Teriyaki Pineapple Drumsticks

2025. The number on the calendar is new and the rest of life is the same — cattle, fence, hay, the woodstove, Patrick on the porch when it is not too cold, Mom in the kitchen, the snow on the ground. New Year's Day Wednesday I sat at the kitchen table at five-thirty with the notebook and made the list. It came out longer than I expected. I closed the notebook. I went to chores. The list is the list. The day is the day.

Seven years sober Wednesday. January first, twenty-eighteen, was the date the count started. Seven years today. I went to my Thursday meeting in Billings and when they asked if anyone had an anniversary, I raised my hand and said, Seven. The room clapped. Gary slapped my back — he is seventy-five now and his slap is not what it was, but it is a slap, and it lands. Gary said after the meeting, You are still on it. I said, Yeah. He said, You will be on it forever. I said, Yeah. He said, That is the deal. I said, I know. We had coffee. I drove home. The drive home is part of the meeting. The drive home is when you sit with what you have heard and let it settle. The Bull Mountains were the color they go in January at four in the afternoon, which is a color I do not have a name for, and the light was failing, and the heater in the truck was on too high and I cracked a window for the cold, and the cold came in and woke me up, and I drove home with the cold on my face thinking about Marcus at hundred days, thinking about Patrick at sixty-nine, thinking about Maggie due in five weeks, thinking about being thirty and seven years sober. Seven years. Seven actual years. The number is real. The number was once a number I did not believe I would see.

The cold came back Friday. Five degrees at six in the morning. Wind from the north. The cattle huddled. I broke ice on the trough at five-thirty before chores. The well is heated but the trough freezes between fillings if the wind is right, and you have to break it twice a day in the bad weather. I have broken ice on this trough every winter morning of my life since I was eight. I will break it Saturday morning. I will break it next Saturday morning. The work is the work. The cycle is the cycle. The breaking of the ice is the kind of small repeated action that has become, over time, a kind of meditation. I do not call it that out loud. I call it breaking the ice. The meditation is in the doing, not the naming.

Tara is twenty-five weeks. She and Cole came down Sunday for lunch — they are not coming down Saturdays anymore, the drive too rough on her, but they will come down for Sunday lunches when the weather permits — and Tara looked tired and luminous in equal measure, which I am told is the late-second-trimester state. Cole has started building the crib. He sent me a photo Monday of the partial frame on his shop floor. He is making it from black walnut he had milled himself. He is going to be a good father. He has the patience for it. I do not know if I have the patience for it. I have not had to find out.

Cooked Sunday a chicken and dumplings. The chicken from Mom's flock. The dumplings made from Mom's biscuit dough. Carrots, celery, onion, broth. An hour and a half. The dumplings come out the size of golf balls and the texture of the most beautiful bread, and you eat them with a spoon in a bowl of broth that has thickened against the dumplings, and Patrick had two bowls and Mom had two and Tara had one and a half — which was, for Tara at twenty-five weeks with a baby pressing on her stomach, a marathon — and Cole had two. The leftovers were a single ladleful, which I ate Monday for breakfast. Saturday cookout was eight men. Marcus made one-oh-six days, the number where you stop counting in days and start in weeks, but Marcus is keeping count of days for a while longer because that is what he needs. Vince said, around the fire, You know what the difference is between this Saturday and a Saturday in 2017. I said, What. He said, Six men. I had not been counting. The cookouts have grown. The men around the fire have multiplied. The fire helps.

Mom’s chicken went into that Sunday pot and came out as something that fed six people and left almost nothing—which is the only measure that matters. When I make chicken on a different Sunday, a warmer one, one where the woodstove is not working as hard, I reach for the drumsticks and the pineapple and the teriyaki glaze, because it is still chicken, still a pot, still something you make for the people in your house and watch disappear. Seven years is worth a good bowl. So is any other day you are still on it.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 50 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 4–6

Ingredients

3 lbs chicken drumsticks (about 8–10 pieces)
1 cup teriyaki sauce
1 cup pineapple chunks, drained (reserve 1/4 cup juice)
1/4 cup pineapple juice (from the can)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated (or 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Sliced green onions and sesame seeds, for garnish

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 400°F. Pat drumsticks dry with paper towels and arrange in a single layer in a large baking dish. Drizzle with vegetable oil and season with black pepper.
Make the glaze. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine teriyaki sauce, pineapple juice, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and ginger. Stir together and bring to a low simmer. In a small bowl, whisk cornstarch with 1 tablespoon cold water until smooth, then stir into the sauce. Cook 2–3 minutes until the glaze thickens slightly. Remove from heat.
Glaze and bake. Pour half the glaze over the drumsticks, turning to coat. Scatter pineapple chunks around and between the drumsticks. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes.
Flip and finish. Remove the dish from the oven, turn the drumsticks, and spoon the remaining glaze over the top. Return to the oven and bake another 20–25 minutes, until the skin is deep golden and caramelized and the internal temperature reads 165°F.
Rest and serve. Let the drumsticks rest 5 minutes. Spoon pan juices over the top, garnish with sliced green onions and sesame seeds, and serve with steamed rice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Teriyaki Pineapple Drumsticks — Mom’s Chicken, a Different Sunday