Okay, I had planned on roasting the chicken with a persimmon glaze. However, there were two major problems with this approach. Problem One: persimmons are delicately flavored and, short of a mild cream or custard sauce, are difficult to pair with other flavors. Even too much sugar or honey seems to destroy the subtlety of the persimmon. Problem Two: fuyu persimmons, the kind I usually buy, don’t really have the texture to make a proper glaze. Imagine trying to make a glaze out of something like partially cooked carrots. (Usually you glaze the carrots themselves, not make a glaze out of them.) Nothing I did, including softening the persimmons via cooking and straining in a sieve, yielded the smoothness you associate with a glaze. Arrowroot might have given me a more shiny or glossy sauce, but without the texture, the whole deal was a bust anyway. So there’s a lesson learned: never, ever try to make a savory sauce out of fuyu persimmons. Hachiya persimmons might do better, but you’d have to use the softest, ripest fruits to avoid the astringency associated with that variety. It’s such a shame; I love persimmons. I was really hoping to bring their deliciousness to a main course.

That said, dinner was far from a bust. The spice rub was good, the chicken was beautifully tender and juicy, and the wilted greens were fabulous—that last bit is the real surprise because I usually find myself saying "meh" to most green side-dishes. Also, spatchcocking a chicken is just plain darn fun.

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