Organic chicken is superior

Claiming that organic food is somehow "better" is frequently given the same sort of raised eyebrow that accompanies a claim that "snake oil cures cancer." There is something somehow luddite about refusing to use modern advancements in fertilizer and pest control. Can one actually taste the all-natural?

In the case of organic chicken, the answer is officially yes. I remember some years ago noticing that the chicken bits we were buying were getting, well, bigger. And importantly, this enlargening was also making them taste a great deal like water. Chicken flavored water, to be sure, but somehow less good.

Anyway, we've been interested in trying out organic chicken for a while, and we finally found some at Sunflower market. It's more than twice as expensive by weight, but I think of this kind of like the difference between Kool-Aid and fruit juice--it's an entirely different food. I tried a piece before we added it to the pasta, and it was amazing. Rachel described it as being more "chicken-y," which I think is an apt description.

Dinner was whole wheat linguine with pan-fried chicken breast, parmesan, alfredo sauce, dried tomato bits and broccoli. It was so good that I blogged about it.

The outside world

I've been trying to figure out a way to more quickly transfer pictures from my phone to the blog. This post is an experiment; if Koko shows up in it, then it worked.

Navajo Food for Lunch

I had lunch at the Black Sheep Cafe in downtown Provo recently. It's on University Ave., right next door to the old Los Hermanos building. The theme of the cafe (really, more of a restaurant) is "Navajo food." You could call it ethnic food, but arguably it's the only thing around here that isn't. The actual dishes reminded me of eating out in New Mexico -- lots of roasted green chiles, slow roasted meats, soups, and stews.

I ended up getting a pork and green chile stew, and it was very good. I apologize for the poorly lit photo; the broth in that stew is a light green. It came with either fry bread or a Navajo flat bread. Apparently the flat bread is a bit less, um, deep-fried, so I went with that. I assumed I was being healthier this way, but after trying the flat bread, I'm going to say "just barely"--it had a rich, soft, almost buttery flavor, with hints of being charcoal grilled. It's pretty indulgent stuff.

As for whether it was delicious, you might have missed the important phrase earlier: roasted green chiles. Those things are addictive, and you can get them in Provo now, apparently. They also had several variants on the theme of Navajo tacos on the menu, which is what I'm likely to try next time. Because yes, there is definitely going to be a next time. If you're up for lunch and looking for something to remind you of Albuquerque, you should give me a call and we can meet down there.

Democrats and hamburgers

Hello, what's left of my followers. All two of you? I don't know, really.

Anyway, there are two items of news, as my headline so cleverly notes. Firstly, I went to a caucus meeting, for the first time in a while. We decided to give the Democratic caucus a try; it's a lot smaller (ha!), and seemed like it could be fun. Actually, it wasn't terribly small, largely because they lumped about 40 or 50 precincts into a single high school auditorium; they weren't expecting especially high attendance.

Although the attendance was, indeed, pretty light compared to what the Republican caucus is likely to get, it was much, much more than they're used to. There was a letter read in church a few weeks ago asking people to please go to a caucus meeting, complete with the usual note that "principles compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ can be found in all major political parties," which was a polite way to get the "Mormons may only be Republican" crowd to keep quiet.

Anyway, after everyone sat around in the precinct meeting for 20 minutes without anything getting done, I took over and made the agenda happen, which ended up with me getting elected precinct chair. So I'm now officially responsible for persuading locals to vote Democrat. Hey, locals! Let's try to be just a tiny bit more like a battleground state! They get more money!

This entry is already getting too long, so I'll sum up the burger bit: We ate at Station 22, to celebrate the conjunction of white day and pi day (this happens every year). I'm friendly with the owner, Richard, who asked that I try his burger and give an opinion. The result: sadly, it was too salty, but putting brie on a burger definitely has some potential. I think the ratatouille sandwich is still the best thing I've had there. Rachel liked the chicken-basil sandwich, and enjoyed the fries, but was not a huge fan of the barbecue-flavored fry sauce. She did like the spicy ketchup. The decor is fun and hipster-ish, but they need to wipe off the tables a bit more reliably (several were grubby). It's a good place with really interesting food ideas, but there are things they could improve.