By Christine Stevens

The wonderful story told by William Grimes, a well-known restaurant critic for The New York Times, was indeed worthy of publication as a separate book. However, the book is profusely illustrated with cartoon-like drawings that add nothing to the charm of the original article.

In the original New York Times article, "It Came. It Clucked. It Conquered," a huge color portrait of "The Chicken," measuring 12" x 7.5," on the front page of The New York Times food section did full justice to the bluish tint in the black hen's plumage and to her golden eye.

 

 

 

 

 

"a fowl-feline nonagression pact" The Chicken meets Bruiser, a stray tomcat, for a peaceful lunch of cat food.

---

Mr. Grimes received a tremendous amount of mail with respect to The Chicken. In his second article, "Lost: One Black Chicken. Owners Bereft," he wrote: "My mailbag filled to the bursting point with letters offering advice on the proper care and feeding of chickens, along with fascinating bits of chicken arcana?.Never have so many worried so much about one hen?.The media jumped in. National Public Radio quizzed me about the chicken for one of its weekend programs?.The Associated Press sent a photographer to capture the chicken's many moods. Actually, she had two moods, but this photographer got both of them."

Mr. Grimes confessed: "My life was spinning out of control. For John Reed it was the Bolshevik Revolution. For Woodward and Bernstein it was Watergate. For me, it was The Chicken, the story that surpassed the sum total of every other story I have ever written. But then it all stopped." Was it a bowdlerization of Farrar, Straus and Giroux that caused this most hilarious and delightful passage of all to be deleted from the book?

Mr. Grimes concludes his latest article with this thought: "If anyone happens to see a fat black hen, tell her this for me. There's a light in the window, and a warm nest at the base of the pine tree."