I didn’t have anything in mind for dinner tonight so Lucy suggested I get a chicken and she would cook it in white wine. “It’s very nice, Madame.” Hmm, chicken in white wine sounds very nice. So off I went to the store in search of a chicken, celery, and parsley.
The difficult ingredient to get, the white wine, comes from a small stash that Josh bought from the embassy soon after we arrived. Yes, we can only buy alcohol at the embassy. There are a few unmarked stores around town that sell alcohol (when I say “unmarked” I mean the glass on the windows is covered with brown paper and there is no signage — they look abandoned), but you need a special permit saying you aren’t Muslim to in order to buy alcohol there.
Anyway, back to the chicken. I brought the groceries home to Lucy and she chopped away, cut the whole chicken into pieces like a professional and then worked her magic. She had things browning and simmering and when it was done the whole house smelled like something I wanted to eat. She left the pot on the stove to cool so I could put it in the fridge to heat up for dinner.
Before I put it away I had to try it, you know, to make sure it was good. Then I had to try some more and Camille needed a few bites and before you knew it we were huddled around the pot like a couple of hobos around a campfire. The white wine with the mushrooms and the chopped parsley and onions and celery . . . I think I’m going to have to make this a regular fixture on our menu. It’s a foodie version of heroin. I hope I left enough for everyone else for dinner tonight.
***Josh and I managed to polish off the rest of the Meth Chicken by 4:33. I guess we’ll have to figure out “plan B” for dinner.