April 25, 2012 | 12:14 pm

Lemon Verbena

Posted by Rob Eshman

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When I was in my mid-20s, I fought a long, messy and entirely internal struggle over whether to move to Israel.

Many young Jews living in the Diaspora — more than you think — face this choice. We spend some time there, either as part of an organized program, or, as I did, on our own. Then we have to choose. 

Israel, small as it is, exerts a strong pull. 

I was 25 in 1985. I had lived in Israel for a year; worked hard to learn Hebrew, find a job and an apartment; built the beginnings of a life. I had a girlfriend, Miki, and a group of Israeli friends — Jews, Arabs, South Africans, French, Australians, Angelenos — whose company inspired me. We worked or went to school, then spent the evenings visiting, drinking really bad Carmel Hock wine or powdered Turkish coffee, arguing, laughing, dreaming.

None of us had money, and the country itself was simple and poor compared to the States: no cell phones, two brands of beer, two TV channels.

Maybe it’s the same with all 25-year-olds. At that age, you enter a kind of second childhood, you sponge up whatever culture you happen to find yourself in. I have friends from Encino who spent those post-college years in London and returned with full-on English accents, never quite able to lose them.

In any case, Israel felt like my new home, and I wrestled with whether I could separate myself from my family and make a career there. 

Because I tend to relate to the world through food, my memories of those years are tied to foods I discovered for the first time there. One day, Miki and I befriended an elderly man named S.E. Yardeni, who lived in a simple home on a relatively large plot of land in Jerusalem. Yardeni was a pioneer who had come to settle the land. His agile mind invented the locks that still bear his name. He founded his company in 1947, a year before statehood, and by the time we met him, he was retired and devoting himself to his garden. He had the money to live anywhere in the world, in style, but he was rooted, like his fig, olive and pomegranate trees, to the land.

One hot summer day, he showed us how he made pomegranate wine. It was served cold and was mildly alcoholic, the color of rubies. To this day, I’ve never tasted anything quite so perfect. He made us a salad of the lettuce and tomatoes he grew, and he poured tea for us that was unlike any I’d ever tasted: sweet, lemony, minty.

“What is it?” I asked him to show me.

In his yard, he ran his hand over a bush with elegant, soft green spiked leaves. “Louisa,” he called it. As his rough hands stroked the leaves, that fragrance filled the warm air. How could I ever leave Israel?

In winter, we visited Yardeni again, and he made another tea, this time from sage leaves.

“The Arabs drink louisa in summer, sage in winter,” he explained. “It warms you up.” It did.

By spring, I was back in Los Angeles. I can’t say I ever really definitively decided whether to stay or to leave. Miki and I were breaking up, and I thought it would be a good thing to get a bit of distance between us for a bit, like 10,000 miles. Not that we were married, but in the separation, she got the country.

And me, I ended up like a helluva lot of other middle-aged men and women I know. We look back on the years we spent in Israel and can’t help wondering: What if? How close did we really come to taking a leap that, in the end, so few successfully take? Instead, we raise our kids speaking a bit of Hebrew, stay involved in the life and politics of the country from a distance, make a point to befriend Israelis here (and let’s face it, a lot more of them follow their hearts to us than vice versa).

It’s not a chapter that ever seems to close. And as the years tick by, as our kids grow up and move on, and a part of us — of me — can’t help but think: If the right opportunity were to arise … if the right job offer came through. But of course, a real leap doesn’t require a great opportunity; it starts with the courage to sacrifice for possibility, for a dream, for what if.

In my garden in Venice, I planted two pomegranate trees. The large one yielded more than 100 pounds of fruit last year. I never learned to make Yardeni’s wine, but I do make a pretty good vodka after I pick, seed and crush the fruit.

I looked for a year for louisa in the local nurseries, until I learned that it has a common English name, lemon verbena. I planted five plants in the back garden, one in the front.

Louisa goes dormant in the winter. Three months of the year, it looks dead. At the peak of spring, light lime-colored leaves sprout along the branches, and the plant begins a new cycle of spindly growth.

