National Fried Chicken Day!!! (Oh, Yes!!!)

                             
               

I LOVE fried chicken! That is probably not an unusual thing for a Southern girl to confess, I admit, but I truly do. As more than half of all chicken entrees ordered in restaurants are for fried chicken, I am certain that I am not alone in this. I make it often, order it in restaurants (not only to check out the competition, but because I am truly in love with it) and when it is too hot to cook, I send someone (I do not drive) to pick some up. 

So, I think it is perfectly fitting that my all-time favorite (savory) food has been given it's own holiday and so to celebrate, I fried a chicken (actually,two). Isn't it pretty? I think so. I am not given to bragging about my cooking, but if there is one thing I am certain of, it is that I do know how to fry a chicken.

I refuse to feel guilty about the calories (I swim every day and do a ballet barre workout and practice hula/tahitian dancing three times a week) and there are countless other things I can "give up" if I have to in order to account for my poultry indulgences. This is also why I have never owned chickens. Geese, yes. Chickens, no. I have never eaten goose and I never intend to so I do not have to feel guilty. I also enjoy "Babe" several times a year with a clear conscience because I do not eat any pork products. I still have to go out of my way in the grocery store to avoid the lobster tank though. Not because I have ever eaten a lobster, which I have not, but because I always get an insane urge to put them all into my cart and drive like crazy for the nearest ocean. This is one of the reasons that I have my groceries delivered. Asked what I wanted for my birthday one year when I was a child, my mother says that I asked for lobsters. I did not receive them. My significant other orders seafood risotto and I shudder because the menu says it contains baby lobster tail. BABY LOBSTER TAIL!!! 😲How could this otherwise kind and gentle man do such a thing? And with such obvious relish? It sends a chill up my spine. 

I know, my reasoning is strange. How do I scold him and then enjoy the fried grown up version of fuzzy yellow baby chicks? I do not know. Perhaps I should be ashamed of myself but then I have never raised a fuzzy yellow baby chick into a chicken. If I had, I know I would feel quite differently about it. I was a vegetarian some years back for health reasons and I craved fried chicken like crazy. I tried using the same batter on eggplant, potatoes, zucchini, tofu and Portobello mushrooms, but alas, although very good "substitutes" for a sworn vegetarian, nothing came close for me. So eventually, I went back to chicken.

I also made deviled eggs. But while the chicken may be a "sin", the eggs are not because I buy them every week from our local farmers market from an organic farm that does not keep a single rooster on their property,(yes I have been there and it is true) thus ensuring that the eggs they sell are never fertilized (no baby chicks). So I eat them (five a day) with a clear conscience. 

Now, if I could only get the batter to stay on the egg, I would be set.

                                                                                                            Tess🌷

I had to add this!

This is what I want for my birthday next year!

( I am going to find a reason to make one before that. But with cream gravy.)