A Very Buzzfeed Friendsgiving

Friendsgiving: The celebration of Thanksgiving dinner with your friends. This usually occurs on the Wednesday before or the Friday after Thanksgiving Day, since Thanksgiving is usually reserved for family gatherings.

Our gathering did not follow the rules that Buzzfeed has compiled - I would say we definitely had a much less stressful one!

So my friend and I decided to do a roast chicken - Thomas Keller style as taken from the Buzzfeed Roast Chicken Tournament. 

However, and I did not share this thought with aforementioned friend, that morning, when I looked more closely at the recipe, I realized that all the recipe really was...was throwing a chicken in a pan with some salt, pepper and herbs and roasting it in the oven for a bit. So I figured I could improvise a little bit Why not add some extra veggies here and there...and *gasp* add some butter (though the recipe said only add butter MAYBE at the end) under the skin in the BEGINNING!!! 

It didn't seem like a big deal until we were running into the host's apartment slightly late and a bit disheveled, and when she saw me start with the thyme butter, she started yelling "THE RECIPE SAYS NO BUTTER!" as I'm yelling back "IT'S OK I PROMISE!" to which she responds "THAT IS NOT THE THOMAS KELLER WAY" and I yell "HE'S JUST ROASTING A CHICKEN! I'M GOING TO MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING!!!" at which point she begins to tear up (though this might have been on account of the onions that she was chopping at the time) , and responds "THOMAS KELLER WOULD NOT APPRECIATE YOU SAYING THAT!!!" 

Finally I'm done and throw the chicken in the oven to stop all the LOUD NOISES!!!

Picture proof:

From my magical backpack

Brought all my knives! Well...except for the bread knife

Getting ready to butter the chicken under its skin

Jen crying while cutting veggies onions....

Work in Progress...

Right before entering the oven (stop yelling at me now Jen! Please!

I PROMISED YOU IT WOULD BE BEAUTIFUL! (And delicious!)

Ahhhh, Friendsgiving :)

Whew! Now that that's done...let's rewind to how we even got everything there. Being football Sunday, where else do people hang out but at bars watching the game and drinking beer? Problem was, my apartment is all the way over in one direction, and the bar and ultimate dinner destination were over on the opposite side. Being as I had all the ingredients...I had to figure out the optimal plan to get the chicken, veggies, cast iron skillet, knives & vegetable peeler over to my final destination AND try to catch part of the games (gotta see if I have any chance in moving out of last place in our fantasy league!). I had the chicken and the skillet in the fridge before, so I was really hoping they would keep each other cool in my backpack with all the other supplies as I made the trek crosstown. 

Girl walks into a bar...with a really heavy and lethal backpack. And Backpack Chicken was born.

Empire State Building was purple that night