A few days ago, Revival Market gave me a reason to look forward to Sunday night. Usually the evening of this day finds me incredibly grumpy and more than a little stressed about the workweek to come, but this past Sunday I forgot for at least a few hours to be in a bad mood.
The simple reason for my suspended crankiness was a fried chicken dinner. Not made by me, of course, as burning myself with hot oil (the inevitable outcome of any frying activity involving yours truly) would not be the ticket to end-of-weekend happiness. But rather courtesy of Revival Market, which was offering a six-piece bucket of buttermilk-brined chicken for around $11.
If I wanted to be social, I also had the option of dining in via a $25 combination plate of chicken, collard greens, potato salad, and berry cobbler with ice cream.
I preferred, however, to devour my dinner at my own homestead, so I picked up a bucket, as well as side of collard greens to go.
Aficionados of fried chicken would chide me for this move and warn me about the degradation in quality that can occur when one eats fowl any way other than immediately after it emerges crisp and scalding hot from the fryer. While I can't account for how much better the chicken would have tasted if I had eaten it right away in-house, I will happily tell you that my consumption experience 10 minutes later at my own dining room table was pretty damn terrific. In other words, I don't care much what I was missing because I got to eat delicious chicken in my slippers.
What can be most frustrating about making fried chicken is ensuring a moist yet fully cooked interior and a thick, crispy but not burnt exterior. Revival Market met this challenge, delivering juicy pieces of fowl (enabled, I'm sure, by a lengthy buttermilk brine) coated with a lightly spiced batter that emerged delightfully corrugated from the fryer. Not to be upstaged (too much) by the decadent fried chicken, the squishy, bittersweet collard greens were laced in pork fat.
Although Revival Market has not officially announced plans for another Sunday fried chicken dinner, I can't imagine they won't repeat the event, judging by the cheery crowds I observed. Actually, why not consider this review an open letter to Revival Market begging kindly requesting more Sunday Fried Chicken Suppers this fall? I could use the pick-me-up after watching the Steelers.