comfort food

allright already! i've been busy. cooked up a storm on saturday and had 15 people over to my house and got my taxes done somewhere in between. then sunday was off to the laker game and that took up most of the day, which means i didn't get my customary weekend nap until like 5 pm on sunday! boooooo.

anyway, comfort food, huh? well, i thunk on it for a while and, truly, the reason this is so late in coming was i was having a hard time deciding what to pick. should it be a restaurant? something that i cook? something that someone else cooks? anyway, i was almost ready to post with grilled cheese and tomato soup, but it just wasn't sitting right with me. and that was because fried chicken was somewhere in the back of my brain, a-peck-peck-peckin' on my skull: "don't forget about me!"

so that's it. it has to be fried chicken for me. i will eat almost any kind of fried chicken, even kfc, just to scratch that fried chicken itch. and i love me some popeye's, but that's probably more to do with the association with new orleans...and the fact i can get red beans and rice as a side and wash it down with a strawberry soda. and then there are some good chicken places in l.a., e.g. dinah's and roscoe's and the sadly closed gagnier's.

but the absolute best is homemade. and this is the exact thing i'm thinking of when i think of comfort food...i can see the drumstick in my mind. it was my absolute favorite growing up. it was always the special meal i requested for my birthday dinner. and the funny thing is, i can't make it. oh, sure, i can make fried chicken, but it's not the same as my mom's. i apparently did not get the fried chicken gene. no matter how hard i try, i cannot get the same texture (almost grainy or sandy in some places, and definitely not "battered") and color (golden to dark amber) on the crust as mom. can't. cannot. many a chicken has given its life in my pursuit of producing that drumstick. i have tried to replicate the exact conditions (farberware skillet, flour in a produce bag, crisco or wesson oil), no deal. i've purchased hundreds of dollars worth of fancy pans, no difference. tried all manner of different types of oil, not so much. tried different recipes (alton brown's 17 step process), nothing doin'.

so, mom, when can i come over for some fried chicken?