Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Good morning crew,

I'm a fan of chicken wings. It's a weakness.

My favorite way to prepare them is to brine them in salt water for 30 or 40 minutes, give them a good rinse, and rub them with olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and cayenne (and maybe garlic powder if I'm feeling kinky).

Then I bake them, covered in foil, at 300 degrees for about 45 minutes. This is just to raise the interior temperature, because the denouement is five or ten minutes on a hot grill to get the skin nice and brown and crispy.

Unfortunately for me this is a bit of a process, and when it's 45 degrees outside it is inconvenient to pull the grill out and fire it up. So it has been a while since I have had any good chicken wings.

This was kind of in the back of my mind when the wife came home from her weekender last Sunday afternoon and announced she hadn't eaten anything all day. It didn't take too much discussion to settle on going out for wings.

The problem is that there aren't really any good places in my neighborhood for chicken wings.

But there is one place. A place I haven't been to in probably a good ten years. And there is a reason for that. The wings are... "questionable" might be a good word for it. "Disreputable" might be a better one.

I don't want to put myself in a vulnerable or liable position, so I will only say that the name begins with an 'H' and ends with 'ooters' and is usually associated with owls and waitresses in short-shorts and tank tops that are 2 sizes too small.

They say time heals all wounds, so maybe after ten years the trauma had subsided into a subconscious apprehension, but while driving there I kept making alternative suggestions to the wife. "We could go for pasta if you want," I said, "or sushi if you're more in the mood for that."

"No," she told me, "if you want chicken wings I'm fine with it."

Getting out of the truck in the parking lot the aroma of boiling grease swept over us and my mouth began to water involuntarily. When you're really hungry nothing smells better than deep frying.

Inside the place it wasn't quite so appetizing. There the smell was overwhelming, and it was augmented by the sickly sweet smell of that sauce they cover everything in. But hunger drove me on and soon we were seated at the bar and ordering.

I decided to be conservative and only ordered ten wings along with french fries. The wife, demonstrating a keener ability to think critically than I have, ordered a chicken breast sandwich.

The place was packed so it took about 45 minutes for our order to be served, and when those wings were placed in front of me I thought nothing ever looked so good.

The first wing was succulent and delicious. The breading savory and the sauce nice and spicy but not too hot to distract from the flavor of the food.

The second wing was still pretty good.

The third wing was ok.

By the fourth wing the food had started to cool all I could taste was grease. I began to notice that the breading was saturated with it and the remaining wings were sitting in a coagulating pool of fat, swirled with the bright red hot sauce which suddenly seemed to taste like nothing more than vinegar.

I ate the fifth wing purely from momentum, but after that the gurgling in my stomach precluded the consumption of even one more morsel.

The doughy mass seemed to be expanding inside of me. I felt so uncomfortable I didn't even finish my last beer, and that's saying something.

I asked for the last five wings to go and hustled the wife out the door, because things were starting to happen that I was going to need lots of privacy for.

The drive home was tricky. I was pretty much in crisis management mode at that point. It was a near thing, but I made it. And the wife, bless her heart, passed up on several golden opportunities to have some well-deserved fun at my expense.

Well, at least I got it out of my system (no pun intended), so I should be good for at least another ten years.

And those leftover wings? Still sitting in the fridge where I left them Sunday night.

Garbage day is Friday.

Laugh it up,

Joe

joe@gophercentral.com

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"Scientists believe they may have found a plant that is over a billion years old. Turns out it's the lettuce on a Carl's Jr. burger." -Conan O'Brien

***
"Today is the first day of spring! Yep, it's that day when millions of Americans look at their bodies in the mirror and ask, 'Can we get, like, two more months of winter?'" -Jimmy Fallon

***
"A Canadian woman last week proposed to her boyfriend at a hockey game with a bouquet of Doritos made to look like roses. It even spawned a new flavor - Nacho Boyfriend Anymore." -Seth Meyers

***
A man is sitting in a fancy restaurant when his food finally arrives at his table. As the plate is being served the man notices the waiter has his thumb resting on the edge of his steak.

"Umm, excuse me," the man says, "but I couldn't help but notice you had your thumb on my steak."

"Yes, I know, sir," the waiter responds, "but I didn't want to drop it again."




*-------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes --------------*
Every ten years, the monks in the monastery are allowed to break their vow of silence with two words. Ten years go by and it's one monk's first chance to speak. He thinks for a while before saying, "Food bad."

Ten years later, he says, "Bed hard."

A decade later and it's the big day again. He gives the head monk a long stare and finally says, "I quit."

"I'm not surprised," the head monk says. "You've been complaining ever since you got here."