GRACE AND GRAVITY

by Baylee Teaster

Step 1: Thaw

Thaw the raw, frozen 6.5 lb chicken. 

I made this recipe on a Sunday in October, in the house we moved into in May. I gravitated toward the kitchen when the house was quiet, which it frequently was, and now you can find me in there more times than not. This is all good and fine, as the only things I have going on are working from home, taking the dog out, and waiting for my almost-fiancé, Jason, to get home from work. 

This isolation is no fault but my own, as I went and fell in love with a great man who just happened to live in Maryland. If only I could blame it on my family, who are all from Tennessee, cut right out of the Smokies with a deep love for cornbread and buttermilk. But my blood seems to pull me there too, whispering home every chance it gets. That was the plan, after all. Graduate school in DC and then back home. So, it was a big deal when, after a few weeks of knowing Jason, I said to a friend, “I’d stay in Maryland for him.” 

And now, to combat any loss of Appalachian self, I try to relive moments from my childhood. Where both parents were alive and well, and the mountains towered high over our house, nestled sweetly in an East Tennessee valley. I do what we used to. I garden, I bake, I cook. I listen to my mom’s favorite music. I crochet like she used to. Cooking was not her favorite activity, and it’s not mine either. But I find myself eager to learn the recipes that my grandmothers made or the ones the ladies at church brought for potlucks in the fellowship hall. The recipes that my mother never attempted in the cookbook she always used, Dining with the Pioneers. To understand how many ways I can use the vegetables grown in summer, whether they sprouted in Maryland or not. 

I have become adventurous in my culinary endeavors, but I have not reached any kind of normal speed. My working theory is that I read too many recipes and watch too many tutorials, leaving me overinformed and exhausted, a flour-dusted zombie. And on this particular Sunday, while Jason was at work and my family five hundred miles away, I decided to roast a whole chicken for the first time.

Step 2: Prep

Make the poultry seasoning (store-bought is fine if you don’t have time to kill) and the herb butter. Cut up the carrots you’ll have as a side. 

As the chicken thawed, I ran errands. I went to the grocery store. I bathed the dog. I watched videos about how to cook a chicken. I learned that some people prefer to spatchcock the chicken. I hung onto that. I mean, what a name. What a rich sound in your mouth that makes. Spatchcock. 

In the past six months, I’ve learned how to fill an empty day. I have running lists in my head of tasks to complete, crafts to make, maybe some movies to watch. Activities that are bingeable, where my mind cannot wander. Where I forget that it’s only me here. 

That’s neither here nor there, though. We were talking about the chicken. I put the sliced carrots in the cast iron skillet and the chopped potatoes in a pan with salt, pepper, and garlic cloves. I made the herb butter with a softened stick and fresh rosemary and chives from the backyard. I whipped together a poultry seasoning. I preheated the oven to 425 degrees. It was about six o’clock. 

I needed to get the chicken in the oven by six thirty. 

Step 3: Undress

Remove the plastic casing and the giblets.

This should have been smooth sailing, but the videos didn’t tell me how long a six and a half-pound frozen chicken would take to thaw. I found the bag of giblets still frozen. I’d never even seen a bag of giblets. I tried to pry it away from the skeleton with my fingers. When that didn’t work, I tried a knife. Nothing. I shoved it, open end up, under the scalding faucet water. Nothing. I tried to pry again and felt the giblet bag loosen. Then, the corner of the bag ripped off into my hand. That was it, I had no more time for the giblets. I slapped the chicken on a tower of cutting boards that I stacked earlier in case there was runoff from the defrosting. But this did not stop the ungodly amount of liquid that poured out of the chicken.

It was getting hot, too. Our kitchen is only a square with little ventilation and even less counter space. Your options are the corner in between the oven and the sink, or the edge over the trash can. The corner spot is prime kitchen real estate. And it was in the process of flooding with raw chicken juice. Not to mention, there’s no dishwasher. Everything is done by our thorough hands, hours wasted scrubbing. My hands have never been so cracked. 

