Garbage Chicken

The same week that our state started sheltering in place for COVID-19, my husband and I, along with my adult son, moved in together. This proved to be socially, medically, and financially beneficial for all of us. It’s an odd line that we walk – roommates, but also family, adults living together but separately, but it works pretty well.

We shop separately, but will often pick things up for each other, or share meals. My husband and I go to Costco every month or so, and a new thing we’ve started doing is that we get 2-3 rotisserie chickens and then my spouse pulls all their meat off and puts it in a Ziploc the fridge. This saves on fridge space, because those plastic domes take up a ton of room, plus we have yummy chicken at our fingertips for easy meals all week. When he’s done, my husband gives the carcasses to my son, who in turn makes bone broth in his instant pot.

This time we got three chickens, and my son offered that we were welcome to use some of his big batch of “chicken Jell-o” if we wanted to. (That’s what he calls the gelatinous, collagen-rich bone broth that he makes.) Thus, today when I came home from work, I started some broth to simmer, cut up celery, onion, carrot, added barley, and let it cook for a bit. Forty or so minutes later, I went to add the chicken, but I couldn’t find it. I knew there was a bunch left, so I dug DEEP in both of our refrigerators. I even cleaned out a crisper drawer during my search! Finally, I sought out my spouse to ask him. He came and thoroughly searched all the places that I had already thoroughly searched, and, since he has post-concussive syndrome following a traumatic brain injury, he also looked in the oven, dishwasher, the freezers…no love.

Finally, we asked my son.

At first there was silence. Then followed what could possibly be considered a growl maybe? “Uuhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhaaaaaahhhhh….shit! Goddammit, I’m sorry, I think I may have accidentally tossed it.”

Eventually it was determined that he had was cleaned out the garage fridge to make room for kale and tofu and other goodness that he bought today, and he thought it was something old & nasty leftover from Thanksgiving. Which is how he threw out about six pounds of rotisserie chicken in a gallon-size Ziploc bag.

As he was apologizing profusely and repeatedly, I asked: “did you put it in the yard waste/organics bin?” he sheepishly admitted that he did not, in fact, put it in the food waste receptacle, but threw it all in a plastic grocery bag, which he threw in the just-emptied-yesterday trash container. I looked at him and said “you know, it’s like 43 degrees outside and if it’s not covered in ick, and is wrapped in two layers of plastic…well, I mean, it’s up to you if you want to fish it out, but I would have no problem using it.” I tell him not to worry about it, to stop apologizing, that it was like $8 of chicken and not the end of the world. Leaving it at that, I walked over to the sink. A minute later I heard my son mutter, and the garage door open. Another minute later, he came back in, wielding the bag of chicken aloft in victory. He proclaimed that it was still cold, and handed it to me. I rinsed it under hot water just to be quadruple safe, but it was completely unmolested.

I opened the bag, got out a couple of big pieces, chopped them up, and threw them in to the soup.

And that’s how we ate garbage chicken for dinner tonight.