Simple is as simple does when it comes to roasted chicken

I'm sitting at the kitchen table with John and Nada (Nayd uh) Kostovich, 90 and 86, inhaling the savory goodness of Nada's homemade Chicken Barley Soup and John's signature Chicken in a Barrel, expertly roasted and paired with a steaming sweet potato.

On the side we have salads of leaf lettuce, freshly picked from their vegetable garden.

It doesn't take much imagination to see the connection between this meal and the Kostoviches approach to life: simple, healthy, filled with love and shared with good company.

Married for 63 years, John and Nada raised seven children, though one died in his 20s. They have 18 grandchildren and credit their continuing good health, energy and happiness at least partly to eating nutritious, home cooked meals.

"I don't read romance novels, I read Weight Watchers and Cooking Light," says Nada.

For nearly 40 years, since they were advised to cut back on beef, John and Nada have eaten mostly chicken and fish, some vegetarian dishes and bushels of fruit and vegetables.

"We used to eat a lot of steaks and hamburgers, ice cream and butter," says John. "Now we try to stick to fiber foods."

Well into retirement, the Arlington Heights couple shops and cooks together, often preparing enough soup, roasted chicken or vegetarian chili to deliver "meals on wheels" to three of their daughters and their families who live close by.

Nada is "recipe central," finding new dishes in her magazines; John experiments with new varieties of vegetable seeds and with ingredients like flaxseed, wheat germ and pureed chick peas, all of which he has added to pancakes or waffles.

During the winter he dries sliced apples and delivers them to family for healthy snacks.

For Christmas the Kostoviches team up to make hundreds of Nada's Nut Cups, shipping them to family across the country. Nada makes the dough and filling, John chops nuts and forms the dough into the tartlet pans, uniformly stamping them out with a wooden press he custom made for the job.

John's biggest claim to fame is his Chicken in a Barrel, the same chicken I am devouring in his kitchen.

"We learned about it when we lived in Angel's Camp, California," says Nada. As a fundraiser, the firefighters sold roasted chicken, suspended and cooked inside 20 metal barrels over charcoal fires.

A machinist for more than 40 years, John built his own barrel roasters, two fired by natural gas, two by charcoal, with a total capacity of 40 chicken halves.

Across the top of each barrel are metal rods, for suspending the birds. At the bottom is a heating element from a cast iron water heater. (If you have an old water heater, let us know, he's always looking for more.)

"The fat cooks off, so you have a healthier piece of chicken," says John.

It's incredibly moist and good, so good that John built cookers for two of his children, loaded them on the roof of his car and delivered them, with Nada, from California to Chicago and Massachusetts.

"We were going down the road like the Beverly Hillbillies," says John.

Maybe all that lean chicken has contributed to the Kostoviches long lives.

"I feel maybe we are both here because of the healthy lifestyle," says Nada, "and we have always been satisfied with what we have in life.

"We weren't rich in money, but we have been rich in good health."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>Recipes</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> </div> <div class="recipeLink"> <ul class="moreLinks"> <li><a href="/story/?id=302130" class="mediaItem">Nada's Nut Cups </a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=302129" class="mediaItem">John's Chicken in a Barrel</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=302128" class="mediaItem">Chicken Barley Vegetable Soup</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>