Tastes Like (Rubbery) Chicken

Sometimes it takes one big disappointment of a recipe to remind me why I love reading and cooking recipes from blogs.  Those recipes have been tested in real kitchens and have been deemed worthy of photographing and rambling about by people who genuinely love to cook.  Those recipes are special.  Sadly, the ones on TV, in cookbooks, and in magazines don't live up to the high standards that bloggers set, and when the recipes are bad, they are really bad.

I've been working pretty crazy hours and traveling a lot, so when I get the opportunity to cook, I set pretty high expectations for myself.  Last weekend I decided to make Grilled Buttermilk Chicken from the recent Martha Stewart Living magazine, and it was so bad I ended up eating about 3 bites before pushing it aside on my plate.  Chicken is chicken and, frankly, pretty hard to mess up.  Somehow soaking this chicken in buttermilk, rosemary, and garlic for a few hours before popping it on the grill made the chicken rubbery and take on an off-putting flavor.  I was not pleased.  Luckily this weekend's cooking endeavors were more successful - perhaps even successful enough to feature on this blog so that you can avoid the disaster of tempting recipes found in magazines.  More soon...