Now’s as good a time as any to take a break and let me tell you about this house. It’s eighteen hundred square feet of pure first-home bliss. It has three bedrooms—a master, an office, and a guest room that will make the perfect nursery when the time comes. Down the stairs, a massive basement awaits you with a big brick fireplace and thick 1970s shag. The previous owners installed a beautiful, front-loading Samsung washer and dryer. However, the washer turned out to be broken and we had to make a weekly trip to Jason’s parents’ house for laundry. 

We eventually got a new washer, and we began basement renovations. I spent weeks painting sheets of faux brick plywood that devoured cans of paint. Jason and his friends spent a day ripping up the 1970s shag carpet to reveal a sea of green tile. And then we spent days on our hands and knees scraping it off the floor, only to find out it may or may not have been asbestos tile. We still don’t know, and that’s information I just don’t need. He spent two weeks installing vinyl plank flooring after work. Three weeks or so later, our HVAC started leaking and twice leaked so much that it flowed out under that new vinyl plank. A few more weeks were spent running box fans twenty-four-seven and using our bare feet as squeegees. Not to mention, our refrigerator doesn’t close, there’s no ventilation in any bathroom, the plugs aren’t the ones that stop a shock from running through them, and our screened-in porch is sinking in the middle. 

But boy, do I love this house. It has these hexagon archways that lead down the hall and into the kitchen. It has an en suite full bath. The basement is an entertainer’s dream, complete with the big brick fireplace, just begging to be featured in a Christmas ad. It has a fenced-in yard, which we took advantage of by getting a dog. We gardened in the summer, and I plucked cherry tomatoes, or as I call them, tommy-toes, through November. Jason added three new flower beds. We plan on making a large vegetable garden, just like I had growing up in Tennessee. He wants to expand the shed in the backyard. Eventually, we’ll get to the kitchen, and I’ll get a dishwasher. My only request was a dishwasher before a baby is ever born, and he happily agreed.

But in that moment, that cute kitchen with original 1970s cabinets and laminate counter tops was too small, and it was too hot, and the chicken was still frozen. 

Step 4: Spatchcock 

Use kitchen shears to cut out the backbone of the chicken. Starting from the tail end of the chicken, cut along one side of the backbone, then repeat on the other side to remove the backbone. Keep the cuts as close to the spine as possible.

I’d given up on completely defrosting the bird. It seemed malleable enough. I read the instructions on The Kitchn.com and I pulled up a three-minute YouTube video that explained the process. Spatchcocking is when you remove the backbone of the chicken and then snap the breastbone, so it lays flat. It’s supposed to cut down on cooking time. I’m sure it’s very easy if you have kitchen tools that cost more than the chicken itself. I grabbed my eight-dollar KitchenAid shears and dragged my finger across the spine. I picked it up and flipped it around to gather my bearings, careful not to splash juice anywhere.

As I cut into it, what I could only assume was bone marrow dripped into the carcass. It was red and clotted and not part of the instructional video. Scooping it out was pointless. I let it dangle as I continued.

The three-minute video didn’t give me enough information, but I was too far gone. No time to spend an hour looking for more information. I soldier on, using the dull shears to gnaw through frozen ribs. I paused the video with my wrist. I cut and cut and cut. The counter glistened like a freshly mopped floor.

I was halfway down the first side of the spine when I thought, have I gone too far? Am I cutting into something I’m not supposed to? The guy in the video flew through this, with a lot less goop falling out of the spine. I’d definitely gone too far. I restarted, giving it a wider birth. The bones were still frozen, and the crunch didn’t come easy, but I didn’t stop again. I get to the end of the first side. I flipped the bird and cut the other way. 

The end neared, and I was out the other side in no time. After chucking the spine into a bowl, I wiggled out the giblet bag from between the ribs and threw it in, too. I didn’t know if I should save them for chicken stock. Are giblets fair game in the stock world? And how much time was left? It was 7:15 p.m., and there was no way I’d finish this for dinner. He’d be starved when he got off work, and my head had already turned blood-sugar-dropping fuzzy. 

“Pizza for dinner,” I texted him.

“Sounds great! Be there at eight.”

“I need you to help with this stupid chicken when you get here.”