On a beautiful spring morning last week, I decided to drink my coffee by the garden. I sat and took in the peaceful morning, the beauty of where I live, the good fortune of my life. Unknowingly, I brushed my hand along the newly formed louisa leaves, and their fragrance released and enveloped me.

And I began to cry.

---

Lemon Verbena Sorbet

This is adapted from The Herbfarm Cookbook, by Jerry Traunfeld.

Nothing but vibrant and refreshing it’s lemon heaven.

Makes 1 quart, 8 servings

1 1/2 cups (gently packed) fresh lemon verbena leaves
1 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed Meyer or Eureka lemon juice
3 cups cold water

Grind the lemon verbena leaves and sugar together in a food processor until the mixture turns into a bright green paste, about 30 seconds; stop to scrape down the sides as necessary. Add the lemon juice and process for 15 seconds longer, then add the water. Strain the resulting liquid through a fine sieve to remove any bits of leaf. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Lemon Verbena Tea

I serve this at the end of just about every meal beginning in early summer, when our verbena plants… leaf out.

12 fresh large lemon verbena leaves

1 T. sugar

4 cups boiling water

Steep leaves in boiling water.  Add sugar to taste.

Rob’s Pomegranate Cordial

Wash ripe pomegranates.  Submerge in a large bowl or tub of water.  Cut open and with your fingers pry out the seeds.  They will fall to the bottom of the bucket while the pith will rise to the top.

Scoop off and discard pith, drain all the water, then re-rinse seeds, drain well..

Using your hands, squeeze the seeds to extract the juice.  Strain through damp cheesecloth, squeezing well.

Make a simple syrup by boiling water and sugar 1:1.  Let cool.

Fill a clean bottle half way with juice. Add 1/8-1/4 syrup and the rest vodka.  Shake and taste.  Add more juice, syrup or vodka to balance flavor.  It should be sweet, tart and juicy with a slight alcohol kick.

Seal and refrigerate a few days to mellow the flavors.  Serve in cordial glasses, well chilled, or mix with Prosecco, champagne or white wine.

April 12, 2012 | 3:23 pm

The Rest of Passover - Sixth Night [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

What, you’re thinking, STILL no bread?  No pasta?  No BEER!!!  Yes, Passover continues until Saturday evening.  Because the rule of thumb on Jewish holidays is to take something fun and exciting and do it over and over and over until you say, “Dayenu!”  Which is Hebrew for “Uncle!” 

But if you’ve been following this series on Foodaism, you’ll find that the eight days of Passover offer a chance to cook really good food long after the seder is gone.

Tonight’s menu comes from two small, locals-only restaurants we discovered last year in Europe.

The salad is from Great Queen Street in the Covent Garden district of London.  It’s a packed gastropub, whose menu reads as if they’ve raided every farmhouse within 100 kilometers of The City. Local cheeses, local ciders, local offal—you get the idea.  The “Ticklemore” in the recipe is a farmhouse goat cheese produced on the southern English coast.  There’s just a small sign out front of Queen High Street, and inside a room full of high-spirited English yuppies.  The food is simple and easy to do quickly at home, or at least this dish is….

On a side street in Barcelona, Arcana offered us slightly fussy cooking in a kind of 80s vibe, but the staff and customers seemed to be all locals, and very friendly.  Maybe not popular enough though: I can’t seem to find the restaurant listing on Yelp anymore.  Happy almost-the-end-Passover:

RECIPES

Cauliflower, Courgette, Mint and Ticklemore

1 large cauliflower, divided into florets
3 small zucchini, cubed or sliced in 1/4 inch slices
1 small bunch mint, chopped
1 T. chives, chopped
8 ounces Ticklemore, firm goat cheese or feta, cubed
1 T. wine vinegar or very dry white wine
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a skillet.  Add cauliflower and cook til just tender.  Add zucchini and continue to cook until just tender, then add cheese until it just begins to warm.  Remove from heat and let cool. Add vinegar, olive oil, mint, salt and pepper and toss well.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Branzino with celery puree and roasted cherry tomatoes “Arcana” Barcelona

4 fresh branzino, boned (or 4 sole filets)
1 large celery root
1 lemon
1 pint cherry tomatoes
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper

Take a saucepan big enough to hold your celery root.  Add water to come up halfway, add salt and pepper, and cook, covered, until very tender.  Remove root to a blender, and puree with olive oil and cooking liquid to make a smooth, slightly runny and very white puree.  Set aside.

