Last Thursday, Stephen Starr and Marc Vetri showed up together at Meme for the restaurant’s popular Thursday-lunch-only $11 fried chicken platter, which is just plain awesome. They ate it down to the bone. They washed it down with an ice cold Miller High Life (included in the meal). They licked their fingers. And they went back and forth trying to figure out exactly what made chef David Katz’s chicken so damn good. Finally, the chef stepped out of the kitchen, his shirt bloodied from some beast he had just undoubtedly slaughtered for dinner, and approached the two men, who asked him what his secret was. Katz said, “I’ll tell you the secret ingredient, but I’m going to make you work for it. Take the name of a long Stephen King novel from the 1980s. Subtract from this the name of a model/actress active at that time. And from this, subtract the french translation for a popular beverage. You’re left with the secret ingredient. What is it?”

Do you know the answer? Don’t post it here. Email it to theweekenderpuzzle@gmail.com by noon on Monday. From the correct entries, I’ll pick a winner, who will get a $50 gift card to a Stephen Starr restaurant of their choosing. I will only accept entries that include the correct answer on the subject line and a daytime phone number in the body.

If you’re stumped, note that I’ll post a hint tomorrow morning if I don’t have any correct responses.

Need a good gift idea? Stephen Starr is offering a free $50 gift card if you purchase $500 in Starr gift cards. And for every $250 you spend after that, you get another $50 gift card. For all the info you need, click here.