A lot of food types like to talk about the perfection of the simple roast chicken. But that's played out. I'm here to talk about the imperfection of the even simpler roast chicken: the portachicken.

A portachicken is a rotisserie chicken, encased in a plastic shell, stored under heat lamps at your favorite outlet, and sold for five to eight bucks. The portachicken is not without it's flaws. The skin is never crisp, thanks to it steaming in its shell. The meat can sometimes be a bit chalky. But in much the same way pizza improves immeasurably when someone brings it to you, portachickens improve mightily because you just bring it home and carve it.

The other advantage of a portachicken is the carcass. We make stock on a semi-regular basis, but the nature of our lives and freezer space are such that whole birds are a rarity. Portachickens make for some damn fine chicken stock, though, once you get two or three of them saved up.

My top choice for portachicken is Costco. From a flavor and quality standpoint, it's second-best, but when you factor in size and value, it comes out on top. Larger and better-tasting than its grocery store counterparts, and a steal at five bucks for about a three pound bird.

Whole Foods' portachicken wins on flavor, but it's Whole Foods, so it ain't cheap. Three bucks more than the Costco chicken, and smaller. Sometimes they run sales, though. And sometimes, the extra distance to Costco is too much for our weary bones. 

Then there's Boston Market. Now, Boston Market chckens are only technically portachickens under certain circumstances. You have to order a family meal, and ideally you have to do it when they're rocking the bonus chicken deal, where you get a second chicken for a buck, or two bucks. Boston Market chickens are pretty good, but they're nowhere near as good as when I first started going there in the early 90's, and they seem to get a bit worse every time they revamp their menu. 

On the upside, Boston Market combines going out to dinner with getting a portachicken, which means you don't need to worry about making accompaniments and you still end up with portachicken carcasses. On the down side, even with the sale, it can end up costing almost as much as Whole Foods portachicken, and isn't as good. Although they do cut it into quarters for you, which is nice.

And then there's the grocery store portachickens. Now, just because they're in last doesn't mean I won't get them or turn one down, but they're usually the smallest and most chemically of the batch. On the plus side, sometimes you can get flavors other than plain rotisserie. On the minus side, those flavors are usually nasty. But you can get them at the grocery store, which is great for those days where the process of getting the food uses up any energy you might have used to cook the food.

Used sparingly, the portachicken can be your friend. Just one can fuel a meal, with the leftovers available to incorporate into a second meal, leaving you with bones for stock. Thomas Keller wouldn't approve, but that's why I'm not inviting him over for dinner.