Chicken, Centerpiece of a Jewish Table

By Adeena Sussman for Hadassah Magazine

Many a Friday I have a certain kind of Shabbat dinner in mind, the one with the dazzling menu hatched in an overly optimistic imagination, its many courses cycling through my head like some sort of culinary flipbook.

But then the errands, the housecleaning, the deadlines, the unexpected phone conversations, the doctor’s appointment, the business trip—in short, life—get in the way. Since friends have been invited, there’s no turning back, but a plan forward seems out of reach.

That is, until I roast a chicken.

It’s not just because at this point I’ve committed the recipe to memory, or that people ask for it more than anything else I make, or that it’s been the centerpiece of Jewish Friday night dinners for centuries. In my case, I make it because it’s dead simple and because once in the oven the plan for a meal seems to magically arise, ushering in the kind of Friday night I had envisioned from the get-go.

I can prepare the chicken in 15 minutes or less, slide it into the oven, then use the roasting time as a countdown for preparing the rest of the meal. How much can I get done in the 90 minutes it takes for the chicken to turn a deep golden shade and perfume my kitchen with the aromas of garlic, lemon and herbs? A lot, it turns out. A salad, a side, a fruit salad—dinner is served.

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