What do you say when....

M

Marg CDN

Well-known member
your friend is sitting at the bar as you wiggle the roasting chicken leg to see that the bird is done. It's done. She asks how long it has been in the oven..."an hour and 15" (my standard roasting time). "Oh no", she says " it won't be done. I always cook mine for 2 1/2 hours. I like it falling off the bone."

I grimace, knowing that she is not a good cook and what she does is always overdone. And is not open to suggestions. In fact, another poor friend actually gagged on her roast beef once. I turned off the oven anyway and left the bird in there. I try it again in 10 minutes and get the same reaction from her. I wasn't too concerned about it getting overcooked as I had inserted a lemon into the cavity and it had slightly bigger boobs than most.

But it was time to get going with this bird.

So what do you say to someone who responds this way? I really didn't say a thing but it will happen again.

BTW, the chicken was once of the most perfectly-cooked, I had ever done. The breast was so juicy.

 
and here's another. Why is it that people won't eat the flavourful juicy skin of the breast but

are thrilled to eat the leg with all the skin?

 
Raising hand here...I think the skin on the breast is thicker and I will

only eat it if it is very crispy. The skin on the leg seems thinner and it doesn't bother me. I'm really not a fan of chicken skin on the breasts. There is nothing more criminal than over cooked chicken....or anything for that matter. Did she like the chicken?

 
"...had slightly bigger boobs than most."

I want this engraved on my headstone.

To your question: I would have inserted a thermometer, told her the standard temperature for roasted chicken is (blah-blah) and--if she gave her standard rebuttal--would have walked out of the room and returned with 16 cookbooks, set them down in front of her and shown her the proof.

My MIL used to put chicken/turkey/pork/roasts in a 9:00 AM and we would eat them at 6:00 PM. When she was cooking, I would just gnaw on old shoe leather to whet my appetite.

 
Marg, I think your friend was trying to demonstrate to you that she is a good cook...

My thought is that she is a lil insecure and impressed (as she should be) w/ your culinary skills, and is just trying to interject her thoughts / knowledge and let you know that she can also cook......

You handled it well. ((Smile, then do what you need to do!))

I hope she never invites you over for her roast beef! : )

 
Actually, that is a constant concern among a few of us. We get invited for dinner, and that's

lovely because we like her. But sometimes things are inedible and you just have to get them down. And she always asks if we like the food.

She makes martinis by doing gin vermouth 1:1. She just won't hear that this is not quite the way it's done so we secretly add more gin when she isn't looking. She probably wonders why everyone else is tipsy.

 
I guess that was what I was demonstrating, by saying nothing. See her response

to that would be that I'm wrong. And despite any number of cookbooks.

I guess I feel uncomfortable at not offering my guests food they way they want it. My problem.

 
I dunno. She picked at it. Didn't eat the beautiful crispy herby skin but said how much she liked

the braised fennel. Honestly, I don't often get a chicken roasted perfectly so it kinda broke my little heart to see her push that piece of meat around.

 
I think if you want to be around this person, you are going to have to

put on the "ignore" button on her eating/cooking habits.

I have a whole group of my family that I have to do that with. smileys/bigsmile.gif

 
I think part of the joy of eating at other people's houses is learning how they do things. I've

been staying with friends and basically avoiding a lease for a while now. It's been an eye opening experience, seeing what people eat, favorite foods, condiments etc. One friend is an awesome cookie baker. I had no idea. Another friend makes family dinner every night and is also a home cocktail afficianado. He also introduced me to some interesting spices. I'd seen them in the grocery store and never bought them. Now I'm obsessed! Another friend eats the most beautiful salads with every meal. From her I learned how easy it can be. And her kids ... 6 and 3 years old eat salads without a fuss every day too. It's a learning opportunity for everyone. (Especially when I polished off a friend's ice cream and went to replace it. $8?!?! For fancy ice cream from the grocery store? I nearly passed out!)

 
Yep, you're wrong there. They are coming to your home to eat

your food cooked the way you like it. And when you go to their home you will eat their food cooked the way they like it. If you can't enjoy cooking for her why do it?

 
Either "it will be fine" or "Oh! I'm trying a new recipe: - 20 mins per lb @ 350F"

Which will also be fine (plus easy to remember) and then you can say I want everyone to tell me if they like the doneness as I'm trying a new method -- and if everyone says omg it's perfect...maybe she will take the hint.

 
two stories for you...

1) I went to a friend's house, a friend of a friend actually, we were there to watch a Spike marathon, you know, from Buffy. After drinking wine and hooting at the tv forever, about 2 episodes, she announced she was going to start cooking dinner. It was 8 pm. She pulls out of the fridge a 5+ pound chicken, partially frozen giblets inside, bungs it in a 350 oven and we return to the couch. Not wanting to be the kitchen nazi, as my sister affectionately calls me (and I flip her off mentally for that) I say nothing, but, Oh, I roast mine at 425.

An hour goes by, I'm very tipsy now and starving. Her cat is starting to look good to me. She opens the oven and says it's done!! I look at it, it's paler than me in mid-November. My other friend says, did you take its temperature? She said no and poked the breast with a fork and pink juices flow. I go to the bathroom and ransack my purse for mints. There's no way I'm eating that chicken. In the kitchen, she carves it and the breast is "rosy" as in pink and raw. I ask for a wing thinking it's probably the only part that might be done. It wasn't. My other friend said, it doesn't look done to me and her answer was This is the way I always cook them. And she still lives!!!!
I went home and made pasta a 1 am.

#2, A dear family friend and her husband come to dinner at my parents often, and always at Christmas. Her husband was raised somewhere in New England where you never had heat in the house, bathed once a week and ate highly overcooked things. I used to stay with him and the heat was never on and the bathing thing, well, they were appalled I bathed daily. OMG! But the food, oh my, he wouldn't eat a vegetable if it was crisp tender, it had to be soft enough to cut with the side of a fork without pressure. Potatoes always had to be peeled, even the baby red ones... What... meat had to be cooked beyond well done. One Christmas my fiance and I bought a prime rib, a monster, we cooked it perfectly to rare/medium rare and he asked for it to be cooked properly. And he needed a clean plate because there was blood on it. You would have thought we served him a mooing cow. Then the potatoes were criticized and the green beans. Mom poured more wine, I cut off the other end of the rack and put it back in the oven to cook out to grey, we nuked the green beans into flaccid condition and then my mom actually might have cursed while peeling the 7 baby potatoes... We also drank in the kitchen... He was so happy with his revised plate 20 minutes later, and praised the meal to the heights. We chalked this up to the Spirit of Christmas giving... And future dinners he got a special plate. I always felt bed ruining the food for his tastes but he liked what he liked and would never ever change.

 
You just say it's your tried and true recipe and if she thinks her piece is undercooked,

you'll cook her piece another 1-1/2 hours...yikes!!

 
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