By The last week of May. The garden is in. The peas are already climbing the trellis I made from branches — Helen calls it rustic, which is her polite word for ugly, but it works and the peas don't care about aesthetics. The lettuce is up, pale green rows that look like someone drew lines in the dirt and filled them with hope. The tomato seedlings went in yesterday, after I checked the forecast three times because a late frost would undo a month of Helen's windowsill work and I would rather face another Vermont winter than Helen when her seedlings die.
I wrote a blog post this week about roast chicken. Not a complicated one — there's no such thing as a complicated roast chicken, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. Salt the bird, inside and out. Put it in a hot oven. Wait. The chicken does the work. Your job is to not interfere.
I roast a chicken most Sundays. It's the rhythm of the week — Saturday is for errands and chores, Sunday is for roast chicken and reading and the kind of quiet that retirement has finally taught me to enjoy rather than endure. When I first retired, the silence of Sundays felt like absence. Now it feels like purpose. I'm not sure when the shift happened. Sometime in the last year. Maybe it was the blog. Maybe it's just time doing what time does, which is sand down the rough edges if you let it.
Helen made strawberry shortcake on Saturday. The strawberries are from the farm stand on Shelburne Road — ours won't be ready for another few weeks. Real shortcake, not cake — biscuits, split open, buttered, with berries macerated in sugar and a cloud of whipped cream. The difference between shortcake made with biscuits and shortcake made with sponge cake is the difference between Vermont and everywhere else. We don't do delicate here. We do substantial.
Sarah called to say Ben said his first full sentence this week: "No more peas." Tom captured it on video. Sarah played it over the phone. Helen and I listened to our grandson's first act of culinary rebellion and laughed until my eyes watered. The boy is two. He's already a food critic. He gets it from his mother, who at his age refused to eat anything green for an entire year. She grew out of it. I assume Ben will too. If not, more peas for the rest of us.
May is ending. June is coming. The garden grows. The chickens roast. The grandchildren say "no more peas." Life, as they say, goes on. It does.
Ben’s little voice declaring “no more peas” over the phone is still making me smile three days later — there’s something about a two-year-old with opinions that makes you want to cook something honest and uncomplicated, the kind of food that doesn’t ask anything of anyone. So that’s what I did. I roasted a chicken the way I always roast a chicken: nothing fancy, nothing fussed over, just good seasoning and enough time in the oven to fill the house with the smell that makes Helen wander into the kitchen and say “that’s almost ready.” Here’s how I do it.
Chicken Seasoning
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 20 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes | Servings: 4–6
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken (3 1/2 to 4 1/2 lbs)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crumbled fine
- 2 tablespoons olive oil or softened butter
Instructions
- Make the blend. Combine the salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, paprika, and rosemary in a small bowl and stir until evenly mixed. This is enough for one whole bird; double it and keep extra in a jar.
- Dry and season the bird. Pat the chicken completely dry with paper towels—inside the cavity and out. Rub the outside with olive oil or softened butter, then apply the seasoning generously all over, including inside the cavity and under the breast skin if you can get your hand in there. Don’t be shy.
- Let it rest (optional but good). For best results, set the seasoned chicken uncovered in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or up to overnight. This dries the skin and deepens the flavor. If you’re cooking it straight away, that’s fine too.
- Roast. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Place the chicken breast-side up in a roasting pan or cast iron skillet. Roast for 60–80 minutes, until the juices run clear and a thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh reads 165°F. Do not fuss with it.
- Rest before carving. Remove from the oven and let it rest uncovered for 10–15 minutes. This is not optional. The resting is half the recipe.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 310 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 1g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 520mg