In case you were ever in Costco and saw the one-gallon container of mayonnaise, and wondered who bought it…

That would be us. And no, we’re not planning on a party or opening a restaurant. Some of you know that Scott is a bit of a mayo-maniac (mayo-niac?). We bought the 1/2 gallon size about a month ago, and it’s almost all gone. (I have made a couple batches of coleslaw, but still.) So we hope this one will last a bit longer.

Since there’s a chicken roasting in the oven right now, I think I’ll tell you about it. Drawing on the wisdom of others, I’m finding that butterflying the bird works really well, and that the combination of butter under the skin and olive oil on top of the skin is delicious (if not terribly healthy). I also figured out a great little trick of my own. I was having some trouble doing the seasoning of the chicken under the skin and thought I’d try smooshing all the seasonings in the butter before putting it under the skin. This works great – you essentially make a compound butter, mixing in whatever you want. I used dried onion, tarragon, garlic, salt and pepper. When the chicken cooks, the compound butter turns into this great season-y crust under the skin.

We have a plan to turn leftovers into a chicken cake sandwich later this week. This was a sandwich we had in Baltimore recently, the same recipe as a really good crab cake, but using chunks of chicken instead. Topped with a generous smear of mayo, of course.