CUTTING UP A CHICKEN

My mother taught me how to cut up a chicken about a week before I got married. I did not pay attention to the knife.

I chose to use a steak knife for my one-size-fits-all kitchen knife because it had a serrated blade. Never having used a sharp knife in my life, I thought serrated blades were God’s gift to the world. They cut through almost anything – except chicken.

To avoid stabbing myself during a wrestling match with a chicken, I held it down by putting the parson’s nose end into the sink drain. After splitting it in two, I put it on a cutting board and proceeded to prove that it is not impossible to saw through slimy chicken skin with a steak knife.

A few years ago I asked my father-in-law to teach me how to sharpen a knife with a sharpening steel. He tried his best, but I never got it. That Christmas my mother-in-law gave me a rolling wheel knife sharpener. I highly recommend them.