Meat makes me nervous. Beef is safe because it can be served medium rare, but pork and chicken never fail to raise my blood pressure as I hopefully poke and prod away at the sizzling slab in my pan. Always, I await the verdict anxiously, eyes glued to the steaming piece of flesh as M’s fork spears it.
Meekly, I ask:
“Is is raw?”
My average is holding at 65% cooked, I believe, and slowly improving. Chicken, alone, has a better average, coming in at 85%, but pork? Damn those little piggies and their hard to cook meat for dragging my stats down.
I try, obviously, to walk that moist razor-thin edge between raw and overdone, but it is difficult when I never eat the meat myself. After five years of vegetarianism, I have forgotten how to gauge when meat is at that turning point.
Therefore, M is my guinea pig. Honored with the first risky bite of every protein I turn out in the kitchen.
Every time cooked flesh hits the plate,we play Russian roulette. Will today be the day improperly cooked chicken savages M’s insides with Salmonella and leaves me wracked with guilt? Or did that too-pink porkchop M forcefully swallowed a few weeks ago infect him with parasites and me with heavy remorse?
Tonight, I gambled on Curry Coconut Chicken strips and came out on top, holding a platter of perfectly done, white-all-the-way-through poultry pieces.
Served with an amazing homemade Thai chunky peanut sauce M raved about and garlicky, gingery, coconutty cabbage, M and I were both were winners. In addition, we had a light salad of mint, cucumber, tomato and red bell. M is really digging the mint we got on Sunday. 
Then I realized my entire pot of ginger coconut rice was undercooked. After I stopped raging at my rice cooker for failing me, I took out half of the uncooked rice on top, added more water and flipped the tab.
While it cooked, I appeased my growling stomach with wheat bread. Which, it turns out, is not so good with peanut sauce. But once the rice cooked up fluffy and sweet, M ate himself stupid. He finished the entire plate of chicken.
Looks like we both live to eat another day.
Winner, winner, (another) chicken dinner!
xoxo,
Jenn
