I’m sorry I’ve been so uncommunicative!

Frankly, my life, usu­ally so pleas­ant, has been fraught with unpleas­ant dra­mas of late and I could find absolutely no moti­va­tion to relive any of it by writ­ing it down.  For exam­ple, have you ever lived in a house that was on the mar­ket, and so your life was invaded at reg­u­lar inter­vals by real­tors and the peo­ple that they thought might like to replace you?  And the tidy­ing up of every con­ceiv­able cor­ner that this entails, not to men­tion not wait­ing to take a shower till you feel like it because some­one will walk in on you, clean­ing the lit­ter­boxes TWICE a day and then watch­ing your cats be tor­mented by vis­i­tors and their badly behaved chil­dren?  Not to men­tion… where will we live if the house is sold?

Unpleas­ant­ness.  The fact that we absolutely adore our land­lords only makes it more unpleasant.

The only pleas­ant things, really, have been com­ing up with sev­eral new ways to play with a chicken, and a grand, sim­ply spec­tac­u­lar play.

So let’s con­cen­trate on those.

Chicken.  It’s far too easy to buy it as it so often appears, all cut up in con­ve­nient shapes and unrec­og­niz­able from its orig­i­nal self.  Or even more removed from nature, those bone­less, skin­less chicken breasts that leave me 1) won­der­ing where the bones and skins are, and 2) feel­ing sad that almost cer­tainly no one made soup out of them.  Or if some­one did, it was in a lonely, ster­ile chicken fac­tory where noth­ing is “carved,” it’s “mechan­i­cally sep­a­rated.”  Yuck.

Why not, instead, buy a whole chicken and appre­ci­ate every sin­gle bit of it?

Buy the best chicken you can afford so as to encour­age proper treat­ment of the birds and dis­cour­age bat­tery chick­ens.  Bring the chicken home and slice off the breasts and chop off the whole legs.  Put what’s left of the chicken in a big pot, add some car­rots, onions, cel­ery and what­ever herbs you have around — espe­cially if they’re fresh but not at their best — and quite a bit of good salt.  If you don’t want the skin on the breasts, pull that off and put it in the pot too.  Sim­mer as long as you like, but at least three hours, squash­ing the chicken car­cass with a heavy spoon when­ever you get the chance, break­ing it up and releas­ing all its goodness.

Noth­ing spells com­fort like the aroma of sim­mer­ing chicken soup.  Nothing.

Quite a lot of golden fat will rise to the top as the soup cooks.  Don’t worry.  You can use that too.

When you think the chicken soup has cooked enough, strain it through a sieve into another pot and throw away what’s left behind.  Refrig­er­ate — or put it on your win­try win­dowsill — overnight.  When you see it next day, the fat will have hard­ened and you can scrape it away with a spoon, reveal­ing the rich chick­eny jelly under­neath.  Mmm, I’m get­ting hun­gry just think­ing about it.

Save the chicken fat to saute pota­toes in.  I also won­der if it would be nice spread on a piece of toast, as British peo­ple do with beef fat, which they call “drip­ping.”  I know some of you dear read­ers will absolutely go apoplec­tic over the idea that I would encour­age you to eat fat, but I agree whole­heart­edly with the great Nigel Slater who says, “Fat I can see is won­der­ful.  It’s the fat I can’t see that makes me ner­vous.”  I feel the same about sugar.  Hid­den any­thing is bad.

Now for the breasts and legs.  Cut them up into bite-size chunks and make:

Sauteed Chicken Car­bonara with Aspara­gus and Broccoli

(serves four)

1 cup/240 ml light/single cream

1/2 cup/120 ml half-fat creme fraiche

1 egg yolk

lots of fresh black pepper

enough spaghetti for 4 — per­haps 1/2 lb

1 head broc­coli, cut into florets

dozen or so spears asparagus

1 tbsp olive oil

the meat of a chicken

sprin­kling of Fox Point Sea­son­ing or other savoury blend

1 cup grated Pecorino or Parme­san cheese

Mix the creams, egg and pep­per.  Steam the broc­coli and aspara­gus and place in a large serv­ing bowl, big enough for the whole dish.  Boil the spaghetti and add about 1/4 of the pasta cook­ing liq­uid to the cream sauce.  Mix thoroughly.

Sea­son the chicken and saute it in the olive oil until thor­oughly but not over­cooked.  Add the cooked, drained pasta, the steamed veg­eta­bles and the sauce and toss thor­oughly, over a TINY heat if you think it needs it.  Do not really cook the sauce or the egg will scramble.

Serve with plenty of cheese to sprin­kle on top.  The cheese is really nec­es­sary for that salty, savoury kick, as the dish itself is very sim­ple.  Gorgeous.

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This dish has it all: plenty of pro­tein, plenty of winter-defying greens, the com­fort of pasta and a light, creamy sauce to bind it all together.

And it’s pretty to look at.  Good enough for com­pany, I would say.

Espe­cially if your com­pany is as enter­tain­ing as my friends the Carterets who came with their three lit­tle girls last week.  My favorite bit of con­ver­sa­tion?  The mother, Sara, said, “Here’s a con­ver­sa­tion starter for you.  Where, 20 years ago, did you think you would be today, and what would you be doing?”  We dis­cussed all this for awhile — I never thought I’d be a mother, and I was sure I’d still be a pro­fes­sor — and finally Sara said, “Well, I’m exactly where I thought I’d be, and doing exactly what I thought I’d be doing.  I just never dreamed it would be this BORING!”

