by Denise Dykstra

My husband and I have been watching a barbecue challenge show on Netflix. I am in a slump where nothing sounds good to make for dinner, nor does any food at all even sound especially good. Or very summery.

I was mostly interested in the summer vibe I was sure the show would be.

But while I would never want to be on a cooking competition show (I would be more of a “this is how you cook dinner on a weeknight when you’ve been gone all day, and you have one hour to come up with something to feed ravenous teen boys” show), the program did prove inspiring to my husband to warm up the smoker and try some beer can chicken for Sunday dinner.

Now, what I want to share with you is that we have so many images of Norman Rockwell when we say “Sunday Dinner.”

This is not that story.

Because we so often paint our best images on line, I am here to share this story so you know that our family is just as normal as yours. Or maybe we aren’t. Maybe we are just crazy, and we should go back to just sharing the best highlight reel.

I’ll let you decide.

First, we didn’t have chicken on hand. My husband ran to the store and grabbed two whole chickens, so we could have some extra meat left over for meals this week. I decided to put them in a brine of water, salt and sugar. I’ve done it before. I had a handwritten recipe from a friend with the brine directions on it, but could I find that recipe? No. No, I could not.

Thankfully, a quick text to my friend got me a picture of the handwritten recipe. I still can not find that recipe, and that makes me sad. I am sure it will show up in some random place in the future, but for now it’s that one thing I can’t put my finger on, literally, and it’s bugging me.

I pulled out a big pot to put in the chicken and brine. But the pot was just barely the right size. This is also where I should mention I have this thing about raw chicken. Raw chicken grosses me out to a degree I cannot find the words for. It didn’t used to be this way.

My parents raised chickens, and they were my chore growing up. My dad still butchers chickens on his own. I choose chicken regularly for our family meals. But lately I have to talk myself into prepping chicken and touching it with bare hands to get it ready for dinner. Even sharing this with you makes me feel squeamish.

I share all of this with you because the truth is, I should have found something to put those chickens in that was bigger so they could float around better. But I could not bring myself to touch them one more time.

The chickens were partially frozen so we left them on the counter while we watched a movie. Except Cash the Cat was being his regular horrible adorable self, and knew we had chicken on the counter and he really wanted to check it out. Since I didn’t have a lid on the chicken because it wouldn’t fit, and just used plastic wrap, it was not an enjoyable movie watching experience. My husband finally just put the chicken away in hopes that it would be thawed enough in the morning.

Morning dawned, and my husband had watched YouTubes of how to make beer can chicken so he was prepared. He and I sat at the table Sunday morning sipping coffee and discussing our dinner plans.

My husband says now, “Smoking the chicken took a minute more than I thought it was going to. I should have started it first thing in the morning.”

Understatement.

My husband pulled the chicken out of the brine, and it dripped across all of the floor between the pot and the table. Why didn’t we put the pot on the table where he was preparing the chicken? I don’t know. But I can tell you my floors were mopped three times that next day in my effort to get them very clean.

The chicken was seasoned and put into the smoker. While I waited for the chicken to cook/smoke/become magical, I began to make the sides. First some fried potatoes, which I prefer to cook on low for a few hours. I sent a photo of them to our kids and suddenly our oldest was asking what time dinner was. I told him to ask his dad since he had the chicken thing to do, and I was just making sides.

Then I made some homemade macaroni and cheese, a frying pan full of Brussels sprouts with bacon, warmed up some corn frozen from the garden the past summer and then I went to work making very labor intensive, but worth every bit of it, from scratch buttermilk biscuits.

Side note to the story: My husband got me biscuit cutters for Christmas, and I just used them. All of these years, I have been making biscuits with a drinking glass from the cupboard. Biscuit cutters are worth every penny. They work amazingly well.

It was in making the biscuits that I realized I had not eaten any breakfast. However, with dinner only a half hour away, I decided to wait and have Sunday dinner be my breakfast.

Our oldest son and his wife arrived for dinner. They brought a salad and a cheesecake that was leftover from the night before. My husband came in to tell us that the chicken was going to be just a little bit longer.

Just a bit.

It was 1:30 p.m. when we were supposed to eat Sunday Dinner, and here it was 1:30, and I was starving. I get hangry when I am starving. My youngest two and I began eating Brussels sprouts and bacon from the frying pan.

“Just a little longer,” my husband said as he came in yet again. He has numerous meat thermometers, and he assured us it was just not quite to temperature yet.

We set the table and put all the sides on the table. We gathered around the table to wait. At nearly 2:30, my husband put the chickens in the oven and cranked the oven up high. I suggested we start eating the sides while we waited for the meat to get done. I even added how it would make the chicken even more of the centerpiece of the dinner because it would be enjoyed all on its own. This great suggestion was met with my husband saying he would never again smoke me anything in the smoker — ever again.

We were assured it was just going to be a bit longer (again). Our oldest asked if he had enough time then to run outside and work on his spark plugs on his truck. But his question was drowned out by the smoke alarm going off due to the chicken grease spilling onto the pan in the hot oven.

The boys began grabbing biscuits and eating them. At first they snuck a piece here and there, now they just made them up with heaping spoonfuls of jam and shoved them in their faces to quench the ache in their bellies.

Our oldest, sensing the tension coming from his dad, and the way his mom was about to turn into a puddle of starvation, tried to diffuse the situation by laughingly stating that he and his wife had arrived on time today. It is a joke in our farmily that they are always late but today they arrived at the dinner time given of 1:30pm.

Just before 3 p.m. that one chicken was deemed done and placed in the middle of the table. I asked our youngest to take a photo of us to remember this happy occurrence of delicious food. I grinned happily for the food laid before me. My youngest looked like taking the photo was the biggest inconvenience when there was food to finally eat (but he took the photo!) and the rest could not bother to look up as they filled their plate.

That dinner was delicious. The first chicken was eaten completely clean, and the second had a good dent in it as well. I tried to cut up that second chicken after dinner to save the meat for meals later in the week, but the sound of the knife trying to cut through the cooked chicken caused me to gag. It was fine, it ended up getting eaten up as the night went on anyhow.

Here is what we learned:

• YouTube isn’t always right.

• We would have failed had we been on the cooking show. Except on the sides. Those sides were delicious.

• Our oldest son and wife can, in fact, make it to dinner on time if fried potatoes are involved. My daughter- in-law bakes an amazing cheesecake.

• My boys can eat through half a jar of freezer jam if they have the right biscuits to eat it with. We can call a day “good” if we can just manage to get together.

When I told the boys I was writing about our Sunday dinner, they told me they didn’t think that our dinner could be called very joyful. Except it will be, because this is the dinner day we will remember for years to come.

Have you had a rather disastrous dinner experience that turned out pretty good? Tell us about it.