New Year, New Knowledge
I started the New Year upset with Petaluma Poultry, who produces my ex-favorite chicken ‘Rosie’. Yes, previously, I could have sworn that a Rosie free range organic chicken available from a number of supermarkets, is the best chicken ever. Especially after learning about seasoning the chicken 1 to 3 days prior to roasting (thanks to Zuni’s café cookbook), a roasted Rosie chicken became my comfort food, something that I make rather frequently.
Over the holidays, I finally had the chance to read the book ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’ by Michael Pollan, a book that I have had for quite a while. Thanks to long haul flights to and from Europe and jet lagged nights. I learnt that ‘free range’, from a USDA regulation perspective only requires that the chickens have ‘access’ to the outdoors. Let me repeat, they have ACCESS but it does not necessarily mean that they were actually roaming happily around during their chicken days. I learnt that for Rosie, there are about 20 thousand of them raised in a chicken shed, with two small doors on each end leading out to a narrow grassy yard. These doors are left open during Weeks 5-7, the last 2 weeks of the chicken’s life, for fear that the chickens will catch something outside especially since they are not fed anti-biotics. And as the chickens have never been raised ‘going outdoors’, let me guess…how many actually would go out through these doors during Weeks 5 to 7? He also wrote about the false advertising of Petaluma Poultry - their brochure showing a red barn, their eggs ‘Judy’s Free Range Eggs’ show a farm boy and girl sitting next to each other in an old family farm setting. Petaluma Poultry is actually housed in an industrial type building. I couldn’t believe what I read. I actually drove to Petaluma to see it for myself. Yes it’s true. They are in a building, not quite a family farm with a barn house with animals roaming around. They are a business, a huge business. I’ve decided to boycott Rosie, including its cousins Rocky and Rocky Jr, all from Petaluma Poultry. I’m also boycotting Judy’s Farm Eggs (from Petaluma Eggs, related to guess what, Petaluma Poultry!).
While in Petaluma, I roamed around and came across a farm - Green Strings Farm and bought the following there:
- Dozen of farm fresh eggs for $5. The lady actually went to get them (I guess from the laying hens) and had to rinse them off. They were still warm when I got them. The eggs were a mixture of white, brown and a light blue. (pictured above)
- Carrots. These were the best carrots I’ve ever tasted – creamy and sweet. They don’t look like model carrots – they were somewhat stunted looking!
- A piece of grass fed petite fillet at $10 a lb
- Some Yellow Bintje potatoes
- Some broccoli leaves (that look like rapini to me, but I was quickly corrected)
- A jar of Jalapeno Green Tomatoes jam
My New Year resolution is to visit a farm every month, okay maybe that’s too ambitious, how about every season. I’ll report back via my blog on the success (or lack thereof) of this resolution.
