Via Bella: Guest Blogger: Mrs. Stephanie McKay

"Does the Chicken in the Store Have Arms?"

Stephanie and I have been friends since grade school! Such a weird thought! I remember her, Brandon and I doing a play for one of our classes. I don't even remember if I was Cinderella or the evil step sister- do you remember Steph? We used to practice at your house, which was a few blocks from my foster home.

I was sad when we were driving through Colorado and it did not work to meet up. I was hoping to be able to see you. But there is always a next time. Especially because I just know about those weekly trips you take to D.C. ;) Haha.

Anyhow, I am proud to present one of my friends as my first guest bloggers! Miss you Steph!

She is an amazing and dedicated educator and a great human being and friend!

From "Mr. & Mrs. McKay"

http://mrandmrsmckay.blogspot.com/2011/07/does-chicken-in-store-have-arms.html

Does the chicken in the store have arms?

Mrs. McKay hates cooking. She hates preparing, cooking, and cleaning up. She hates touching raw meat or even dealing with it. She hates figuring out if it's cooked all the way or if it's overdone. She definitely doesn't like to eat leftovers. When she has to cook, she ends up cooking the chicken until it is very, very dead. She absolutely hates cooking.

Now she is married and must fill some sort of shoe, some sort of stereotype. Cooking. No more eating at restaurants or ordering in many nights throughout the week.

Meet Winny.

Yesterday, Forrest and I went to the Drake Farmer's Market to check out the local goods. We ended up buying a whole chicken because somewhere in my mind, I thought it would be smart to buy a whole chicken and make several meals out of it. Not only was I going to save money, but I was going to be buying a chicken from a nice little farm where it roamed free and was happy.

The meat man flopped the frozen bird onto the scale and weighed our future meal. 4.5 lbs. Her name is Winny and she is my new challenge. Winny was quite expensive, $17 for a damn bird. She better go far.

Because the bird was as solid as a rock, I left her in the refrigerator overnight. Today, I pulled Winny out...right as Forrest came down the stairs! "Sweet, you get to pull out the nasty shit." He wasn't so pleased, but he stepped up to the plate. Winny was a little, eh, frozen on the inside which required a little more force than normal. Sorry Winny.

Winny stared, well not stared, but sat on the pan, waiting for me to become domestic and add something important. I stuffed Winny with oranges, rosemary and thyme. Then I gave her a EVOO (extra virgin Olive Oil) massage, salt and pepper scrub, then added some herbs under her skin. Into the oven at 350 degrees for 2 hours. Do your thing, Winny.

As I pulled Winny out of the oven to let her rest, I examined her. She had big arms (well wings actually, but I thought arms first). I never really noticed that chickens had bigger arms than their breasts. In fact, I never noticed the wings on a whole bird from the pre-cooked section at the grocery store. After asking Forrest if the chickens in the store had arms too, I noticed that she was an organic, free range bird and wasn't pumped with terrible things. Her breast was smaller, making her wings look bigger. Forrest started to take the meat off and saw that there were waaaay more body parts (or sections of meat) than he has ever noticed. Hey, don't judge. We is students.

See, I am, or was, a snobby girl and could only eat chicken breast. I would buy big-ass packets of chicken breasts and never anything else. Now, I will buy happy chickens with smaller breasts. This means that they didn't have to lug around their boobs during their short lives. Tell me about it, chickens, I lug around mine and it can be heavy. I totally get it.

We decided to make fajitas for dinner, save meat for other meals and I put the bones in the freezer to make soup later--a suggestion made by Forrest's vegetarian mom. Go Figure.

Everything turned out amazing and I was shocked at how domestic I could be. I filled a portion of a stereotypical wife's shoe today.

Then I cleaned the damn kitchen.