“Thees is Francisco, I huv caught the rooster, I will be back for the hens.” In my Imaginarium, I hear these words as a cryptic incantation for an elaborate spy story’s segue. In the real world, it was a voicemail to a good friend of mine I call “Poodle.” Poodle lives in Golden Hill and has had a rooster and chickens running feral in his backyard for months. Until he sought the assistance of an immigrant associate, who left the aforementioned voice message, the clucks, poops and otherwise annoying occurrences that the fowl manifested bothered his solace.
These chickens were once domesticated, escaped, and have learned to survive wild in our tumultuous climate. I believe that the practice of urban chicken farming is far more prevalent than most would think in the San Diego area.
By my understanding of the zoning laws, one household may keep up to eight chickens (no roosters) in an urban setting as long as the coop and all other accoutrements are kept outside, at least 50 feet from resident’s abodes. In my research, a woman called Shelly Stewart is doing it in University Heights and has a video on YouTube.
So, why am I talking about keeping chickens? Aside from an amazing feat of sustainable urban living, they lay eggs. A package of indisputable nutrition and, ultimately, life. The egg of any species is an amazing packet of life fuel and acts as a philosophical tool to mankind. Was it the chicken or the egg? The mother life of earth is considered the egg and there are many analogies between life sustenance and the origin of the egg as a symbol for creation.
For the chef, the egg is a great tool because of its whole ubiquity and individual compartmentalization with respect to use: A whole egg is coddled then placed on toast for my breakfast; while yolks and whites are easily separated by hand, due to the membranes that bind them together. Each component can be used independently in numerous kitchen recipes or combined in an almost infinitesimal amount of variations and ratios. The yolk alone (which is used in the included recipe) is paramount in pastry creams, ice creams and hollandaise-like sauces while the whites are reserved for meringues, soufflés and otherwise lower cholesterol breakfasts.
Keeping your ears perked while enjoying your next breakfast or pastry cream, perhaps you’ll hear the cock-a-doodle-doo of an unzoned rooster from a guerilla chicken farmer right next door. Unlike my Poodle, let the sound bring joy instead of disdain, that sustainable-urban farming is so close at hand.
Bobby R. Presents appears in each issue of the San Diego LGBT Weekly. Questions and comments can be sent to bobbyrpresents.blogspot.com.
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