Category: food

It’s that time of the year again, folks: I got the early morning phone call from the Post Office announcing that the chicks that we had ordered had arrived and were ready for pick-up.

This year there were a few remarkable aspects. First, when I called to place my order, there was a striking lack of chickens left to order — apparently there is a surging demand for chicks, egg birds and meat birds. I I was interested in getting a few egg layers, but there were only a few varieties left. I ended up getting a rare type that lays chocolate brown eggs (“Cuckoo Maran”), which will complement our regular brown, white, and blue/green egg layers. We also got the last batch of the “Barbecue Special” meat birds in June.
Continue reading “Lay Pool-Ay Ay R-E-Vay” →

Following is a copy of a Letter I sent to the NY Times regarding an idiotic Op-Ed they published last Monday by someone pretending to be an expert on sustainable food sources, but who really wants to blame fish farming for all the evils in the world. [Hyperbole intended.] It’s so frustrating to hear people who know little of what they would criticize repeat exaggerated platitudes to support their arguement. It’s even more frustrating when those people purport to be speaking up for ideas I care a great deal about. It’s lazy, and it ultimately reflects badly on the cause.

In any case, hear my righteous wrath:

To the Editor:

Regarding “Sardines With Your Bagel” by Taras Grescoe (published 9 June 2008 as an Op-Ed) — Mr. Grescoe addresses an important question — human impact on wild fish species, specifically the Pacific salmon so prized for their culinary qualities — but quickly digresses into an ill-informed and misleading attack on farmed salmon that shows little knowledge of agriculture or basic aquaculture. Surely Mr. Grescoe knows that commercially raised salmon are not the only conventionally raised livestock treated with pesticides — conventionally raised chickens are routinely fed them to reduce the viability of fly larvae in their manure…not to mention that worming medicines fed to all non-organically raised ungulate livestock are insecticides. He should point out that farmed salmon, like ALL farmed meats, may contain residues of the pesticides used to treat various maladies (organic meats included — though the pesticides allowed for use on organic livestock are limited to known list of active ingredients). However, I also challenge his implication that these chemicals (which are very expensive) are widely and regularly used on commercial salmon. If they were, farmed salmon might be as expensive as the Copper River Chinook!.

Continue reading “The Know Nothing Club” →

Our chicken comes from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa via the USPS as day old fluffy little puff-balls. Most of these buggers are from the “Barbecue Special” package of broiler and fryer types (we call them Meat Blobs); the brownish fuzz-balls are Red Leghorns for our layer flock; and that grey guy is the “Special Chick” which is a free addition to every Murray McMurray order, who almost always turns into a rare-breed rooster — a neat way for Murray McMurray to get rid of the chicks that no one orders. By the looks of this guy, I’m guessing we got a crested Polish breed of some type who will eventually have a “top hat” of feathers.

After this first important day of getting them out of the little shipping box and into a run with water and feed and a heat lamp, they will spend about four weeks down in our barn basement under the lamp until they feather out. Then they will transfer into our “chicken tractor” which is a simple 10′ X 4′ chicken wire box with no bottom. They will eat grain and grass and bugs for another six weeks in the “tractor” until the Meat Blobs are slaughtered and put in our freezer. The layers will be put in with the rest of our laying flock.
Continue reading “Where Do You Get Your Chicken?” →

Spring means many things at the Rector household in Monroe, Maine: a drizzly day that turns into a couple of inches of wet squeaky snow that piles perfectly on every surface before the sun comes out, seedlings in the window (truly a garden in a box), but best of all a ripe prosciutto.
Continue reading “Spring Things” →