Let me tell you about my experience the first time I tried to roast a chicken.

I was 28 years old . I bought the chicken, I cleaned the chicken (just like I saw my mom do....you pour salt over the chicken, you run it under the cold water, you scrub it clean, and you rinse it off. You take the chicken, holding it open and you let the water run inside and you turn it upside down and the water runs clean. (That's how my mother did it).

Okay, I do all that. I put chicken in the pan, I put garlic powder, I take a little extra virgin olive oil and put some in my hands and rub it all over the chicken. Then I sprinkled on whatever seasonings people put on chicken.

Then I cut up fresh parsley, sprinkle that on. (my oven was preheated to 400 degrees at the time). So the oven gets hot, I put in the chicken and twenty minutes later, my boyfriend at the time, comes running into the living room yelling "the chicken is on fire". I said "what on earth are you talking about, how can a chicken be on fire???"......so I look inside the oven and sure enough the thing is in flames. Because I had no idea what to do, I shut off the oven, waited an hour and then opened the oven door and what do I see.... a bag of things are stuffed inside the chicken....

My boyfriend says to me "what is that thing that caught on fire??" I said 'I have no idea, I'm calling up my mother". After laughing her head off she said "you have to pull the bag out of the chicken, every chicken comes with a little bag stuffed inside" I said "stuffed inside?,they stuff things inside of a chicken?? what is inside the bag?" Then she told me "gizzards and the neck".


Let me tell you. It was years before I ever roasted another chicken.

lol

Now let me ask you this. Where does it say on a chicken "Look inside and you'll find a little bag with gizzards and the neck"??. I was telling this story to a friend on the bus and in five minutes, the whole bus was laughing so hard some people forgot to get off at their bus stop.

mel

And don't get me started telling what happened the first time (the very first time) I tried to make spaghetti. What does it say on the box??? Drop into boiling water. Yep, I put the whole box in. I must have been 19 years old.