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Articles about chickens

A Peep at the Coops: The East Dallas Urban Coop Tour

There is so much going on this weekend (i.e. Taste Addison, Crawfish Boil at Dodie’s, etc.) that it’s got to be hard deciding what to do and where to go. Let me see if I can help. Clear your schedule, drop what you’re doing on May 20, and go visit some chickens on the Peep at the Coops tour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. One of the most attractive aspects about living in Dallas is that we are surrounded by a creative niche of people who love chickens and build some of the wackiest, out-of-the-box coops for them. You’ll get to take a peek at 13 different coops, learn about backyard chickens in four different seminars, and possibly win the raffle for a mobile chicken coop. Most importantly, the money you’re paying for the tour is going directly to Stonewall Gardens at Stonewall Jackson Elementary, an outdoor lab where students learn about science and nature by actually connecting with the it. To sign up, email stonewall.gardens@yahoo.com.

Now it’s time for your favorite part of the week: Friday Fun Fact Time. Allow me to leave you with three random chicken tidbits in order to whet your appetite for Sunday. These will be sure to impress your date (not really).

Random fact #1: A tiny egg without yolk is sometimes called a dwarf, wind, or fart egg.

Random fact #2: Some ducks, like the domestic Muscovy Duck, are compatible with chickens. They patrol for slugs and are efficient foragers.

Random fact #3: According to the Egg Nutrition Center, a fresh egg has 72 calories with 6.3 grams of protein. It has a total fat of 4.8 grams and 186 milligrams of cholesterol.

posted by Carol Shih | May 18th, 2012 9:55am | filed under ChirpyChirpy, chickens | 1 Comment »

Garden Cafe Gets Some Chickens

Francesca, Violet, and Sunshine (photo provided by Mark Wootton)

Chef/manager Mark Wootton of the Garden Cafe has some new female friends, but they’re not human. They’re hens, and their names are Francesca, Violet, and Sunshine. The think-sustainably family over on Junius Street partnered up with its neighbors (The Lab and Little Bean) to install a chicken coop in the back garden.

Cluck after you jump. (more…)

posted by Carol Shih | April 18th, 2012 11:30am | filed under AgriBusiness, Chirpy, ChirpyChirpy, cheeep, chickens | 3 Comments »

Happy Valentine’s Day: Off-Site Kitchen in Dallas is Open for Business

Slow-cooked pork covered with caramelized onions and peppers.

Nick Badovinus and chef Dan Riley have been hunkered down for over a year developing the menu and creating all kinds of delicious roasted meats for Off-Site Kitchen. Today he is finally opening the doors!

Now, hold your horses. The dining room is tiny. Off-Site Kitchen is basically a take-out restaurant with a few stools inside and some picnic tables outside. Here are some pictures of what you can expect. The food, inspired by “what line cooks eat,” is basically simple sandwiches and breakfast burritos made from quality roasted meats. Roll the Badovinus quote of the year:

“It’s light industrial food,” he said. “It’s the kind of food you want to eat before you go solder something.”

Off-Site Kitchen will be open for lunch only from 10:30AM until 3PM for the next two weeks. Then the breakfast menu will kick in and they will begin serving at 7AM and will remain open until 7PM. “After we hit our stride, we’ll start rolling out the meat-by-the-pound program,” Badovinus said. “I’m so excited. This place is a real man cave.”

The original date for OSK’s opening was February 14, 2011. After Badovinus missed his mark, he decided to workshop the place and open on Valentine’s Day this year. “You see how many financial sacrifices I made to pay for my original vision,” Badovinus said. “I mean I’ve got a wheelbarrow of pork rinds down here. Who doesn’t love that?”

Badovinus was only half-joking about the Valentine’s Day opening. He and chef Dan Riley have used the Off-Site Kitchen space to tweak the menus of Badovinus’ other restaurants (Neighborhood Services, Neighborhood Services Tavern, and Neighborhood Services Bar & Grill). They also use the huge kitchen as a commissary for the other restaurants. The receive, portion, and distribute all of the meat and seafood at Off-Site Kitchen.

SOLDER, EAT, REPORT. No call-in orders. Plan to show up and wait.

[Also, Neighborhood Services Bar & Grill in Preston Royal will open for lunch in two weeks.]

The menu and photos are below.

(more…)

posted by Nancy Nichols | February 14th, 2012 11:28am | filed under Bring it!, Burgers, Celebrity Diners, Cult Cuisine, Hole in the wall, Meat, Merguez Sausage Hunt, Openings, Restaurant News, Sandwiches, Scoops, Second coming, Silly Reasons to Celebrate, Take-out, Valentines Day, chickens, lunch, mob scenes, pork, youthful spontaneous restaurants | 1 Comment »

Chicken Scratch and The Foundry to Open in Oak Cliff

How long before Oak Cliff secedes from Dallas county to form their own little republic? Think how cool that would be for the business folk: the restaurateurs and funky food shops could make their own rules, they could charge a toll to enter and exit, and fine customers not wearing flannel.

