Jungle Fowl

While living in Wapato in the lower Yakima Valley as a junior and senior high school student, I was given a small flock of banty chickens by my grandmother, who had kept the chickens a number of years but no longer had a place to let them roam. These banty fowl did not have feathered legs, and they looked very much like depictions of Dutch banty stock, which originated from red jungle fowl from Indonesia. My chickens laid very small eggs, which I saved and colored for Easter. When it wasn't Easter time, we ate the eggs for breakfast, which had lovely dark yellow, almost orange yolks. My flock was 'free-range.' While roaming our small acreage, the hens were introduced to a fighting cock rooster, a runaway from a nearby Filipino farmer. This 'jungle fowl' was quite colorful, with a long iridescent tail, and he was happy to join my banty flock and escape a nearby certain fate. In the process of contributing his gene pool, he likely introduced my flock to genes somewhat closer to their origins. Before long, our Irish Setter dog decided my chickens were no longer domesticated flock, which he had left unmolested, but had become fair game. He began killing my banty chickens at every opportunity. I was quite enraged, and even tied a dead chicken around his neck for several days, a supposed cure, but it didn't work. After that, he was relegated to a long leash on the backyard tree. I don't know what happened to the flock when we moved my senior year and left them with the new property owners. They certainly were beautiful birds, my long-tailed jungle fowl. I could imagine them intermingling with the area pheasant, another introduced fowl with jungle origins.

Curry dream

Does what you eat before bedtime influence the content of your dreams? Old wives tales caution against eating sardines or spicy foods, then going to sleep. Freud definitely found a sexual connotation in dreams involving food imagery. (Didn't everything equal sex to him?) But could a meal influence the subsequent dream? I had a lingering head of cauliflower in the refrigerator, and decided to steam it. After that decision, no dish was calling out, "make me, make me." I pulled out the core and cut it up, also consigning some of the "rougher cuts" of the head of cauliflower to the steam basket. I figured I would eat what Mom would not be able to chew or digest, and could save the rest of the head for another day. The deed was done, but the result wasn't nearly appetizing enough to actually eat. It looked a little too much like roughage with no redeeming qualities. I decided to step it up a notch, and plunked the contents of the steam basket into a heavy saucepan with some chicken broth, garlic and a little white wine to cook further. When it was tender I pulled it off the burner, then on impulse, I turned it into a puree with my wand blender. Meanwhile, I put a pan of basmati brown rice on to cook. I reconsidered using the remainder of the cauliflower, and cut it into smaller fleurets. A tablespoon of canola oil went into a large non-stick skillet, and I added the pieces with the bottom halves of two stalks of green onion (I saved some of the green tops for garnish), plus 2 T. garam masala, 1/2 tsp. cumin, and 1 T. turmeric. Sprinkling on 1 tsp. of Worcestershire sauce, and 2 minced cloves of garlic, I continued to sautee the cauliflower until it sizzled, then added it all to the saucepan with the puree after deglazing it with a little more wine. Adding a little more chicken broth, I let it simmer a bit longer as the spices were incorporated and the cauliflower fleurets cooked until tender, then I added half a can of evaporated milk to the sauce and stirred it until creamy. The rice was done. I served it with some chopped scallion tops, (adding some red pepper flakes to mine) and considered it one of my more successful meat-free meals. I went to bed an hour later. Then I had this dream: Ravi Shankar was there jamming with a number of (male) musicians. I tried to fit into the mix, but was actively resisted by the men who resented my participation. I know that Ravi has often played with women on sitar and other traditional Indian instruments, so I'm not sure where the sexist subtext came from. All I know is this: I ate an Indian vegetarian curry dish, then dreamed of Indian music. Coincidence? I don't think so.