When I was a kid, my mom traveled relatively frequently for work, leaving my dad to feed my brother and me. Now, Dad will promptly admit that he's no chef. His job was to stay out of the way while mom was cooking, and clean up when she was done. So, when forced to find food for two youngsters, he generally resorted to one of three options: pancakes, grilled cheese, or a trip to a delighful little fast food joint that used to dot the northern Virginia landscape--Roy Rogers. I was a ridiculously picky eater as a young person. In fact, I'm amazed my parents didn't just hook me up to an IV and be done with it. I hated hamburgers, tacos, and pizza, so most kid-friendly dining establisments were not realistic options. Roy Rogers presented us with the best of all possible worlds because it had the Double R Bar Burger for my dad and delicious fried
chicken for me. I always ordered a box of chicken (leg and breast) with fries and a chocolate shake. The leg was my favorite part of the meal. The proportion of juicy dark meat to crispy skin was perfect. The breast was a little too meaty and lean for my taste, and I often peeled off the greasy skin to eat by itself.I loved Roy Rogers diligently and exclusively my entire childhood, and then something dismal happened. Roy Rogers sold out to Hardees my senior year of high school. This was a real blow since my dad hated Hardees with a passion rarely directed at fast food restaurants. Even though I hear they kept the fried chicken on the menu, my dad's Double R Bar Burger was gone. I moved to New Mexico for college shortly after the great betrayal, and I never had that fried chicken again. Although, I hear that due to a great outcry from loyalists like myself, Hardees changed all the Roy Rogers back. Smart move.
In New Mexico, my fried chicken habit was replaced with green chile stew and tacos. My food horizons were broadened widely through exposure to a cuisine so different from what I had ever had before. Mexican food in my house meant spice envelope ground beef in hard taco shells or a trip to Chi Chi's for special events (which I, of course, hated). New Mexican food is different, though. It's sometimes so spicy you want to die, but not without one last bite. I started eating tacos with meat other than chicken, piling on the spicy salsas, ordering chile rellenos in the hope that they would make me sweat, and sopping up all the leftover juices with a sopaipilla. With so many new food avenues open to me, my first food love was pushed to the sidelines.
Seattle has been a similar experience. I've spent most of my food time in Seattle eating fresh fish, Northwest fusion, Hong Kong delicacies thanks to my husband, and, now that I live in South Park, carnitas and carne asada. But now, nostalgia is taking back to my first love. Lately, I've been ordering fried chicken at every diner I see--often with disatrous effects (just wait until I write about Andy's Diner), in an attempt to reconnect with the food that brought me so much joy as a kid. Southern cooking seems to be one of the next big things in Seattle restaurants. There are already several well-established places with good fried chicken (if you have not yet been to Kingfish, you should be smacked), and more opening all the time. So now seems as good a time as any to hop on the Southern haywagon and find the greasiest, crispiest, most delicious fried chicken like Roy Rogers used to make.
