A friend for the turkey

Turkey is much happier this morning, roaming all over the yard, hiccuping lustily.  Meanwhile, I found a woman in Rohnert Park who has three heritage toms for sale at a fair price. Should I? I think I should.  I have emailed her with queries as to their temperament and flying abilities and if the answers are to my liking, Owen and I will take a short drive north tomorrow afternoon and bring home a friend for our girl. ONE friend. We have another errand in the general vicinity involving miniature goats, but we will not be bringing home miniature goats. Not yet, anyway. Probably not ever.

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I have a tough, but (I think) fair essay about Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals up on Doublex today. You can read it here. I wrote a balanced review a few weeks ago; this is a more personal reaction. I keep wanting to undercut myself and say it's a bitchy essay, but I just wrote what I thought and believe to be true. 

 

The coverage for this book has been non-stop and almost universally adoring. Here's the opener to Laurie David's review, which I read this morning:  "A young, self-effacing, quiet, humble novelist from Brooklyn has written a powerful, groundbreaking book that might very well save our lives and the planet, if only everyone would read it." 

At first I thought it was parody. It is not. 

We all have to have our nice hobbies

Here's Jonathan Safran Foer on urban homesteading , specifically, the value of keeping backyard chickens: "Is it a solution to anything? Not really. It might be kind of nice in a hobby way. . . People who do stuff on their own, it's more like a personal interest thing rather than a real alternative."

I don't disagree. But the decision to keep chickens is no more or less a "real alternative" to the problem of factory-farmed eggs than an individual choosing to become a vegan, the option chosen by Jonathan Safran Foer. A real alternative? I don't know. Legislation? That sounds like fun. I would never, ever argue that keeping chickens is going to save the world,  but "it might be kind of nice in a hobby way" has such a supercilious edge to it.

Foer comes out as a vegan right here, then skirts the issue throughout his new book, Eating Animals, and in most interviews. I was going to go hear him speak yesterday at Book Passage and ask him why, but Isabel was sent home sick -- coughing, feverish, dizzy, sore throat, etc. -- and I stayed in. All symptoms of the unspeakable, which the advice nurse at the pediatrician's office said it well might be. 

At top is the cup custard I made using Gourmet Today and hobby eggs. 

And these are the baked eggs in piperade, ditto.

A typical Gourmet Today performance: fine.

Some donuts, some self-promotion

On the left, a Krispy Kreme. On the right, a donut made by Isabel and me. Details on how they tasted and how much they cost: coming soon.

Briefly, though, I ate so many hot homemade donuts the other night that I sent myself to bed early as punishment. The good news is, there were no donuts left over to feed to the chickens which I have since learned is a bad idea. 

I will probably continue to feed the chickens failed cakes, cookies and donuts to break up the monotony of centipedes, sandwich crusts, and grain, but perhaps not quite so often.

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My story about shopping for Vietnamese groceries is in the November issue of Sunset, or so I have been told. (I can't find it online.) It includes a picture in which I am wearing a shirt that my friend just said "resembles a tablecloth." He also told me that it's charming how "natural and disheveled" I look, that it's clear I hadn't spent a lot of time primping or brushing my hair. Which is funny, because I actually had. 

Also, my review of Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals is here. I couldn't begin to fit my thoughts about this fascinating and maddening polemic into the space allotted. This is a book you really need to take apart piece by piece to separate the truly strong arguments (there are many) from the eminently debatable (there are many.) I wonder if Foer paid Natalie Portman to sound off and start the buzz. If so, good thinking!