Holy cow, It's the chicken!!!

Had a few fun crowds over for a dinner party last Saturday night, a nice meal to the souls after what had just transpired for many days with the wind storm, power outage and all that adventurous good jazz. The curry chicken came away the star of the evening, as it had surprisingly left a long, tantalizing aftertaste with some of us. At a request of a friend I decided to compose my first written recipe, as well in memory to the warm food, the fun night, and the good company that we had.

Disclaimer: This is a personal (thus experimental) recipe, after years of growing up eating and loving curry anything. The author is not responsible to any damage done to the gut, to the taste buds, or to any change in bowl movements.

--------------------------------------------
How to make curry chicken (for a party of 10)

4 bags of chicken drummette
2 onions + 2 potatoes
1 bottle (2.2 oz) of Private Selection mild curry powder
1 bottle (2.2 oz.) of Spice Islands Thai seasoning
1 bottle (2.2 oz) of Spice Islands Turmeric seasoning
1 can (5.6 oz) of Thai coconut milk
4 TBS of fiesta chili powder
2 TBS of olive cooking oil
Safeway Italian seasoning/basils

1. Boil the chicken drummette, slice the onions, skin and dice the potatoes into chunks.

2. Pour in the olive oil, stir-fried the onions slices in high heat until the color changes to mild yellow, and then add to onions the drummette.

3. Pour in about 2 (or more) TBS of the curry powder, and stir-fry (~3 minutes?) the drummette until they all shine like the sand nuggets. Turn the stove down to medium heat, add in 2 TBS of Thai seasoning, 2 TBS of Turmeric, and 2 TBS of chili powder; continue to stir-fry the wok until you smell the flavors in full.

4. Pour in the whole can of coconut milk, lightly stir the wok as the milk begins to boil so it doesn’t get stuck into a thick layer and burned. Add a bowl of water and the potato chunks, cover with the lid and let it boil for 20 minutes in low medium ~ medium heat. At that point you should easily break the potatoes as they melt into a thick sauce with the rest.

5. Add salts as you wish, or more spice seasoning. You can also splash some Italian seasoning or basils to the sauce; either of which gives off a very exotic fragrance to the whole smell.

6. Serve well with rice, not a dish for the fainted-hearts!

Do I have what it takes?

I was at Seattle Town Center this past Friday night with Chris McNeece, Matt Randall, and my housemate Jimmy listening to the McLellan/O’Donnell Living History Series, sponsored by The Seattle Public Library. The night featured humanity scholar Clay Jenkinson as Theodore Roosevelt, delivering an unscripted monologue as Roosevelt himself. It was a very impressive show (so much better too that it was free), and I was especially mesmerized by this particular quote in the end.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

It pretty much says it all; no need to elaborate any further. What is in a man can only be known in the battlefield, both to himself and to the others. The king has drawn the sword and asked his legions to follow closely behind…and have we just crossed the point of no return?