Apr 21, 2016 4 min read

Just when I thought I would jump off the Facebook ship once and for all, the chickens came along to pull me back in.

For a long time, I’ve thought of Facebook as a digital wasteland of grumpy cats, duck lip selfies and the ubiquitous misuse of the apostrophe in the word “its.” But I like Facebook again because it has become a source of life-improving chicken recipes.

When the bossy-pants health gurus took away our beef, our pork, our Slim Jims, our cheese and everything else delicious, we were left with salmon and chicken. So as not to destroy the ambiance of your home with the salmon smell, you have to cook it outside on the grill, and even then it’s likely half the people in your family won’t eat it.

Which leaves us with chicken. Open my freezer drawer right now and you will find frozen packs of thighs, drumsticks, breasts and tenders. For years, that commercial with the Aaron Copland music has been telling us beef is what’s for dinner, but not at my house.

Since the children were little, we were on a weekly rotation as follows: Monday – chicken thighs; Tuesday – chicken chili; Wednesday – Magic Chicken (breasts baked with parmesan and breadcrumbs); Thursday – chicken fajitas; Friday – pizza; Saturday – leftover chicken; and, Sunday – roast chicken. A prevailing memory of my dinner table is not the lively discussions but what combination of chicken/brown rice/broccoli mom was going to foist upon the family.

In the past six months or so, I’d hit the chicken wall. I couldn’t face another pack of breasts. Couldn’t wash and pat dry the bumpy skin of another half-dozen thighs. I was starting to get that pizza-delivery twitch in my finger.

And that’s when Facebook rescued me. In order to save a recipe, FB users must hit the “share” button, which allows the recipe to remain on their page and accessible forever. Because all these chicken recipes are on my page, it may seem that I have tried and am recommending them, but no. They are there because I am optimistic.

But let’s be honest: it’s chicken. There’s not a whole lot you can do that changes or elevates it. But some of the recipes look really good. Take the chicken-olive-cauliflower stew that lurked on my page for months before I finally tried it, a delay I blame on the ridiculous price of cauliflower. Really. Eight dollars? But it was good. The farmer, who would eat a steak every meal, including snacks if he could, ate the stew for dinner and for lunch the next day, but suggested I “not add it to the rotation.” Sigh.

There were the recipes for thighs baked in a little clay dome called a tagine. That one required me to rig up a makeshift tagine with two casserole dishes. It was good but complicated. And there are the recipes for chicken in the slow cooker. Those recipes are easy and comforting, but somehow the chicken always ends up dry, proving that, like me, a chicken that stays too long in the hot bath will end up dry, not to mention pruney.

I don’t care to think of myself as the human equivalent of a mundane chicken dinner, but just as they say you are what you eat, maybe you are what you cook. If the bossy health people would lift the ban on bacon, I would work that into the weekly rotation.

“What’s for dinner, Mom?”

“Bacon!”

There would be cheering and clean plates all around. Alas, I’m the mother who built her strong, healthy kids on chicken, brown rice and broccoli. It’s too late to change now.

But a new way to do drumsticks would be nice. Post it on your page. It’s what Facebook friends do.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.