Heat a heavy skillet.  When very hot add a little olive oil, then cherry tomatoes.  Cook until blistered, about 5 minutes.  Add some salt and pepper.  Stir, then remove onto a plate and set aside.

Season branzino or filets with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.  Wipe pan clean, reheat, add olive oil, add fish and cook over high heat on each side until cooked through, about 8-10 minutes total. You will need to do this in shifts.

To serve, dish a little puree on each plate.  Lay a fish beside it, and nest some cherry tomatos by that.  Serve with more lemon.

 

 

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April 11, 2012 | 4:46 pm

The Rest of Passover—Fifth Night [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

When you’re searching for how to create dinners during Passover that avoid all the no’s, you can’t go wrong sticking to vegetables, fruit, fish and meat—and that leaves a lot of possibilities.

Today’s menu is as simple as a trip through the Farmer’s Market.  Spring means fresh parsnips, fresh artichokes (our front yard is full of them) and fresh greens.  You can go vegetarian, even vegan, by omitting the grilled chicken.

Roasted Parsnips
Italian Dandelions
Lemon and Olive Oil-Roasted Artichokes
Grilled Chicken Breast

[RECIPES]

Roasted Parsnips

3 pounds super-fresh parsnips, peeled and cut in 1-inch slices
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Toss parsnips with other ingredients.  Roast until very crisp, turning occasionally.

Italian Dandelion

1 pound Italian dandelion (or other green), very well washed
4 cloves garlic, chopped or sliced
olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Boil dandelions until tender.
Drain and squeeze dry in a dish towel.  Chop dandelions.

Heat a skillet.  Add olive oil and garlic, and saute until garlic is golden.  Add chopped dandelion, salt and pepper, and saute until heated through, about 5 minutes.

Lemon and Olive Oil-Roasted Artichokes

▪ 4 medium or large artichokes
▪ Juice from 1 medium-large lemon (about 1/2 cup)
▪ 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
▪ Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
▪ Fresh thyme
▪ 3 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Remove tough outer leaves from artichokes. Cut top of remaining leaves at the point where the green and yellow come together. Dip cut end in the lemon juice. Cut off bottom tip of stem, and peel away green layer of stem until white inner layer is exposed. Cut the artichokes in half and remove the inner fuzzy choke and any small prickly leaves. Slice in half again and toss with the lemon juice.
Pour the artichokes and lemon juice in a casserole dish, drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil, season with the salt, pepper and thyme and add the garlic. Stir and place in the preheated oven and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring once during cooking.

Grilled Chicken Breasts

4 chicken breasts
1/4 cup white wine
3 cloves garlic
juice from 1/2 lemon
1 T fresh chopped thyme
1/4 c. olive oil
salt and pepper

In a bowl or Ziploc bag, combine all ingredients.  Let marinade 15 minutes to an hour.  Drain.
Preheat grill.  When hot, spray with olive oil, add chicken and grill until cooked through, about 4 minutes per side.

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April 10, 2012 | 3:26 pm

The Rest of Passover Cooking- Fourth Night

Posted by Rob Eshman

It’s coming up on Dinner #4 in the “What to Eat the Rest of Passover” series. Are we even at the hump yet?  There are still a few days of Passover left to go.  This is no time to fall back on hackey “cheese ‘n matzo pizza” recipes that pop up every time you Google “Passover cooking.”  Stick to great, fresh food—plenty of it around this time of year. So, for tonight:

Asparagus Milanese “Biffi” 
Avocado Salad “Garga”
Bubbie’s Passover Rolls

Tonight’s menu (minus the Passover rolls) comes from a trip we took to Italy in 2008.  Biffi is a classic Milanese restaurant in the Galleria Vittoria Emanuelle II in Milan.  Great for people- and Duomo-watching, it caters to tourists but mostky of the Italian variety.  Asparagus Milanese is, to break it down, asparagus with a fried egg and parmesan cheese. Works for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whenever. 

