1. I remember eating dumpster chicken when I was 19. I had just finished my freshman year of college and was playing house with my boyfriend and two other couples. We lived wild and alone and free and in conflict, renting my mother’s house while she bounced from yoga retreat to relative’s houses. It was out of kindness on her part, and her need for a change of scenery. We kids were determined to rent a house together and hers was the cheapest we could get. I wanted to dumpster dive that summer to save money, since I was living off my earnings of $7.25 an hour at Dairy Queen. Also, because the college kid environmentalists I met when I was fourteen did it, and I wanted to be a cool, college environmentalist like them. And I was. My two friends from boarding school were happy to join in my plan. The other two women and my boyfriend didn’t participate in the eating, but they occasionally came along for the foraging. We had fun. I never thought I would find racks of chicken thighs, still frozen and completely wrapped, sitting on top of a pile of 500 external cabbage leaves that don’t taste very good. I grabbed them. I said, “This is food safe, I swear. I know because I work in food service.” The three non-dumpster eaters looked at me with wide eyes. “Don’t eat it, Oriana,” they said. “You’ll get sick. We don’t want you to die.” I was supposed to be vegan that summer. But I broke my vegan vow for this dumpster chicken. And boy, were they the most delicious baked chicken thighs. I ate them with my hands, bone in, skin on, dipped in sriracha mayonnaise. I ate that favorite dinner for a week straight, until Tremayne accidentally left the remaining three chicken value packs out of the freezer in the basement for a day. We had to throw the rest away. I was sad. My dumpster chicken ended up back in the dumpster.
2. Chicken waddles, he walks around, his friends are in the way of food. Yum, the young lady human comes to sprinkle our food out for us. She only comes every other week on weekends. I know this because she talks to us sometimes. She told us once that this is her dad’s house but that usually she’s at her mom’s. I must rush, must run, peck, peck, peck. I beat Cindy chicken to it. Ha ha, Cindy. My name is Brewster Chicken. Today I don’t know it but I will be sacrificed for my humans who will eat me up for their sustenance. I live in a cage, with a little pole to sit and perch on. With my other friends. We don’t all get along. Sometimes we bully each other. Today, after our meal, I took a dirt bath. We get to come out of the cage in the daytime, and I can scruff around our dirt yard. But there, there is the human. She’s coming inside our yard. Run, scatter, don’t get stepped on. She’s picking me up, picking me up up up up I don’t know what to say or how to describe it. She grabs me, firm, fingers surrounding my middle. I’m lying down on the cold hard stone. I hear a whistling in the air above me, before, nothing. Gone. My legs are still running around, my whole body, without my head. I can see so from Chicken heaven. I wonder, do my legs and body still feel the pain?
3. Lazy Chicken Thighs. Here’s my recipe. I learned it from a book, Cooking is Terrible, which helps me feed myself, which my mom is always reminding me how to do better. First, get some bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Make sure your chicken is thawed. Cut a red onion into quarters. Cut whatever other vegetables you have. Spread the vegetables on a piece of tin foil on a tray. Most important is the rub. I cannot attest to its authenticity, but I can attest to it tasting good. It is also the best part of the recipe. Prepare the spice rub in a small bowl: allspice, thyme from your mother’s kitchen garden, dried red pepper flakes, also from her garden, sugar, and salt. Take a nice raw chicken thigh in your left hand, squeeze it a little. It will feel good. Take the fingers of your right hand and scoop up the spice mix. Spread it on the chicken skin and rub it in well. Your hand will wiggle the chicken skin while you do it. That’s how you know you’re doing it right. Flip the thigh over and rub it some more. Repeat this until you’re done with each thigh. Throw them in the oven for 45 minutes. Pull them out with your mother’s hand-me-down oven mitts, decorated with vegetables. You have done it. But don’t worry, you have not become your mother, yet.
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- Dumpster Chicken - March 7, 2025