Like most people, I usually buy my chicken in parcels: packages of breasts or thighs or wings. Unless I am planning to roast a chicken, it is just simply easier to avoid the mess and fuss of home butchery. But this fall I ordered a small flock of local free-range chickens for my deep freezer, and they arrived as whole birds. Averaging 51/2 pounds each, they weren't exactly demure, either.

I sat one of the monster chickens on my counter, all 6 pounds of her, and considered what to do. If I were ready for a party, I would just roast it whole, but that would be overkill for my table of three. I squinted and watched it divide into three distinct meals: the white meat, the dark meat and the bones.

The breasts were plump and shiny and perfectly heart-shaped -- what Mary the chicken farmer calls "valentine breasts" -- so they were first up. I separated the breastplate from the legs and back with a few cuts and a little help from my strongest kitchen shears (serrated poultry shears are preferred here, but in a pinch you reach for what you have) and then liberated the breast meat from the breastbone.

The chicken breasts had a rosier hue and a firmer countenance than my standard store-bought -- due to a free-range life, perhaps? When I asked Mary she said, "I don't know. My birds are pretty lazy." In other words, she keeps them contained. Not confined, but not exactly training for a marathon, either. They live in movable metal coops that she shuttles around the pasture in the warm months, and on sunny days the chickens lie down and stretch out in the grass like dogs. "The skin is pinkish?" she said. "It might be sunburn."

Lazy or not, any chicken breast from a large bird will require some mollycoddling -- namely, butter or cream or gentle heat, or all three. I decided to give them the treatment I gave delicate rabbit loins when I worked in a French restaurant: I cut the breasts lengthwise into three long and evenly thick pieces and rolled them gently in a wide pan of brown butter infused with some rosemary until they felt firm to the touch and had picked up a nice coat of speckled butterfat.

When I sliced one open, the droplets of moisture beaded up on the surface. The meat, glistening and almost without grain, was so tender it mocked the knife. The sight reminded me just why the ancient French chefs called the breasts "supremes." Chicken breasts cooked just-so do indeed reign supreme.

Chicken: part two

I turned to the rest of the chicken -- which was still significant -- rubbed it with a little salt and set it uncovered in a roasting pan in the fridge to dry out overnight. (It's the same principle as for Peking duck; letting the skin dry out makes it crispier.)

The next day I rubbed both sides of the chicken with French four-spice, a blend of sweet spices typical of French terrines, with ginger, thyme and black peppercorns driving the mix. I cranked the oven to 425 degrees, slid in the chicken and waited until I could smell its skin roasting before reducing the heat. At the table, the bones fell out onto our plates and the crispy skin -- which had divided into substratum, like a Danish pastry -- demanded us to take matters (and drumsticks and wings) into our hands. To be polite, let's just say it was a two-napkin dinner.

That's another great thing about the whole bird: It gives us a few pieces that usually hit the discard pile, not least of which are the oysters, or the dark nuggets of tender meat hidden on the chicken back. The French call them sot l'y laisse and go gaga over them, collecting them by the dozens to serve on their own, simply grilled or sautéed with morels and cream.

Chicken: part three

But back to the diminishing chicken. On the third day I rested and we went out for burgers. On the fourth day I threw all the collected remainders of the chicken -- the raw breastbones, the cooked carcass, the uncooked neck, the saved bits from the roasting pan -- into a hot, wide-bottomed pot and started to brown them.

To my surprise, combining the raw and roasted bits made a nicely well-developed broth within 30 minutes, a stronger and more robust version of my usual homemade stock. It made a perfect base for avgolemono, the simple Greek chicken soup thickened with eggs and flavored with lemon, a soup which also conveniently accommodates the final scraps picked from the breastbones cooked in the stock. No sense in letting go of this thrift streak.

By the time we finished the soup, the chicken had been reduced to a pile of bones, giving me what felt like a very old-fashioned sense of satisfaction. Not only that, but I had ravished the oysters in their crispy mantle of skin and discovered how to make a quick, flavorful brown stock.

No doubt, packaged pieces are easier, but I'm a real convert to the rewards of long-term thinking when it comes to chicken. And if you're not accustomed to handling raw meat, keep in mind that a regular habit of breaking down whole birds will eventually turn your practice pro.

A chef I knew once gave me some simple advice: Just pay attention to your hands and remember what you touched, and where. I've since added these bits: Learn how to turn on your kitchen faucet with your elbow. Use lots of paper towels. And when cutting up a chicken, don't answer the phone. My family knows that when I yell "raw chicken hands!" the answering falls to them -- but also, that they're soon in for a treat.

Amy Thielen is a chef and writer who lives in Two Inlets, Minn.