My personal "Farm to Fork"

In my last post I said that not much was going on for me, but then the next day something did happen. well... I have chickens in my backyard and I love to use there eggs for all of my delicious food, but every year we get a rooster in our new batch of chicks. it had been a year sense we got a new rooster and out of no where my dad said this: "Lets kill the rooster today". At first I thought that he was joking, but after a couple of seconds I realized that he was most defiantly not. I was okay with the idea because we had done it in the past (I had not personally done it). By the time I caught the rooster, my father had already gotten a large pot of water boiling (to help feather it). we had two roosters and my dad had "Chopped" the first one, and then it was my turn. I was holding it by its feet, after a couple of seconds it became docile, I laid it's neck against the log, it did not take long for me to raise the hatchet and to hack at it's neck, but it did not just cut threw, I had to hack about five times until the neck was only being held on by some skin. I looked down at my apron and it was covered in blood. Some people say it was odd that I named the roster before I killed it, But I guess that is just how I roll.
After that I feathered it, took the guts out (I will spare you the disgusting details) and Broke it down, It was amazing, I was chasing it around the yard a half a hour ago, now it was just two breasts, two legs, two thighs and two wings. Now I was out of Ethan the Butcher mode and was in Chef Dutcher mode. I had decided to brine it over night (so it would get extra moist). I looked to see what is in my pantry, and decided that I should make Italian herb Chicken breasts, and buffalo wings. the wings where fine, defiantly not my best work, but the breasts where great, the bread crumbs where home made and the herbs I put in was delicious, I even fried it in clarified butter. My father thought that it was wonderful.
I fell that doing this is important, I always knew where my food came from, but there is a whole new depth of respect for my food now.



Me right before I Chopped "Rudy"