Okay, You Shmoeblies, I'm Feeling Cantankerous

Okay, you shmoeblies--that's a word I just made up to describe you, my dear readers--what's up? I just gave you three world freaking class recipes and nobody has written back that they've tried them and gotten laid, saved a marriage, ended a feud....what the hell is good food for except to change people and their attitudes? You think I'm giving you these recipes because I'm bored? These are shamanic tools that will allow you to change your whole world! Food is one of the three basics, okay? We have air--we need that for real. Then we have water--we have to have that. Then there is food. That's the third biggie. After that come shelter, safety, comfort and all the rest. But the first three we need even if we're on the run from dinosaurs.
And while good clay dirt and grubs will get you by, the reality is that in this world, the better the food--not the most costly because much of the best food is nearly free (see shmaltz or potatoes)--the better the communication, the better the healing. So I give out these recipes with the hopes that lives are changed. I mean, for goodness sakes! Strawberries in a bit of blue-cheese, garlic butter over sea scallops on a bed of sauteed spinach?????? Who makes that stuff up? That's magic in your hands.
So please, my little shmoeblies, try the freaking recipes and tell me how they changed your life. Maybe you made my basic and cheating bar-be-que sauce for a school affair that got you accepted or got your kid to stop being bullied. Maybe you tried my macaroni and cheese and realized you still loved your husband/wife, so long as they'd let you eat that stuff. Maybe you tried my lentils or canary beans and decided it wouldn't be so bad to be a vegetarian after all. Or maybe you tried my mussels maniere and realized that no champagne will ever go to waste again.
So here's one more, while it's raining ferociously here in bucolic Joshua, Texas and while I'm behind on two stories due Friday, which I have pretty much zero chance of completing because I'm a lazy motha.
Here's your basic, fantastic, roast chicken.
Buy half a dozen russet potatoes (red). Medium size. Cut them in half and put them, unpeeled, in a pot of cold water placed on maybe 8 out of 10. High but not max.
Wait 10 minutes, but before the water boils, add 30 baby organic peeled carrots.
Cut a large organic chicken in half. Wash it well, but not with soap.
Place the two chicken halves, skin down, in a dish lined with clean/trimmed celery stalks and thick half-onion rounds. Red onion preferred. Like cut an onion in half, turn it face down, make three slices and put those pretty thick slices on the celery stalks.
Put a couple of table spoons of chopped fresh garlic that's been sitting in olive oil for a day or so--at least a couple of hours--onto the chicken body. Rub it in with your hands. Include hand sweat, so long as it's clean. Put a little good butcher-ground black pepper and some very good sea salt (about $10 a pound but you get to use it in special places so it's worth it) on the chicken and rub it in.
Turn the chicken over.
Turn the oven on to 350 degrees.
Do the same thing to the skin side of the chicken as you did to the insides: Garlic, olive oil, good black pepper, good salt.
Go out to your yard or your neighbors yard or the local park and get two sprigs of cedar. Not logs, just sprigs.
Put them under the chicken, between the chicken and the celery/onions.
Put chicken in the oven.
Wait 20 minutes till the potatoes and carrots are halfway done.
Strain potatoes and carrots.
Put potatoes and carrots into the pot with the chicken. Spoon a little chicken grease from the pan over them to keep them moist.
Cook till chicken is brown. By that time the celery and onions will almost be caramelized, and the potatoes and carrots will be ready.
Take the chicken and veggies out and put aside.
Into the chicken pan put a couple of table spoons of flour and a can of chicken stock, or fresh chicken stock if you have some in your fridge.
Bring to a boil, solidify to a gravy.
Take a bit of chicken, a couple of potato halves, a few carrots, a stalk or two of celery and some of the onions and put them on your plate. Put some gravy on them. Make a good, tasty and healthy salad. Sit down. Eat. Get better.
Once better, become a shaman and pass secrets like this along. Keep the good things going.