Mountain Ranch Organically Grown

We had been loitering near the nice people at Mountain Ranch Organically Grown at the Saturday Ferry Bldg farmer’s market for a few weeks, looking at what they had and listening to their raving fans. They raise their own organically grown chickens, beef and produce. We wanted to try their chicken stock, but they were always sold out when we got there (admittedly, we always get there 10 min before the market closes). Finally, one day they had both the chicken stock and a fresh chicken that we planned to serve to finicky cousins (you, too, have cousins who will only eat free range organically raised meat.)
First, we made coq au vin with the chicken for the cousins. OMG. It was the best coq au vin my husband had ever made and (in a hushed voice: better than anything we’ve eaten in a restaurant or in France).
Then my husband made leek and potato soup with the Mtn Ranch chicken stock, an industrially produced (likely GMO) potato and a store bought leek. Insert an enormous choir of angels singing the opening of a Palestrina mass. This was the best leek and potato soup we had ever eaten by an HUGE margin and the only difference was the chicken stock.
We used more stock as the liquid to cook Israeli couscous (not Israeli and not couscous, but a tasty grain that goes by that name that we get from Trader Joe’s and Rainbow). The grain was jaw droppingly good with chicken stock.
My husband got sick and we cooked the rest of the stock with a few vegetables. The soup was sublime.
I had always known that the quality of the ingredients make a difference to a dish, but who knew that chicken stock could be so incredible? Now I know (and we have a fresh quart of chicken stock upstairs waiting for the next set of food experiments — YUM!)