My first trip to Austin Farmer’s Market downtown turned out to be way more interesting than I could have guessed. I was interested in buying local, organic produce and chicken. With my dear friend Mike in tow, I walked around purchasing produce like it was going out of style. I bought fresh chives and rosemary for a dollar each from Garza Greens, a project of the horticulture class at Garza High School in East Austin. I picked up some broccoli from Blackland Prairie Farm (from Thrall, TX).

The appearance of the broccoli surprised me — it had loose, nearly budding florets instead of the tightly-closed ones from the grocery store. According to the vendor, the reason for this is because industrial growers pick the broccoli too early, resulting in a tougher product with fewer vitamins. “You try it and if you don’t like it, you come back and talk to me.” I then picked up some dewberries, onions, carrots, spinach, and some local honey from Round Rock Honey.

Disappointed at not finding any chicken, I inquired at the information stand if I might be overlooking it. Eleanor, one of the volunteers, told me there weren’t any poultry vendors this week. “But you know what,” she said, “my son-in-law raises his own chickens in Manor, which is about twenty minutes from where I live in North Austin and I go over there and it is just amazing. All free-range, organic. Those eggs are just incredible. In fact, I can give you his cell phone number and he’ll invite you over and give you a tour, no problem.” Sweet! At that point Mike was sweltering because he had inexplicably worn a long-sleeved shirt on a ninety-degree Austin day. That’s the thing about Austin, though — you forget how goddamn hot it gets during the transition from spring to summer. He was a bit bored anyway, methinks — what with my chatting and picture-taking.

I asked him if he wanted to go to the farm with me, but he refused. “I don’t want to go to peoples’ houses. It would be okay if it was like, a stand in front of the house or something, but I’m not going to someone’s house and have them all sitting around and stuff. That would be weird.” I admit that the prospect was a little intimidating even to me. What if they’re weirdos? I mean, what if they had some kind of slavegirl operation, and they lured sweet young women such as myself through so-called mother-in-laws with the promise of happy, sustainable, free-range poultry? However, I was lured by the possibility that my cousin-in-law, Dairy Queen, would be impressed that I had visited a real farm. That, and the fact that I needed the eggs.

After I dropped Mike off I realized that I had paid for the honey, but unfortunately had not procured said honey. After hemming and hawing (”only five dollars…but I was really looking forward to it…local honey helps with allergies, supposedly…would it cost more in gas to go all the way back there?”), I finally decided to drive back and get it. Besides, then I could walk around and talk to people without Mike trailing one foot behind me with that pleading look.

Konrad Bouffard, the honey vendor, smiled and said, “Okay! Go ahead and take it!” when I told him I had forgotten my honey. I thought that was very classy. Directly across from the honey stand, I spotted the funky handbags by Jennifer Schossow that my sister-in-law buys from the East Austin Farmer’s Market. I picked out a really cute reversible one made with vintage fabric. I was ecstatic, and I was able to rationalize that I was not a consumer whore because I didn’t buy it at the mall. Off in the mid-distance, I spotted a sign that said “Farmer Russell’s Natural Piedmontese Beef.” I was (again) hemming and hawing, because I am not terribly familiar with cuts of beef, as it is my least favorite meat, generally. To me it is grayish and flavorless, because you have to cook the shit out of it so you won’t get E coli. She asked if I wanted grassfed or grainfed. “Grassfed!” I said, because Miss Dairy Queen had been marveling to me about the awesomeness of grassfed beef vs. grainfed. “Have you ever had it before?” asked Mrs. Russell. When I told her no, she walked over to her freezer and put some ground beef in a bag and said, “Here.” I fumbled with my wallet and she said, “You don’t owe me anything.” Wow, thanks.

We cooked it up the following day in the form of some excellent hamburgers with feta cheese and kalamata olives. Not only was the meat extremely lean, it had a different, muskier flavor that I very much enjoyed. Additionally, I found out that you can cook it medium rare because pastured animals don’t sit around in their own crap all day long. My hubby, Ryder, who at this point cares very little about the origins of his food and teases me about becoming a “food dork,” agreed that the flavor was preferable to the hamburger meat we got from Costco.

But I want to tell you about the farm. I called the farmer, Kevin Roberts, and he sounded normal enough. I asked if I might stop by to get some chicken sometime this afternoon. “You can come out right now, I’ll be there in a half hour or so. You can just hang out in the barn if I’m not there yet.”

I’d never even heard of Manor before. Located about twenty minutes east of North Austin, the area is an odd mixture of farms, with gorgeous cornfields and pastures — and typical corporate thoroughfare, like fast food joints and chain hotels. Manor is also home to Manor Downs, a horserace track. I’ve always wanted to bet on the horses, just like Bukowski. Only without the drinking. And the hookers. Not that I have anything against hookers, it’s just that I don’t have that kind of money.

