A MOMENT OF cacophony, please ...

... –One of my chickens died of natural causes. It just keeled over the other day when my axe went through its neck. What they say about "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" ... not true. None of mine never did anyway, maybe because they got to be runners in real life, so the last thing in the world they wanted to do with their last moments in the world was go for a jog.

Especially this one. She was a sprinter. In fact, what sentenced her to grill was not her particular plumpness, although she was my plumpest. It was more that she reminded me of me. Couldn't stay on one side of the fence. Escape artist and philosopher. Always wanting to cross the road. Except instead of just crossing it, which would have been dangerous enough, she was mysteriously inclined to run lengthwise down the middle of it, one way then the other. I'd hear a car beep and that's how I'd know to go get her. Five times a day.

"Why?" I'd say, carrying her back to the yard.

And she'd say what chickens say when you're holding them, in that soft, perplexed little voice. I'm not sure how to spell it, because the consonant sound is not one we make – something between "be-be-be" and "me-me-me." Maybe "mbe-mbe-mbe." Real soft.

Have you heard it?

Hey, and just so you one-way animal lovers know, I let her see the axe first. I stretched her out on the redwood stump without the blindfold, and I held the axe over her neck, said, "See? This is one of two ways you're going to go. I personally would prefer this to scraping you off the street with a shovel. Be cool," I said, and I set the axe aside and lifted her back into the yard with the others.

Watched her for a while, being cool. (I still don't know how or where she got through the fence. None of the others ever did.) Then I went back to work on my work.

Next thing I know: "Beeeeep!!!"

I didn't have any cigarettes, so I offered her some pot, which she pecked at, going, "Mbe-mbe-mbe." So cute. And I've been eating her ever since – barbecued, stewed with rice and tomatoes, souped, and chicken pie.

Works out well because after the tax man got me I haven't been able to afford to eat out except for donuts. Next week I'll tell you about donuts – I have a good one. This week I want to talk about the last things I ate before I went broke: noodles, noodles, and noodles.

My friend Mod-Pod turned me on to So, a clean, cozy Sunset noodle joint with a welcoming patch of skylight-lit sunshine right in the middle of it. And if that ain't enough to cheer you up, they scoop out some of the biggest bowls of soup I ever seen. Between mine and Mod's leftovers, I stretched out one, two, three – in other words four meals, every one of which was slurpin' good. And loaded with great homemade noodles.

I had the combination spicy soup noodle – spicy because I felt like I might be coming down with something, and combination because I like to be the death of as many different animals as possible every time I eat. In this case: shrimp, calamari, mussels, and beef. Gotta love a seafood soup with beef in it.

Oh, and I did love it.

But Pod's choice was a good one too. Shredded pork with mustard greens. Both bowls were $6.35 and big enough, like I said, to feed two people. Or one person once, and then another person three times. However you want to slice it.

Oh yeah, and we had an appetizer too. Chicken wings ($5.25), lightly battered and fried and sticky-sauced with roasted red peppers, garlic, and ginger. So so so so tasty, as chicken wings always are. But we almost left one on the table by accident.

You know me. I hate to see even little pieces of any kind of animal go to waste. Especially chickens. Especially chicken wings. But our soups were already all packed up, bill paid, jackets on. I didn't know how I'd missed it, but I snatched it up on my way out and took care of it on the way to the car, getting blood all over my just-washed pants. So?

So. 2240 Irving (at 24th Ave.), S.F. (415) 731-3143. Sun. and Tues.-Thurs., noon-9:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., noon-10 p.m. Takeout available. Beer. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible. Dan Leone (cheapeatsguy@yahoo.com) is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).

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Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).