Post by Daniel MacNamara on Nov 18, 2020 21:40:49 GMT -5
There it was.
There that sound was, the almost rhythmic pulse of the stovetop’s gas burner coming to life in fire that danced across the cast iron grating that tried to present itself as a prison to the flames. It was never the grating atop the burner that stopped the flames short but the food that ever consuming fire itself. It was trapped by its own limitations, not the barriers that someone else put upon it, not that that was the point of the grating in the first place. A heavy cast iron skillet was place upon the black metal, leeching its heat off for itself like a selfish lover in a cold night, desperately soaking up anything it could just to be able to perform, to do what it was meant to do best. Still, a heated up skillet was just a heated up skillet and without being used for its purpose what was it beyond a potential hazard? That was the trick, it wasn’t really anything beyond what it could be, and yet it was still exactly what it was. It was just like the quandary of calling a spear a walking stick, you could call the pan heating up anything that you wanted, but in the end, all it was, was cast iron being put to an open flame.
Sigh.
“Chicken hearts,” those cigarette cured, Brogue flavored words rumbled forth from his lips as he casually held up a bowl to show its contents: chicken hearts, freshly cleaned and made ready. “Chicken hearts, are some of my very favorite things to eat in this world, Mr. Williams can attest to that, considering that I’ve already devoured his and left him nothing but the scraps, which was just offal.’ Pause. Beat. Daniel allowed himself a small grin at his own bad pun before he continued on, setting down his bowl of chicken hearts next to a bowl of flour that’d been seasoned with pink himalayan salt, smoked paprika, black pepper, and minced up garlic. “Most would sneer at it, but the chicken heart, you see. It feeds you in ways that you’d never expect. It gives you what was in it in. It gives you, in a way, the best part of the chicken.”
Hiss!
That was the sound of oil hitting the pan, Daniel deftly coating it in with the vegetable oil, only to add in the seasoned flour taking his time to stir it up with a spoon. Slow, steady, he let his roux simmer on the heat as heat. Half turning with a pivoted step and taking his bowl of hearts he dropped them onto his cutting board; his off hand picked up the knife, ready to cut off the tops before slicing the messy little organs in half with the deft work of his fingers. Every step was like a dance, every action smooth almost as if it came from rote memory at this point for him.
“I drew strength from the chicken heart that I ate. I found peace in the flavor of it, I found power as I chewed through the texture of it all, rending and ripping with my teeth until I turned it into mulch before consuming what was left. That was the problem, I think, because I was satisfied by something that I felt came up short in the end. Does that even matter though? I ate it.” Craaa-ack! The redhead jerked his head to the side, popping his neck only to resume his pace. “But what did you do with it, Danny? What did you DO with the power from the heart? For all its nourishment what did you accomplish with the power going through you?” Oil hit another pan, this time it came with chopped up mushrooms and onions, stirred in with chicken stock that he’d made the day before as he pulled the roux off the heat and set it aside.
A nerveless hand lifted and dabbed at his brow with the towel over his shoulder to push the sweat from the ridgeline of it. The heat of the kitchen, it was as much of a challenge as it was a comfort.
“I did nothing with it, because when I chewed through the veins and muscle of it all? I’d already won the war that I was waging. I thought it was enough to satiate me, to give me what I wanted, but at the end, just like my victory? The chicken heart failed to satisfy me, and in my lack of satisfaction I found insanity at its basest form. I felt the world slip through my fingers because nothing was making sense, but the chicken? The chicken went heartless to simply having no heart. He lost everything because he had nothing left to offer after I took it from him. He’ll still crow about what I have or haven’t done because that’s what a stupid chicken does. It crows, and then it shits everywhere, and then it struts around like it’s done something because that’s all it knows how to do.” Releasing a heavy breath that he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, he finally lifted the cutting board and used his knife to scrape the prepared hearts off into the mix of onions, stock, and mushrooms with a loud hiss of the added ingredients being dropped in only to be stirred in with his knife.
“Maybe it’s because I ate it raw, right out of the chicken. He wasn’t seasoned properly, he wasn’t cooked right.”
Danny just looked up from his cooking, annoyed, before carrying on.
“Maybe the chicken wasn’t the grade of meat that he thought he was. Maybe instead of being whole and proper, he was raggedy and held together by glue, because despite all the crowing and the barnyard strutting, that heart tasted more like red kool aid and the poorly mixed in grit than it did blood and iron. Maybe I’m just full of shit and trying to blame my lack of satisfaction on the meal rather than my own palette and near ravenous appetite.” Those broad shoulders lifted and then dropped in a shrug, the pan with the roux was lifted and poured into the mix of hearts, onions, and mushrooms before he stirred it all in and added yet another dose of garlic and red pepper flakes, a dash of paprika here and there, leaning over to smell it and take in the aroma and the heat of the air rising from his pan.
Cue the happy sigh that left him. The sigh of contentment. It was little things, it really was.
“Girls! Dinner!” Yelling loudly from the side, towards the kitchen door, only to step back and pull the towel from his shoulder, wiping his face off entirely before doing the same to his hands so that he could dry the sweat from it all. “The Medallion is important. It goes without saying how important it is, but it’s not what I want most. What I want most is to carve that fucking chicken up and see if I can’t make a meal out of it this time before someone else ruins it for me. And Bryan? You should know, the next time that I eat your heart? I'm going to serve it up on that medallion that you reached for and let slip through your fingers, because for all you say about me? I'm the reason that you crashed and burned when you tried to play the eagle. I'm the one who reminded you that you were just a fucking chicken in the end."
And just like that, Daniel went to cleaning his kitchen before even serving up the food.
