Chicken beards and comfort food

 I sat down yesterday to do my blog post and realized I had no good pictures and nothing to write about. I was marginally more inspired today. Chicken pictures are always good.

When we first got the chicks, I named one of the Americauna’s Aunt Sam because of her eagle-like white head. Unlike her namesake, Uncle Sam, Aunt Sam is a coward, the sort of chicken that gives chickens a bad name in the courage department. One day, I threw some carrot peels into the run, and it spooked her so much that she flew over the fence. Once outside, she didn’t know what to do with herself. She walked around the fence, trying to push through at intervals, never letting me get close enough to grab her and toss her in. When she was sufficiently motivated, she flew back over the fence. Silly Aunt Sam.

Aunt Sam, a chicken chicken

I think of another one of the Americaunas as Black Beard. Look at her magnificent facial feathers! This is a good sign. When there are peckers, so to speak, among the chickens, the beard feathers are the first to be pecked off. That Black Beard is sporting such a lovely beard means that there is not much inter-chicken harassment.

Black Beard 

The third Americauna has a less pronounced beard. Oddly, her body feathers are nearly black, but her beard feathers are more of a brown. All of our girls are really beautiful right now.

Brown beard, black body

All the pullets are laying now. We have had as many as 10 eggs in a day! And we are locked down again, so exactly where those eggs will go is undecided. I’ve been doing my best to use them up in baked goods. The cake I featured in last week’s post was not helpful, since it had no eggs. If I want to avoid those 15 COVID pounds, I should stay out of the kitchen. Yet I do not feel capable of that. I want comforting food, and much of that comes out of an oven.

I continued my chocolate cake experiments, this time with Laurie Colwin’s Happy Winter Fudge Cake. It included both melted chocolate and chocolate chips. What’s not to like? This recipe had two eggs but no salt. After some pondering, I decided, as I usually do, to follow the recipe exactly the first time (except for substituting leftover buttermilk from last week’s cake for plain yogurt). When I began baking many decades ago, I wondered why sweet food even had salt in it. Now that I am wise, I know that salt enhances every flavor. Without it, the cake seemed almost cloyingly sweet. By the way, last week’s cake did not, as promised, age well. It started out dry and got drier. Did we finish eating it? Of course. It was still chocolate cake. Happy Winter Fudge Cake really doesn’t need frosting. I’ll have to find some other use for the languishing buttercream.

Happy Winter Fudge Cake

When I worked, I often made cranberry, apricot, orange, walnut bread for the holiday potluck. Let’s do some potluck math—20 persons bring enough food for 20 persons. How many can you feed? 400. I always brought a lot of the cranberry bread home. Now I don’t have to deal with cranberry bread that has dried out for an hour at a potluck, but I also don’t have anyone to share the calories with. Still, it wouldn’t be the holidays for me without cranberry bread for breakfast. A lot of breakfasts.

Happy Winter Fudge Cake in cross section with cranberry, apricot, orange, walnut bread

I spent some time in the high tunnel yesterday. I put the strawberries that Terry started in pots into the ground for the winter.

Strawberries ready for winter

I transplanted more lettuce. Incredibly, I have not lost a single one. The row on the right is mâche or corn salad. It’s still little but so far it is not bitter and seems pleasingly lettuce-like.

Lettuce transplants and baby mache

The spinach was finally big enough to thin for the first time. We had a tiny bit of spinach in our salads tonight, along with the last of the first planting of lettuce. I know it’s going to get cold and more to the point, cloudy, and the flimsy row cover won’t keep my babies warm enough to grow or even survive. Next year, you just wait! I’ll have everything planted in August for harvest through Christmas. Look very carefully on the right for tiny green threads of onion sprouts that will never, ever make it to the kitchen.

Left to right: lettuce, spinach, more lettuce, and sad, sad little onions (look closely)

Thanksgiving is up next. My turkey is defrosting. I have made a mental list of what to do each day in preparation for Thursday. A written list would likely be more helpful. Given that Illinois went to Tier 3 COVID quarantine on Friday, the number of diners is down. Oh well. We love leftover turkey.

I wish you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving! It seems quite likely at this point that next year may be normal. Whether it’s the end of a pandemic or scallions from the high tunnel, hope can’t hurt.