There are those people who favor certain foods. Not too uncommon, actually; we all know that Uncle Lucas who eats scallops on Tuesdays, or the ex-boyfriend who won't touch bananas "for obvious reasons." Yet what about those people known as chicken lovers? I am a chicken lover, and I feel no shame in admitting it. Birds are evil and stupid, yes, but none carry the high tastiness or low entertainment value of the chicken. I crave that sweet meat like Denis Leary once craved nicotine. The whiteness and flexbility of baked chicken breasts; the repugnant, irresistible flavor of fried chicken skins; or - glory of glories! - the inexplicable beauty of a whole chicken cooking slowly in the oven, its skin slick and glowing with juices like a dead swimsuit model in a pan of carrots. What did Granny Ethel shove down your throat in big salty spoonfuls when you had the slightest hint of a cough? G-d love it, that toxic yellow Campbell's chicken soup! How funny we find this idiotic non-flying mutant! Geeks put up rubber chickens as protection; gradeschool kids spend aeons of playground time telling those road and chicken jokes; that "Wallace and Gromit" guy turns penned chickens into a black humor analogy. We are all, deep inside, a nation of chicken lovers. Hold your head high and sing their praises! Salmonella be damned!