Lexington, KY - Uncle Clark looked at my cousin Kyle incredulously. Clark was manning the grill in Charleston, S.C., where he lived, fixing a veritable feast for my cousin and his friends, who had stopped off for a free place to crash while on tour down the eastern seaboard.
Traveling musicians, Clark thought, surely they are road-weary and hungry. Fire up the grill. Pull out the cooler. Burgers all around.
A few of the members of the band took out a battered jar of peanut butter from a tattered bookbag and asked if there was any bread in the house. "Why?" Clark wanted to know. "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes."
"Some of the guys are vegetarian," Kyle intervened.
"That's all right. I've got a few chicken breasts on the grill, too," Clark said. Problem solved.
"No," Kyle said, a little confused. "They can't eat chicken either."
"Oh, it's not meat," Clark informed everybody. "It's just bird."
I don't know if the baffled band members ended up breaking their gastronomic creed, but these barnyard birds are starting to gain a little street cred as more and more people begin to embrace rural sensibilities.
In this issue, contributing writer Megan Smith takes us on a quixotic journey through the pleasures and practicalities of raising chickens, Salmon Faverolles in this instance, in her neighborhood backyard. When she first pitched the idea to our magazines, we were a little wary -
we didn't want to get into the habit of encouraging our readers to engage in any sort of underground, guerrilla barnyard activities that might attract the heavy hand of the authorities. I began to conjure up images (somewhat comical) of animal control officers trying to corral panicky hens into cages for extradition.
But after being bounced around to a few departments when an inquiry was made to our city's helpline (311), I learned that raising chickens in Lexington, so long as they are kept in some kind of confines and not roaming the streets, is indeed a legal pursuit. We highly recommend checking with your neighborhood association before you begin construction on a coop, and it's always polite to give your immediate neighbors a heads up. If they boo-boo, you might be able to change their tune with a basket of "farm fresh" eggs, as Megan recommends.
Also in this issue, editor Saraya Brewer introduces readers to chef Brigitte Nguyen, who won the 2009 National Chicken Cooking Contest with her recipe for Chinese Chicken Burgers with Rainbow Sesame Slaw. Nguyen, a transplant from California who has embraced Lexington and the surrounding region's culinary traditions, will represent the area in April on the Food Network's "Ultimate Recipe Showdown" with her "Bluegrass Burgers with Sweet Roasted Corn Chow-Chow and Country Ham Spread" recipe.
I think my cousin's bandmates would be hard pressed turning that one down, vegetarian or not.