The Title

Several people have been asking me about the title of my blog, "Making Chicken Salad...". I was initially content with telling people it was just an inside joke but the questions are becoming more frequent so I thought I should finally explain the background.

I am a fan of the UFC and the show The Ultimate Fighter (TUF). If you aren't familiar with either the UFC or TUF, google it. This past season of TUF featured heavyweight coaches Junior Dos Santos and Brock Lesnar on opposing teams.

Brock Lesnar is a big 6' 3", 280 pound Montana redneck. That 280 pounds comes with less than 10% body fat by the way. Anyway, one of presumably many things that are enjoyable about rednecks is that quite a few have quite colorful euphemisms or figures of speech. It became apparant very early in this past season of TUF that Brock is one of these rednecks.

After one of Team Brock's fighters won his exhibition fight against one of Team Dos Santos' fighters in what I think was the second episode of the season, Brock made a comment during the locker room celebration.

Brock said something along the lines of "chicken salad out of chicken sh**! That's what we are! We chicken sh**!" This comment, while leaving some of his fighters confused and offended, made me laugh.

"The Next Big Thing" explained what he meant by this early in the next episode when one of his coaches informed him that some of the fighters were taking the comment personally. Brock explained that when these amateur, unknown welterweights came in, they were nothing but "just another 170 pound chicken sh**" but that they were there to polish their skills and become chicken salad.

Even with explaining the meaning, I still thought the phrase was ridiculous and funny. I began throwing it around when hanging out with Zach while working out or playing video games or whatever.

I decided, after prodding by many, to start this blog and the blog needed a title. I've never been good with titles of things. For some reason, it's a challenge for me to think of a title that I don't feel is stupid. I'm not sure why but Brock's phrase popped into my head and I decided to use it for the title of my blog.

So, that's the story behind the title. I apologize if anyone started reading this blog hoping for some new chicken salad recipes...

If you think about it, it makes sense. It's a very fitting title. I started at the end of December as a 265-270 pound chicken sh**. With hard work, discipline (most days), and determination, I'm on my way to becoming chicken salad.