A family recipe that represents my family is simple: chicken on the grill. Not a lot is needed for this. Good weather, chicken, (legs being my favorite) perhaps some lemon juice to add a hint of citrus, or even barbecue sauce if you so please. Sides can include anything that goes well with chicken, which includes almost everything. So here we have my family’s staple food, staple in that it represents my family. My family being one of modest means, equipped with a modest home and modest livings. As I mentioned modest home, it’s just your typical two story with a two-car garage, but what I see as the houses redeeming quality is the deck. Through the glass sliding door we have our deck, the deck constructed thanks to my father. He who usually initiated the grilling, so he the master of not only the grill, but master of the deck on which this fantastic meal was prepared. Whether we chose to enjoy the meal outdoors, or we took it inside for the sake of the hovering bees invading our mealtime because they couldn’t resist the Vesper cooking, we savored this meal as a family. Giving that a properly prepared meal of grilled chicken must happen outdoors on the grill, which usually meant we could only have this middle-class delicacy seasonally, preferably during the summer months. As a child, nothing food-wise excited me more than peeling into the gravel driveway on my bike to be greeted by the smell of grilling chicken breast. And then to be assured this wasn’t some cruel joke my neighbors were playing on my young taste buds, I looked to the back of the house, where signs of smoke billowing from the grill secured my knowledge the dinner menu.
To sweeten the idea of this meal, my best friend Jacque, who happens to be the pickiest eater I've ever had to deal with, was a fan of thee grilled chicken. So the excitement of it multiplied when her bike tires peeled into the driveway with me. For she was there to enjoy this meal with me and my family.
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