Food: Roast Chicken Comfort

Pardon the interruption, it's been a while since the last update.  It's been a busy month, both at work and at home.  We've been making a conscious effort to try and cook dinner most nights, which usually means that our whole night is taken up.  By the time I get home, I have to start dinner.  By the time we finish eating and cleaning up, it's almost bedtime in a vain effort to get enough sleep for another day at work, leaving little time for other things.  Rinse and repeat.  It takes a lot of effort to break out of the routine, but now that the summer is almost here, it's starting to get easier to try and get out of the house.

Since we've been cooking a lot, even if we don't have time to make something fancy, we'll still try and cook a something quick that doesn't sacrifice taste.  One of those dishes that everyone should know how to make is a roast chicken.  It's one of those meals that is deceptively complex---it looks like a gourmet meal, but is actually very easy to make.  It's also a great meal for a budget, since often buying a whole chicken is cheaper than buying the separate parts!  Not only do you get more meat, but you can use the bones and giblets for making stock.  It almost spiritually brings you closer to the food---you're not just working with processed, unrecognizable fillets of protein.  You use the whole animal without wasting any part.  It's comfort food and very Americana and it wasn't that long ago that most politicians promised a chicken in every oven.  Yet I think the roast chicken has sadly been replaced in most households with chicken nuggets.

To make a roast chicken, all you really need to do is sprinkle some salt and pepper all over and plop it into an oven for a couple of hours until the internal temperature registers 180 'F.  That's it, it's so simple that anyone can do it.  Taking a step beyond that, the variations are almost endless.  Since it's such an easy recipe, a roast chicken serves as a springboard for almost any culinary directions.  For this recipe, we decided to make a slightly stronger rub to give the chicken a slightly deeper taste.  We used:

Dry Rub
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne
Freshly ground black pepper

We patted the dry rub over the chicken and then placed chunks of butter around the bird---we were lazy, since you could rub the butter all over and under the skin for an even crispier taste, but this way the butter melts and bastes the bird during the cooking process.  We threw a few garlic cloves and half of a lemon inside the cavity for good measure.  The bird was then placed over a pillowy bed of roughly chopped vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, garlic cloves, and onions. The breast-side is placed down so that it doesn't overcook and dry out while the thighs and legs are still cooking.

The fully assembled bird ready to go into the oven.

The whole assembly was placed into an oven pre-heated at 475 'F.  The high heat is to avoid the initial temperature drop after everything is put in.  The heat was then reduced to 375 'F and the chicken was roasted for about 2 hours, checking for done-ness using an internal meat thermometer.

And that's it!  The chicken came out great and the vegetables were nice and soft.  Even better, the vegetables had soaked up the butter and chicken drippings, giving them a nice savory flavor.  After taking out the chicken and vegetables, you can use the residual drippings to create a gravy---you just need to add a little bit of flour and water to the chicken drippings and bring to a simmer.  

The finished product

Not only is this easy, but it also makes the entire house smell wonderful.  Even better, it doesn't actually take too long---we were able to prepare this after coming home from work.  Unlike slow cook recipes, which require the whole day, the chicken meat is still firm and the skin is a nice, crisp, golden brown.  Since we're using the whole bird, there's enough leftovers to last for several meals---this makes a nice lunch and sure beats bringing a ham sandwich to work.

Science: Migration Patterns

As the threat of another layoff approaches, I've noticed that my workplace has become younger and younger.  It's becoming tough to find older workers as they've been "retired" in the past several years to make room for younger (and cheaper) kids coming out of school.  (How does this loss of experience impact the industry?  My guess is we're not doing ourselves any favors...)  The idea that you can get a single job out of college that will last you until retirement feels naive and there's a feeling of general acceptance that you're going to have to move jobs several times over your career.  In fact, it's become almost a cliche that the fastest way to rise in your company is to leave to go to another company for a few years and then come back for a promotion and higher salary.  It's not a coincidence that there are dozens of pharmaceutical companies littered across New Jersey---you can literally shuffle between all of them during your career.  Still, moving feels like a huge commitment, particularly if you're a homeowner rather than a more mobile renter.

For example, my parents have had a relatively stable career.  They've mangaged a restaurant business in the same town for over thirty years.  As a result, we never really moved around too much when I was growing up.  We stayed in the same city in the same house.  In fact, we only moved once from a duplex to a single family house when I was only a couple of years old.

That got me interested in seeing how usual that is---do people usually stay in the same home working at the same job?  It feels like more and more people are no longer considering their current jobs permanent or even long-term.  As a result, it would seem like people must be moving homes more often as well.  Particularly since it's so easy to move around now, you're no longer confined to your hometown to wait for jobs to come.

It turns out that you can do some digging in the US Census Bureau's website and find out a lot of interesting information.  For example, the average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime.  At first that seemed remarkably high to me, but after thinking about it, I've moved 7 times so far in my life.  The first time was with my parents as a toddler, the last was buying a home for the first time, and the rest inthe middle were various apartments I had through college and grad school.  We now live in a rather petite townhouse and it seems quite likely we'll have to move at least once or twice more even if we end up staying in the same local area, let alone considering the possibility of moving to another state.

If we look at the demographics of moving, not surprisingly people in their twenties have the highest percentage moving rates before settling down in the thirties and forties.  Interestingly, there's a relatively high percentage of chilren from 1-4 years old who move, likely due to new families moving into larger homes.

So how has the average moving rate changed over time?  If there is a sense that jobs are less secure now, then I would expect average number of people moving should be increasing.  Plus, the decade experienced the housing boom and more and more people buying homes than ever before.  The Pew Research Center has an interesting report from the recent Census data and their own surveys.  Overall, surprisingly to me, the annual American migration rate has been declining the several decades.

One of the possible reasons is that the overall American population is growing older, and thus settling down.  Another reason cited is the rise of the two-body problem and couples with two careers.  This may deter moving since it it is more difficult to relocate both partners.  My wife and I certainly experienced that anxiety as we searched for post-doctoral and industry positions in the same area.  And I guess with the downturn in the economy, there simply aren't that many jobs out there to even leave home for.  Interestingly, the downturn in mobility appears to have started all the way back in the 90s (there's an interesting blip of increased moves in 1985, which I wonder what was the cause for), which spans periods of economic growth and decline.  I wonder if there is a sense of trying to make your home a more permanent place, particularly in an age of increasing consumerism and the rise of a superficial, throw away culture.  If you have to replace your belongings, your gadgets, even your job on a regular basis, maybe we're trying to make our home give us a sense of grounding.