Brooklyn chickens give eggs to Sandy survivors

Here’s to Mike Lipkind, who stepped up to help survivors of the Breezy Point fire during Superstorm Sandy.

He lives in Brooklyn, where he keeps about 35 hens. The flock includes Black Australorps, Barred Rocks, Turkens, Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds, and some bantams he rescued around Easter time.  He’s acquired them over the past couple of years, first getting some on purpose and then rescuing others that had questionable futures. The bantams came from a project a photographer had, to photograph kids for Easter with baby chicks. But after that, no one wanted them. Some came from Westchester, after a chicken owner got crossways with a neighbor.

“I’ve always been an animal nut,” he said. “Some of them were missing feathers or needed other care when I got them.”

He usually sells his eggs with his sister’s vegetables at a farmers’ market in Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He found himself with about 10 dozen eggs after the storm was over, so he took them up to Breezy Point and cooked breakfast.

Breezy Point is a community on the Rockaway Peninsula of New York’s Queens borough. It was

 devastated by flooding from the hurricane, which caused electrical fires that burned more than 100 houses.

Mike wanted to do something to help, so he packed up his eggs, a butane burner, a folding table, cooking pans and went out to serve breakfast. He cooked the eggs to order, served with white or whole wheat toast and orange juice.

“I asked people how they liked their eggs and fixed them the way they wanted them,” he said. “People should be treated with dignity.”

Mike’s an independent guy, working for the city as an operating engineer running heavy equipment. He stayed on, using his skills to help out where he could to get generators and heaters working. He’s Hazmat certified, so he’s helping out with advice on mold.

Mike is supporting the Rockaway Point Volunteer Fire Department, which lost its ambulance and fire truck in the storm. They need help to replace their equipment.

“Any department willing to donate used equipment can contact the Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund , a local firematic charity  that is coordinating the effort (Chairman Brian Farrell,  (516) 840-8839  or terryfund@verizon.net. Thanks in advance to all the brothers willing to help the RPVFD,” reads the web site, which explains about their unusual needs and unique equipment. They need trucks and ambulances that can operate on the narrow, sandy roads, with 4-wheel-drive and a short turning radius.

“The mindset in Breezy Point is that they don’t want to take anything,” Mike said. “Everybody’s attitude is that they don’t want to take anything for themselves. I’m arguing with them about taking a toothbrush. They are very hesitant about being beggars or taking advantage. It’s a little too much. You’re not asking for luxury items.”

Mike credits that selfless willingness to help others with the fact that no lives were lost in the catastrophe.  

“Everyone was looking out for somebody else,” he said. “That’s the culture and the way these people treat each other.  What’s happening is so gratifying. Me doing it isn’t a big deal.”

Thanksgiving turkey

Thanksgiving is undoubtedly the biggest day of the year for turkey on American tables. Heritage breeds are making a comeback, with local producers selling Bourbon Reds, Bronze and Narragansetts. Frank Reese of Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch in Kansas has shown the way. Here's a story with a video of his turkeys. His star has risen along with his flock. As a board member of Farm Forward, he's keeping welfare standards high while producing turkeys and other poultry for the table.

President Obama will pardon a Broad Breasted White turkey, as usual, this year, as he did last year, in this picture. The National Turkey Federation, an industry group, supplies the turkey. Their lobby is powerful, but I'm hopeful that in his second term President Obama may be able to pardon a Bronze in the future.

On a related subject, Care2MakeADifference has a post on antibiotic use and other abuses in industrial poultry production.

Whatever you are having, take the day to reflect on your blessings.  About.com has a page of Thanksgiving prayers, poems and songs to inspire you.

O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.
-Samuel F. Pugh


Read more: http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/10-great-thanksgiving-prayers/#ixzz2CsfUjub3

O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.
-Samuel F. Pugh


Read more: http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/10-great-thanksgiving-prayers/#ixzz2CsfUjub3

Politics and poultry production

An important report chronicling the consolidation of poultry production and its effect on poultry producers is published in Washington Monthly, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_2012/features/obamas_game_of_chicken041108.php?page=1

"...today the share of the market controlled by the four biggest meatpackers has swelled to 82 percent. In pork, the four biggest packers control 63 percent. In poultry, the four largest broiler companies—Tyson, Pilgrim’s Pride, Perdue, and Sanderson—control 53 percent of the market. In all these sectors—but especially poultry—these numbers greatly understate the political effects of concentration. At the local level, which is what matters to the individual farmer, there is increasingly only one buyer in any region.

"The practical result of all this consolidation is that while there are still many independent farmers, there are fewer and fewer processing companies to which farmers can sell. If a farmer doesn’t like the terms or price given by one company, he increasingly has nowhere else to go—and the companies know it. With the balance of power upended, the companies are now free to dictate increasingly outrageous terms to the farmers."

Reporter Lina Khan is a policy analyst with the Markets, Enterprise and Resiliency Initiative at the New America Foundation.She documents the history of the industry and the effects legal changes have had on the farmers who are growing our food. Political leaders have ultimately failed farmers, for the present, despite the Obama administration's work to change the situation. The administration's work with farmers was derailed by Tea Party and other Republican obstruction that eventually pressured the administration into backing away from proposed changes.

Khan is pessimistic about the situation, but I remain encouraged.

"Administration officials who took part in the hearings say two factors thwarted their attempts to protect farmers from exploitation by processing companies. One was a deliberately obstructionist Republican-controlled House set on derailing countless reforms, not only in agriculture, and on protecting big industry from any tightening of regulation....

