I received a chicken for Christmas

If I wake up a just before 8:30 in the morning and lay there with my eyes closed, I can almost imagine that I'm back in the islands; there is a rooster that crows in the yard of some distant neighbor. And just when I'm about to entertain thoughts of shooting that rooster with a slingshot, the nextdoor neighbor's dog starts singing. It is exactly 8:30am and the bell tower which sits not more than 50 yards away from our home is chiming the hour of morning prayer. Ding, ding, dong, ding, dangggg... The dog (I call him Jack) is crooning louder and louder as the bell plays out the rest of the song. There is no such thing as calling the local police to report a noise infraction, and it is too funny, because if Jack barks incessantly for any reason, the owner is usually yelling at him (in italian) to Shut up! or Go to your house!

But getting back to the chicken. My mother-in-law had given us a frozen gallina (hen) on Christmas. This morning I pulled it out and placed it in the sink to defrost; it had a bad case of freezer burn. I was trying to remember why exactly, my mother-in-law decided to give us this frozen bird in the first place. And then it occurred to me...she said the chicken was a wild chicken. She doesn't like wild chickens, it was a gift from a friend. So she figured that instead of letting it sit in her freezer, perhaps we could find some use for it? I can only surmise that with all the wild chicken photos that my husband had shot while on vacation in Hawaii, his mother having seen them, must have thought that we islanders must like to eat them!

Let's see if wild italian chickens make good adobo. ;-)

Comments

Wooo! Chicken stew! Got rice?

Mele Kalikimaka, Buon Natale!

Aloha,

Blaine

Is there a difference between wild and... er, not-wild chickens? Is it a taste and texture thing, or a purely ethical distinction (like "free range")?

I don't know, because truthfully, I've never eaten one of those wild chickens that roam the island so freely. But if I were to sell them as a side business, I would go the way of the market-savvy entrepreneur and lable them as 'free-range'...definitely.

Anyway, the italian chicken was ono-licious....my inlaws don't know what they're missing out.

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