Wings
extra crispy and slightly vulnerable
Having been a vegetarian for a good third of my life, chicken wings are a new addition to my list of favorite foods.
Even after I started eating meat again, for awhile I wasn’t particularly interested in what I called “interactive chicken.” They seemed like an awful lot of work for the same reward I could reap from a nugget or a tender.
Ethan was the first person to show me how wrong I was. And every time I’m treated to a good wing, I’m reminded of just how wrong I had been.
I used to frequent a trivia night at a dive bar downtown with some friends. The wings were shit—rubbery, over-sauced in an attempt to cover poor quality, and somehow always lukewarm—but we ordered a dozen each week anyway. It was something to do between questions.
My friends made a point to order the wings “extra crispy.” I figured it was a proactive measure against what we already knew were not the best textured wings, but is a tid-bit I have taken with me whenever I order wings now.
The best wings I’ve ever had come from the kitchen at Fredrick’s Restaurant in Bolton Landing. Extra-charred by design, almost burnt looking, impossibly crispy on the outside, tender and juicy beneath the skin. Fredrick’s Hoopes wings are in a league of their own. The only place where that “extra crispy” request is redundant.
I was working in Bolton one day last summer, in the middle of peak season, near the end of a grueling stretch of shifts, when the kind people at Fred’s dropped off two dozen wings for us. Just because.
The steady stream of customers that had dominated our morning trickled to a stop. For the first time all day, the four of us working behind the counter had a chance to breathe. We huddled over the cardboard clamshell like a campfire keeping us alive and the world briefly stopped.
We dug in. Fingers slick with sauce. Napkins abandoned almost immediately. Drippings of bleu cheese and ranch over the cardboard. Black flakes of char on our chins. Moans and groans of deep satisfaction. It was primal, if a little barbaric.
For a few minutes, nobody checked the clock. We just stood there eating wings.
There is something magnificent to be said about getting your hands dirty together.
I love you from my head tomatoes,
Gareth
Yu-um!