Hong Kong Chicken

First, a shoutout to Rumster for telling me about Dark Reader, a browser extension that inverts all the white computer screen backgrounds to black and all the black text to white. My computer is misbehaving so I had to use my wife's laptop for a moment. That glaring, harsh reminder of what the internet experience was like before Dark Reader makes me appreciate it and not just take it for granted. Thanks, Rummy!

There was a time, not too long ago, when my wife did almost all the cooking and I worked all the crazy hours. But since I went blind she's the one working sunup to sundown and I'm the one doing at least half the cooking.

I think I've gotten pretty good at it.

Cooking is an art to me, not a science. I never measure anything when I cook, I just add ingredients until I feel the balance is right. A few more onion slices, a pinch more salt, maybe a little hint of lemon pepper, a couple drops of salsa, and voila!

Not measuring anything means I never cook the same dish twice. The ratio of ingredients always changes. Last month's Cajun omelette was different than the one I'm making this month. Last month I might have used half a bell pepper and a quarter of an onion, but this month it's a quarter of a bell pepper and half an onion.

People who are really diplomatic call my cooking choices "bold" and "daring". Please don't ask what everybody else thinks.

When I was in Africa thirty five years ago the locals mentioned a dish they called Hong Kong chicken. When I asked what it was they said it was chicken boiled in a mixture of orange juice and Coca Cola. I was intrigued but never got to try it during my stay.

I brought up Hong Kong chicken to my wife years ago. She wasn't interested in trying it. I didn't do anything about it until last month, when I realized I'm doing the cooking now, so I might as well try it. I asked her to pick up the ingredients each week for the past few weeks but life kept getting in the way. Somehow it never happened.

Yesterday morning we went shopping. I told her I was determined to try Hong Kong chicken this week. Did she think orange juice or lemonade sounded better? What brand of soda should we use? She surprised me and picked up a can of pineapple juice concentrate. Bold and daring! She also suggested using Sprite but I went with Cherry Dr Pepper instead. We're gonna do this!

Except we didn't have a recipe. Hong Kong chicken, as far as I knew, is an African dish. The "Hong Kong" in the title might mean the dish came from coastal China or it might be a marketing thing - either way, a Google search for "Hong Kong Chicken recipe" wasn't leading me where I wanted to go.

That's okay - bold and daring! We would put the boneless chicken breasts, the Dr Pepper, the pineapple juice concentrate in the crock pot. I'd finally know - 35 years later - what Hong Kong chicken tasted like.

Except our youngest daughter had a dentist appointment yesterday afternoon and we figured there wouldn't be enough time between her dentist appointment and going to the dance club to use the crock pot, so she decided to bake it in the oven.

I chopped the onion. She seasoned the chicken. We added the mixture of pineapple juice and Cherry Dr Pepper and put it in the oven.

To my wife, cooking is a science, not an art. She measures everything. But we had no recipe to work from, no idea how Hong Kong chicken was supposed to be prepared, we didn't even know how it was supposed to taste. With no recipe to go on and only a vague idea of what we were trying to accomplish, measuring made no sense. She was forced to cook it my way instead of her way, looking to bring the ingredients into balance instead of adding each one then moving on to the next item on the list.

She was nervous.

I was nervous, too, but for a different reason. I'd spent 35 years imagining this dish, dreaming about it until my expectations were so impossibly high there could be no way the final product could ever live up to my own mental hype.

I should point out I lost a dozen pounds over the last few months but gained half of it back during our trip to Tennessee. I'd spent the previous couple days losing those last few pounds to get back to my ideal weight. I had been running and not eating.

I was hungry. Not just stomach-growling hungry, but more of the out of energy, every-cell-in-my-body-craves-nutrition-right-now kind of hungry.

Waiting for the oven to beep I considered my situation, expectations set too high through hunger and 35 years of anticipation. Reality began to dawn on me. We'd tried our best but we had no recipe. This was going to disappoint - the only question was if it would be a little disappointment or a big one. I felt guilty for dragging my wife into this. She was trying her best to please me but come on, this was going to be a failure - my failure - but she'd feel guilty about it.

This had been a bad idea.

The oven beeped. My wife opened the door.

Oh, my God! I'd never smelled anything so heavenly in my life!

She refused to serve me until the rice and vegetables were done so I sat there salivating, afraid to hope this could work but smelling the evidence that it had.

I'd heard the myth that our other senses heighten when we go blind, but that was just a misunderstanding. Except I was experiencing it while I waited for the rice and veggies to cook. The smell of the Hong Kong chicken was so intense it was all I could think about.

I can't explain it.

She served me a plate.

It was perfect.

Thirty five years of anticipation was justified. It was everything I'd hoped it would be. The best meal I've had in years.

• 8 boneless chicken breasts, raw and unbreaded
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 liter of soda
• 3/4 can of frozen fruit juice concentrate
• Lots of garlic salt
• A bit of curry powder
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of corn starch

Fill the pan with enough of the soda/fruit juice mixture until the chicken is submerged. Bake at 425 degrees.

You're welcome =)