44 By the Way
Ponte Vedra Recorder ·August 27, 2015
Searching for
pulley bones
For the past several years I’ve not
seen pulley bones in packages along
side the packages of chicken legs or
chicken breasts at my favorite grocery or even at my second-favorite
grocery. That forked bone with pure
white tender meat from each of the
chicken’s breasts was always my
favorite piece of chicken.
This kinda makes me wonder if
the pulley bone
has been genetically engineered
out. And, for
goodness sakes,
what piece is
next to go? Besides, without
a pulley bone,
there’s no “make
June Lands
a wish” game
Columnist
when everyone
finishes a chicken
dinner.
The game is between the person who had the privilege of eating the pulley bone and the person
he chooses to “pull the bone” with
him when the meal is finished.
First, both make a wish — just to
themselves. Then they pull the
two-pronged bone. When the bone
breaks, whoever has the longest
piece of bone wins. His wish will
come true. End of game.
Fried chicken was not only a
“Sunday company” dish when I was
growing up, it was an “everyday”
dish too.
And everything about the prep
was done at home — wring its neck,
use ax to chop its head off, watch
it flop around on the grass — stand
back while blood spurts every
which way — pull feathers out,
then singe the skin to make sure no
feathers remain. In some cases, the
raising was done at home too — but
not at our house.
Wash, cut apart, piece by piece.
And, believe me, cutting up a
chicken is an art, not a slash here
and there.
To this day I have no clue as to
how a live chicken came to be at
our house. Also, to this day, I have
no clue as to why I don’t dislike
chicken prepared in any manner
after seeing the process that brought
it to my plate.
Back then, meaning when I was
very young, families did not have
fancy spices to change or enhance
the chicken’s flavor. Fixins’s were
eggs and milk, salt and pepper,
flour. And, the choice shortening for
frying, lard. Yes, lard, in a black cast
iron skillet.
Eve n after the electric skillet came on the market, some
of us still used our old cast iron
friend. I have my grandmother’s and
use it every now and again, mostly
for cornbread — when I’m feeling
nostalgic as well as strong.
Not only was fried chicken the
traditional Sunday midday meal, it
was sometimes a special breakfast
accompanied by gravy — called
thicken’ gravy or white gravy that
was somewhat similar to a white
sauce. The gravy is made after frying the chicken. Brown some flour
— keeping a few chicken crumbles
— add some milk and stir without
stopping to keep it from burning
until it reaches the just-right thickness. Set that along side some fluffy
biscuits and the-real-thing-butter
and Yum! Yum!
Most all parts of the chicken were
eaten except the feet — I don’t
remember any feet on the table —
Mother wouldn’t have had any kind
of feet on the table.
After all this thinking and writing
about frying a pulley bone up so
golden and crispy, I had to find out:
do chickens still have pulley bones?
According to Ed, the butcher at
Terry’s Country Store on Penman
Road: “Yes, the pulley bone is still in
the chicken. Sometimes it’s cut out
just like it used to be. No one asks
for it. But it can be done.”
He escorted me over to the
poultry case and showed me whole
dressed chickens and the packages
of different parts of chickens that
had been cut up and wrapped in
plastic. I did see some chicken livers
which I purchased to wrap in bacon
and sizzle in the oven, but I did not
find even one package of pulley
bones.
But that’s okay. I know where
to go when the pulley-bone-urge
strikes.
June Lands (1931-2015) was a Ponte
Vedra resident and long-time Recorder
columnist. We remember June by
reprinting some of her (and her writer
friends’) favorite columns. Mims Cushing
will act as curator for June’s columns,
which will appear in Mims’s usual space.
Her columns will be printed once a week,
as previously, starting on September 10.
THEME: ASTROLOGY
ACROSS
1. Fisherman’s ____ in
San Francisco
6. Rejuvenating spot
9. Tom, as opposed to
tabby
13. Drawing support
14. Center of activity
15. John Hancock, e.g.
16. Novelist Jong
17. Pilot’s announcement
18. Bar order, with “the”
19. *Bull
21. *Part of Watery
Trigon
23. Once around
24. Bank deposit
25. Skedaddle
28. Russian parliament
30. Psychologist of classical conditioning fame
35. Author Murdoch
37. It “was made for you
and me”
39. Judd of country
music
40. “Well” to Sofia Loren
41. Formed a curve
43. Ski lift
SUDOKU
44. Haile Selassie’s
disciple
46. *One point of
constellation
47. Spilled the beans
48. Base that dissolves
in water, chem.
50. U in I.C.U.
52. Spanish river
53. Type of rich soil
55. Romanian money
57. *Castor and Pollux
60. *”Wandering Star”
63. Conical dwelling
64. Make a knot
66. Socialite Hilton
68. Change the Constitution
69. Cathode-ray tube
70. Speak like Cicero
71. Hand-me-down
72. “For ____ a jolly...”
73. Famous for biting
an ear
DOWN
1. Bitty
2. Robert Wagner or
Stefanie Powers, 19791984
3. “Heat of the Moment”
band
4. Happen again
5. Like bell-bottoms
6. “____ So Fine,” song
7. “He ____ in his
thumb, and pulled out
a plum”
8. Old-time calculators
9. Catchall abbr.
10. Flu symptom
11. Baron Munchhausen, e.g.
12. Architectural add-on
15. Result of beach
bathing
20. Palate lobe
22. One of The Alps
24. Holy place
25. *Balance in the sky
26. “He’s ____ ____
nowhere man,” Beatles
27. Capital of Belarus
29. *Named after God
of War
31. Giant kettles
32. Relating to a lobe
33. Yemeni neighbor
34. *Celestial maiden
36. Bristle
38. Jerry Lewis’ sidekick
42. DeWALT product
45. Like U.S. and U.S.S.R.
in WWII
49. It can be positive or
negative
51. Mrs. Potts of “Beauty
and the Beast”
54. Pronunciation of
letter H
56. Opposite of binary
57. Emeralds and rubies
58. “All for one, one for
all” sword
59. “Cobbler, cobbler,
____ my shoe”
60. Four-legged friends,
e.g.
61. *Each astrological
age contains 12 of
these
62. Mambo king Puente
63. *Taurus abbreviation
65. Anger management
issue
67. D.C. bigwig