Page 36 of Roommate
“Roast chicken with herbed butter and garlic,” he says.
“That sounds…complicated.” Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.
“I know!” he says, leaping up and looking gleeful. “It’s not, though. That’s why I chose this recipe. Come on.” He practically gallops into the kitchen.
There’s a whole chicken lying there in the center of his skillet, and some other ingredients on the counter.
He lifts a sprig of an herb off the counter. “This is…”
“Rosemary,” I say.
“And…”
“Parsley,” I say, beating him to the punch again. “I grew up with farmers. And even if my mom can’t figure out how to put flavor in food, my Aunt Ruth sure can.”
“Well.” Roderick sniffs. “I guess you’re going to do just fine. See this butter? I left it out on the counter to soften.” He pokes the stick, and his finger leaves an indent. “Open that sucker up and dump it in a bowl.”
I follow this simple instruction, and then he hands me a fancy chef’s knife. “Now you’re going to learn how to get the skin off of garlic quickly.” He puts a clove of garlic on a cutting board that I’ve never seen before. It must be a new acquisition. “Smack it with the side of the knife. Go on.”
Whap. I smack the garlic, and now it’s flattened.
“Nice!” He chuckles. “Now take the skin off. That’s easy when you’ve crushed it a little.”
He’s right. I flick the skin out of the way.
“Slice it thinly, okay? Then overchop it in the other direction.”
I slice the garlic into fine slices, but then I’m stuck. “What does overchop mean?”
“Like this,” he says. He actually reaches around my body and pivots the knife, and my concentration goes haywire. I’m too focused on the heat of his chest at my side and the brush of his thumb on my hand. “Okay, a little finer,” he says.
I squint down at the garlic and give it a few clumsy chops, but my attention is still on him. He’s standing so close to me that I feel a puff of his breath when he talks. And I like it way too much.
“Good enough,” he says. “Now do another one.”
I force myself to concentrate. The minced garlic gets tossed on top of the butter, along with parsley and rosemary that I chop, too. Then Roderick hands me a wooden spoon and has me mash it all together.
“Time to preheat the oven,” he says. “Use four twenty-five. Four fifty is even better, but sometimes it makes the house too smoky. Always cook a chicken hot and fast,” he says with a chuckle. “What’s good for sex is also good for roasting chicken.”
Now my neck and face are on fire.
“Last step,” he says. “Using your hands, you’re going to shove half of that butter under the chicken skin, over the meat.”
“What about the other half,” I ask, my face still red.
“We’ll freeze it for next time.” He grabs a piece of waxed paper and plops half the butter onto it. He shapes it into a log and rolls it up before I can blink.
I get to work buttering the chicken, but I might have gotten more of it on me than on the bird.
“It’s a messy job,” he concedes.
“Not nearly as messy as gutting and plucking the chicken,” I point out.
“You’ve done that?” he yelps.
“Many times. Next time you need a chicken, give me three days’ notice, and I’ll bring you a really fresh one and show you how.”
He puts a hand on my back, and I feel the warmth through my T-shirt. “I think I’m happy to let the store handle that for me, farmer boy.” That hand disappears, but I can still feel it after it’s gone. “Last step,” he says, grabbing a cardboard container of kosher salt. “Salt and pepper the fuck out of everything. That’s a technical term. Memorize it.”
