Put up your dukes, chicken!

The bird in the oven should have been beautiful. It WAS beautiful in the magazine picture accompanying the recipe I was making. But recipe pictures, in my experience, bear little resemblance to actual, finished dishes as created in my kitchen. In the rare event that my version does turn out to look something like that shown with the recipe, I am strongly suspicious that something has gone wrong. 

Yet, those photos are seductive. Just follow these easy, 23-step instructions and you, too, will create a culinary masterpiece and be the envy of everyone. Yes, the envy of various wildlife outside my door, who gather in the hope that if they wait long enough I will toss a ruined meal their way.

But this recipe would be different, I could feel it. A whole chicken, stuffed with vegetables and onions, the encased in yummy homemade dough* and baked to golden perfection.

Perhaps because I had taken a shortcut on the dough**, I felt emboldened to take other liberties, such as refraining from tying the chicken's legs together. And since my dough was **, I used two sheets of ** pie crust dough to cover the chicken. It wasn't pretty, but I wasn't entering it in any contests.

About halfway through roasting, I peeked into the oven. I could see then why the recipe had specified tying the legs together with kitchen twine. They had burst through the dough and were now splayed, facing outward like two guns at the ready.

That was only the beginning. My attempt at joining the two sheets of dough together and creating a seam was evidently not sufficient. The entire bird had broken through its encasing of dough, transforming it into an Incredible Chicken Hulk. With the two legs sticking out like gun-like appendages, the menacing chicken was armed and ready to meet the enemy.

Too bad. It never had a chance against these two hungry humans.

____________

*That's what the recipe said, anyway. 

**Not homemade.

Halloween frights

According to news reports, police in England were called to a gentleman's home to let him know that, according to a neighbor, the Halloween decorations in his yard -- nicknamed Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- were "too scary"  and were "frightening neighborhood children." The surprised man said the display was "just a spot of fun," which proves that a) he had innocent intentions and b) he is definitely British.

But frightening things don't necessarily have to be in our front yards to haunt us this time of year; here are but a few examples that come to mind...

• Anticipating a mouthwatering slice of leftover apple pie, opening the refrigerator to find an EMPTY pie plate, and realizing the Pie Thief has gotten there before you.

• Running out of candy on Halloween just before several large teenagers, their costumes consisting entirely of black smudges beneath their eyes, demand treats at your front door.

• Dreaming that Black Friday is almost over and you've missed the best sales because your consumption of holiday turkey and mashed potatoes has rendered you comatose. 

• Dreaming that the Pie Thief has struck again.

• Waking up to find that he really has. AND that you really have missed Black Friday.

• Looking in the mirror in the morning, wondering why you have your Halloween mask on already, and then realizing you DON'T have your Halloween mask on already.

Luckily, it's all just a spot of fun.

_____________________

Q: How do British chickens cross the road?

A: According to this report, wearing reflective bibs.

Protect the pumpkins

Wanted: Safe, loving adoptive home for adorable pumpkins and gourds, considered by one current owner to be part of the family and by the other to be tolerated until Halloween, and then --

"Then we should eat them," the Hero said.

He strongly believes that objects should have a practical function, not a strictly aesthetic one, although clearly this belief does not extend to his ancient gum ball machine that adorns the family room. Were it functional, anyone who tried the gum balls in it would soon require emergency dental services.

So the adorable pumpkins and gourds we have displayed for fall must, in the end, be useful in some way. Preferably to us, not simply to the wildlife.

I have thought about giving them names, in the hopes that the Hero might see them as pets of sorts and be less inclined to want to consume them. But this will not necessarily save them. How many children growing up on farms have discovered this harsh life lesson?

Mother:  Don't go naming the pigs, now.

Children: Oooo, they're so cute! Let's name this one Chloe, and that one can be Hank.

Mother: DON'T name the pigs.

Children (months later): What are we having for supper, Mama? Hey, where are Chloe and Hank...?

Mother: I TOLD you not to name the pigs.

So that strategy has been shown to be ineffective around those who are determined to have your beloved pet, or pumpkin, on the menu. Besides, the Hero and I tend to bestow names even on squashes that we fully intend to consume, such as our recent butternut-spaghetti squash pair we affectionately dubbed Bert and Ernie.

One day Bert sat on the counter, waiting to be transformed into butternut squash soup.

"Run, Bert!" the Hero said. "Now's your only chance!"

But Bert serenely sat, knowing that he was fulfilling his unique destiny -- that for this moment he had been created. Plus he had been created without any feet, so running was pretty much out anyway.

Ernie still awaits his fate. He too seems serene, although every now and then I seem to catch a bar or two of "On Top of Spaghetti," and I wonder whether Ernie is trying to become like the errant meatball in the song, somehow getting enough momentum to rock and fall off his perch onto the floor -- and eventually roll out the door.

But for the decorative pumpkins and gourds, something drastic is necessary. Like maybe the Witness Protection Program.

3 bedrooms, 2 baths, concrete patch

Any homeowner, whether actively searching for a new home or not, is nevertheless inclined to keep a mental list of features he or she would like in a future home. For example, we live in an old house, and we occasionally remark that it might be nice to live somewhere in which some surface -- any surface -- in the house was level. It also would be nice -- here we know we are dreaming -- to be able to open windows without the use of heavy industrial equipment.

