Well, isn't that special?

It was such a lovely brunch. We had just finished nibbling on an assortment of quiches and potatoes and homemade breads and salads and fresh fruit and smoked ham. The chit chat had run the gamut from gardening to summer plans to recent job interviews. Somehow…I don’t quite remember how…the conversation turned to chickens.

Chickens. Like the ones hipster suburban dwellers have these days for their fresh eggs and off-the-grid living. But instead of coops and feeds and egg colors and varieties, this conversation took a rather uncomfortable turn for a city gal. Before I knew it, my brunch buddies were comparing notes on how best to catch, kill, and defeather chickens. Yup.

Among the things I learned today:

• The correct order is: 1) death; 2) defeather.

• A swift beheading with a cleaver is preferred by most, but other popular methods include quick neck twists and thwacking over a rod-iron fence.

• Chicken feathers have an annoying tendency to stick to you while you are trying to defeather.

• Chicken feathers come off easier if the (dead) chicken is dunked in hot water first.

• The perfect temperature for feather-dunking is when one can comfortably drag one’s finger through the hot water three times.

• It is quite exhausting to defeather 200 chickens in one day.

• When making a pillow out of chicken feathers, it is well advised to remember to remove the quills first.

• Chicken feathers make wonderful garden fertilizer.

• The beheading-defeathering process is rather smelly.

• It is much harder to defeather a turkey than a chicken. In the case of turkeys, skinning is preferred.

• The easy availability of killed, defeathered, cleaned, and chopped chicken in grocery stores is hugely underappreciated by young people these days.  And by young I mean those under about 55.

• Favorite quote from a 96-year-old: “I was 15 when I killed my first chicken.”

• Favorite quote from an 89-year-old: “One of my favorite chicken soup recipes starts with ‘Catch a chicken.’”

And whom exactly was I having brunch with? Who were these nonchalant but very experienced chicken processors? Six of the very dear and lovely ladies I meet with every Tuesday morning to study a Really Important Book. Yep, my version of Church Ladies…utterly and delightfully different than the one I grew up with courtesy of Dana Carvey. Thank God.