Our small town celebrates the Fourth of July in a big way, starting in the morning with a parade of decorated golf carts, baby strollers, riding lawn mowers, and pickup trucks, augmented with the random marching band that doesn’t have a better-paying gig someplace else. Around 5 p.m., neighbors drift over to our house with their covered dishes for what we’ve come to refer to as “Dinner on the Grounds”—a prelude to the big fireworks display down at the lake. Unlike most of our neighbors, we don’t picnic at the lake that night. Why? Because Mr. MKA has an irrational hatred of dragging food and equipment several blocks away to be eaten on the ground in a swampy, bug-infested environment. I long ago gave up arguing with him. Most years, my sister-in-law Jeanne and I fire up the skillets and whomp up a mess of fried chicken from her time-tested recipe, and we build our menu around that. True confession: In years when we happen to be at the beach for the Fourth of July and I don’t feel like cooking, I call ahead of time and order up boxes of superb fried chicken from the Tybee IGA in my own personal declaration of independence from the tyranny of a hot, greasy kitchen.
SERVES 6 TO 8
Buttermilk-Brined Fried Chicken