Emchap's Shit from the Internet 12/15/21 🍠
The last few holiday periods have been Weird for me (and I’m sure just me); a plague did not in fact improve my already complicated feelings about things. But I have been trying to find small dumb festive things where I can. (Shoutout to the Charlie Brown Christmas album, a real one.)
Most of these involve light; particularly since moving to a city that is best described as Professionally Gloomy, I’ve been craving warm lamps and weird little corners of my condo to nest in. It’s been nice; as much as it annoys me that I can trick myself into feeling a little cozier with like, socks and an Ikea lamp I got for $40 off of Facebook, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.
Last night I did manage to engage in two activities I enjoy very much: I roast a chicken and I baked something. (In this case, a variety of cookies.) (Also I want to be clear there was also broccoli, I do make vague gestures at health now and then.) Though there are many valid reasons not to eat meat (and I didn’t for 15 years), I will say that returning to doing so has allowed me the very great pleasure of making my house smell like roasting chicken, and it ticks every dumb little animal box in my brain. Fat! Protein! Salt! Warm!
(Plus it’s the sort of thing that people find impressive when you do it for them, despite it being objectively not all that hard, since the instructions are basically “brine in some way” and “put it in the oven,” with optional step 3 of “specifically buy an oven that’s going to make the skin crisp.”)
Tonight I’m baking up the rest of the cookies I have. I’m a bit annoyed—there was a Peppermint Incident with my checkerboards—but it is good to have something warm and silly and tactile to do right now. It’s a nice reprieve.
Shit to read
Hater’s guide! Hater’s guide! Most wonderful time of the year!
Fuck yeah, good on the Wirecutter team.
Well I don’t feel great about this.
I have gotten through maybe 20 minutes of the SATC revival and WOOF.
I love this crow story so much.
This story about how a member of Blink-182 accidentally told everyone he had cancer and what came after is remarkably heartwarming.
I enjoyed this piece on Patricia Highsmith, chaos agent.
Shit to eat
Buy a chicken
Fail to plan to do anything with the chicken
Freeze the chicken
Look up “how long chicken thaw”
Two days before you need it, put it into the crisper drawer that you put all your meat in.
A day before you need it, take it out. Cover it with salt and let it sit for 30 minutes.
When that’s done, fill a big plastic bag, such as the one the chicken came in, with yogurt and a tablespoon of your saltier salt because you can never find Diamond kosher.
Probably remember to take the sack of chicken viscera out of the carcass. I have never once remembered to do this.
Pop the de-viscera-ed chicken into the bag. Smoosh the yogurt around it.
Back in the fridge for a day.
Take it out, scrape the goop off, and tie its legs together. Take a moment to google “what way chicken cook”, because this is apparently impossible to remember.
Put it with the legs to the back left of the oven at 400 on a convection setting; after 20, drop the heat by 25 degrees and leave it for 10 more minutes.
After that, scoot the pan around so the legs are at the back right of the oven, and leave it for another 30.
Take it out, make sure it’s not going to kill you, and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Impress your loved ones by giving them a hunk of chicken, and enjoy your evening.
(Stolen wholeheartedly from Samin Nosrat’s roast chicken recipe, the GOAT.)
Shit to listen to
The good Christmas song.
Shit to buy
This Omsom packet.
This cool dress.