"Shitty Chicken Salad," according to my wife

I am a tall man and my wife is a short woman. I am 6’8″, and she is 5’3″- and like most romantic partners with huge differences in size, we kind of have a fetish for each other. It works for us. But along with almost everything else in a world built by average-sized people, adapting ourselves to each other requires compromise. Usually, it's my lower back that foots the bill. Kissing/hugging/even listening to her requires a major slouch in my posture: I have to stoop down almost 1 1/2 feet to reach her face.

“I’m thinking about buying stripper heels,” she told me today while we were making this tasty chicken salad. “Big platform ones. You could stand up straight. We could hold hands without you having to droop your shoulder.”

While I pulled the chicken breasts out of the oven, she grabbed a foldable stepping stool from under the fridge. Standing on it, she was 6’3″ tall.

“Like this!” she said, then looked around in a state of wonder, newfound power tingling behind her eyes. “Ha! I like it up here,” she said. “Woo!”

The chicken breasts were still steaming, but the rest of our prep work was done. “I’m hungry now,” I said. “Maybe we could put these in the fridge to cool.”

She scowled. “Then you’ll-a steam up the whole fridge, and the chicken will taste like a musty refrigerator!” she yelled, Italian accent appearing from nowhere, shaking her fingers at the sky. “Then you’ll have a shitty chicken salad to write about in your blog!”

"You’re a little taller for one minute and already it has gone to your head!" I yelled back. You can’t-a handle the power!”

But 20 minutes later, by the time the chicken had been cooled, cubed and stirred into the rest of the salad, my wife made a welcome attitude adjustment. She said it was the most delicious chicken salad she’d ever tasted. We both ate sandwiches of it on Tuscan Boule bread while watching the latest Netflix true crime special, then scooped another big lump down on a shared plate with some Ritz crackers. We ate on the bed, where we’re at eye level. We kept eating till the mayo made us queasy, because the chicken salad is so, so good.

SHITTY CHICKEN SALAD

• 1 little yellow onion, diced
• 1 big yellow apple, diced
• 2-3 stalks of celery
• 1/2 cup (big handful) of pecans/some other nuts
• 3/4 cup (bigger handful) of grapes, cut in half
• 1 squirt, lemon or lime juice
• 1 squirt, Dijon mustard
• 4 cloves garlic
• ~2lbs of Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (BSCB)
• seasonings: salt, pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cumin, tarragon, turmeric maybe?
• 1 cup (damn near a whole squeeze bottle) of GOOD mayonnaise (Duke’s, Helman’s, et al)
• 1 or 2 spoonfuls of plain Greek yogurt (optional)

1. Get your wife to do the dicing. You’ve been cooking a lot this week and she is eager to help. Her small hands will help ensure a fine dice. Dump the onion, celery, apple, and grapes into a big bowl.
2. Spritz em all with your lemon or lime juice. It will keep them looking sharp.
3. Preheat the oven to 450. Take out your 2lbs of BSCB (boneless skinless chicken breast) and season both sides with salt, pepper, and whatever else looks nice on your rack. Put it on a greased baking sheet. It’s important to season both sides because you’ll likely end up cutting the BSCB along its z-axis when it’s cooled to make sure the cubes are square.
4. Peel the garlic, but don’t chop it. Set it on the tray with the chickens.
5. While the oven heats up, get out a skillet and dump the nuts in it with the burner on medium. Sprinkle some cloves and nutmeg, shake em around for 5 or 10 minutes. Enjoy the smell. Roasting nuts are delicious. Eat a couple.
6. Throw the chicken in the oven for 23 minutes. While you wait, pick up your wife and set her back on her stepstool. Give her some sugar. Talk in fake Italian some more.
7. Take the chicken out. Cool it. When they’re not too hot, mince up those gorgeous cloves of roasted garlic and throw them in the bowl. Cut the chicken in three dimensions for a proper dice. Dump it in with the rest.
8. Empty the cup of mayo in the bowl. Feels good. Feels nasty. Squirt the mustard in.
9. Season with salt and pepper. Next time you’re at the supermarket buy a jar of tarragon. Aren’t you always seeing bougie lunch places serving “Tarragon Chicken Salad”? Now’s the time to get your revenge on them. A couple shakes and viola! You’re the bougie one now. Also: cumin, whatever other stuff seems right.
10. Stir. If it seems too dry, throw spoonfuls of yogurt in. Or, if you have more mayo, first make sure no one’s looking, then get nastier with a few more dollops. It’ll be our little secret- that’s what I did too.

Serve on bread, with crackers, with pita, on a lettuce wrap, etc. It’s-a very tasty!