Of chicken stuffing and other stories

Whole roast chicken stuffed with potatoes Chef Ali Mandhry [Courtesy]

I have been taking Uber rides lately, and no day is like another. On my first trip to school, an elderly woman pulled up. She adjusted her mask and her phone app, then belted up. 

“Is it that way?” she asked. I had only arrived hours earlier, so inquiring if I knew where the backroads of North Carolina led was a complete waste of time.

“I think we are on track,” I said enthusiastically, glancing at her phone app. The audio instruction also said so. 

The woman said her international networks included a British son-in-law. “The last time they were here, I was asked to stuff the chicken for Christmas,” she said conspiratorially. She revealed she did not sweat about it; she just went to the supermarket and picked a packet. 

“Everyone loved the stuffing,” she revealed, but that led to some anxiety. Everyone wanted to know the recipe. She did not want to say it was a simple stuffing in mass production.

“I said that’s a family secret, and I was told, ‘we’re now family…’” 

Between these chicken ‘hekayas’, the good lady took two wrong turns, and I jumped out before she made a third one. “Peter has arrived,” the GPS woman said for the umpteenth time.