I was thinking I’d make lemon pepper chicken on the grill for dinner since I saw an alluring (and complicated) recipe for the making of lemon pepper. But I was meeting an old friend for a drink after work and thought I really wouldn’t have enough time to actually make the lemon pepper which requires some oven time to dry properly, so I decided just to grill plain chicken but when I was at the store I saw they had pre-marinated lemon pepper chicken breasts. Good enough. Or so I thought.
I have purchased these pre-marinated chicken breasts from MetroMarket exactly one other time. The Italian marinated. I seemed to recall, while I stood at the butcher counter, that I hadn’t liked them but I wasn’t going to buy the Italian marinade, so fine. Later, after I’d purchased the marinated lemon pepper chicken and was in my car driving to meet my friend, there was a certain smell emanating from the package . . . and I recognized it immediately. Garbage. It’s what I hadn’t liked about the other marinated chicken I’d had. That smell was off-putting but I eat stuff that smells like garbage; sauerkraut juice, bleu cheese, cantaloupe, all the time.
They didn’t smell so much like garbage once they were grilled but they weren’t lip smacking. I ate them (one for dinner, 2 were for lunches) doused them with Frank’s Hot Sauce. It killed the stench and any suggestion of lemon pepper. I’ll eat anything.
The next day when I was going to work, I had the chicken in a bag. I could smell it. I was also taking out my garbage and of course a neighbor got on the elevator. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t my garbage that smelled like that, it was my lunch. But I didn’t. I smiled and hoped I’d never see her again although if I were to bump into her again, I will not have any MetroMarket marinated chicken on me. Not falling for that garbage again.
