While a lot of foodies will be writing about their father’s day and the delicious meals they served up, I will not. The reason being that my father’s day was spent drinking mimosas with father. Somewhere between mimosa eight and twelve I lost interest in cooking and gained an interest in napping for the rest of the day.

We met up Sunday morning to enjoy a jazz show performed by a couple friends. The wine bar and restaurant that hosted our friends also had $4 bottomless mimosas. So yes, you can be very sure we did not pass that deal up. The mimosas were delicious and the music was great. It was a very enjoyable early afternoon to be sure. Afterwards though I really just wanted to nap. What lesson did I learn? Day drinking is exhausting.

Of course day drinking was not always exhausting. Somehow the body makes an amazing transformation after college. One goes from being able to injest gallons of alcohol each week with little if any impact on daily life to getting a hangover at the mere sight of alcohol. Needless to say I cannot drink like I use to and I’m not sure I’d even want to. It’s a wonder I or any of my friends made it out alive. I did learn some valuable lessons though during my binge drinking days of college. Most of those lessons involved what places served delicious drinks and great food in Austin, Texas. One of these delicious joints was Pluckers, a wing joint famous in Austin and especially famous in West Campus (a neighborhood immediately adjacent to UT with about 12,000 students residing there–yeah it was a hot mess).

Anytime any of my friends or I were in the mood for chicken or wings we’d go to pluckers. And if we were too wasted or tired or lazy to go to the West Campus location we’d call them to deliver–it was the good life. While I had an aversion to wings before college, I quickly learned to love wings and the spicier the better. If I wasn’t looking for heat then I was looking for my new favorite wing flavor: lemon herb. Now I don’t know exactly what they used on theirs but I know what herbs I love.  Rosemary and Thyme are two of my favorite herbs, and two herbs I have bountiful amounts of growing in my garden. So on Saturday when I realized I had thawed a whole mess of wings but was without frying oil I looked to grilling them. Not wanting to grill spicy wings–mostly because of the mess–I decided this would be the perfect time to try lemon-herb grilled wings. I’ve tried similar recipes on grilling the big chicken parts and as I expected it was just as delicious in wing form.

Grilling wings is super easy and fairly quick. This particular recipe only has a few ingredients as well. All you need is chicken, a few lemons, olive oil, a few sprigs of rosemary, some thyme sprigs and salt and pepper. Coat the chicken in the rest of the ingredients and bam, you’re ready to grill away.

Lemon-Herb Grilled Chicken Wings

Ingredients
 20 chicken wings
 Juice from 3 lemons
 1/4 cup olive oil
 5 sprigs thyme, leaves finely chopped
 3 sprigs rosemary, leaves finely chopped
 Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions
 1. Preheat the grill over medium-high heat.
 2. Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper
    together in a large bowl.
 2. Add the cleaned chicken (separate and remove the tip portion, and
    separate the leg and wing portion).
 3. Toss the chicken wings in the mixture until all the pieces are
    completely coated. Save any extra juice/mix for brushing on the 
    wings during cooking. 
 4. Oil the grill grates and add the chicken wings. Cook 7 to 9 
    minutes per side depending on size over medium-high heat. Brush
    the wings with the remaining juice/herb mix as you cook. Beware
    of flareups though. You can leave the top open during cooking.
 5. Remove from the grill and check one of the wings to ensure it is
    done. The juices should run clear when cut into.

I told you it was easy! Not only is grilling wings a lot easier than battering and frying wings but it is much, much, much less messy. This may be my new way to cook chicken wings.

Try serving this wings with baked macaroni and cheese. It is my favorite side to serve along with wings.

What’s your favorite wing flavor? Aside from this lemon-herb recipe my favorite would be super duper hot.