I want to talk about food today, for some reason

I'm stuck at home with a migraine (presently hemming a tea towel into a rice bag to drape over my aching face, actually - don't ask if I should be on the computer, the answer is no, but I'm stubborn) and for some reason I'm reading cooking backlash articles linked by the often-excellent Jennifer Reese, whose book "Bake the Bread, Buy the Butter" has one of the most honest tales of home-chicken tragedy I've ever read. ( I wanted to practice my essaying, and I'm going to talk about food and cooking and the virtues attached to it, and this gets long. )