Roast Off!

And so it came to this: 12 friends assembled as a panel of judges (cooks and spouses recused, of course) to settle the question once and for all.  With Lucy as our gracious hostess, with bread, green salad, and ungodly amounts of potatoes contributed by all, and with ridiculous complexities concocted in to obscure each chicken's provenance, we each presented two birds for the judging, to be evaluated on whole-chicken presentation, then carved and judged on taste.

The judges, somewhat to our surprise, took this shit seriously.

Allowing the debates to continue over wine in the parlor, Lucy and I retired to the kitchen to carve up the birds, my preferred style of carving and plating leading our friend Hayden to exclaim: "My God! A four legged chicken! We certainly don't have *those* in New Zealand."

That's Chicken X on the left, Chicken Y on the right (your left and right, not the chicken's right and left; except if you're in New Zealand, then it's all turned around. And the chickens will have four legs). In the end it was a close-run contest, with both of us (entirely unknowingly) having the same preferred herb mixture (garlic and rosemary) and only slightly different techniques. Weighted averages were (somehow or other) calculated, and in the final tally it was grindbros.com's own Chicken X that prevailed by a nose, proving that, unlike the Boston Celtics, I can actually win on the road. Lucy promises a rematch, though, and I for one don't doubt the seriousness of her intentions.

And just to keep this all open and transparent, any disputes can be directed to the judges pictured below:

Standing in the back that's Nick, Megan, and Hayden. Clockwise around the table are Lindsay, Jake, Elizabeth, Shaun, Courtney, our fine hostess Lucy, Justin, and Alice. Just don't tell anyone Nick was there. Apparently, he's MI-6.