The man hated having a dirty kitchen, even for just a moment.
There that sound was, the almost rhythmic pulse of the stovetop’s gas burner coming to life in fire that danced across the cast iron grating that tried to present itself as a prison to the flames. It was never the grating atop the burner that stopped the flames short but the food that ever consuming fire itself. It was trapped by its own limitations, not the barriers that someone else put upon it, not that that was the point of the grating in the first place. A heavy cast iron skillet was place upon the black metal, leeching its heat off for itself like a selfish lover in a cold night, desperately soaking up anything it could just to be able to perform, to do what it was meant to do best. Still, a heated up skillet was just a heated up skillet and without being used for its purpose what was it beyond a potential hazard? That was the trick, it wasn’t really anything beyond what it could be, and yet it was still exactly what it was. It was just like the quandary of calling a spear a walking stick, you could call the pan heating up anything that you wanted, but in the end, all it was, was cast iron being put to an open flame.
Sigh.
“Chicken hearts,” those cigarette cured, Brogue flavored words rumbled forth from his lips as he casually held up a bowl to show its contents: chicken hearts, freshly cleaned and made ready. “Chicken hearts, are some of my very favorite things to eat in this world, Mr. Williams can attest to that, considering that I’ve already devoured his and left him nothing but the scraps, which was just offal.’ Pause. Beat. Daniel allowed himself a small grin at his own bad pun before he continued on, setting down his bowl of chicken hearts next to a bowl of flour that’d been seasoned with pink himalayan salt, smoked paprika, black pepper, and minced up garlic. “Most would sneer at it, but the chicken heart, you see. It feeds you in ways that you’d never expect. It gives you what was in it in. It gives you, in a way, the best part of the chicken.”
Hiss!
That was the sound of oil hitting the pan, Daniel deftly coating it in with the vegetable oil, only to add in the seasoned flour taking his time to stir it up with a spoon. Slow, steady, he let his roux simmer on the heat as heat. Half turning with a pivoted step and taking his bowl of hearts he dropped them onto his cutting board; his off hand picked up the knife, ready to cut off the tops before slicing the messy little organs in half with the deft work of his fingers. Every step was like a dance, every action smooth almost as if it came from rote memory at this point for him.
“I drew strength from the chicken heart that I ate. I found peace in the flavor of it, I found power as I chewed through the texture of it all, rending and ripping with my teeth until I turned it into mulch before consuming what was left. That was the problem, I think, because I was satisfied by something that I felt came up short in the end. Does that even matter though? I ate it.” Craaa-ack! The redhead jerked his head to the side, popping his neck only to resume his pace. “But what did you do with it, Danny? What did you DO with the power from the heart? For all its nourishment what did you accomplish with the power going through you?” Oil hit another pan, this time it came with chopped up mushrooms and onions, stirred in with chicken stock that he’d made the day before as he pulled the roux off the heat and set it aside.
A nerveless hand lifted and dabbed at his brow with the towel over his shoulder to push the sweat from the ridgeline of it. The heat of the kitchen, it was as much of a challenge as it was a comfort.
“I did nothing with it, because when I chewed through the veins and muscle of it all? I’d already won the war that I was waging. I thought it was enough to satiate me, to give me what I wanted, but at the end, just like my victory? The chicken heart failed to satisfy me, and in my lack of satisfaction I found insanity at its basest form. I felt the world slip through my fingers because nothing was making sense, but the chicken? The chicken went heartless to simply having no heart. He lost everything because he had nothing left to offer after I took it from him. He’ll still crow about what I have or haven’t done because that’s what a stupid chicken does. It crows, and then it shits everywhere, and then it struts around like it’s done something because that’s all it knows how to do.” Releasing a heavy breath that he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, he finally lifted the cutting board and used his knife to scrape the prepared hearts off into the mix of onions, stock, and mushrooms with a loud hiss of the added ingredients being dropped in only to be stirred in with his knife.
“Maybe it’s because I ate it raw, right out of the chicken. He wasn’t seasoned properly, he wasn’t cooked right.”
Danny just looked up from his cooking, annoyed, before carrying on.
“Maybe the chicken wasn’t the grade of meat that he thought he was. Maybe instead of being whole and proper, he was raggedy and held together by glue, because despite all the crowing and the barnyard strutting, that heart tasted more like red kool aid and the poorly mixed in grit than it did blood and iron. Maybe I’m just full of shit and trying to blame my lack of satisfaction on the meal rather than my own palette and near ravenous appetite.” Those broad shoulders lifted and then dropped in a shrug, the pan with the roux was lifted and poured into the mix of hearts, onions, and mushrooms before he stirred it all in and added yet another dose of garlic and red pepper flakes, a dash of paprika here and there, leaning over to smell it and take in the aroma and the heat of the air rising from his pan.
Cue the happy sigh that left him. The sigh of contentment. It was little things, it really was.
“Girls! Dinner!” Yelling loudly from the side, towards the kitchen door, only to step back and pull the towel from his shoulder, wiping his face off entirely before doing the same to his hands so that he could dry the sweat from it all. “The Medallion is important. It goes without saying how important it is, but it’s not what I want most. What I want most is to carve that fucking chicken up and see if I can’t make a meal out of it this time before someone else ruins it for me. And Bryan? You should know, the next time that I eat your heart? I'm going to serve it up on that medallion that you reached for and let slip through your fingers, because for all you say about me? I'm the reason that you crashed and burned when you tried to play the eagle. I'm the one who reminded you that you were just a fucking chicken in the end."
And just like that, Daniel went to cleaning his kitchen before even serving up the food.
The man hated having a dirty kitchen, even for just a moment.