"It is no stretch to assume that, from the perspective of the White House, the choice to abandon an apparently failed effort to protect independent farmers from such abuses may have seemed politically pragmatic. But over the longer term, it may prove to have been a strategic political failure. By raising the hopes and championing the interests of independent farmers against agribusiness, the administration effectively reached out to the millions of rural voters who don’t normally vote Democratic but whose ardent desire to reestablish open and fair markets for their products and labor often trumps any traditional party allegiance. Instead of translating that newfound trust into political capital, the administration squandered whatever goodwill it had begun to earn. Worse, the administration’s silent retreat amounts to a form of moral failure. Having amply documented the outrageous abuse of fellow citizens, it decided it was not worth expending more political capital to right this wrong.

"The message to the farmers, it seems, is also clear. 'A lot of farmers have gone pretty quiet around here,' Staples said, “from being scared.'"

The hearings held over the past four years shined official light on the situation, at a time when public interest in food production has increased. That work remains to be done, and a Farm Bill remains in the works. With public support for change, the situation can be addressed both there and through USDA's GIPSA regulations. The winds have changed in Washington and the political strength demonstrated in the 2012 election could empower administration officials to stand up to these bought-and-paid-for politicians representing their agribusiness clients.

Stay informed on this issue and contact your senators and representatives frequently. Let them know you support them. Votes always trump dollars.

These changes can also open the door for more changes in poultry production, making it economically more profitable for traditional breed producers to compete. I'm convinced we are in transition to a much better day in poultry production: cleaner, healthier and more humane.

Cooking heritage chickens

Steve Pope is a chef who specializes in cooking heritage poultry. He cooked lunch for the Sustainable Poultry Network clinic in San Luis Obispo last week. Heritage chickens are older than industrial chickens, 16 weeks or more compared to six or seven weeks. They develop more flavor, but the meat also looks different and is tougher, unless it is cooked properly. In this picture, he fixes Chicken Vesuvio, a chicken and vegetables dish, adding mushrooms for the final stage.

The meat of older traditional breed birds raised in small flocks is darker because the birds are stronger. Better developed muscles also become more oily, so that they work well, carrying the bird through the daily routine of scratching and pecking. Because of their ancestry as upland game birds, chickens prefer to run from their predators, and only fly up to their roosts. They develop dark meat legs and thighs, and light breast meat. Here, Mr. Pope demonstrates how to arrange the carcass so that it looks more like a supermarket chicken. Presentation is important to catching the customer's eye and making sales.

He then ties the legs and tail together with a figure eight loop to hold the legs in place.

“When you have a healthy, strong, able bodied bird, its muscles are strong, dark and well lubricated,” Mr. Pope says. “Muscles only seldom used are light and have little lubrication.”

Up until 13 weeks of age, the birds are so young that their muscles won’t flex and cook tough, even when cooked under the intense heat of the broiler. Hence, their name. Broilers can also be fried and prepared other ways, but their significant characteristic is that they can be cooked hot and fast and still be tender.

Birds can be considered fryers from 13 to 20 weeks, with the ideal age being around 16 weeks. They can be cut up and pan fried, another high heat cooking method. They can be spatchcocked: cut in half, the backbone and sternum removed and the half-bird flattened, then grilled that way. Keep the bird away from the heat, to grill at 275-300 degrees.

Sixteen weeks is also a good time to take a serious look at culling the breeding flock. Quicker growing Anconas, Leghorns and Andalusians will show obvious flaws by then. You’ll want to give slower growing Dorkings and Sussex more time to develop.

Some breeds make better fryers than others. Chef Pope recommends dual purpose breeds such as Barred Rocks and Orpingtons for frying. They are the traditional breeds to prepare Southern Fried Chicken for summer picnics. The Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices give flavor to bland industrial chicks.

“That’s what you are tasting, not the chicken,” he says. “You need the right bird with the right texture.”

In the fall, after 21 weeks, the birds are roasters. Five to seven months is the ideal age, depending on the breed. Moist heat, provided by a cup of liquid such as wine or broth, in a covered roasting pan, at 325 degrees, timed at 25 minutes per pound, warms the kitchen and feeds the family.

“Grandma would put that bird into the oven before church, listen to the pastor and was home when the bird was finished cooking,” says Pope.

Being at church also kept the curious and hungry from peeking into the pot and releasing the moisture. Hands off to succeed with this method!

Roasters can also be dry roasted, on a spit. This method requires more attention to oil the bird and keep it basted. Olive oil, butter, bacon, goose or duck fat or any other oil will do. The white meat of the breast and the dark meat of the thighs require different cooking times. Use a cooking thermometer to check for done-ness. Cover the breast with a dish towel soaked in oil or aluminum foil shiny side up, to reflect heat away, and give the legs time to finish cooking.

Older birds, the roosters culled during the winter, or birds from previous years that you don’t want to feed over the winter, become stewing fowl. These birds have developed full flavor and should not be confused with industrial chickens tossed in a pot of water and boiled. They can become coq au vin as well as Grandma’s chicken soup.

Slowly simmer the bird in a bath of liquid until the meat falls off the bones. The slow moist heat relaxes the strong muscles and releases flavor. The liquid may be part of the dish, or it can be broth used later.

Egg breeds may not have the large carcasses of dual purpose Buckeyes and meat breeds such as Brahmas, but they are delicious and should not be under-rated.

Whether you are in a position to keep a small sustaining flock or are more interested in the cooking, traditional breeds make the best choice. America’s cooks are learning how, and their satisfied guests appreciate the effort.

Chef Pope has recipes posted on his web site, www.heritagechef.com, and welcomes additional recipes sent to him at spope@orpingtonhill.net.