All you lucky people out there who don’t have pescatarian life partners should seriously consider eating chicken wings tonight. Even better if you cook them Norm-style.

No sticky sauce full of sugar and god knows what, no frigging hassle – just the world’s tastiest, crispiest chicken wings that you will eat like candy and that’ll make you wish you’d made twice as many.

Delicious instructions:

1. Buy your chicken. I use a mix of small, split wings, drumsticks and thighs. (Norm says it’s cheaper if you buy them joined and split the drumstick away from the wing yourself. Whether you want to get that down and dirty with raw chicken is up to you.)

2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

3. Rinse your chicken in cool water and pat it dry with paper towel.

4. Spray the pan with Pam (god love Norm and her Pam) or line your pan with foil to make cleanup easier.

5. Lay your chicken pieces out on the pan in a single layer. It’s really important to avoid crowding your wings. Leave a tiny margin of space around each one, so that they’ll all crisp up. Use two pans, if you need to.

6. Season your chicken with salt and pepper on one side and seasoning salt on the other. If you like herby-tasting wings, add one of these Norm-sanctioned combinations: thyme, sage and rosemary; poultry seasoning; or Herbes de Provence.

7. Pop your pan(s) in the oven. (If you’re using two pans and they won’t fit side by side, place them one above the other on separate racks.) All in all, the wings will cook for an hour. Turn them at 20 minutes. then again at 20 minutes. (If you’re using two pans: Switch the pans when the wings get flipped.) Sprinkle the wings with white wine at the second turn (it’s optional but it makes them really, really good, and it’ll make your house smell like a restaurant, which always satisfies).

8. At the end, change your oven setting to broil, and broil those little wings to get them really crispy. Whatever you do, do not walk away from the oven while they’re broiling. Watch them like a hawk (a hawk watching chickens; stakes are high!). They brown quickly.

They’ll look something like this:

Eat them with a salad or after a pasta course. Norm says to bake a potato with them, since your oven is going to be on for an hour anyway. (Norm has never done this in her life. “No!” she concurs, “because we’re always watching the calories.” Hasn’t gained a pound since 1973.) “Father – Dad” says to eat them with julienned crudité, but we find that too appetizery. Better to roast root vegetables, if there’s room on the second rack in your oven. (I’ll save delicious instructions for those for another day.)

I must tip my hat here to Sarah, who production-managed the wings the last time I cooked for a big group, while I stirred the risotto. She followed Norm’s steps and applied a scientist’s precision to the spacing and broiling. They were out of this world.

Afterwards, she (a Scot) and Gelstein (Hungarian) made a crazy-ass appetizer out of the irresistible pan drippings. They toasted small, thin pieces of rye and smeared the intense salty, fatty goodness on top, sprinkled with more salt. (My mouth is watering.) They were unstoppable, the Scot and the Hungarian. Their people know what to do with every last bit of meat!

Behold the culinary free-for-all:

With friends like these, why would you ever bother leaving the kitchen?