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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Saturday, November 23, 2002

My Beloved Buckeyes have finally won a big one. I think the critical play called by coach Jim Tressel was when he made all the players learn to sing Carmen Ohio, one of his first acts upon becoming the OSU head coach last year. This year is the centennial of those (admittedly silly) lyrics. "Carmen Ohio," Ohio State's alma mater, was born in sadness during one of the football team's darkest hours. In 1902, Fred A. Cornell, Class of 1906 and a member of the team, scribbled the words on the back of an envelope as he returned by train to Columbus from Ann Arbor. The Buckeyes had just suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of Michigan, losing 86-0. He wrote the words to the music known as the "Spanish Chant." You can't teach loyalty, but you can make them learn the alma mater. 3:34:18 PM    comment []

If you're as confused as I am about the bones named in Boning Birds Whole, this skeletal diagram from the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology might help. With a printout of this and crib notes (like "furcula = wishbone", "clavicle - collarbone", and "scapula = shoulder blade"), I'm tempted to buy a whole chicken just to try it. It would be like Biology Class Lab, except you get to eat the finished results! If you'd like to buy a real chicken skeleton for $430, you can get one from ePREMIERMEDICAL. 1:30:01 PM    comment []

To cut up and bone a chicken - not leaving it in one piece - check out this video from The Food Network, available in your choice of formats: Windows Media, Real Video, Quicktime.   For some odd reason, a site search on The Food Network for "video" turns up no hits, but on the third page of Google after "boning chicken", this odd link turned up which led to Cooking Video Clips. 10:53:56 AM    comment []

I was reading The Julie/Julia Project this morning and ran across this: And the moral for the day comes from Amanda Hesser, who wrote in her NY Times article yesterday about Turducken, the turkey recipe of the moment, which involves stuffing a boned chicken into a boned duck into a boned turkey: “Mr. Lobel has been a butcher for 55 years.  It took him 15 minutes to bone the duck.  Get a butcher to bone the birds.” It has been a few years, I think it was on The Food Network, but a video of some guy who could bone a chicken in under two minutes, without a knife,  was something I'll never forget. He plunged his hand into the cavity, joked with the interviewer while his hand was obviously busy groping inside the bird, then in one triumphant move pulled out the entire chicken skeleton! If it was a trick, it was a damn good one. Still, the advice Julie recounts is wise. I have whole-boned nothing more complicated than a raw turkey breast, and had to take frequent time-outs just to cuss. Know your bird, know yourself...but, if you are inclined to experimentation or masochism, an excellent online guide is Boning Birds Whole. Step-by-step, excellent (though vaguely obscene) photos, it will walk you through the process. In my limited experience, nimble fingers and a quick mind are more important than a sharp boning knife at the muscle-tendon-bone connection. At some point, the tendon should stay connected to the bone, since the thicker parts are not pleasant eating. There is a natural tendency to "meat imperialism" - since your commitment increases with the time you spend. you'll want to leave as much as possible connected to the "main mass" as it slowly accumulates and you'll want to get as close to the bone as is humanly possible. You'll waste a lot of time if you let those impulses get to you. The other end of the tendon is in the meat itself, but it's generally a better place to cut, minimizing intrusion at the "mangle point". Clean incisions will close during cooking. Practice boning on some chicken thighs - they're very cheap. Thighs and legs are difficult,  that's where the muscles are toughest  and the tendons most prominent - a real challenge. That is, if you're inclined to try...but it might be easier than finding a butcher. 2:43:33 AM    comment []