Garga is the Florence Italy version of de Struisvogel: family-run, instantly warm and welcoming.  Whereas de Struisvogel reflects a more sedate Dutch propriety, Garga can be wild, a place of spontaneous partying and joyful noise.  This is their classic salad, which uses exotic—for Italy—avocado.

[RECIPE]

Garga Salad
 
INGREDIENTS

6 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
8 cups baby arugula
1 pound tomatoes, diced
4 stalks canned hearts of palm, sliced into rounds
2 medium avocados, peeled, diced
1 2 oz. wedge Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted

Whisk oil and lemon juice in small bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.
Combine arugula, tomatoes, hearts of palm and avocados in large bowl. Add dressing and toss to blend.
Using vegetable peeler, shave Parmesan cheese into strips over salad. Sprinkle with pine nuts.
Serves 4.

Asparagus Milanese

4 extra large eggs
1 pound asparagus
salt and pepper
1/2 pound (approx.) Parmegiano-Reggiano
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven broiler.  Heat a skillet and add some olive oil.  Add asparagus, some salt and pepper, and cook over high heat until cooked through and still bright green, about 5 minutes.  Remove from pan and divide among four ovenproof plates or place in a shallow casserole.  In the same skillet, add some more olive oil and fry eggs until just set.  Place on top of the asparagus.  Grate parmesan on top, then place under broiler for JUST A FEW SECONDS until cheese is melted.

Serves 4.

with, of course, Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

(adapted from Ruth Levy and Joan Nathan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup matzo meal
(or half matzo meal, half matzo cake meal) 
1/2 tablespoon sugar (or, to taste)
4 eggs
 
Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2 Brush a baking sheet with oil; set aside.
3 In a medium saucepan, bring oil, 1 cup water, and salt to a boil over medium-high heat.
4 Stir in matzah meal (or matzo meal/cake flour) until sticky, remove from heat and let cool completely.
5 Add sugar and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6 Fill a large bowl with water.
7 Dip your hands in the water and then form dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball.
8 Place on prepared baking sheet.
9 Repeat process until all dough has been used.
10 Transfer to oven and bake until popovers are puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
11 Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
12 Serve immediately.

For what to expect tomorrow, click here.

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April 9, 2012 | 2:31 pm

The Rest of Passover—Third Night

Posted by Rob Eshman

This week I vowed to supply you with a Passover’s worth of dinner ideas beyond the seder.

Today’s Passover recipe comes from a rainy July night in Amsterdam.

It was pouring, and we were hungry.  There was a café near our bed and breakfast, Inn Old Amsterdam,  in the Nieumarkt district, but we wanted something warm and filling and, you know, Dutch.

The owners of Inn Old Amsterdam sent us to de Struisvogel, a cab ride away.  From the moment we walked down a quick flight of stairs into the small, subterranean space, I knew it was going to be a good night.  The small place was packed.  The signs, the menus, the clientele were all Dutch, Dutch, Dutch.  Bottles of jenever and beer and wine studded the tables.  It was Bruegel with Polo, and without the threatening undertones. 

It had, instantly, all the attributes I want in a restaurant: just like eating at home, but much better.

de Struisvogel means “the ostrich,” and there is ostrich on the menu.  I don’t know why.  The men and women sitting next to us, a loud and friendly table of World War II vets and their wives who gather every year for a reunion (“until there are none of us left”) directed us to the fish.. and the jenever.

The menu is small, and prix fixe.  But you can choose from a fish, beef or, of course, ostrich.  There are Dutch dishes, like lamb stew, roasted potatoes, local blue cheeses, but plenty of Italian influence: risotto, carpaccio, etc.

