Fried chicken (.7, .8, .8)

Attempting to cook fried chicken can only be done in a secluded environment, where no one can witness the probable failure. I chose an evening where only I would experience the upcoming culinary tragedy.

My mother is a women of few words, and has had 80 years to form some opinions based on her experience. So I don't take her comments lightly. According to her; "Only black people can make fried chicken". I had no counter example since I had failed, and never witnessed any other white person able to compete with gold standard of fried chicken at Mary Macs Tea Room in Atlanta.

I was not able to sneak into the kitchen to watch the magic on our last visit Atlanta, but I was able to buy the cookbook. Usually I think cookbooks just describe in vague details how to prepare their star dish. I have always suspected they have left out some key ingredient or process. Restaurants have little motivation to describe how you can recreate something at home, rather they want you to feel some how inadequate when your version does not match up. Thus you keep coming back.  In fact selling a cook book with mistakes is a wonderful plot to increase customers.

Like all beginning cooks, I followed the recipe as best I could, and hopefully I could change the recipe next time to make perfection.

The resulting chicken was very good. Not great, but good. The meat was juicy, the coating was crisp, and plentiful. The biggest issue was that it lacked salt or spice. My brother has since suggested I add some Franks hot sauce to the batter. Oh Lordy, I can see my father shaking his head.