Taking a break

I haven't posted because nothing interesting has happened of late. I have played very little poker the past week due to work committments and the cooking front has been pretty uneventful as well due to said work committments. However, I do want to share a meal I made from Julia Child's "The Way to Cook." Despite my everlasting praise for Mastering the Art of French Cooking, THIS is the book I would choose if I could only have one cookbook. Anyway, the dish I made isn't very earth shattering in originality or complexity, but boy was it good. Wait for it...it was butterflied broiled chicken. Exciting huh? If you're like me and think a good roast chicken is about the perfect meal then stay with me...all others can skip this entry. Anyway, the recipe calls for butterflying a whole chicken which encompasses cutting out the backbone with a pair of kitchen shears, cutting two small holes in the skin near the breast, sticking the legs through said holes to keep them in place during broiling, and tucking the wings under the "shoulders" of the bird to keep them in place. The the whole thing is brushed with melted butter and placed skin side down under a broiler and basting with melted butter every 5 minutes. After 15 minutes season with salt and pepper and turn over so the skin side is up. Continue to cook and baste for about 15-20 more minutes until done, seasoning about 10 minutes from the finish. Remove the bird from the pan and let rest while making the pan sauce. This conists of draining the fat from the pan and placing the pan over high heat and then adding about a cup of chicken broth and scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Continue this until only about a 1/4 cup of liquid remains. At this point turn off the heat and swirl in about 2 tablespoons of butter. Cut up and plate chicken and pour sauce over. This is some majorly good shit. I served it with a 2001 Merlot which is what I had laying around. Guys, listen up: if you make this for your wife/girlfriend/whatever, YOU WILL GET LAID. And yes, you're welcome.

As far as taking a break, I think I seriously need one from poker. It's been nice not having it consume all my free time so my plan is to take the next week off from playing any form of poker. I fired up a couple of SNG's tonight, placed 3rd in 1 and flamed out 1st in the other. I just can't get into it and am making really poor decisions. I played some limit and was bored shitless. Yes, daddy needs some time away from the virtual felt. Since there are about a thousand poker blogs out there, and about 999 are better than mine I'm sure we'll all get by somehow. I still plan on posting so I guess I'd better think of something to blog about, don't you think?