I found the farm easily, and Kevin waved at me as I pulled in. “Have a seat,” he said, as I walked over to him. I sort of expected to be in and out of there, but the calmness of the farm (the sun, the sounds of the hens and something else — maybe the absence of sound, maybe Kevin’s relaxed, laid-back demeanor) immediately stole my sense of urgency. It wasn’t that I wanted to be in and out of there — it’s just that I’m so accustomed to the routine of customer service in which you have a tacit agreement to take up as little of each other’s time as possible. Except for the (optional) formality of “How are you doin’ today,” and “Have a good one,” it’s almost like you (or they) could be anyone. I sat down and chatted with Kevin for a while. I told him about Eleanor’s (his mother-in-law’s) glowing review of his chickens and his eggs, and that she told me about “mottled Java” chickens, which are some kind of purebreed, as opposed to the hybridized birds that most American farms put out. “Yeah, I guess we have about half the population of Javas in the world,” he said.

His daughter, Elsa, whom I would get to know very well, was hiding behind the truck, peeping out at me and giggling. “She’s shy,” I said. She looked to be about five and a half years old.

He looked at me. “Elsa’s shy for about all of two minutes.” He was right, she was my instant best friend in about that time, and she offered to give me a tour. “My dad usually gives the tours, but I’m actually better at it.” She showed me the chickens, the cow family – a bull, a cow, and a fairly new calf – and the “mean rooster.” With an impressive flair for drama, she succeeded a few times in completely freaking me out. She told me that coyotes kind of “hide around” and that “the mean rooster is coming!” and that the bull doesn’t “usually charge ya, except maybe a couple of times.” She also had me chasing a rooster around trying to get a string off of its foot, which I discovered later is about impossible. However, when I expressed concern about the dog (a wonderfully sweet brindle pitbull) stepping on barbed wire that was on the ground, she waved her hand dismissively and said, “Don’t worry about Honey, she’s been around here a long time.”

And Elsa was right, she did give an excellent tour. The chickens had a large environment, and a great nesting arrangement from which they could come and go as they pleased. I saw baby chicks that had just been moved from the incubator. In a word, it looked nothing like this.

“I wondered if you were gonna make it back here,” said Kevin when Elsa and I came back about forty-five minutes later. I have to admit I had to lay down the law with ol’ Elsa – she was a tough negotiator. “But wait, I haven’t shown you the baby ducks yet! They’re so cute!” and “You’ve gotta see this tree.” I bought a couple of broilers, including one of the Javas, which at the time of this post I have not yet consumed.

I bought only a dozen eggs, which I would come to regret later on. They were hands-down the best damn eggs I’ve ever had. There were some things I noticed about the eggs but, not being a farmer or food expert myself, had no clue regarding the reasons or significance of said observations. For one thing, you know that weird paper thing that kind of hangs off the edges of the egg? Well, these didn’t have them. Also, the yolks were more of an orangey color rather than a yellow, and were bigger. On Kevin’s website, he says that the chickens eat “Milo, roasted soybean, oyster shell, and mineral/vitamin supplement based on kelp…alfalfa meal, molasses and limestone [and] the broiler mix also includes fish meal” which he purchases from Alexander Farm in Del Valle, TX. Now, I don’t know what chickens should be eating, necessarily, I just know that these were the tastiest eggs I’ve ever had. The limestone part sounds kind of weird. My Random House dictionary defines limestone as “a sedimentary rock consisting predominantly of calcium carbonate, varieties of which are formed from the skeletons of marine microorganisms and coral.” I also didn’t know what milo was, exactly. I thought it was hot chocolate. But my trusty dictionary says it is a grain sorghum having white, yellow, or pinkish seeds. Apparently it is also drought-resistant, which would be a plus in Texas this year.

We also cooked up one of the broilers. It was a real freshman attempt on my part – we had to call Ryder’s mom to see what we should do with the neck, and find out what gizzards are exactly. In the past, I have mainly eaten previously frozen chicken breasts and canned chicken. And no, those chickens weren’t organic. I’m new here, okay? Anyway, the roasted chicken was delicious. We ate it with the broccoli and spinach from the Farmer’s Market. It was an unusually safe feeling knowing where my food came from. Moreover, I knew who my food came from. I actually had a relationship with someone who gave me my food. I was astounded to discover that it actually meant a lot to me. Mike wants to come with me next time. What can I say, I’m a freaking trendsetter. Oh yeah — and if you go there, Elsa wants you to bring candy.