A college friend stopped by as she was teaching a class on art to local photographers.  I was shocked when she said she actually landed during the largest and (by now) the longest snow storm in 10 years.  Nothing was moving in this town.  Luckily the venue had been changed from Franklin to the Airport Hotel.  Jim was able to pick her up Wednesday night and we went out for Japanese food.  I fixed an early dinner of shrimp stir fry from Trader Joe’s and Shrimp Tempera from Costco.  That showed my current cooking and entertaining skills.  Embarrassing but I just got home from the hospital and had to depend on Jim’s idea of food, if he cooks.  

I had beeen on line been hearing all kinds of airport horror stories.  One person said they did not have enough water to de-ice the planes.  Her plane left on time and landed early in Boston.  She lives in NH.  A friend picked her up.  Up north the cities are not shut down by snow.  She didn’t bring gloves or boots as she thought she was flying south.  Ha Ha, joke is also on me, I thought I was moving to the south.  

I sat down the following day and made a meal list and then a grocery list.   The first thing I wanted was roast chicken.  I got a book of Julia Child quotes for Christmas and all I could think about is roast chicken.  There are so many funny stories about her and a chicken.  Some of you might have seen the Saturday Night live chicken/Julia skit.  

Jim brought home almost a 9# chicken.  I asked for a roasting chicken not a turkey.  I consulted French Cooking Vol. 2.  the instructions are 6 pages long.  A little longer than I felt like following.  

Ingredients:  

She does not put anything inside the bird except salt.  I put a cut up onion and sprinkled rosemary and thyme.  She salted it.  I did not.  

Directions:

1. I trust the chicken close to her instructions.  Wings under the bird.  Wrap string around the swing where it joins the body.  bring it across the back and tie the legs together.  I used a turkey pin under the tied legs and tied up the tail over the hole.  
2. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.  For basting sauce use 2 T butter and 1 T good cooking oil.  After a while she says to use the pan juices.  This is to be done every 15 minutes.  I was a little neglectful.    
3. She did a lot of shifting of the bird.  I used a convection oven and set it on it’s back, basted and roasted for 15 minutes at 425.
4. I then reduced the temp to 350 degrees and set the the temperature to 350 degrees F.   According to her chart a 5 1/4# chicken will take 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes to reach 175-180, done chicken.  
5. Ours was done, juicy and delicious.  This chicken lasted 2 nights.  I could have this everyday of the week.