Photo: Courtesy of Fun and Fearless in Beantown

It’s really frustrating being a 20-year-old cook. There’s that whole not-really-having-money thing, of course (try buying organic when every quarter you have determines whether or not you can wash your clothes that week), but more than that: all the best recipes need booze.

Consider: French onion soup. Moules marinieres. Chocolate stout cake. All of them, drenched in sweet, forbidden alcohol. I may be the only college student in history who has sent her older roommates to buy Franzia not for a game of slap the bag, but for tomato sauce.

Here’s another frustratingly, deliciously boozy recipe: beer-braised chicken, made by Michelle from Fun and Fearless in Beantown. It looks fantastic – obviously.  Michelle made it last Monday, a rainy New England day much like today. The chicken was “a perfect comfort food,” she wrote, as if you’d expect anything less from a dish of potatoes, chicken and good ale.

Ugh. There are fifteen days left until my 21st birthday. Only fifteen days. But man, does that seem like a long time.