I Just Skinned My First Chicken!

Hey Everybody,

I thought I'd take a break from writing about all my pain and health problems to tell you about something I've never done before.

In an effort to save money, I got this brilliant idea to buy a whole chicken because it was $.78 a pound. I had absolutely no idea how I was going to cook the damn thing but a bargain is a bargain and it is harder for me to pass up then sex (well, when I was having sex anyway!).

I didn't know what to do with the whole chicken, so I tossed it in the freezer and forgot about it. However, we have a very small freezer thanks to the old school ice cube and cold water dispenser feature that takes up a huge amount of space. The refrigerator/freezer was a bargain I found on Craigslist...Do you see a theme here?

Since I've discovered Amelia's Grocery Outlet a few miles from our house (and also located near a Goodwill...oh the bargains...oh the fun!), I have spent a lot of time and little money buying lots of frozen and non-perishable food. Eventually (like in the first shopping trip) I bought too much frozen food to fit in the freezer and it became obvious that I could no longer avoid cooking the chicken.

I must admit, I was deeply intimidated by cooking this thing. I used to be a vegetarian and I really prefer that my meat look as little like the animal it came from as possible. Also, I could still hear the humiliating laughter of my friend Sara as she showed me in a hostel in Ireland, in front of a guy I had a huge crush on, how easy it was to cook a whole chicken and how silly I was because I didn't have a clue how to do it. Clearly there is trauma everywhere associated with turning this bird into our future dinner!

After I let the frozen block defrost for two or three days in the refrigerator (I know, I know, that is too long but I got busy, I got distracted, I got intimidated....) I knew it was now or never. Fear or not, I didn't want to waste the bird who, without any choice, gave it's life to us. So I googled, "how to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot" and found this amazing blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ and I confronted my fears head on!

Like the author of "A Year of Slow Cooking", I am thoroughly grossed out by skin on my chicken and any visible fat. Non-visible fat in my ice cream, chocolates and other "less than great for me foods" are ok, but the nasty yellow, blobbish fat on meat is horrifying, so it had to go! Again, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I figured, "What the heck, people have been skinning chickens for generations, so how bad could it be?"

I began the denuding with inadequate tools and I struggled with my non-kitchen, barely sharp regular scissors, to open the chicken's package. This resulted in a lot of blood running all over the cutting board and the counter, but fortunately not on my favorite white tee shirt I was foolish enough to be wearing while mutilating my chicken. With my cheapo knives and scissors, I began to recklessly attack the skin before I remembered that I had to remove the innards. That part really was more fascinating for me than I thought it would be, as I briefly tried to identify pieces before dumping them into a bowl next to me. when I was finished stripping my chicken, I dumped all the innards and scraps in the backyard so whatever carnivorous animals that live near us will benefit from my experimentation. I saw this as a sort of giving back to the earth for the once living chicken I plan on eating. I hope that wasn't a bad idea!

The entire process of removing the skin and all visible fat took me about 45 minutes and was a far more effective anatomy lesson than dissecting a frog in high school ever was! It was also cold, slimmy and sometimes gross. However, it did give me a greater appreciation for the food I am hoping to eat tonight (especially when I removed what I think are the kidneys...they are so tiny!). At some point in time my hands began to burn and itch like crazy (is that a normal reaction?) so I decided it was time to stop, even though there is still some skin on the ends of the drum sticks and some persnickety fat which refused to be removed.

If you are curious what I ended up doing with my new, naked chicken, I took pictures of it with my partner's new digital camera, in case I can convince him to post them here. I then put about 1 cup of water in my crock pot before going crazy with the seasonings.

In generally, I rarely follow a recipe all the way, preferring my "Goddess Method of Cooking by Intuition". I gathered up the rest of our rather old garlic, and a few clementines we weren't eating and shoved those inside the chicken...hopefully as a flavorful replacement for what used to be it's vital organs. Then I created a mixture of white pepper, oregano, rosemary, thyme, double ground mustard and a dash of cumin. I stirred it all up in a bowl and rubbed it all over the chicken and tossed the rest inside the cavity with the garlic and clementines. I also added some clementines to the top of the chicken because I thought it looked pretty.

Why this combination? Well, because it seemed right to me. I have no idea how my naked chicken dinner will turn out, but it smells pretty good cooking right now. I'll have to follow-up and let y'all know how it turned out!