A Trip To Sunny Mykonos on a Snowy Day

Some cold-weather food for the soon to be snowed-in (the left-overs are fabulous, this is multiple day food):

1 roaster chicken
4 lemons
5 cloves of garlic
1 medium onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
Two stalks fresh rosemary
Kosher salt

When you get your fresh roaster home from the store, dump it into an icewater bath liberally laced with Kosher salt for at least an hour. Pull out the gizzards and reserve them for another use (your kitties, for example.)

After the roaster has soaked for at least an hour, drain it and pull the skin over the breast loose but don't damage it or tear it. Just make some space between the skin and the meat of the breast. Slice the lemons thinly and cover as much of the breast under the skin as you can with the lemon slices. Smash two garlic cloves and place the results, one each, on each side of the breast. Fill the cavity with the remaining lemon slices, the chopped onion and garlic, crushed again. Work each of the sprigs of rosemary onto either side of the breast beneath the skin. Coat the entire chicken with a film of olive oil.

Roast in a 350 oven at 20 minutes per pound. Baste often. Let the bird rest for 10 minutes before you carve it. Carve as usual.

Serve with orzo with browned butter and spinach wilted in a little oil and garlic and sprinkled with feta cheese and pine nuts. Your dinner guests will cheer.

On day two, make sandwiches with crusty bread, aioli and spinach. On day three, you are ready to make Greek Avgolemono soup on the carcass.

Chop up the carcass and place in the stock pot with 4 quarts of water. Simmer with 1 cup chopped celery, 1 cup chopped carrots, 1 cup chopped potatoes, all added after the carcass has simmered for one hour. Cook the vegetables in the stock for one hour. After an hour let it cool, skim the grease and remove the bones. Cut up any chicken larger than 1 inch square and return to the soup. Add a can of drained canellini beans. Prepare some good, fresh bread, a plate of cheeses. And some more of that aioli you made the other night. Reduce the soup to a bare simmer. Nothing more than a couple of bubble a minute on the surface. Beat two eggs together with the juice of two lemons. Add them to the soup, stirring the whole time. Don't let the eggs cook. You'll eat well this week and probably keep the flu away.

Serve this with a Greek mezze plate, olives, stuffed grape leaves, a good pita and some hummous. A little ouzo wouldn't be out of place.

I sometimes wish that my friends weren't scatttered all over the country. I have a dream in which I hire a hall and a caterer and you all land here for the party of your lives.