The family that runs the place is just welcoming.  Everybody is drinking, every body is speaking over everybody else, the temperature inside stays warm as rain pounds away outside.  When it’s time to go, after a superior apple crumble, you’ll feel like you’re leaving home. 

Here’s a Passover-friendly dish from de Struisvogel:

[RECIPE]

Grilled fillet of Sea Bass with Sauce Antiboise

You make sauce vierge (virgin sauce) with virgin olive oil, basil, garlic,  tomatoes and perhaps some anchovies.  Antiboise sauce, ostensibly from the Antibes,  uses cilantro instead of basil.

4 sea bass filets (or halibut, snapper, cod)
1/2 lemon, grated zest only
      1/2 orange, grated zest only
½ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
2 shallots, very finely diced
      2 clovew garlic, crushed
1 cup coriander leaves, chopped
2 large plum tomatoes,chopped
          2 T capers, chopped (optional)
black pepper
lemon juice, to taste
Arugula and watercress leaves

1. Place the sea bass fillets in a large, shallow dish with the lemon and orange zest ¼ cup olive oil for 1 hour in the refrigerator.

2. Place the remaining olive oil in a heavy-based frying pan.

3. Add in the shallot and garlic and fry very gently until translucent. 

4. Add the coriander leaves and cook gently a minute or two.

5. Add the tomatoes and warm gently, then add the capers. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper and the lemon juice.

6. Preheat a grill until very hot.

7. Remove the sea bass from the marinade and cook on the hot griddle, skin-side down, for 3 minutes, then turn and cook for 3 minutes on the remaining side.

8. Spoon the tomato mixture onto four serving plates. Top each serving with a griddled sea bass fillet, then top with a few cress and arugula leaves. Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve at once.

I like to serve with Passover Popovers—more roll-like than plain matzo.  Of course, these they didn’t have at deStruisvogel.  The recipe is below:

Bubbie’s Passover Popovers

(adapted from Ruth Levy and Joan Nathan)

1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup matzo meal
(or half matzo meal, half matzo cake meal) 
1/2 tablespoon sugar (or, to taste)
4 eggs
 
Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2 Brush a baking sheet with oil; set aside.
3 In a medium saucepan, bring oil, 1 cup water, and salt to a boil over medium-high heat.
4 Stir in matzah meal (or matzo meal/cake flour) until sticky, remove from heat and let cool completely.
5 Add sugar and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6 Fill a large bowl with water.
7 Dip your hands in the water and then form dough into a ball about the size of a tennis ball.
8 Place on prepared baking sheet.
9 Repeat process until all dough has been used.
10 Transfer to oven and bake until popovers are puffy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
11 Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until golden brown, about 40 minutes.
12 Serve immediately.

For what to expect tomorrow, click here.

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April 6, 2012 | 12:34 am

The Rest of Passover Cooking [RECIPE]

Posted by Rob Eshman

The food challenge of Passover is not the seder.  It’s the seven days that come after.

After all, you know what to make on seder.  Torah and tradition are right there by your side, cooking: matzo, charoset, chicken or brisket, kugel if you’re Askenazi, something people actually like if you’re Sephardic.  It’s all preordained. God is your sous chef.

But then the holiday of Passover is over, and you’re facing seven days of elaborate, seemingly all-encompassing food restrictions.

Not only are the usual non-kosher food off limits, but so is all bread, pasta, beans, rice, and, of course, beer.  The idea is to avoid not just leavened bread, as it says in the Torah, but anything that can or will be used against you to harbor leavening.

Sephardic Jews are a bit more lenient. They get to eat beans, seeds and rice. Observant Ashkenazic Jews ar the most exacting—I’ve passed evenings arguing whether it’s okay to serve fresh green beans.
Where do I fall on the spectrum?  During Passover, I go full Ashkenzi.  I’m not sure why—the rest of the year I have a very expanded and convenient idea of what kosher means to me. (OUTSIDE our home, I hasten to add.  Inside I am under rabbinical supervision).

