Letters To Bourdain

Dear Chef Bourdain;

Initial results are on the side of your cookbook being frickin’ amazing. While cooking up some veal stock, I made my first recipe from your book, poulet roti. I’ve roasted a lot of chickens in my day, and I thought Alton Brown’s “40 cloves and a chicken” was about as good as it gets. But this was so simple, so fast, and so amazingly good. Nathan and I had to force ourselves not to bolt the whole thing down when we sat down to eat, or my lovely fiancee would have had none. Eventually we found ourselves refusing to get up from the table, but using buttered bread to sop up the last bits of gravy and jus.

Seriously, Tony, if I can use your first name – that was some goddamn delicious chicken. The recipe is so easy, the ingredients so readily available, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t have this sonnet of chickeny deliciousness all the time – but if this little project does anything to sing the praises of your methods, maybe I’ll have gotten us a little closer to a world full of perfect roasted chickens. We took pictures and videos, so you can see at least the beautiful golden brown of the skin, the deep amber of the gravy, and the ridiculousness of following your instructions about pre-cooking chicken-yoga. I’ll post all those soon enough, but what you’re missing is the divine aroma and the piquant, deep, complex flavor of the chicken. But what am I saying – it’s your cookbook, of course you’ve had it!

Thanks for an amazing meal, Chef Bourdain. More details to follow!

Davy

P.S. The stock turned out quite well, too!

P.P.S.: Here’s a picture of the finished chicken, resting before we made the gravy.

Chicken of the gods