Good morning Internet!

1. The cake I baked on Sunday was only like my second attempt at baking a cake from scratch and HOLY MOLY, it was good. A crowd pleaser, even! The cream part was actually heavy cream and marscapone cheese with a touch of sugar and it was REALLY REALLY GOOD with the strawberries. The cake part was damn fine too but I think people would have been happy with just the strawberries and cheesy cream.

It's a Rachael Ray recipe (for someone who claims to hate baking, her magazine sure does have a lot of home run recipes for baked goods!) and I'll definitely be holding onto it for future use. The cake came out REALLY tall and kinda wobbly though (and the slices were two or three servings a pop) so next time I'll make two lonnnng layers instead of three squat layers.

2. I watched Food, Inc. over the weekend. There have been other documentaries or books basically saying the same thing (food conglomorates are killing us and disrespecting humans, animals, nature, the planet, etc and that we're basically screwed) but this one seemed more positive -- that alternatives ARE out there and that it's up to me, as the consumer, to put my money where my mouth is. Literally, I guess.

I have no desire to go vegetarian and I get that in order for me to eat meat, an animal has to die. Historically, I've just been glad that I'm not the one who has to do the killing, but I can't turn a blind eye to the whole "growing/feeding animals in ways they were not intended to be grown/fed just so I can have cheap meat that, surprise surprise, is bad for me and for the world" thing. ESPECIALLY since I live in a mega hippie metropolitain area where SURELY, happy cows, pigs and chickens exist and are available for purchase.

I've been buying grass fed beef for a while now (what little beef I do buy, anyway)and I've been trying to change my attitude about farmers markets (that they're not JUST for hippies and/or happy little organic families -- I don't care about "organic" as much as I care about "local") but my main protein is chicken and I wasn't sure how to find happy chickens because the farmers market I've been going to is teeny small and doesn't have anyone selling happy meat and I'm sure as hell not going to the San Francisco farmers market on a regular basis.

Except GUESS WHAT!?

The Campbell farmers market has a meat guy! And he has chickens!

So I bought one.

She's teeny small and she cost me TWENTY THREE DOLLARS but the seller told me that she had free access to be outside or inside -- whatever her little chicken heart desired, and that she was alive 72 hours ago. That was kinda more than I wanted to know about her and the guy was like "Are you kidding? That's EXACTLY what I want to know about my chickens!" Instead of trying to explain that yes, I want to know that, but I don't want to KNOW that, I paid my $23 and took my chicken home.

I didn't want to ruin her by using her in the cashew chicken recipe I was originally shopping for, so after the farmers market I went to Whole Foods and bought some chicken that was probably less happy than my farmers market chicken, but hopefully happier than the Safeway chickens. She's currently hanging out in my fridge but tonight she'll become roasted nutmeg chicken.

I'm trying to do the right thing you guys but $23?? For a teeny small chicken?

Also, I can't be trusted with whole chickens because I have NO INTEREST in chicken skin UNLESS it has been roasted, in which case it's a STRUGGLE to just pull it off and throw it away.

Gross, I know, but let's be real.

Anyway, tonight I'll be cheffing up the happy chicken with a farmers market spinach salad topped with sliced Easter eggs that my non-John-Deere-pajama-wearing SIL colored, which means they probably came from a happy chicken because she's a hippie.

3. In non things-I've-eaten news, my dad's first published article is available for your online reading pleasure! GO DAD!