Another bright spot in my gloom was a series of texts I received one morn­ing last week­end.  The first one: “So why have you gone so quiet on me today?”  From a totally unknown num­ber.  The sec­ond one: “I’m begin­ning to think you don’t care.”  Just as I was about to reply in igno­rance, a third text arrived.  “Nick will be out all day, so please call and text as much as you can.”  Whoa!  I texted back, “Who is this?”  Preg­nant silence.  Then a lit­tle beep.  “Wrong number.”

The drama!  Who is the hap­less Nick, and who the phi­lan­der­ing texter?

Since my life con­tains such excite­ment only by mis­take, let’s get back to that chicken I want you to buy.  If you are lucky enough to have a butcher you can rely on — and lord knows, in Amer­ica that is a rar­ity out­side the really big cities — waltz in there and say air­ily, “I’d like you to bone a chicken for me.”  Then watch and be amazed.

My butcher took a large whole chicken, whipped out a very slen­der, sharply tapered knife, and in lit­tle more than two min­utes, removed every smitch of bone from it, turn­ing it this way and that and toss­ing the bones into a pile, then shaped and cajoled the ugly flat thing back into the shape of a chicken, ask­ing, “Do you want the bones?”  I felt I would be soundly slapped if I said no, and in any case I did.  So I got the bones, and a limp chicken-shaped squishy thing to bring home.

And on the advice of my deli­cious friend Elis­a­beth, I came home and pro­duced, in no more than 40 minutes;

Bone­less Roast Chicken

(serves 4 with plenty of leftovers)

whole boned chicken

1/4 cup/2 ounces butter

hand­ful flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped

hand­ful fresh thyme, chopped

2 cloves gar­lic, minced

splash of white wine

sea salt and pep­per to taste

Lay the chicken flat, skin-side up, in a large bak­ing dish.  Sim­ply melt the but­ter and mix it with every­thing else, then pour over the chicken.  Roast at 425F/220C for 40 minutes.

A whole roasted chicken in a quar­ter, LESS, of the time it takes to roast a chicken with bones.  Bril­liant.  And you get the bones for SOUP.

Finally, when you’ve eaten lots of com­fort­ing Eng­lish and Amer­i­can fla­vors in the gray win­ter time and you need a bit of spic­ing up, why not com­bine the meat of the two chicken breasts with any other meat you have in your freezer — a steak, a pork chop, veal or lamb or duck — slice it all thinly and make:

Chicken and Beef Stir-Fry With Roasted Peanuts, Mixed Veg­eta­bles and Gin­ger

(serves 4)

2 chicken breasts, skin removed, sliced thin

1 sir­loin steak, sliced thin

1/3 cup/80 ml good dark soy sauce

good glug toasted sesame oil

good glug Mirin (Japan­ese rice wine)

6 cloves gar­lic, minced

1 red pep­per, cut into chunks

1 small head broc­coli, cut into florets

2 hand­fuls sugar snap peas, cut in half

2 car­rots, sliced as you like

bas­mati rice, steamed

3 tbsps peanut/groundnut oil

large knob gin­ger, peeled and sliced thickly

1 cup raw peanuts

chili flakes to gar­nish, if desired

Place the chicken and beef in a medium bowl and add the soy, oil and Mirin, sprin­kle with gar­lic and stir well.  Set aside to mar­i­nate while you pre­pare the veg­eta­bles and steam the rice.

Now, with 1 tbsp of the peanut oil in a large fry­ing pan, fry the gin­ger slices until lightly browned.  Remove to a large bowl.  Add the peanuts to the hot fry­ing pan and roast until slightly browned but not burned.  Remove with a slot­ted spoon and place in the large bowl.

Add the fur­ther 2 tbsps peanut oil to the fry­ing pan and cook the veg­eta­bles gen­tly, cov­er­ing with a large lid to steam them a bit.  When they are ten­der, remove them to the large bowl.

Pour the mar­i­nated chicken and beef into the fry­ing pan and cook until JUST cooked, not tough.  Add all the other ingre­di­ents and toss over a high heat till hot through.

Serve with the bas­mati rice and sprin­kle with chili flakes if you like a bit of heat.

DEL­ISH.  And so pretty, and so good for you.

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In the brief moments at my dis­posal when I was not bon­ing a chicken, I went to a delight­ful play, “An Ideal Hus­band” by the inim­itable Oscar Wilde.  Go before it closes on the 26th!  It was one of those after­noons when we all would rather have stayed home, and why it is good to buy tick­ets in advance so we’re shamed into going out of the house.  It’s beau­ti­fully cast, hilar­i­ously writ­ten, very well-acted.  All the clas­sic Wilde bits: the man with a past, the let­ter to a mis­taken recip­i­ent, the req­ui­site annoy­ing French­man with an unbe­liev­ably fruity accent.  And the cos­tumes!  Oh my.

Well, you’ve suc­ceeded in cheer­ing me up.  Just reach­ing out and being bossy about chick­ens has helped.  And the copi­ous amounts of chicken soup didn’t hurt.