Meat - Roast Chicken

I prefer to roast my chicken Thomas Keller-style and suspended on a bed of coarsely-sliced mirepoix (onions, celery, carrots). Today I omitted the carrots and put some butter off to the side of the chicken to give the vegetables some extra fat; the overall result was good. I assume the extra fat content was very important for this.

I also sauteed the vegetables after I removed the chicken to rest. This softened the celery more and gave the onions some extra caramelization, ultimately making an orgasmic side to the breasts. Legs are amazing as-is, though this time was dramatically better than most (see below).

Further notes:
1) Celery on the bottom, then onions. Haven't figured out where the carrots should go if I'm doing specific layering (probably next to the celery if they're included at all). The onions will cook nicely regardless of where they are, and the celery seems to benefit more from being on the bottom. Sauteeing everything afterward should caramelize the onions enough without much risk of burning (definite problem with them this time).

2) Use more salt than you think you need. This run was dramatically better than usual, and a huge part of that was that I dried the skin with paper towels for longer than usual (left it sitting with the towels on while I trained) and accidentally used a fair bit more salt. The skin crisped out much more than usual and was significantly more delicious.
I also put a few sprigs of thyme in the cavity. I think these helped a bit too, but not with the skin texture.

3) Cut the tendons at the ends of the drumsticks. I go all the way around to remove the skin as well, but the tendons are the really important part.

4) Truss...at least for now. I may try not trussing one soon to see what happens (Heston Blumenthal seems opposed to it, but his way of roasting chickens mirrors my way of doing sous vide steaks - if we're not concerned about the time commitment I guess his may have some advantages. I'll actually try this tomorrow).

5) Remove the wishbone. It makes presentable carving easier (in this case taking it from "Beyond Jon's meager abilities" to "Viable for three of the four quarters"*).

*I'm very good at removing the right breast, terrible at the left. Getting better, though - after sufficient resting you can almost pull the breast off straight up.

6) Consider doing the mirepoix while the chicken itself rests (and ideally suspend the chicken above the bottom of the pan). The vegetables (probably) give off a fairly large amount of steam and negatively impact the quality of the chicken itself (e.g. as far as I can tell, Keller himself keeps everything separate). Celery and onions can be sauteed in the fat leavings (plus any butter or duck fat) afterwards.

I cooked this one at 450 for 50 minutes; the legs were suspiciously juicy (and some of the flesh looked a tad rare), so I may bump this up a bit. The chicken itself was a 4lb regular chicken from Trader Joe's; I'd like to cook the Poulet Rouge and Cornish birds that Riverdog Farm sell at the Berkeley Farmer's Market, but...well, this one ran me something like $1.50/lb, and those are up at $5/lb and $4.50/lb respectively (I'm more interesting the Cornish Hens, personally, but either way).

I finished it one sitting, which is a pretty good sign considering how bad my appetite has been. As noted, the (truncated) mirepoix worked VERY well as a means of making the breasts more edible.