By Calvin and I went to grief counseling this week for the first time. The therapist's name is Dr. Patricia Langley, a Black woman in Homewood who Calvin found through the AME district mental health referral network—the church has been building this network for five years and it is now the moment when it is needed, because the year 2020 is providing more than enough occasions for grief counseling. Dr. Langley is fifty-two years old, small, with glasses and the particular stillness of someone who has learned to hold other people's pain without being swept away by it. She sat us down and she said, "You are both drowning and trying to save each other at the same time, and that is why you're both going under."
I wanted to argue with this. I am not a person who likes to be told I am drowning when I believe I am swimming. But she was right. She was exactly right. Calvin has been trying to save me by being the steady one and I have been trying to save Calvin by staying functional and making sure the food is good and the house is running and neither of us has been able to say: I am not okay, I need to be held, I am going under a little right now. The casserole fight was the surface of something we had been sitting on for two years. Dr. Langley pulled it up by the roots.
I made dinner after the session. A real dinner, not a compensatory dinner, not a dinner to prove I was fine—just dinner: roast chicken, roasted vegetables, bread I had made that morning. Calvin set the table. We ate together and talked about the session, which is something we could not have done six months ago. We are getting better at the conversations that are the actual conversations. We are learning to say what is really happening. More salt. More honesty. The cooking and the counseling are the same thing: you put the true ingredients in and you see what you get.
The roast chicken I made that night after Dr. Langley’s office was not a complicated thing — it didn’t need to be. What made it feel like a real dinner was that I wasn’t making it to prove anything. If you want that same feeling on a Tuesday when you don’t have the bandwidth for a full roast, this slow cooker chicken dinner is exactly where I’d point you: you put the true ingredients in, you let it do its work, and something whole comes out on the other side.
Slow Cooker Chicken Dinner
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 6 hours | Total Time: 6 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 3 to 4 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces (thighs, drumsticks, or a mix)
- 1 pound baby potatoes, halved
- 3 medium carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 stalks celery, sliced
- 1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving
Instructions
- Season the chicken. Pat chicken pieces dry with paper towels. In a small bowl, combine salt, pepper, thyme, paprika, and garlic powder. Rub the mixture evenly over all sides of the chicken.
- Sear for color (optional but worth it). Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sear chicken pieces skin-side down for 3 to 4 minutes until golden. This step adds depth — skip it if the day doesn’t allow.
- Layer the vegetables. Place potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, and garlic in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Pour chicken broth over the vegetables.
- Add the chicken. Nestle the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables, skin-side up if possible.
- Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender. Internal temperature of chicken should reach 165°F.
- Rest and serve. Let everything rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Taste the broth and add salt as needed. Scatter fresh parsley over the top and serve directly from the pot.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 24g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 520mg