Part of the secret might be the technique. In this mass market fast food world, virtually all the fried chicken one encounters is deep fried. Pan fried is crisper, but is less labor-efficient. Calvin Trillin, the food writer for the New Yorker, extols the virtue of pan frying in "The Tummy Trilogy". Great stuff. I had all but forgotten about it until a couple of weeks ago the DW and I stopped to eat in this little hole in the wall cafe in a tiny town in SC. It was a 'meat and three' cafe--you know, choose your meat dish and three sides. Their fried chicken was heavenly. A thin crust, nicely seasoned, as crisp as a cornflake. Wonderful. The link discusses the debate. Here is a link that might be useful: pan fried vs deep fried

It's possible it's shellac, but more likely lacquer. Lacquer, like most finishes, degrades with age and UV exposure. You can sometimes soften old lacquer with alcohol. How to "freshen it up?" A good cleaning would be first. See the link. After that, you could apply some furniture wax, apply some more finish, either lacquer or shellac. You could spray, brush of wipe on any of these. Wiping would be with what's called "padding lacquer," that true to misleading labels on finish is generally shellac dissolved in solvents found in lacquer thinner. A risk, if the piece has had exposure to Pledge furniture polish, is that the silicone oil in Pledge causes most finishes to crater, known as "fish eye." Shellac is one finish that is resistant to this, but go in a couple of light coats, sprayed on. You can buy Zinnser's Bull's Eye shellac in an aerosol can. One can would probably do the average "thingy." Though if it's a very large piece like a dining table, you might have difficulty getting it on evenly over such a large flat area. Another possibility, not knowing exactly what your "thingy" is is that chronic exposure to some people's body oils can cause permanent degradation and softening of the finish. It doesn't sound that that's what you have, but just putting another coat of something on top is not going to fix the problem. Usually a good cleaning will remove the goo, sometimes down to bare wood. You see this a lot on the edge of desks, arms on chairs, and sometimes the crest rail on dining chairs. Here is a link that might be useful: Saving the finish.

Oh ! MY then you would love to have my kitchen , I started retroing it the minute the landlord told me to go for it ,and then when she told me the age of the house , I loved it even more , it's a 1920's Sears Craftsman home ,I love the the huge cabnets not, alot of space but I like it , it's still has the sink comeing out of the wall and of course the same windows with the weight in side, so far I stubled on a 1945 Gafflers and Staller stove , pressure wash it and got all the grills and stuff cleaned and the only thing I haven't gotten to yet is finding a clock for it , i've been all over the antique store's lucky me I live in Orange County and the orange circle is just brimming with retro items, on the mirowave I simply bought a red one from Target like 60 bucks and a red coffee pot, if you have any good wills in your area hit them up , cause alot of estate things go there , I've painted my kitchen red and yellow , took the rather large drawers and took some paint remover , and some elbow grease and a paint gun which just melts the paint off , painted them red and found some little rooster decals that I put on , went to the 99 store and food some checkered red and white contact paper and put them in the drawer some plactic deviders to . Because I'm into both the retro, feista and the older pyrex , you know the different colored one with the little lids, i found scores of them in the goodwill nd also the different color pyrex bowl set , for a grand total of five bucks ,it's got a door to that leads to the laundry room , so i took out the old glass and put some screen wear the glass was and painted the door red and then found some red and white checked curtains and it looks super , even still has those old looks with the knob to open the door , I'm still trying to find the perfect frigerator , I saw one on one ad and fell in love it's a kelvanator foodarama (SP). Know i have the Idea to pull up the linolim (SP) and see what he wood looks like, maybe sand it and do the red and white checker board my self or be lazy and find the red and white checker board myself , as for the kitchen counters I hate them the tile , but i want to go for the old soda pop look , red linolem , so far. as for the arctiure of the the house it's soild and and i love the wood detailing so i'm just going to get out my magic eraser and clean , the walls do need paint has a few cracks bit i figure to paint the walls a camel color so the cracks will give off a shadow , if you go to the 99 cent store you with find alot of red if that's your color and the good will you would be amazed , I found and old ceder wood cabnits that hold plates and glasses and I store my pyrex and feista wear in there , also at the good will I found not one but 9 chrome toaster with the cloth cord for 99 cents apiece still in the box to took them home shined up a little ,put them up on ebay for 50;00 a piece and all sold except the one I kept and still use , I don't know if alot of folks go to the good will but you can find lots of stuff , I'm fixin to paint my 1945 stove red , like i said i live in what i call antique town , I just got the universal knobs to the stove , because it has the stove on one side and the broiler on the other and has the griddle in the middle , I guess the floors are pretty stonge cause that thing took 4 good sized men to get in my kitchen oh and of course , i found some old cambells soup and vegatable ad that came out of the time life magazines painted some black frames and put them on the wall above the stove , I will have to take a picture although not all toghether yet I still love my kithen even if it is in the works. Take care

Well, I made the recipe as written. I have no idea why my Mom included it in the community cookbook, as it wasn't very good. But I do see my Dad as liking it, because the sauce was "sweet and sour" and fatty due to the sour cream. Hubs did not like it at all as he does not like ketchup, and the ketchup flavor predominated the sauce. He said the meatballs were good, and I agreed, but now that I've made them, I still don't get the appeal of meatballs as opposed to just browning the meat and including it in the sauce. You spend all that time seasoning the meat, shaping it, rolling it in bread crumbs, turning them while frying them, and then you end up having to cut them up to eat them . . . I think I'll just look around for a good brand of frozen meatball for Dad in the future, although I wouldn't be opposed to making the home made meatballs again and freezing them. As for the dish, I served it with rotini pasta which worked well, it was something I had on hand in the right serving size. I used onion powder in a small amount instead of the onion, to make it less noticeable. That worked well. The dish reminded me of "cowboy beans" which are made with browned hamburger. It gave me indigestion for the rest of the evening due to the lingering acid from the ketchup, and then terrible gas. If I make something similar again, I will not add the ketchup or beans, and just season the tomato sauce to taste with more of the meatball spices. Below is a photo of the dish. I didn't have kidney beans so I had to use a can of red beans, which are mild and inoffensive as far as adding a taste to the dish. I also added half a grated carrot to the sauce since my home canned tomato sauce was rather tart due to the recipe calling for added lemon juice to insure the right level of acidity. 1/2 cup of sour cream was way overkill. I had to use some whole-milk home-made yogurt since I was almost out of sour cream, but I tasted it and it wasn't any more "sour" than the sour cream and just as thick. Most of those old recipes from the early 60s in this community cookbook call for a can of cream of something soup, and ketchup is one of the most common seasonings. And then add some sour cream just for fun. Having grown up with all the families, the cookbooks from the late 70's and early 80's then featured diet recipes as all these women went to Weight Watchers to lose the weight they gained from cooking to please their kids and husbands, and then later "heart friendly" and "diabetes friendly" fiber rich recipes as they graduated into older age, diverticulitis and bypass surgery . . .