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Many folks, like me, get grossed out when faced with preparing a chicken dinner from scratch. The skin's texture or the task of breaking joints while cutting up a whole chicken can rattle even an experienced cook.

There are others, though, who don't mind at all. My grandmother Ferguson was one of those people. Her best recipe, in my opinion, was fried chicken.

She could "wrangle" a chicken and have it ready for dinner, and with that first bite, all the potential discomfort of preparation seems silly because it is so scrumptious!

In fact, she would probably balk at my buying a whole chicken already cut up, when the whole chicken is cheaper. I'd get the speech, "just do it and quit bawlin'."

Watching her in the kitchen was really neat when I was little. I would sit at the green, Formica-topped table and watch her bounce back and forth between the stove and the icebox. Somehow, my main memory is of that chicken.

She would batter it in flour and drop it delicately into the cast iron skillet she used for just about everything. She never flinched at grease popping (the amazing thing is that her grease never really popped much anyway), a skill I wish I had inherited.

Remarkably, no matter how many things she was cooking, there was never really any mess. She cleaned as she worked, often using the same bowls.

Keeping up with her was a challenge. Everything she did was in a hurry, but it all got done - exceptionally well. And she always did it in a skirt.

Before she died, Grandma Ferguson slowed down in the kitchen. My grandfather had passed away years before, and her four sons were on their own. Although she pretty much stopped eating fried foods, she would still make fried chicken or fried donuts if we really begged.

I was lucky my dad studied his mother's recipes, all of which she never wrote down. He inherited her "magic pots," you know the ones where nothing ever tastes bad or even varies from the last time it was made.

My dad can mimic her fried chicken, and sometimes, I almost think it's better than Grandma's. I grew up with my dad as the family's head chef, much to the dismay of my mother, who is not a bad cook in her own rite.

But Dad dominated, shooing people out of his way. He's 6'4" and a former football player, so having us kids at his feet in a small kitchen wasn't a good idea anyway.

I recently asked him for the chicken recipe, but given his answer, he'll just have to show me. Maybe we'll have a date in the kitchen for Father's Day next month. I'm sure he'll like that.

I'm fine with learning to cook, but when he drags me outside for a lesson with the lawnmower, I may make myself scarce.

According to my dad, here's the chicken recipe.



Grandma Ferguson's Fried Chicken

After cutting up a whole chicken, Dad says to "take the chicken and salt it down real good, put a little pepper in some flour. Drop that chicken in there, cover it with flour.

"Fry for about 20 minutes with the lid on it, so it gets done in the middle. You probably want a a 6-7 on your stove. Turn it often, no longer than every 10 minutes.

"After about 20 minutes, take the lid off. It's not going to get crispy with lid on it. Maybe turn the heat down.

"Any kind of oil will work to fry it in, and you probably want to cover the chicken pretty good, one-fourth to halfway up on the chicken pieces. When you put it in, the grease is hot. Check it by sprinkling flour in there, and it's ready when you see the grease eating on it.

"It doesn't have to be real hot, not as hot as when the chicken is in it. If the grease is too cold, it soaks up into the chicken and is not a good breading."

The secret, he says, is to salt the chicken before it's cooked and don't use an egg in the batter.

"Get that salt on it to start with, and it has to be the right amount. If there's not enough, it's not good. If there's too much, it'll be too salty.

"How do I know how much? I tell by the feel of it. Don't really measure it, but it is important."

And there you have it. Magic.

Submit your family recipes in Readers' Swap. Even if they're handed down by word-of-mouth, now's the time to get it in writing.

Most traditional family recipes include "a pinch of this," and a "dash of that." Go ahead and submit them anyway. It could be fun to let someone else give them a whirl.