Quite by accident I have discovered an important feature of homes that most of us have likely overlooked. This came to my attention via a new cookbook, which is strictly about vegetables. In addition to recipes the book offers numerous helpful hints, such as "the best thing you can say about a rutabaga is that it is not a turnip." *

In the section on squash, the author acknowledges the difficulty of separating some types of very hard squashes from their skins and inside contents. Some, she warns, "require a cleaver (or an ax) to do the job." For the hardest of squashes, her solemn advice is: "Drop it on a concrete floor or paved driveway."

So here we have a vital piece of information for home-seekers. Obviously the home with a concrete surface offers a considerable advantage over one that does not, at least among those buyers who frequently attack large, unwieldy squashes and need a safe manner of doing so:

Female Buyer (looking at prospective new home): "Oh, Henry, it's PERRRRFECT...but there's no -- if only it had -- even a TINY section of concrete."

Henry (to agent): "I'm sorry, we couldn't think of taking it. Ha ha, you know how it is, with squashes and all..."

Having dispensed its advice, the cookbook does not address the issue of, once the squash is opened, how to scrape the contents off the concrete surface in a relatively hygienic manner. Presumably, once one is proficient at the cracking-open aspect, one knows exactly how much force to apply to pry open the squash but keep the contents intact (something like F = p x hy, where p = the smashing power of two arms held overhead and violently thrown in a downward motion, and hy = "hi-ya!").

An indoor patch of concrete will be particularly important if you are looking to purchase a home in a community with a homeowners' association, which is likely to frown on the use of HOA-owned driveways and streets for the destruction of dinner items. Search the HOA rule book to be sure; you will probably find an Article 3856217, which will state that "Under no circumstances are hard-surfaced Common Areas to be littered with the organic remains of Members' squashes..."

With any luck, however, they won't mention axes or cleavers.

_____

*Personally I think the best thing you can say about a rutabaga is..."rutabaga," because it's just fun to say.

If only he wanted a dog

The Hero enjoys reading and watching tales of people who have persevered through adversity and overcome their difficult circumstances, such as thinking the last vestige of ice cream in the house is gone, only to ferret out one last, freezer-burned mouthful in the carton in the bottom of the freezer.

These inspirational stories sometimes motivate him to make changes in his own life. After I told him about a story I read involving a young man who was paralyzed and his helper monkey, the Hero said thoughtfully, "I think WE should get a monkey."

It was not immediately clear whether one of us would have to be severely injured in order to obtain a monkey.

In a recent survey of Americans, respondents were asked various questions about pets. Of those who said they would like to own an exotic pet, most voted for a tiger or giraffe. 18% said they would like a dinosaur.*

No apparent effort was made by surveyors to ascertain whether respondents believed that dinosaurs are still alive and, therefore, possible candidates for petship. It seems logical to imagine that if they were alive, there would necessarily be rather extensive questionnaires to fill out before one could just be handed a dinosaur to take home:

1. Why do you want to own a dinosaur? Choose all that apply.

A. I want to help bring back a majestic species.

B. I want to set up my own Jurassic Park in the back yard. 

C. It's either that or a goldfish.

2. Where would you house a dinosaur?

A. In the back yard. 

B. In my neighbor's back yard.

C. I was thinking the basement.

D. In my mother-in-law's place.

3. What resources do you have that would enable you to properly care for a pet dinosaur, IF you were granted permission to own one?

A. Lots of trees on my property.

B. A neighbor with lots of trees.

C. A really, really big collar.

D. Five kids to give the dinosaur a bath every month.

4. Do you have any experience disciplining pets?

A. I have two Dobermans, four Rottweilers, a pit bull, and one leg.

B. My pet rock is pretty well behaved.

C. Those five kids I mentioned...

5. Of the names listed below, which would you be most likely to choose for your pet dinosaur, IF you were granted permission to own one?

A. Duke.

B. Methuselah.

C. Flopsy.

D. Anything but Dino. 

So, there could be more awkward pets than a monkey. I'll know it's time to worry if I see a really, really, big collar lying around our house.

*This was the same percentage, incidentally, who said they believe that the Loch Ness monster is real, although there is no evidence of any overlap between these two groups.

Can we just all stop efforting?

Dear Grammar Expert, 

Q: Please tell me that "efforting" is not a word.

A: Okay. "Efforting" is not a word.

Q: Then why do I keep reading and hearing it everywhere? As in "The government is efforting to solve the issue," "Rescuers are efforting supplies," "The candidate is efforting minority votes." And on TV newscasts, they're always saying, "So, Rob, can you tell us -- oop, we seem to have lost him. And now to the weather while we're efforting to get a visual on Rob."

A: Reporters and writers and newspeople and the government are efforting to cover up the fact of their lazying.

Q: They're too lazy to say "trying"?

A: Keep in mind that they also need to importance themselves while they are lazying.

Q: Dialoguing, journaling, efforting...even my spell check is going crazy! How can we stop this nonsense of making up words?

A:  Not to worry. We have a committee solutioning it right now.