Can anyone guess what I am cooking for dinner tonight?

I shall give you a hint: the name alone is enough to clear a room. Half mourning refers to the nineteenth-century habit of wearing black and white once the initial shock of bereavement has passed, which is, I suspect, a touch more somber than most people prefer as a prelude to a Friday night feast. And yet here we are.

The dish earns its beautifully morbid title from the ghostly appearance of black truffles visible through the pale skin of the bird, a visual arrangement perfected by Françoise Fillioux, who reportedly carved five hundred thousand chickens during her career with a precision that bordered on the sacred. One does not simply stumble into that kind of devotion; one is called to it.

The truffles came from Les Pastras in Cadenet, and sliding them into place requires a certain quietude, a slow ritual of tucking the aromatic discs into their silk-like pockets until the bird is properly adorned. It is the kind of task that rewards unhurried hands and a willingness to treat the whole affair as something closer to ceremony than cooking.

Tonight, this kitchen smells like something worth celebrating.

p.s. Pictured below is Fillioux's knife from a visit to the Escoffier museum in Provence. She only used 2 knives in her entire career to bone the chickens - this is one of them.