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Ah, Sprrr-ing! By L.E. Leone› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com CHEAP EATS I'll finish the poem in a minute, but first I have to put on five more sweaters, go break up the ice in the chicken waterer, and saw up another armload of scrap wood for the fire. Where was I? Pittsburgh, calzone. You know, as much as I'd love to only write about out-of-town restaurants now, by way of being nutty, I just — well, I can't do it. I'm not going to get into no airplanes for another long, long time. I'm here, and you gotta eat and eat if you want to keep being anywhere and not blow away. This, so far, is my favorite thing about life. It practically requires you to pig out. If you're reading this online, and you're coming to San Francisco, bring me something to eat like my new friend in North Cackalacky did. Meanwhile, I'll be at Hamburger Haven on Clement Street, where I stopped on my way home from Pennsylvania but never got around to telling you about it last week. So: It was seven in the morning. All my rock-and-roll friends were still sleeping. Even some of the breakfast restaurants weren't open yet, I guess because not a lot of chicken farmers live in the city. Hamburger Haven has eggs and pancakes and waffles and supercheap combinations of some of the above with bacon and/or sausage. I got a hamburger. I got a bacon burger, by way of paying respect to the time of day that it was. Plus fries came to $6.50. And I sat at the counter and watched the cooker cat personning the griddle with one hand and the grill with the other. Besides the counter, which is where you want to be, of course, there are cute little two-seater booths along the wall (stripes of orange tile inlaid into nice, dark wood) and then a back room for parties of three or more. My burger came nice and rare, like I asked, and the fries were not no fresh-cut ones or nothing, but they were OK with lots of ketchup on them. In other words, my new favorite burger joint! Done deal, and I drove the rest of the rainy way home feeling happy and oiled. But here's what I'm getting at: One of my chickens was looking a little under the weather, and who could blame her? Being the Chicken Farmer, and being back, I knew exactly what to do: I started a pot of chicken soup. This isn't what it sounds like. Chicken soup for chickens is not made of chickens. That would be bad. Chicken soup for chickens starts with chickens' favorite thing to eat: pork. So, OK, I stoved me up some pork steaks for lunch, scraped the scraps into a pot of water on top, stoked the fire, and let it go, every now and again thinking of something else chickens love, like oatmeal, and cracked corn, and bugs, and adding that to the mix. In all honesty, this was the first time I'd ever made chicken soup for chickens, and I was just tickled to death by the whole idea of it, smiling and laughing and talking to myself. Round midafternoon I reckoned it ready. It being St. Patrick's Day season, I thought I would garnish it with clover, and I put my rain bonnet/cowboy hat on and traipsed across the driveway to where the clover grows. I went around in the rain plucking up three-leaf clovers to garnish my chickens' chicken soup with, and while I was doing this ridiculous thing the rain turned to snow. In California, in March. In other words, the rain turned to snow. In other words, in March, in California, while I was picking clover to garnish my chickens' chicken soup with, it started to snow. I giggled with glee, and sizzled through the snowflakes, electric with love for a universe clownish enough to produce both me and this cold front. The chickens were less impressed. They picked all the little pieces of pork out of the soup and then went about their business. The snow starting to stick, they ate the snow. I couldn't stop laughing. I took my hat off and Mary Tyler Moored it into some redwood branches, wet white fluff blasting me in the face. It was beautiful and surreal. Not knowing what else to do, I went inside and cleaned the toilet. Then, still not knowing, I took off all my clothes, put them all on again and then some, and — all in a day's work — went back out and laid in the hammock. Do you want my world? Eat hamburgers for breakfast. * HAMBURGER HAVEN Daily, 7 a.m.–9 p.m. 800 Clement, SF (415) 387-3260. Takeout available Beer and wine Credit cards not accepted Quiet Wheelchair accessible |
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