One of the happiest nights of my adult life

One rainy Sunday a few years ago, Isabel, Owen, and I decided to pass the afternoon by watching a DVD of The Fellowship of the Ring, that movie about hobbits and elves and Orcs that we'd been hearing about. One hundred and seventy-eight minutes later, during which we neither moved nor spoke, we looked at each other, eyes glazed. We walked straight to the car, drove to the video store, and rented The Two Towers and The Return of the King. It was getting on dusk when I pulled into the Kentucky Fried Chicken down the hill and bought dinner.

My kids were shocked. Happy, but shocked. What was going on with Mom? KFC? I wondered that myself. But we were hungry and the chicken was hot and we had five more hours of Viggo Mortensen to watch. Fifteen minutes after I pulled into the KFC, we were back on the sofa with the bucket on the coffee table, eating mediocre chicken and mashed potatoes and biscuits and watching The Two Towers. It was one of the happiest nights of my adult life and my children get dreamy and nostalgic talking about it.

[here we're skipping her description of making perfect fried chicken from a Thomas Keller recipe, which was eaten without comment by her family after hours of labor]

Soon I was left with plates of picked-over bones and a ravaged kitchen. One of these days I will forget the evening ever happened. I suspect Mark and our children already have. But that night we ate KFC on the sofa and watched The Two Towers? That, we will never forget.

Jennifer Reese; Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

This book is so entertaining. I appreciate the analysis of whether it is better to buy or make various standard food items — granola/make, Pop Tarts/buy — but I have never made anything from it. I have read it twice, however, because the author is just so darned entertaining. And honest.