You Had Me at KFC

My love affair with fried chicken began in the back seat of my mother's car sometime in the 1960s.

We lived in Ledyard, CT but we went to Catholic school in Norwich, about 15 minutes away. That meant my mom spent a good part of every day behind the wheel, shuttling us to school and back again. One afternoon on the way home, she pulled into a KFC. 

Anyone who knows KFC knows what the nose knows...the amazing spicy smell of it, will pull you in directly off the street.

With a family of eight, a hot fast food chicken dinner for the whole gang, was not a normal occurrence. But my mother, ever resourceful, discovered a loophole: she could buy a bucket of chicken cold, for less money, take it home, and heat it up herself. And mind you, we didn't taste those delicious buttermilk biscuits for years, we were strictly eating that yummy chicken. 

Now, you have to understand something. I grew up in an Italian family, and in our house, nothing was fried. Not a thing. Everything was baked, roasted or broiled. The only fried food I had ever tasted in my entire life, up until that point were french fries. And by the way, I was also a huge fan of when we stopped at the our closest burger joint and fries were always my first choice. But I digress....

After we arrived home and that chicken came out of the oven and landed on our table, it spoke to me. Crispy, savory, completely unlike anything I'd ever eaten.

And the bucket! Red and white, with the Colonel's smiling face looking out at us. In a family that didn't eat out except on special occasions, or when we brought home a pizza, that bucket was an event. It was a treat, and a little bit of magic.

I didn't know it yet, but that was the beginning of a lifelong love of fried chicken. Wings still being my first choice always. And it all started with a cold bucket and a mother who figured out how to make it work.

Full Circle in Corbin, Kentucky

Fast forward almost 60 years later, and here I am in Kentucky.

We are housesitting here in Richmond, and while chatting with the owners, we learned that one of them grew up in Corbin. That settled it. As long as we were close enough for a nice drive, we were going to see where it all began.

What I didn't expect was that the museum and the restaurant share the same building. It's a small cafe serving KFC, and while you eat, you're surrounded by memorabilia, old photographs, and actual pieces from the Colonel's kitchen, including his dishes. Sitting there with a small serving of chicken in front of me, I couldn't help thinking about that cold bucket my mom carried home all those years ago. My childhood dream of fried chicken started with a company that began as something simple: a local neighborhood place built around good Southern home cooking.

And the chicken? Delicious. I still love it.

Here's a confession, though. Even back then, the original recipe was never really crispy. It was the Extra Crispy that won me over later in life, and I've been chasing that crunch ever since. To this day, I'll buy fried wings from Publix, bring it home, and pop it in the oven to crisp it up, which, come to think of it, is a lot like what my mom did with those cold buckets. Some things come full circle.

I took plenty of pictures at the museum, and the whole visit was a walk down memory lane. KFC will always have a special place in my heart as the place that introduced me to fried food, and to the pure deliciousness of chicken with a good crispy coating.

So thank you, Colonel, for the recipe. And thank you, Mom, for figuring out how to feed a family of eight on a budget and, without knowing it, handing me a lifelong love of fried chicken in a red and white bucket.