November 22, 1999
Chicken Clamp
by Joshua Carden
Okay, it’s group participation time again. I have had a unique cooking experience in recent history, and I want to see if anyone can top it. I’m sure that the responses will be plentiful, but mine is a pretty good one.
Now, to be honest, I’ve never cooked that much. My brother Jason has always been the chef of our family. He makes a great steak dinner that has only been equaled in my humble and well-qualified opinion, by a steak I had in Argentina. Don’t tell him I said that. I’m lucky if I can get water to boil without burning it. I once made an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies and forgot to put in the chocolate chips!
My law school apartmate (not my roommate or housemate, since we live in a two-bedroom apartment) and I have been on this health and nutrition kick for the last several weeks. The only downside, besides the VERY early morning workouts, has been that I have to cook my own meals. I’ve had to expand my horizons beyond peanut butter and jelly. I used to have jelly and peanut butter when I wanted variety. But, with the aid of my roommate, I’ve started to improve quite a bit.
On the occasion in question, I intended to prepare a nice chicken breast and rice dinner. We had obtained a Sam’s-size, frozen bag of boneless, skinless chicken breasts from a major, bulk-shopping food warehouse that shall remain nameless to prevent law suits. We had finished most of the bag and when I removed the one I wanted, I happen to glance in the bottom of the bag. There, slightly frosted, lay a C-clamp. Yes, that’s right, a C-clamp. If you don’t know what one looks like, ask your hardware-conscious family members to draw you a picture. (And ladies, please don’t assume I am only directing this comment at you!) Now I had heard of iron supplements but this was ridiculous. Needless to say, it did NOT belong in my chicken! (Though I have since wondered if that’s what the “C” in C-clamp stands for.) While dinner was cooking (I went ahead and ate the chicken since the clamp was fairly clean), I called the little 1-800 number printed on the bag. They assured me that nothing like this had ever been heard of, and that they knew where the bag came from and when it came off of the line, and that somewhere, somebody’s head was going to roll. I thought that a particularly poor choice of metaphors considering the line of work they were in, but that’s beside the point. After I hung up, I felt better, but deep down I suspect the only phone call that the supervisor of the chicken plant ever got went something like “Hey, Bob! You better check platform #4, I think you might be missing a C-clamp up there!”
Well, if you can top that, please email me and let me know. I reserve the right to edit for sheer grossness, so going for uniqueness will probably better your chances for a future column appearance. I look forward to seeing your response. Bon Clampetit! Hey, I wonder if I can get a new line of jokes going? Why did the C-clamp cross the road…?
