Chicken raiser sends message loudly, clearly

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Northbrook's Jennifer (left) and Jeff Spitz with their two female chickens, Nigel (on Jennifer) and Robert. | Karie Angell Luc~for Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 24, 2012 8:57AM

What came first for Northbrook’s Jeff Spitz — the chicken, the eggs or the documentary starring two Northbrook female chickens, Nigel and Robert?

“The documentary came first,” said Spitz, a Columbia College film professor and Chicago Groundswell Educational Films principal.

“We have a title (“Food Patriots”) with a premise to follow one family trying to raise chickens in their backyard.”

The 90-minute documentary is about “people taking very small steps (10 percent change) about the way you think about food.”

“Food Patriots” — in its post production stage — allows the self-described “chicken farmer” in Spitz to feature his family. He will include footage documenting the Northbrook chicken ownership discussion.

“Food Patriots” has a post-summer PBS network airing goal. Watch the preview at www.groundswellfilms.org/food-patriots/.

“We will have (screenings at) film festivals and we’ll also organize with stakeholders and between film festivals, colleges and large conferences, we will reach a lot of people,” Spitz said.

Spitz, who began documentary research in Madison, Wis., was amazed when his family hatched the idea to raise Northbrook chickens.

His wife, Jennifer Amdur Spitz, and son A.J., 16, a Glenbrook North High School sophomore, watched in delight as hen eggs ordered from a catalog produced the now all-grown-up chicks Nigel and Robert (masculine names courtesy of A.J.).

“The chickens were out of left field,” said Spitz. “I wanted nothing to do with chickens a year ago and thought my wife was crazy for ordering them.”

But, “They (Nigel and Robert) surprised me,” Spitz said.

“I find them fascinating. I take care of them every day. People have come to my house to learn about raising chickens from me — now I am becoming the ‘chicken whisperer.’”

Every day, his hens lay one brown egg each, said Spitz.

“Some people talk to their plants, some people talk to their pets, I like to say hello to the chickens in the morning. And when you come home (after work), you get out of the car (in the garage) and you have to say hello: ‘Hi Nigel, Hi Robert, how are you doing, any eggs today?’”

The cinematographer in Spitz has found a new voice — more in demand after last month’s Northbrook Star article about his family.

The Illinois Stewardship Alliance (ISA), a downstate Springfield sustainable agriculture organization, asked Spitz to be a board member after seeing the story.

“Surprised the heck out of me,” said Spitz, who can’t join the board (commitments) “but I will become a member of the organization.”

Via www.ilstewards.org, the ISA “promotes environmentally sustainable, economically viable, socially just local food systems through policy development, advocacy and education.”

“They (ISA) are just the kind of linkage that will help our film get out into communities,” said Spitz.

“Now stories are 24/7 — they live in a platform that is accessible so anybody who has a Smartphone or access to a computer can learn about the same thing at the same time or a year later.

“It can go from college to college from coast to coast and to Capitol Hill, even if it starts with chickens in your own backyard in our community.”

Spitz, whose Sundance-selected documentary “The Return of Navajo Boy” changed legislation about a residential radioactive uranium mining area — appreciates groundswell support.

“We went to (a recent) open house at GBN and somebody came up and said, ‘You guys are the chicken people!’ I laughed — I thought it was so funny. We’re the chicken people now. It’s hilarious.

“A year ago, you have to realize, I didn’t care, the food store is as far as it (‘Food Patriots’) would take me.”

At 6 p.m. Tuesday, at Northbrook Village Hall, the Communications and Legislation Committee discusses chicken ownership.

“Now I understand what a food system is — that any item of food can truly open up a lens to history — to environmental impact,” said Spitz.

“If anyone had the curiosity to research one item they eat, they would watch the whole world open up to them.”