The Old Days with Alice and Chicken Kiev

Alice of Alice’s Restaurant has died.

If I have to tell you more about who Alice May Brock was, well, you probably want to read somebody else’s blog post.

Arlo Guthrie made Alice’s Restaurant famous with a song that lasted long enough to drink a beer, go to the bathroom, stand in line at the bar, get lost in the crowd and get back to your seat before he wrapped up the second verse.

I loved Alice’s cookbook, and I still have it. The most used section was this one – various braised chicken recipes and what was once my tour de force, Chicken Kiev. Another favorite section was “Impromptu vs. Planned Cooking.” Planned cooking, of course, is when your in-laws are coming, and impromptu cooking is everything else. With regard to the latter, Alice says. “The basic ingredient is your attitude.”

When I was first married, I used the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and a cookbook with recipes solely using Campbell’s soup. I was a terror in the kitchen.

But when I got divorced, I used Alice’s Restaurant Cookbook. It was in this cookbook that I found the advice to put a comfortable chair in my kitchen, you know, a stuffed chair with upholstery. The kitchen’s always the center of the house, why have just hard chairs there? Anyway, I was a single mom. I smoked all the time. My life was a mess. But I made dinner. And while it bubbled on the stove, I sat in my dinged-up, rose-colored upholstered chair, sometimes slinging my legs over the side and it all felt fine. Well, fine enough.

Alice May Brock was 83. I bet she was still cookin’ when she died.