PART II:  MAIN COURSE

Last week, I (Erin) detailed my trip to Green Acres Farm where I picked up my very own locally-bred, hormone-free, humanely-raised chicken (named “Darryl”). After thawing Darryl in our fridge, I prepared to cook what, by Vore standards, qualified as a feast. Usually our “dinner” is a bowl of pasta, a salad, or a slice of stromboli. An accompanying side dish is practically a buffet, so Friday’s meal constituted a miracle. Somewhere, my mother cries silently to herself that she failed to make me a proper woman.

Adios Self-Esteem: Even illustrations have perkier breasts and superior domestic skills!

Before we could please our palate with the succulent breast, thigh and wing of poultry, I had to do the inevitable: Face the chicken. I did not want to face the chicken because raw chicken, especially a whole chicken, is slimy and gross. And decapitated.

On the bottom shelf of the fridge, Darryl was still next to that Yuengling but thankfully the Mexican leftovers had been tossed out. As I placed him in the roasting pan, delicately spreading his legs and wings, I was acutely aware that Darryl was an animal. Since reading Omnivore’s Dilemma, I’ve more or less reconciled my guilt over eating animals, but even still, the nausea set in and I couldn’t help but feel sad when looking at the stump that used to hold a head. Pollan writes that as he got closer to his food (both on an emotional and geographical level), he felt overwhelmingly thankful for it. There was a story behind his meal. It wasn’t faceless or pre-packaged. It was Darryl, who had been sacrificed for our appetite.

Into the oven went Darryl, along with some butter, rosemary and sea salt.  An hour and fifteen minutes later, out came a fragrant, oven-browned bird that looked camera-ready.

Who wants my butter pecan thighs?

I fixed steamed vegetables from my parent’s garden and cheesy-tomato rice (a Vore staple) to go along with the chicken. I felt proud of my meal, which then made me feel embarrassed that normal people have real meals every night of the week. Oh well, guess we’re a different type of normal.

Suck it, Betty Crocker!

The meal did not come without a cost, as in the amount of money we paid for it. Darryl was no cheap chicken. (He was about $3.50 a pound.) But what did we get for that price? Chicken that tasted as fresh as any we’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. Could we afford to eat Darryl on a nightly basis? No. Are we willing to pay more every so often for a gustatory experience of this kind? Based on LocaVoreblog experiment #1, the answer is “absolutely.”

POSTSCRIPT FROM BEN: Darryl was delicious. Erin said I should write that I ate two pounds of him, but I’m certain it was not two pounds. But it was a lot. A delicious lot. This locavore thing is deliciously good!

POSTSCRIPT FROM ERIN: For an absurd and hilarious encounter with Danish film, allow me to recommend The Green Butchers, starring one of my favorites, Mads Mikkelsen, better known as Le Chiffre from Casino Royal. It’s about two Danes who are in the very bad habit of killing people and then selling those people disguised as chicken. Also, Mikkelsen sports a mean male-pattern baldness look.

Ben og Erin Vore sige: Watch De Grønne Slagtere for dit helbred!

PART I:  The Appetizer

You may recall we made some new year’s resolutions about eating healthier. You may also recall our obsession (primarily Erin’s) with Michael Pollan’s eye-opening and addictive books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. In short, Pollan submits that the best and healthiest way to live — for people, for the animals they eat, and for the local economies in which they live — is a primarily local diet free from over-processing, hormones, chemicals, or any food with ingredient lists full of hard-to-pronounce words. 

Nearly six months later and nary a paper to grade, I (Erin) finally made my first trip to a local farm. Indian Hill’s Green Acres Farm is a mere five minutes away, and as my friend Katie pulled into the drive, a herd (at least I think it was a herd, maybe it was a gaggle? A pack? A litter?) of sheep were munching on green grass underneath the shade of tree. Bucolic and serene, it was something out of Anne of Green Gables or Little Women. It was also blazing hot. Some of the sheep were panting and looked like they wanted to jump out of their winter coats. Gail and Katie brought their babies, and I think they enjoyed the sheep as much as I did. One lamb suckled from the teat of his mother. I threw up a little in my mouth.

Anyway, we walked into the farm store, listened to a very friendly and sweet employee give us the farm spiel after telling her that we were first-time farm goers, and I quickly grabbed a dozen eggs and an entire chicken.  Yes, friends, the Vores are now the proud owners of our very own chicken.

If Scooter-Thomas tries to eat me, so help me God I will peck his eyes out.

So far he seems happy.  Ben affectionately calls him Darryl, and he happily clucks his way through our back yard.

Actually, Darryl looks more like this:

All I'm missing are my feathers, head, and feet! Adorable!

The only caveat is that Darryl came frozen. Green Acres slaughters two steers a month, and only has fresh chicken when they are ready to, uh, go on “vacation” to a sprawling “Canadian Farm” to drink daiquiris all day.* Currently, Darryl is thawing in the fridge next to some old Mexican left-overs and a Yuengling. Tomorrow, per the helpful lady’s instructions, I will preheat the oven to 350 degrees, cook Darryl for twenty minutes or so, take Darryl out of the oven, “pull his legs,” whatever that means, baste him with butter, rub him with rosemary, massage him with salt, stick him back in the oven for an hour or so, and enjoy his flavorful flesh.  

As a two-time vegetarian and someone who generally feels a mixture of sadness and nausea about meat, I’m actually excited to get my hands dirty with this bird. I’m hopeful that it will be a success and that our first adventure as real locavores will encourage us to go back time and again.  

* = They do not go to a farm in Canada or anywhere else. They get dead through a process I don’t like to think about.