A Microwave Chicken Disaster

The year was 1984. I was a new wife determined to be the best homemaker possible while teaching high school English and grading more papers than anyone wants to count. Microwave ovens were increasingly popular as an option for quick cooking, and I quickly jumped into this wonderful trend with both feet. My grandparents had gifted us a Kenmore microwave oven with all the bells and whistles; I couldn’t wait to use it.

This microwave was a completely different creature from the compact oven you probably have sitting in your kitchen. It was huge. I could fit a whole turkey in it if I removed the sturdy wire shelf in the middle. Now you might be wondering who in their right mind would cook a turkey in a microwave. Back then, we thought that anything and everything could be cooked faster (and maybe better) in our microwave. However, I never attempted a turkey after my chicken fiasco.

I lay the blame for the chicken disaster squarely at the feet of the book Kenmore Microwave Cooking published by the Benjamin Company Inc. Every fancy Kenmore microwave sold by Sears came with this gem. My oven happened to be the top-of-the-line model that came with pre-programmed recipes – over 200 of them.

I would peruse the recipes and create a menu for the week. Stuffed bell peppers were a favorite, and they always turned out perfectly cooked. The recipe book gave step by step instructions, and all I had to do was punch in the pre-programmed number on my microwave panel, and the amazing machine knew exactly how long to cook and at what temperature. It was a genuine marvel!

One week I came across a baked chicken recipe that looked delicious. I don’t know if the people at the Benjamin Company ever actually cooked these recipes, but they did have gorgeous, mouth-watering pictures of gourmet-looking cuisine. I thought my husband would love this chicken with its variety of spices. As soon as I got home from work, I got to work in my compact kitchen.

We lived on the third floor of a grey stone apartment building that had seen better days. However, we viewed our apartment through the rose-colored glasses of newlyweds. I could look out my front living room window and see when Keith was pulling in. I had enough time to have dinner ready to serve by the time he got parked and made it up to our apartment. We didn’t have a dining room table, but we had a large rectangular yellow trunk that I covered with a nice tablecloth. (40 years later that versatile trunk is still in use as a bedside table in what used to be our son’s bedroom.) There was just enough room in the kitchen for our trunk-table and two vanity chairs.

The baked chicken recipe had several steps which I carefully followed. I programmed the recipe number into the microwave and pressed start. In went the chicken for round 1 of cooking. The microwave dinged loudly, and I continued the steps laid out in the book. Back into the oven it went for round 2 of cooking. When it dinged, I pulled the chicken out, turned it around, and obediently put it back in for round 3 (a turntable inside the microwave wasn’t one of the 1984 bells or whistles).

Finally, after about 35 minutes it was ready. You might be thinking that I could have just baked it in the oven for 40-45 minutes, and had a great baked chicken meal. You, dear reader, are so right! However, I didn’t learn how to cook when I was growing up, so my Kenmore microwave cookbook was my culinary Bible.

I proudly served my baked chicken with some potatoes and vegetables to my husband shortly after he got home. I couldn’t wait to hear him tell me how delicious it was. He blessed our meal, and we dove in, completely unsuspecting. The outside meat was tasty, albeit a bit rubbery. But when we cut into it, we saw the blood. Yep, the chicken was still raw in the center. My sweet husband choked down a few bites of the more cooked outside meat and even told me it was good when he saw my eyes tearing up.

The rest of the chicken went into the trash, and we feasted on potatoes and veggies with ice cream for dessert. Needless to say, I never tried to cook another bird of any kind in my fancy microwave, and I lost all trust in Kenmore Microwave Cooking.

What was your most disastrous meal as a newlywed? Share it in the comments.