BUT LOOK AT THE CHICKENS

So Superorganism finally dropped their album, which is getting ALL KINDS of love (duh). The Prawn Song is one of the few tracks they hadn’t released previously as a single, and it’s also maybe even quirkier than the others, in that it is about being a prawn (another one of those sweet Englishisms– so much sweeter as a word than ‘shrimp’). Tune in and zone out to the world of the bizarre. It’s Wednesday, you’re allowed.

Nobody, that’s who. But guess who’s taking it back up again? All the regular, non-tech people who otherwise can’t afford to live in Silicon Valley. Think: teachers, writers, retail managers… basically anyone who’s not being paid more than earthly reasonable. But let’s step back: who wants a kitchen that’s not flooded with some asshole’s dirty dishes? A private shower? An uninterrupted living room? Overrated, all of them. Don’t worry, in a dorm you can still pay $2400 for just a bedroom if you want. Because life is poetry, the big dorm development group is called Starcity– read it fast and you might slip and read ‘Scarcity,’ which just feels right– and, to rub salt in the wounds of their residents, they themselves have raised about $19mm in venture capital. Income inequality who?

Meanwhile just down the road, chicken-raising is becoming a status symbol for Valley types with yards (and, obviously, their own entire homes). No surprise, these guys are spending about 20 times as much as they need to spend on rare heritage breeds with specific personalities, and then crafting $20,000 coop homes for them– bonus points if the coop matches the person-house it’s attached to. More on-the-nose, some chicken owners also seem to be using some remote-bird-home-regulating-software equivalent to Nest. Inside the human homes, chickens get blow dries and diapers, and sometimes roost in bedrooms, and across the board, the breeds are optimized for yield, in typical Valley style. There is way too much gold about this for me to keep summarizing, so give yourself a laugh and read the whole WaPo piece. And join me in fearing for these chicken owners’ children– seems like a real helicopter situation.

So, whether you have your own Ferrari chicken coop or just an Amazon Fresh account (sorry, meant to say ‘local grocery store’), cooking those eggs ought to be a joy. Here is where I advertise my love for cast iron, which is satisfyingly all-purpose, hardy, and easy to clean. Field Company does it one better by making their pans 25-50% lighter than usual, which means you can actually lift them up with one hand and not break yourself moving things around. And despite being lighter, they’re still made to last forever (seriously– they’re guaranteed for life). You too can live the dream of owning only one pan: get it here.