Denouement

Last Saturday was a denouement of our grand poultry adventure, as one of the chosen got to spend the day luxuriating in the poultry hot tub in a bath fragrant with pepper, rosemary, thyme, oregano and some other odds-and-ends.

This one fairly small bird yielded up over half a pint of brilliant yellow fat we skimmed and saved for later. We added some finely chopped celery and onion to the pot poultry hot tub, finished it off with a small measure of egg noodles, and finally dined on our very first home-raised chicken.

As would be expected from a hen at the end of a long laying career, she was dense and solid. The meat was rather tough, even after her long sojourn in the crockpot poultry hot tub, and her fully mineralized bones were held together by unyielding ligaments. In my haste to prepare her, I neglected to check her weight, so I have no idea how big she was. But the two of us will have two meals from her, the dogs will have some savory and crunchy treats to brighten their days, and there's still that golden chicken fat to be used...

They say the trick to eating animals you have raised and lived with for an extended time is to fully acknowledge their sacrifice (in both meanings of the term) and to use them completely and with respect. I would say we strived for all of these objectives, and met most of them fully.

No doubt about it—we enjoyed eating this bird.