When cooking chicken, as with anything, presentation is important. When removing the skillet from the oven, place it carefully on the stove top.
Then remove the chicken breasts to a platter to rest while you prepare the pan sauce. Tent the chicken lightly with some foil, and then turn around to the skillet on the stove. Grip its 450-degree handle with your bare hand. This is important, and it’s a step sadly neglected by many chefs.
With the skillet now firmly in hand, take a millisecond to realize what a goddam moron you are. You can do it! Then simply drop the radioactive goddam fucking skillet onto the kitchen floor; when done properly, white-hot beads of chicken fat should fly onto the floor, the cupboards, your pants, and maybe your small child. Scream.
I want to emphasize this. Your scream is very important; it should reflect your basic personality. What are you going to scream? Is it “FUCK!”? Is it “FUCKING FUCK!”? Own your scream. Personally, mine is the very evocative syllable “GAAAAAA!”
The scream serves many functions. One is to alert the neighborhood that you are a moron who grabs incredibly hot objects. Now they know. Another function is to scare your significant other witless and then cause her to run about distractedly bringing you wet towels, Advil, scotch, ice, Neosporin, scotch, more ice, and panicky medical advice. Take a moment to appreciate your significant other and her concern for you, and remember for the future that if you’re ever feeling too lazy to go pour yourself a scotch, you could always just burn yourself severely, and she will come running. Good to know.
Later, after dinner (during which your tireless significant other was pressed into service to cut up your chicken, which made you feel five years old), mewl softly into successive scotches and melt thirty-six bags of ice in your hand. It’s all part of the process.
Tomorrow, the real fun begins. In the shower. After you’ve kind of forgotten that you’d burned your hand. Make sure the water is extra-hot. And oh, you’re going to need that scream again.