Sunday Dinner

I did something odd last night.   It was something that I hadn’t done in quite a while.  I went out for a fried chicken dinner.   I hadn’t had real fried chicken in about 5 years.   I’m excluding chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, and all that various crap that restaurants get pre-made.   I’m talking about honest to goodness fried pieces of chicken.   I had a breast and a thigh.

I think that the last time I had real fried chicken was in 2006.   I made it myself then.   I used to make fried chicken from time to time, but have mostly stopped because of its general unhealthiness.   I really like it though.   There was a time when my family’s Christmas dinner was fried chicken.   It was a tradition that we only had a few years, but it was awesome while it lasted.

I decided last night that I was finally going to go try this little place that I knew served fried chicken.   I had driven past it lots of times, but never stopped in.    The place is called The Cider Mill - Fryer Tuck’s Chicken.   There is a certain vibe that some places give off that just makes me tingle, like a tuning fork.    As soon as I walked in the door I knew I was going to love the place.   It was dark; it was old; it seemed like the walls had been exposed to years of grease.   It was the kind of place that was going to have great fried chicken.

My wife and I ordered the 2 person family dinner which came with 4 pieces of chicken, Little John Spuds, a roll, and coleslaw.   I also had a beer which came in a mason jar.   As I dug into the chicken it was like heaven.   It was super hot and had just the right amount of residual grease.   I watched my wife carefully pull away some of the skin and prop her pieces up to try and drain them a little bit.  

I pointed to the skin and said, “Are you going to eat that?”

She just glared at me.

I tore through my breast and thigh.   I picked the little pieces of fried breading away from the bones.   My hands were covered in grease.   I tried to use my napkin but it was useless against the sticky oils.  I ate every bit of my chicken and then picked over my wife’s left overs.   It was so good.   I’m considering going back for lunch today.