Provence - The Passion and the Poulet

I'm a firm believer that a good fight can lead to better things. Getting things into the open, clearing the air and..... well, anyway.

And so it was a couple of years ago when Kim and I visited Provence for three weeks. But one bad day, a few tense moments between 7:00 PM and 7:30 when I had nothing to serve for dinner because I failed to take notice that the markets shut down in mid afternoon, and a 60 minute evening search through towns that I'm sure no Canadian has ever ventured near, and I discovered the secret of a great rotissary chicken, and many a satisfying meal thereafter.

We survived that first night - quite enjoyably actually, with a full bodied Red (...wine), a wonderfully fresh baguette, some olive oil, tomotoes and fresh basil - makes you hungry just thinking about it; but the next day was the true find; what I thought was a simple rotissary chicken, picked up on market day in Lourmarin, turned out to be one of my all-time favorite meals.

So I transported what I think was the secret to that chicken, back to Canada - and the only way to achieve it is with a barbecue that has a rear burner and a rotissary.

Because you can barbecue using the rear burner, you can put vegetables into a dish which sits underneath the chicken - the steam from these will rise as they cook, keeping the chicken moist. So check out the recipe section for a truly great Barbecue Rotissary Chicken... and avoid a fight.