The great and terrible thing about the holiday season is all that rich food. By about the last week of December, I was feeling kind of desperate for a salad, but we still had New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to navigate. This year I attended a potluck New Year’s Eve party where we celebrated midnight at Rio time (that is 10 p.m. Maine time) so all of us older people could toddle off to bed at something closer to our accustomed time. Even though I could’ve concocted yet another rich chocolaty dessert or even a good old pumpkin pie, I thought, no, I want chicken.

A while back I asked my friend Gail O’Donnell in Belfast for a couple of chicken suggestions, partly because chicken is economical and partly because Gail is slender, which means she knows something about cooking lightly. She sent me the following recipe. Something about the lemon and chicken sounded so perfect for the potluck.

This recipe has rosemary in it. Not everyone likes rosemary; if that includes you, well, leave it out. You’ll have lemony chicken anyway. Some of you may have dragged your rosemary into the house to over-winter, and if you are finding that you have lots of new sprouts, use this as an opportunity to prune it. If your rosemary is looking a little weak-kneed and you doubt it will last another month, then this recipe can be its final blaze of glory. I had no fresh rosemary, so I used two tablespoons of crushed dried rosemary sprinkled over the chicken.

I used about four pounds of chicken thighs, which I divided so there would be a lot of small portions to go around. The chicken breasts are good for a family dinner though, and you know by now that leaving the bones in improves the flavor and the skin keeps it from drying out. It takes only about 10 minutes to set this up, and since it can marinate overnight, or for a few hours, this is a good one to assemble the night before or early in the morning before work, so you can toss it in the oven for a fairly speedy supper.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.

Lemony Chicken Breasts

Serves four

4 chicken breasts, bones and skin left on

1/4 cup fresh rosemary

2 lemons

1 large onion, cut in chunks

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Drizzle a little of the olive oil in the bottom of a Pyrex baking dish. Slice one lemon thinly and lay it on the bottom of the dish. Put in the chicken, top with rosemary, the juice and rind from the other lemon and onion chunks. Marinate several hours or overnight. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake chicken for 25 minutes or until juices run clear. Serve chicken and juices on rice, and garnish with more lemon, if you wish.