The Chicken Debacle

I'm a little bit of a wimp.

After weeks of being pescetarian, I decided to go to the farmer's market and get me some free-range, corn-fed yard bird to try. I had tried some a couple weeks back, but the results were basically inconclusive. I suspected there was another gluten culprit at the time.

I was planning my first foray into homemade chicken stock this weekend. Conventional grocery store chicken has been identified as problematic of late, so I had to go out of my way (after lots of internet research) to get some chicken that could possibly be ok.

So I go ask to buy a chicken, and (stupidly) say "Yes, I would like it cut up. Thank you." So the dude whips the chicken out of the cooler with his bare hand and slaps it up on the scale. No paper, no nothing. Tells, me what it weighs, I think ok, it is toward the end of the day, maybe he had already cleaned off the scale...

He proceeds to cut the chicken into pieces, again with bare hands, using a cutting board and knife that had just been sitting out on the counter. Not sure how long they had been there or what they were used on before (at this point, while writing this, I'm so ashamed of myself for keeping my mouth shut)

He dumps it into a plastic bag, then retrieves the outer bag for it, again, without washing his hands. I can only imagine the salmonella slime on that bag.

And I paid this man and said thank you. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??

I spent $7.00 on a chicken. That I can't eat. Heck, that people without cross-contamination issues shouldn't eat.

Ugh.

A word to the wise. The meek shall inherit expensive, possibly dirty chicken.