Obviously either Tim Byres, Christopher Jeffers, or Chris Zielke (or all three!) would rule the roost. Today the triumvirate announced two more projects. The owners of Smoke and Bar Belmont took over the 3-acre plot of land that used to be Jack’s Backyard. (Fort Worth Avenue and Pittman St.) First up: Chicken Scratch, a family-friendly restaurant serving—wait for it—“cast-iron fried and wood-fired rotisserie chicken with wholesome handmade sides.” It’s “slow fast food.” (Wouldn’t it be fast slow food? I’ll leave that one for someone else like Jack Perkins.)

Next door to The Scratching Chicken, I mean Chicken Scratch, will be The Foundry. Sounds serious, right? Nope. The Foundry will be a bar offering simple drinks. (Drama! Do I sense a struggle between mixolgists v bartenders?) The drinks with be simple and strong. (I could say something about my ex-husband here but I’ll let it pass.) There will be beer—lots of drafts and bottles and microbrews plus “usual suspects.” Affordable! Live music! And, if they can swing it: the property will be able to “host food and merchandise trucks, drive-in movies, and other community themed events.”

The Foundry is scheduled in early January 2012 and Chicken Scratch “soon after.” (I still think they should have named it Petticoat Junction. Wouldn’t you eat chicken at the Shady Rest? Such a duh.)

Trending: “Scratch” in a restaurant name, fried chicken, and regular bartenders without pork pie hands and mutton chops.” Somebody get me a Realtor.

posted by Nancy Nichols | December 14th, 2011 9:47am | filed under Bad Names For Restaurants List, Bring it!, Cult Cuisine, Hippie revolutions, I'm a sucker for a man in flannel, Local/Slow Food, Mixology is fancy for bartender, Openings, Restaurant News, Rewritten Press Releases, Trending, beer, chickens, cocktails, oak cliff, youthful spontaneous restaurants | 12 Comments »

Sneak Peek: Nick Badovinus’ New Off-Site Kitchen in Dallas

Roasted meats are the heart of the menu and that includes Spam, smoked jalapeno sausage, hot links, black pepper kielbasa, and chicken.

I was tooling down Irving Blvd. yesterday after a run to the camera store and I spotted a couple of cars and a motorcycle in front of the soon-to-open Off-Site Kitchen. I opened the door to find owner/chef Nick Badovinus and chef Dan Riley trying out a few items for the menu. Besides getting a free cheeseburger (look out for this one, Dallas. It’s a bobbydazzler and it is only $3.50), I got a brief tour of the space which they hope to get open by the end of the month. The food, inspired by “what line cooks eat,” is basically simple sandwiches and breakfast burritos made from quality roasted meats. “Low and slow” in Badovinus-speak. “It’s light industrial food,” he said. “It’s the kind of food you want to eat before you go solder something.”

The tiny restaurant at the corner of Wycliff and Irving Blvd. will basically do breakfast and lunch, but they will be open until 6:30PM and offer take out, including meats by the pound. “All of our meats except rib-eye will be around $3 a pound,” Badovinus said. I also tried a sliced peppered kielbasa sandwich topped with a sliced lettuce salad tossed in a Carolina pulled pork vinaigrette. (Sorry, I finished it before I remembered to photograph it.) Off-Site Kitchen will be a sandwich-lovers dream. They make it easy to grab and go or stay and eat on the covered patio.

Jump for photos.

(more…)

posted by Nancy Nichols | September 16th, 2011 11:46am | filed under Burgers, Neighborhood restaurants, Openings, Patio Dining, Restaurant News, beer, cheap eats, chickens | 31 Comments »

Fasten Your Seatbelts; Brownstone Exec Chef Casey Thompson Has Teamed Up with Sam’s Club

In the most out-of-left-field news of the morning, it seems that Top Chef contender, former Shinsei execu-chef, and current execu-chef at Brownstone,  Casey Thomspon (Brownstone), has actually joined forces with Sam’s Club to (as the press release says) “provide restaurant-quality, simply delicious mealtime solutions.”

I could rewrite the release for you here, but it reads best in its original format:

jump to read the release… (more…)

posted by Sarah Reiss | August 29th, 2011 1:07pm | filed under Buzz Killer!, Celebrity Chefs, Chefs, Cooking, Peripatetic chefs, chickens, questionable behavior | 7 Comments »

Garden Cafe Considers Laying Hens

My favorite tweet of the morning comes from Garden Cafe:

Any of our fans own laying hens? What’s your experience with them? Should we try it out?

The idea of backyard chickens always makes me think of Martha Stewart and her fancy birds. Regardless, urban livestock is cool, and I’m sure Garden Cafe would love to hear from you poultry-philes in the comments section.

Anybody?

Anybody?

posted by Sarah Reiss | August 18th, 2011 11:15am | filed under Slow News Day, chickens | 2 Comments »