Saturday: Part Two

Again: WARNING!!! Graphic descriptions of death and butchering! Consider yourself warned!!!

...I held it up and finished cutting the head off, then let what little blood drain that I could. (not much came out...) Then I tried pulling the feathers out, starting at the legs. But the skin kept ripping. So I started at the breast- but it ripped there too. I remembered a friend saying that they just skinned 'em to start with, to avoid plucking, so I thought I would just do that. But the skin is fairly attached in places... and unknown to me, I didn't have the sharpest knife in the block :-) So I was having trouble. And the feathers were everywhere!

I got the breast open, and skinned one of the legs. I was able to break the knees and cut the feet off. Melia wanted to give them to Ziva, but I just couldn't handle that, especially the thought that she might bring them in the house. I was trying to remove more skin, but couldn't figure out how to get around the wings. By this point, I was almost totally emotionally drained and had no idea what to do... So I called Gabe.

"Hi... I just wanted you to be proud of me.. (gulp) I killed the rooster. And now I don't know what to do..." He laughed at me and told his co-workers. I don't know if I'm a silly wife or a gutsy wife, but I know I was a wife at home trying to make a dinner out of this feathery, bloody, heap of chicken body parts that won't come apart!

Oh, and did you know their fat is yellow? That kinda grossed me out. Along with all the membranes and "warm meat" feeling. I can do cold meat with almost no problem. Warm meat is weird. My problem was that my gardening book says to cut the neck down low... cut around the anus (!) and pull the guts out. Problem is, that's all after plucking the thing. I can't even find the neck, and I don't want to touch anywhere near the anus!

Gabe said just to "breast it out" and cut what meat I could see out and call it good. What I REALLY wanted to do was see all the guts. (surprised? I know- I'm sure you didn't see that coming.) I enjoyed dissection in school- I find it all fascinating... once I get away from "this was recently a living creature" emotional attachment. But I couldn't get inside the bones to see anything except the liver. Oh, and I cut the throat (gullet?) open and saw the food inside. Blech. Ew ew ewwww.

There. That's a good note to end on. :-) You're welcome! Just kidding.

What I didn't expect was how ENTHUSED the girls would be! Kiera's running around saying "we killed the chicken. we killed the chicken. we killed...." you get the picture. Petting feathers. Looking at the parts they could see. "High five Mommy!" "Great Job Mommy!" Thrilled to pieces. And when I showed Melia the drumstick (her favorite part) I practically could have mixed her drool together with the blood on the table. Ew- that was a great mental picture for you wasn't it? :-) heh heh... Seriously, she said things like this "Oh yummy, mommy, can I have that one? Yumm. I love drumsticks. Mmmmm I can't wait to EAT it!"

Oh my.
Still to be continued... Nope. I'm not done yet! :-)