Browning chicken

As I write this I'm eating leftovers for lunch. I made up a recipe, (a combo of a couple of recipes based on what I had in the fridge and how much effort I wanted to put in) once again, and it turned out not half bad. I am keeping in mind, of course, that my stated goal is to actually follow recipes so that I can build skills and make meals that are good, not just acceptable.
But, on the theme of learning new things, this experience fits the bill. I've been watching Julia Child's cooking show, which is, I must add, immensely entertaining. I can't resist imitating her way of speaking; my husband and I can actually imitate her singsong cadence quite faithfully, and randomly love to warble "Bon appetit!" at the tops of our voices. I'm learning so many really useful things from Julia, and she does inspire one to just try things out with her "you can do it" attitude. My husband has now sharpened all of our knives (what a HUGE difference in the quality and speed of cutting) after Julia demonstrated how easy and quick it was.
Anyway, one of those really useful things that I applied to this recipe was the proper way to brown chicken. I've always just assumed that you can flop your piece of meat in a pan and simply wait til it browns... and then am completely dismayed when, in fact, the meat doesn't necessarily brown.
WELL, Julia tells us to make sure to dry each piece of meat on a towel (paper or otherwise) before putting it in the pan. What a difference! My chicken pieces browned very nicely, (though, next time I will brown them a little more, as some of the skin came off when I added the tomato sauce, and getting a large piece of not-so-crispy skin in a sauce is icky).
Thank you Julia Child!

Without further ado, bon appetit!

Chicken with tomato sauce and bacon
Cook about 4 strips of bacon and leave the fat in the pan
Brown chicken pieces in the bacon fat (dry the chicken pieces before you put then in the pan!)
Add a chopped onion and cook til almost soft
Add the bacon back to the pan
Add 2 cups chopped tomato, 2 tbsp of tarragon, 1/4 cup red wine, 1 cup of chicken stock, salt to taste
Simmer for 30-40 min, covered (until chicken is done)
Let it sit off the heat for 30 min.
Serve over rice.

(I liked it better the next day when the flavours had had a chance to marry)