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Foodie-ish

Delighting in Hens and Eggs

 I well recall the first egg laid by our pet chicken, Harold, ---OK, we were ignorant back then--- in Belgium. It was oddly wet and oblong in shape. We urged Harold to try harder, and so she did--the next egg was eggish. A desultory layer, she did bring forth a few, though never with the vigor and consistency of her non-science experiment sisters. ( Harold triumphantly survived a first grade egg-hatching project, but always walked with a limp.) Nonetheless, she did her best and we were thrilled at her output.

Most newbies to the great world of hens and eggs are similarly delighted. John, one of the Summit Springs Farmers, recently wrote:
"So, every Monday morning, I give the chicken coop and the chicken's food and water dishes a thorough scrubbing.  This morning, I got the dishes done and fed the excited chickens before opening up the back hatch of the coop to clean up the laying boxes and put down a fresh layer of bedding (shredded paper and wood shavings mixed together)...and there in one of the boxes was a single small brown egg!  The very first!  A bit later in the morning, I checked again and found that 2 more eggs had appeared, and later, one more still (making a total of 4 and enabling a proper breakfast for Sonya and me tomorrow.)  Yeehaw!
I am excited and feel like a proud parent.  We got our hens back in March when they were less than 2 days old, and now, they're laying!  Go, ladies, go!"

See?

While the first egg story took place on a Belgian fermette and the second on a farm in Maine, apparently the US is now seized with a growing "urban chicken movement." Two Albuquerquians have started the website urbanchickens.org. A California site has this: Chickens in the City. And there's Urban Chickens, a blog, and The Urban Chicken.

For the finest book we know on these birds, try The Chicken Book, by Page Smith, a classic.

(Actual Albuquerque city dwellers pic thanks to http://dukecity.ning.com/group/abqurbanchickens.)

Watching Globally, Pondering Sausage...

While Republican candidate for President John McCain belatedly tries to learn how to turn on a computer, many of those he is trying to win over are sitting at their PC's or laptops preparing to watch live the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, give a speech, outdoors in Berlin, a few time zones away. At the same time, (ok, it is I, Foodie,) I am posting a blog entry, checking emails from people in Maine, Italy, Florida, Brussels, New York, California, DC and the UK, and taking cell phone calls from the sprout in DC, advising us that he will be watching Obama via France 24 tv.

Just my way of saying, please, America, this is not your father's or grandfather's planet. OK? Get with the program!  ( An early 60-something fartess, I have been using a computer since 1982, for gawd's sake.)

As for food----the O is saying it all right now--we are one "new" world in which all is intertwined, food and famine included,and that we must include people in "the forgotten corners of the world."
Cooperation among nations is not a choice.." "The walls that divide us cannot stand."
His beginning reference?  To the Berlin airlift of 1948-1949. What did it deliver?

FOOD.

Right now, just after the speech, the NYTimes's Nicholas Kulich is answering the question, "Why Germany?" by stating this: "When one thinks of beer and bratwurst, one tends to think of either faraway Germany — or Milwaukee in the heartland.

That quirk of culinary geography says a lot about why Barack Obama can give a public speech in Berlin without catching the kind of flak that a similar outing under the Eiffel Tower would garner."  And then:

"...an appearance in Germany brings few of the dangers that a campaign speech before cheering throngs in the land of pinot and foie gras might. While plenty could go wrong, and a backlash is still possible, one thing is clear: There is little danger of being labeled effete in the home of Oktoberfest and oom-pah bands."

Americans, we hope, are becoming less provincial about these nonsensical things...

By the by--John McCain is having lunch in Schmidt's Sausage Haus, German Village, Columbus, Ohio today. Just a coincidence, I guess.

Eat Crap, Win Voters' Hearts and Minds? Part Two: The Booze Factor

"Mocked for not finishing his waffles, he (  Obama) has made a joke about his newfound willingness to drink beer in blue-collar bars and sop up the gravy at working-class diners. After he lost the Pennsylvania primary to a beer-swilling, whisky-downing Hillary, Obama mordantly announced to his staff, "OK, now I'll eat anything."  This week's Newsweek cover story is about Senator Obama and his team.

So many silly issues, dumb attacks about nothing--I wonder how many of those who voted for G.W. Bush because they thought he was the kind of guy they'd like to have a beer with have actually had a beer with him during the past eight years. Please contact me, wherever you are.

Meanwhile, if you haven't had a politically incorrect laugh lately, take a gander through That Hillary Show, my new personal favorite web offering. The most recent video is up top, wherein Hillary urges Bill to keep drinking with the denizens of a bar in West Virginia. The creation of the clever and focused Rosemary Watson, it features a dogged, yet addled Hillary fighting on, and on, and on. The show has finally had some play at the NYTimes and The Atlantic--wish I had blogged the link earlier because I have been enjoying these for some time.
( This YouTube  pic of Rosemary at left is lousy, but all I could find at the mo'.)