BEER CAN CHICKEN

I was requested by upper management today to BBQ a beer can chicken.

I thought that I have written about the wondrous beer can chicken before but I can't seem to find it in my highly sophisticated files. So here goes.

The technique goes thusly.   

First steal a chicken. Whoops wrong recipe. That's how the recipe for authentic Hungarian Chicken Poprikash starts out. You clean out said chicken by pretending that you are a poultry proctologist and reach way up the south end of the bird and pull out anything that you're not planning on eating. Such as paper bags full of offal and the like. If there happens to be a neck stuffed in the other end, get rid of it.

Next, dry the bird with a paper towel inside and out. Salt and pepper the inside cavity.

Then get a can of beer out of the beer locker and drink half of the can of beer. Good God, don't use light beer or kumquat flavored ale. Use real beer because when the bird is cooking steam from the can of beer will wisp up and help the inside get done in a deat heat with the exterior. Just as wine in a fancy shmancy French casserole. You would use a wine that you would actually drink.

Enough about the virtues of using the proper beer for cooking.

Now light off the grill, gas or charcoal and let it get warmed up to temp.

Use the beer can as a suppository just as you would with a know-it-all. Once the bird bird is properly situated with it's can be sure it is balanced properly so it doesn't topple while cooking. Then give the bird a massage with unsalted butter and sprinkle the herbs of your choice over the outside along with salt and pepper.

Pop the little guy on the grill and give him his sauna. 

Cook to your liking which should be about 170 Deg. F. in the breast.
Stand by for the onslaught of compliments. 
You can use one of those stainless steel chingausos  but then it now longer is a BEER CAN chicken.

Who am I? What am I doing here?

Where as I am now seventy five years old, I thought that it is about time for a new assesment.

There are certain givens, such as I am a father and a grandfather. I am involved with the nicest and best woman I have ever met and I am a transplanted Clevelander living in SoCal. 

But what about the less obvious.

I have always been the the kid, the upstart. The guy who dives into things and makes them right without expecting as much as a thank you. 

I am a sailor in every sense of the word. I spent eight plus years in the US Navy. I had everything go my way while in the Navy. I went to Guidedmissileman A School at Virginia Beach as an E3 a Seaman First Class. We weren't allowed to take the E4 Third Class Petty Officer while in A School. Our class graduated on a Friday. The semiannual E4 exam was held on the following Monday. The next day we flew to Pomona, CA for Terrier BT3 C School. One week before we graduated from C School, I was informed that I had passed the E4 exam and would be promoted on May first. 

When I reported for duty at my first duty station at NAD Crane Indiana on May third, I was a pettyofficer. One year later, I was a second class PO. 

I reported to Missile Technician B School as a second class PO. Nine months later, I reported for duty on my first ship, an aircraft carrier where I took the First Class exam. Six months later I was transferred to new construction at Todd Shipyard in Seattle where I promptly sewed on my First Class crow. At the time I was the youngest First Class PO in the entire US Navy at the ripe age of twenty one. Three years later I turned down Chief Petty Officer. I didn't want to be a twenty four year old CPO. Chiefs lived in the chief's quarters, AKA The Goat Locker, and I didn't want to live with these lifers. I had already decided the I wanted out of  the Navy and wanted to go to college.

In 1968, I got out. We shot a bird, missile, the day before at the pacific Missile Range and pulled into the Ammunition Depot at Seal Beach to rearm. Being I was a Plank Owner, I had them pipe me over the side and became a civilian.

Life was good as a civilian.  I had marketable skills and had no problem finding employment. I had good jobs, finished college and  traveled the world on an expense account. I became a real estate agent selling apartment buildings in Lon Beach and made lots of money. I had Norton Commandos, Porches, Mercedes and Cadillacs. I sold industrial instrumentation and had sailboats which I lived aboard. I ended up starting a company that built plastics forming machinery and made quite a good name for myself.

The bad news is in 2013, I had a stroke. T the time, I had a schooner which I lived aboard for thirty five years.  I could no longer handle the five sails that we ran around on.

I now find myself as a codger. Seventy five is an old man by anyone's criteria. I now live on a forty foot trawler power boat and take a nap most every day.

I'm not complaining. I have a wonderful relationship with a girl who is my intellectual double. I drive a BMW 325ci convertible I have two grandchildren and I do the occasional machine upgrade with no heavy lifting. We have taken cruises to Alaska and through the Panama Canal.

I guess that I really don't have anything to bitch about but I am a bit uncomfortable being 75.

Like Micky Mantle said "If I knew that I was going to live this long, I probably would have taken better of myself."