a chicken that had had a good life & wasn't going to be full of hormones & corn. Turns out that the local grocery's brand sells rather happy chickens–for double the price of the other, fatter, unhappier chickens. It was still less expensive than a butcher, was raised in the open air (which French food labels MUST specify), was from a French farm & was raised without GMOs or hormones. Yay!

With the exception of a really nice Spanish wine they brought, the entire meal was from France. That means that from the food to our table, the food traveled a maximum of 500 miles. We so excited. It was doubly exciting because the meal was full of French tradition foods: tarte tatin (that turned out more like a crumble, but it works); salad with beets, blue cheese and Dijon dressing; chicken with roasted root vegetables.

When we decided to get a chicken, I wanted to get as much out of it as possible. Luckily, Chris & Laura have experience cooking chicken, so they helped us make sure it was done. I was nervous to cut it apart, but it turns out that once you get started it's all rather intuitive: follow the bones, and the pieces come off in their proper shapes. Even after eating our fill, the bird had enough left for chicken sandwiches today.

I remember watching my grandma, after Thanksgiving dinners, go to town on the turkey: pulling apart bones & peeling back fat to reveal hidden pieces of meat. To me, the turkey was finished. Just a carcass. But when Grandma was done, two containers would be full of meat. I spent some time with the chicken after our friends left.

Two of the most exciting discoveries were the wishbone (I broke off the big piece) and the two oysters, "les sots l'y laisse". The French name for these two pieces is wonderful, translating to "The idiots leave it there." Those that don't the chicken can't find them and leave them stuck to the carcass.

I'd been curious about these since falling in love with Amelie Poulin. One of the characters, Dominique Bretodeau, buys a chicken each week. When it's cooked, he slips out the oysters before eating the rest of the chicken. I was amazed when I came across the two dark pieces and felt them slip along the bone and slip right off into my hand. (Here's the video–HORRIBLE quality, but you'll see what I mean.)

As I type this, the carcass is floating with some herbs and carrots, making a stock. I found alphabet noodles at the grocery, and I want to use them for some noodle soup like mom would make for me when I was in college.

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