December 17, 2005
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Happy Birthday to Me
Today is my sixty-fifth birthday. I celebrated by not risking making my cold much worse. I spent most of my day watching movies on television.
Delia and Cathy were both working (despite Delia having a cold worse than mine). It was up to me to fix dinner. I had three Cornish game hens in the refrigerator, so I figured I'd roast them.
Fortune favored me. While doing something else, I spotted a volume of poultry recipes, six of them dedicated to Cornish game hens. All but one required splitting the bird and removing its spine, a task I didn't care to attempt on three birds, so I chose the remaining recipe. It involved smearing a mixture of curry and chili on the birds, inside and out, and popping them in the oven for a short while.
I found chili powder. I improvised a curry from its primary ingredients. I mixed extra virgin olive oil into the dry spices and turned the oven on. I quickly learned that the oil wanted to leave the spices as quickly as possible.
A gummy paste of oil and spices invites problems. The telephone rang. I ignored it. The dog got under foot, demanding attention. I shouted at the dog. The birds kept trying to slip off of the rack. Ignoring these distractions, I managed to smear roughly equal quantities of the messy paste onto and into each bird. Cathy arrived, demanding entrance because she wasn't carrying her keys. I shouted at the door. I then, calmly, washed the gunk off of my hands, unlocked the door without first kicking the dog into oblivion, and deposited the birds on their rack into the waiting oven.
While the birds cooked, Cathy broke out a selection of wines, cheeses, crackers and mushrooms. This was particularly welcome because I had neglected to eat any lunch (I forgot). While the birds, unstuffed, got stewed, I got both stuffed and stewed. There was a white wine (reisling), a red wine and champagne.
Cathy had prepared both potatoes and a pumpkin bread to accompany the hens. When Delia arrived, we served.
Cornish game hens are fat little birds. They are almost as bad as geese. A pound-and-a-half hen produces as much grease as a chicken four times its size. I left the greasy pan and rack for somebody else to clean up.
After all, it is my birthday.
By the way, the birdies were delicious.
Comments (1)
By tradition, we always eat out on our birthdays. I always get a cake bought for me, and we normally eat at...actually, wherever I want to eat. Normally it is Red Lobster, but this year I chose the Old Country Buffet. There is such a range of foods there - and we get no washing up. I never gain weight, no matter how much I eat. It has something to do with my work - I work hard every day. I need to send you an email about that.
I've had an infection lately which I can't seem to shift. It makes me weak. So much for flu shots.
I love Cornish hens. I have spent so much of my life avoiding foods which I though were bad for me. Now I eat everything and never put on an ounce. Go figure.