The Christmas lunch chook should have looked like this one, but we failed miserably. Photo: @monkeybusiness.
Christmas isn’t Christmas at our house without a mention of the pink chicken incident.
It all started when my son, a traditionalist when it comes to the festive season, told me he was sick of prawns, cold meats “and salady stuff”, and volunteered to step up and take control of the menu.
It was the year after he visited Britain with his dad and experienced the festive season depicted on Christmas cards with snowmen, cosy fires and tables laden with roasts, mulled wine and rich sticky puddings.
It bears no resemblance to Australia’s often scorching hot, fly-infested Yuletide, but many still view that as the Holy Grail.
Over the years I’ve developed a mix of admiration and pity for all the frazzled cooks, past and present, who have endured sauna-like conditions in December kitchens attempting to replicate something close to that ideal for family and friends.
However, my son’s decision to take control of our Christmas lunch in any way he fancied was music to my ears because although I like Christmas, I loathe the expectations it often creates.
When Christmas rolled around, for unknown reasons his fervour seemed to have diminished somewhat as he strolled into the kitchen at about midday and set up his mobile phone on the bench, displaying a festive roast chicken recipe.
When the timer dinged far too early for my liking, he pulled out what looked like a reasonably tasty chook, but it was clearly undercooked judging by its pink hue when he started to carve.
The following words I uttered next seemed like common sense at the time, but they were misconstrued as an unforgivable insult that escalated into a heated argument.
“We can’t eat pink chicken unless you want to spend the rest of the day in the ER with salmonella,” I said, hitting screechy notes to denote the seriousness of the situation.
Instead of putting it back in the oven for another half hour, my son doubled down.
He went off to his bedroom and five minutes later came out to announce Google reckoned slightly pink chicken was fine.
I stood my ground against him and Chef Google, but the day was ruined.
When something as simple as pink chicken can sink the Santa vibe, it’s easy to understand why police are so busy every year on 25 December.
The call-outs to domestic disputes rise by 78 per cent in some areas of NSW.
We didn’t wind up in the back of a paddy wagon but the icy atmosphere was just as punishing.
The following year I was intent on taking back the reins with intentions of producing a large perfectly cooked chook as the table centrepiece.
However, with scant experience in this roasting realm, I had left the bird too long in the freezer and it wasn’t even near defrosted let alone cooked when I pulled it from the oven two hours later.
I went numb with shock, horror and embarrassment when I discovered that below one centimetre of flesh, the chook was rock-hard.
Thankfully, there was no condemnation at the table because by now we had come to accept disappointment.
As one astute lunch guest said at the time, “You’re now both even”, referring to the pink chicken.
These days we laugh about those flops, but the beauty of those harrowing experiences is that we have set the bar so low that as long as we are together as a family on Christmas Day, not even a plate of Vegemite sandwiches would raise eyebrows.