But during Passover it feels right to forego the weightiness of flour and starches and legumes.  It’s liberating.  The rabbis who developed these arcane rules perfectly understood that spirituality begins with what we eat.  By spending a week free of the heavier stuff, I really do feel lighter, more free. The Exodus continues, just in my stomach.

But… it ain’t easy.  Thinking of menus that don’t involve bread, pasta, beans rice, but excite you, satisfy you—that takes some doing .  As I said, anyone and their grandmother can give you a matzo ball recipe, but what about dinner on Day 5?

Here’s how I solved the problem this year: by looking at iPhoto.  We traveled to some great places this year, and I’m one of those people who takes photos of food and menus, and keeps notes.  I went back through my photos and found favorite dishes that happen to be Passover friendly.  They are mostly from restaurants in Amsterdam, Barcelona, London and Milan, with a few local places, including my home, thrown in. Many involve fish, and there’s a lot of vegetables.  The flavors are strong.  The ingredients are fresh.  My pet peeve are those prepared Passover foods, like brownie mix and cereals, that completely subvert the spirit of the holiday, if not the law. These recipes are springy: herbs, fresh vegetables, fresh fish.

Check back here each day next week. I’ll post at least one main dish recipe each day during the intermediate days of Passover, along with a bit about where I ate it. 

It’s a long holiday, but I promise, you won’t go hungry.

I’ll start with the last recipe, for Chef Micah Wexler’s Roasted Beet Salad with Grilled Haloumi Cheese.  Micah is the chef/co-owner of Mezze on La Cienega Blvd., and many of his Levant-inspired dishes are Passover friendly.  This one uses garbanzo beans in the original—boiled and fried, if I remember correctly.  But you can leave them out.  If you’re Ashkenazic.

Here’s what’s on my non-seder Passover menu the rest of the week:

Cod Gratinée with an Artichoke Mousse “Café de l’Academia” in Barcelona

Lemon and Olive Oil-Roasted Artichoke “da Toni” Venice

Sole with celery puree and roasted cherry tomatoes “Arcana” Barcelona

Sweet Potato and Soft Goat Cheese Gratin with Spring Herb Salad “Struisvogel” Amsterdam

Seared Trout with Berber Spice and Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette (okay, this one is mine)

Asparagus Milanese “Biffi” Milan

Padron Peppers “Santa Catalina” Barcelona

Cauliflower, Courgette, Mint and Ticklemore “Great Queen Street” London

Potato Cake, Bell Onion, Romesco and Fried Egg “Great Queen Street” London

Grilled Fillet of Sea Bass with sauce antiboise “Struisvogel” Struisvogel

Roasted Beet Salad with Grilled Halloumi Cheese, “Mezze” Beverly Hills

RECIPE

Roasted Beet Salad with Grilled Halloumi Cheese

3 baby red beets
3 baby gold beets
3 baby striped beets
1 block halloumi cheese
1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 tbsp dried mint
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup sherry vinegar
1 tsp sea salt

Trim the beets of their leaves and stems. Place each type of beet in a separate foil packet with 1 tbsp EVOO, 1 tsp sherry vinegar, and some salt. Place the three packets on a roasting pan and roast at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until tender.

Remove beets from oven and allow to cool. Using a dish towel, rub the beets to remove the skin and discard the skin. (Please use a towel you don’t care about - the beet juice WILL stain it.) Cut the beets in halves and marinate in a quarter cup of EVOO and 2 tbsp sherry vinegar.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry in a pan with oil until golden. Mix the yogurt with the lemon juice, dried mint, salt, and a quarter cup of EVOO.

To dress, place the marinated beets in a bowl, and garnish with the yogurt dressing and fried halloumi.

 

 

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April 4, 2012 | 11:11 pm

Sex and the Single Chicken

Posted by Rob Eshman

The New York Times is late to the backyard chicken trend story, which has appeared for years in every paper from The New Yorker (three years ago) the Petersborough Examiner (4 days ago) to the Intermountain Jewish News (this week).  Google News lists 302 results for “backyard chicken” stories in 2012 alone.

