A Chicken Story

Chickens are in the news these days. Not long ago, my town passed a zoning ordinance that allows people living in certain neighborhoods (including mine!) with properties of at least a certain size to keep chickens. This is a change from a few years ago when there was a front page story in the local paper about two children who had to make a special case before the zoning board so that they could keep their four chickens—Guinevere, Gurley, Mabel and Carmelo--who had been deemed illegal. Meanwhile, another person in my office just got chickens, bringing the number up to three in one small office.

All of this talk about chickens brings to mind a particularly memorable chicken, one I encountered a number of years ago in India. Here is my chicken story.

It was summer, monsoon season, and I was in Bangalore. My hotel had once been handsome but now was dumpy. My room was forgettable, the food lousy. But there was a lovely garden and a veranda beside it. In the garden lived a flock of chickens along with one scary rooster who charged at me whenever I walked by.

One rainy afternoon, I had no plans and decided to sit on the veranda and write some letters. I sat down at one of the tables with paper and a pen. The other tables were empty, but a hen from the garden hopped up on one of the chairs and promptly went to sleep. This amused me, but I didn’t think much of it.

A little while later, a man came out and sat at the table where the chicken was sleeping. I guessed he was the hotel accountant because he carried with him an armload of bulky ledgers which he spread out across the table. He wore thick spectacles and settled down with the books, adding up numbers, making notes. Hard at work, he didn’t notice the chicken, and they coexisted peacefully for a long while.

The chicken’s peace was disturbed, though, when one of the hotel servants alerted the man that he was sharing his table with a chicken. The accountant had the servant shoo the sleepy chicken back into the garden. The chicken was not pleased. And so the battle began.

From the moment she was banished into the garden, the chicken attempted to regain her seat. At first, her forays were furtive. If a chicken could tiptoe, that’s what this chicken was doing. Every few minutes, she would hop up onto the veranda, and the accountant would shoo her away, sometimes with a stick, sometimes with his hand. She tried to go around the other way, not obviously up the steps right in front of him. A few times she nearly made it, but he caught her every time. It goes without saying that I was rooting for the chicken. It also seemed to me that the accountant was just distracting himself unnecessarily because clearly she wasn’t going to give up. This was one tenacious chicken.

The stalemate lasted for more than an hour. I recorded it as a play by play in the letter I was writing. The chicken did not accept defeat and join her sister chickens in the garden. She wanted her seat back, and she would not be refused.

Finally, the accountant got up and left—not for long, but long enough for the chicken to get back to her chair. I swear she looked around to make sure the coast was clear. I like to think he left as a means of conceding defeat. When he came back, he resumed his seat, the chicken had resumed hers, and we all sat there quietly for the rest of the afternoon. The accountant, I will add, left before the chicken, who stayed until it got dark, secure in her victory.

I don’t know if this means more about tenacity of chickens or the vagaries of memory, but I no longer remember the name of the hotel or even, really, what else I did in those few days in Bangalore. But ask me about the chicken, and I can tell you a story.

*Enormous thanks to my colleague, Nancy Eckert, chicken owner and chicken artist extraordinaire, for today's illustration!

**The Blogger Outage of 5/12-13 wiped out this post and the comments. I've re-posted it in case blogger isn't able to restore it. Very frustrating.

Deborah Madison's Spinach Frittata: or, Friends with Chickens

At the beginning of the academic year, I acquired a new office neighbor. This was a good thing, as my office is on the third floor of an old house, tucked under the eaves, and for company, I was reduced to calling across what once had been an attic playroom to my colleague on the other side. But then, the empty office next to mine was suddenly populated, and first, I had a neighbor, and after not very long, I had a new friend. (Hi Beth!)

Beth has been a lovely new friend. (She, in fact, was the one who suggested that I go to Navdanya in January!) But in addition to all of her fine qualities, there's another thing: she has chickens. I heard last fall about the building of the chicken coop and the acquisition of 8 hens. I heard about the months in which those 8 chickens, expensively settled into their expensive coop, showed little interest in laying eggs. But then, at long last, they began to lay eggs, just in time for our winter from hell, and then I heard stories of Beth's 8 year old daughter going out to feed the chickens and coming back with frozen hair while reporting that the chicken's water was also frozen. Ah, the joys of outdoor animals in a New England winter!

But through it all, those intrepid hens kept laying eggs. And some of the eggs laid by Tiny, Chinchilinna, Bindi, Fluffy, Hannah, and Fluffy-Lucky-Dr.Dufenschwartz found their way to me. (I am sad to report that of the original 8, Dora was lost to a skunk and Nemo to a hawk; Beth would probably like me point out that 1) her 2 daughters named the chickens and 2) they will stay away from Disney names in future.)

Over the past few months, I've scrambled the eggs and poached them and made them into egg salad. I've put them in quiche and custard and Deborah Madison's chard and onion torta. And yesterday, I had 3 eggs left from the last batch Beth had given me, and I made this frittata.

This frittata has much to recommend it--it's easy and quick, filling and delicious. And if this happens to be early May and new spinach and green onions are readily available at the farmers' market, even better. Although I always like spinach and cheddar together, I used the goat cheese called for in the recipe and was not sorry. The whole thing was done very quickly. You can mix together the eggs while the spinach is cooking down, and as long as the heat is low, you can go off and do other things for the 8 or so minutes that the frittata is cooking. When the mingled and yummy smell of green onions and goat cheese begins to permeate your kitchen, you'll know it's almost done.

Meanwhile, I brought an empty egg carton to work and left it meaningfully on Beth's desk. I'm already plotting what Chinchilinna and co.'s next offerings will become.

Spinach Frittata
from Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison's Kitchen

8 to 10 ounces baby spinach leaves
2 tbsp. butter
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
4 eggs
2 scallions, including 3 inches of greens, thinly sliced
3 ounces crumbled firm goat cheese

1. Put the spinach in a large skillet with a teaspoon or so of the butter, season with a few pinches of salt, and add a tablespoon of water to create a little steam. Cook over medium heat until wilted and tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and chop coarsely.

2. Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl with several pinches of salt and some pepper. Stir in the scallions, cheese and spinach.

3. Melt the remaining butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet. When it foams, swirl it around the pan, coating the sides. Add the eggs, reduce the heat to low, then cover the pan and cook until golden and puffed, about 8 minutes. If, at this time, it's cooked to your tasted, slide it out onto a serving plate without turning it over. If you like your eggs cooked more firmly, slide the frittata onto a plate, invert the skillet over it, then, grasping both the plate and the skillet in your hands, invert the whole thing. Cook the second side for a few more minutes, then slide the frittata onto the plate, cut into quarters and serve.

Serves 2-4, depending on what else you're serving and how hungry you are.