Where's that chicken been?

Do you ever ask yourself that question? I often find myself looking at cutlets, legs and various dismembered chicken parts stacked in the grocery store meat department, wondering if I can trust that the nature of their previous whereabouts is on the up and up.

Just last night Konstantine and I were led by our neighbor Emma to a new discovery, a place called Western Beef. It's this cross between a warehouse and a regular grocery store. They had cans of beans the size of my head. By nature I stockpile canned goods, readying myself for the next nuclear holocaust or great depression. The really cool or weird thing depending on your perspective is the back of the store. They have a meat area that you must go through double doors to enter. The entire area is a giant refrigerator and by the time we had gathered our meat goods and were ready to leave, I was shivering and on the borderline of hypothermia.

We got home and sorted our bulk meat purchases. We tend to divide the meat into seperate bags and freeze them for later thawing. Our freezer is a meat locker in its own right. Yes, perhaps I've got a bit of midwestern crazy in me. When we were sorting the chicken breasts I found myself in that same suspicious place of wondering....Where's that chicken been? I want stores to start including a note with names, histories and any information that might pertain to my chicken before I lay down the cash.

This leg belongs to Henrietta. She lived a long happy life on a small farm in Ohio where she was fed nothing put premium seed to supplement her free range diet of grubs and wild grass. She died peacefully in her sleep. She is survived by her sister Eloise, a rooster charles and her 200 children. Fried, baked or boiled, she's sure to be a delicious flavor to whatever dish you add her.