Food on a Sunday Afternoon

I see that I have never had a "food" tag before. I guess the only time I have talked about food on the blog was when I was visiting Madrid. But a lot of musicians are secret foodies, myself included. Yesterday I roasted a chicken, which I often do on a Sunday afternoon. I have been trying some new recipes lately, but the one yesterday really came out great:

Click to enlarge

Roast chicken is really a very simple thing to make and it is an excellent accompaniment to a good wine. It was a warm day, so instead of opening a red, which I would usually do, I opened this:

I am not the biggest fan of Italian whites, which seem to lack flavor when vinfied bone dry, but I've always liked Orvieto, especially the slightly off-dry version called Orvieto Abbocato. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it for sale for quite a while. But this was quite nice.

Back to the recipe. A long time ago I roasted a chicken stuffed with garlic and it turned out great. This recipe calls for both lemon and garlic. It's really easy. Just take a whole chicken, rinse it off and dry it thoroughly inside and out. Salt and pepper the interior. Stuff it with a lemon, quartered and two heads (not cloves, heads!) of garlic cut crosswise so as to expose all the cloves. Tie the legs up. Put it in a roasting pan surrounded by cut up carrots, small potatoes cut in half and onions. Melt five tablespoons of butter and brush the bird all over. Pour the rest of the butter over the vegetables and bird. Salt and pepper everything. Then roast it in a 400-425 oven for between an hour and an hour and a half. A few months ago a friend gave me a meat thermometer and I don't know how I got along without one! After about an hour, test the chicken by inserting the pointy end deep in between the thigh and the breast. When it reads 165º, the chicken is done. All those other methods are inaccurate and too subjective.

After it is done, remove from the oven and put the chicken on a cutting board. Allow it to rest for fifteen minutes. While it is resting, put the roasting pan with the vegetables back in the oven for fifteen minutes to finish them. That's it. Carve the bird and serve with the vegetables and a good wine. This will go with absolutely any wine and vice versa.

• aged Pauillac
• Riesling
• Chardonnay
• Malbec from Argentina
• Rioja
• Ribera del Duero
• any of the fine premium wines from Torres like Celeste, which is from the Ribera del Duero

You name it! But please, nothing in a box!