I put the chicken in a pan and shoved it in the fridge. I did the same with the herb butter. It took half a roll of Aldi paper towels to soak up the chicken juice off the counter. I wiped it all down with Clorox wipes. I wiped it off again. I washed the cutting boards, the KitchenAid shears, the plates and forks and knives that aided me in my dissection. I washed the cutting boards again. I cut off the oven. I sat down, and I was furious. I’d spent hours preparing, and all I had to show was a raw chicken. 

When Jason got home, he put the spine in the bag with old frozen rotisserie bones and threw out the giblet bag. He cut the pizza and washed the plates. He tucked me in on the couch and we spent the evening as we always do, cuddled up in front of the TV. And I could breathe. 

Step 5: Brine

In a large pot, add enough water to cover the chicken. Then, add ¼ cup sugar, ¼ cup kosher salt, 2 bay leaves, 4 garlic cloves, and 1 tablespoon black peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Once sugar and salt have dissolved, take off heat. Let cool completely and add the chicken. Refrigerate for 8 hours, or as long as you can. 

A good sleep and some space from the chicken did me good. Between work meetings, I watched more videos. I came to the decision it would be best to put the chicken in a brine to preserve whatever juice it had left.

Chicken brine, I learned, is just like pickle juice, minus the vinegar. I’d gone through a pickle phase in the summer when our cucumbers went berserk. Pickling is subjective with a million different ways to do the same thing. Not my favorite thing, but better than spatchcocking. I found a recipe online and tweaked it to my liking. 

When Jason got home from work, I convinced him to go shopping with me. This was a mistake. Before I know it, I’m watching the clock turn to 7:00 p.m. on the microwave with a raw chicken between my palms.

Step 6: Season

Pat the chicken dry. Put the herb butter under the skin. Season with poultry seasoning.

The only fight left at this point was the fight with myself. Tired and hungry, I wanted to throw the chicken in the garbage. It would take too long, and was too much work, and why do we even need to eat it? It seemed like a toddler had hijacked my twenty-seven-year-old mind. The adult in me only regained power by thinking of the waste of money it would be to throw it all away. So, I dug the pot out of the fridge and reacquainted myself with dinner.

It had soaked for three hours or so, and I hoped none of those were in vain. After the bird was dry, I clawed out the now-solidified herb butter with my fingernails and shoved it under the chicken’s skin. I smothered it. I covered every inch of the outside with poultry seasoning. And there she was in front of me, dressed and ready. I’d climbed the mountain, somehow or another.

Step 7: Enjoy

Eat the bird.

She cooked in an hour and a half or so. I couldn’t tell you exactly. Jason was the one to pull it out and carve it up. But I will say, it was incredible. It was moist and dripping with flavor.

I had done everything right, which I didn’t expect. I expected a dry chicken that we had to throw out or an underdone one that forced us to call out of work the next day. I never expected to be good at cooking; it was only supposed to be a time-filler. But here was proof that I’d spent more hours in that kitchen than I realized. 

Jason washed all the dishes that night and packed up the leftovers. I couldn’t stand to be in that room for another second. I sat in the living room and called my dad, and he told me about his golf game the day before and how he couldn’t get his putting just right. I told him all about the chicken, and he said, “Sounds good. I didn’t feel like cookin’ tonight. We had Burger King.”

This made me laugh. My dad only makes a handful of recipes anyway, burgers being one of them. He often opts to grab food from the nearest place, which I cannot blame him for. The man is seventy-five and still golfs regularly, there’s only so much energy to go around. But recently I’ve found that I don’t look forward to eating a meal at a restaurant or trying the new fast-food craze. I want to eat at home. 

Although I miss my family immensely, I long for the days when Maryland feels as much like home as Tennessee. But the truth is, if I’d gone back to that valley, I’d never be able to cook a roast chicken. My green thumb would have never developed, and I’d be half missing. Maybe I’ll get back to Tennessee one day, fully cooked and settled in myself, and I’ll be able to enjoy the blue shadow of the Smokies. But for now, I’ll be here, brining in the Bay.

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Baylee Teaster received her MFA from American University and works as a technical writer. She draws inspiration from Appalachia, the stories her father told her as a child, as well as her own personal experiences with life and loss.