But The Times story makes it official: everybody’s raising chickens in their backyards. 

What amazed me about the story is the comments section.  Times readers are the elite, right?  They’re not stupid, they’re smart, right?  And yet even they don’t understand where eggs come from.

This comment from “jdpolicano from East Hampton” was typical of many:

One of the most delightful experiences of my life was visiting my uncle’s country place in New Jersey 50 years ago and feeding (and being fed) the eggs and (gasp!) the chickens. But is it practical for me to raise some on a one acre lot in what is really a subburban setting in East Hampton? Won’t the rooster drive everyone crazy? Do I even need a rooster? ... Tell me if it can be done and how to go about it. Thanks so much.

Do you even need a rooster?  To be fair to JD and his fellow rooster-curious commenters, when people visit my backyard hens, they invariably ask the exact same question.  Smart people. Doctors even.  All f them stare like kindergartners at my birds and at some point, “Don;t you need roosters?”  Which is essentially like a grownup asking, “Where do babies come from?”

No, I explain, you don’t need a rooster to make eggs.  Eggs are not nature’s little abortions.  They are the result of unfertilized ovulation, the end of a chicken’s menstrual cycle.  To be graphic, humans have live birth, so unfertilized eggs come out in a period.  Chickens give birth in shells, so that’s how theirs’ comes out.

It’s even cooler than that: Google chicken anatomy and you’ll see how all this plus more—pee and poop—emerges from one chute, the cloaca, and yet the eggs come out clean and sweet-smelling.  You’ll be amazed how they pull off that trick.

Did I know any of this before I began raising chickens, 22 years ago?  Nope. I learned about the cloaca the hard way.

One evening Naomi and I came home to find one of our chickens listless.  We called my sister, who’s a veterinarian. Sometimes, rarely, an egg gets stuck.  If you don’t pull it out, the chicken will die.  It’s called egg bound. Lisa said we should try to massage the lump out, but if that didn’t work—it didn’t—one of us had to stick our fingers into the chicken and pull the egg free.

“Nomi,” I said, “you have smaller fingers.”

We sat in our yard, the chicken on Nomi’s lap, and began to search for the exit hole.  Lisa said, “There’s only one.”

“Only one?”

I watched Naomi’s face as I said this, and the implications struck her immediately.

“It’s called the cloaca,” Lisa said. “Naomi will want to put some oil on her fingers.”

Naomi lubed up and poked gently around, and slightly into, the cloaca.  The chicken hardly moved. Both of us squirmed like crazy.  A lot of “ews” passed between us.  It was like some demented Lamaza teacher’s idea of a dry run.

Lisa explained that the chicken had been sick when we got to her, and despite our best efforts, it wasn’t surprising we couldn’t save her.  Up until then I had eaten hundreds if not thousands of chickens.  That was the first time I understood chickens actually died. We think we know the birds and the bees, but we don’t.

The fact that we don’t know how eggs and baby chickens are made is just another sign of how divorced we are from the sources of our own food.  But there is a cost to our ignorance: if we’re not clear on where our food comes from, how can we know what’s in it?

In the same Times issue, April 4, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column entitled, “Arsenic in Our Chicken?.”  ( I know, it always seems awkward when he poaches on Mark Bittman’s beat.  How would Nick feel if Mark started interviewing Sumatran sex slaves?  Is Kristof next going to write a Maureen Dowd-like snarkumn comparing Mitt Romney to Pete in “Mad Men?”  Aren’t there lines over there?)  This column was about a recent set of studies that show our factory-farmed chicken contains arsenic, Benadryl, caffeine, antibiotics and assorted other drugs.

“The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl” Kristof reported. “The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.”

Anyone who eats factory-farmed chickens or meats is playing Russian roulette with their short- and long-term health.  It doesn’t take long to learn how chickens make babies, or where to find healthier sources of meat, or how to forego meat altogether.  We don’t all have to start a flock in your backyard—though I do recommend it—but we do have to open our eyes.

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