We didn’t eat much chicken in my house when I was growing up, mainly because I think my mother was tired of it after The Great Depression and the war years. They had plenty to eat during those times, it just wasn’t store bought food or specialty items. Everything came from the farm, even the ice was cut out of the lake and stored in sawdust for summer.

Once when Mother went to her Uncle Sam’s for Sunday dinner, she looked at the table and exclaimed, “Chicken again!” I think “Toots” was in her mother’s doghouse that day.

So, like I said in the beginning we didn’t eat much chicken at all, although Mother did develop a taste for Kentucky Fried Chicken in its heyday. And Daddy would go to the Amish restaurant Das Essenhaus and order two chicken breasts – one for him and one for Miss Alice. (Our first Australian Shepherd)

Now, Alison, on the other hand, is a chicken-eater and so is Summer; I learned it was easy to slap chicken breasts in a baking dish, toss them in the oven and present one to Summer and she’d be, if not happy, mollified. It was pretty easy. I got to the point where I liked chicken salad when I made it myself – I ain’t eating no ground-up gizzards.

Der Bingle doesn’t like chicken either so we work around him, but we do now have it in the house. Today I saw on a news site that lots and lots (as in tons) of chicken was being recalled and thought, “Oh, Lord, Der Bingle is going to be restless.” However, when I clicked on the link I found out they were talking about chicken feet. Pots of chicken feet. You really had to see the image to feel the full effect, so, here, be my guest:

Well, at least if Mother were Chinese and in her childhood now, and if it were a Sunday and she was at her uncle’s, she wouldn’t have cause to exclaim, “Chicken feet again!.”