Inviting Controversy

If you don't like chicken livers, avert your eyes from the photo and come back tomorrow.

If you don't care for rosemary, see you domani!

That is, unless you want to surprise yourself with one of the most amazing combinations ever to cross your lips - chicken livers and rosemary.

I found the basic idea for this recipe - chicken livers skewered with rosemary and gently sauteéd in butter - at epicurious.com, where it's about the second item that pops up when one types in "chicken livers." Most of the rest are either mousse, paté or chopped liver recipes. This one seemed intriguing to me, so I decided to try it with the chicken livers I found at Baron's Meats in Alameda, but with some changes of my own to make it even better.

First, I went next door to beg some 6" sprigs of rosemary from my neighbors' thriving plant - rosemary grows practically wild around here and everyone is glad if you'll prune their bushes a bit. Following the recipe, I cleaned and divided the chicken livers into lobes, then soaked them in milk in the fridge for an hour. While they were soaking, I got busy stripping the leaves from the rosemary stems so I had about 5" of bare stem with a tuft of leaves left at the top. Set those aside.

Next - and this is the part I added - I sauteéd in a wide frying pan two garlic cloves gently in generous butter, then added four good-sized mushrooms, sliced in thick slices, and sauteéd them in the same pan. I set aside the mushrooms to cool, reserving the pan for later.

When the soaking time was up, I rinsed the livers, threaded them alternately with the mushrooms onto the skewers, about two mushroom slices and two livers per skewer depending on the length of the skewer. Be sure to leave an inch or so of the stem uncovered; if you pick them up to turn them by the tuft end, everything slides off - you need that extra inch to grab hold with tongs or fingers when flipping.

Reheating the same buttery, garlicky, mushroomy pan, l laid in the skewers carefully to sauté on medium high heat until the rosemary softened and the livers were just barely done, still pink in the center. Sadly, the rosemary didn't keep its bright green color but, heavens! what a taste sensation it made! From the first bite, My Beloved was nodding while chewing and meeting my eyes with that "Baby, I love the way you cook" look that melts my heart.

This was easily the best thing I have cooked in a month of Sundays. If you like chicken livers and rosemary, run don't walk to your nearest purveyor and get 'em while the getting is good. I'm already thinking I'll make these again next week. If you don't like chicken livers or rosemary, what are you doing still reading?