Knife Work, if You Can Get It

The silence in this room makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs.  The passive-aggressive daggers shooting sideways at me from every eye have my patience and sanity balancing on razor’s edge.  I want to bash this computer monitor onto the floor, sling my laptop out the window like a Frisbee, and watch it fall, fall, fall four floors down.  Then I want to breathe in that blessed fresh chill air . . . let it enfold and consume me . . . step to the edge . . . leap out into it and just . . . fly. 

I am in Corporate Hell. 

            Not to be confused with Hell’s Corporate Headquarters, although I imagine the two would be quite similar. 

            I’m working in a conference room with eight other women.  No, we’re not having a meeting; we have all been displaced from our cubicles during renovations and must work literally side-by-side for two weeks.  My Work Wife and I have been informed that at least two people in this room are dogging our footsteps, keeping spreadsheets on our movements:  what time we arrive, what time we leave, how long our lunch breaks last, how often we use the restroom/get coffee/etc. 

            They don’t talk; not to us, not to each other.  It’s just clack-clack-clack on their keyboards, and occasionally one will try to sneak a peak at our monitors to see if we’re working.  If one of our work phones rings, necks snap in our direction and they eyeball us like we just devoured a batch of aborted fetuses and splatter-shat them out in the middle of the room. 

Slouched down in my chair—done with my work for the day—I’m thinking about something I’m certain no one else is.  I am wondering . . . how many knives should I take with me this weekend?

A Day in the Knife Of . . .

Autumn is settling into St. Louis quite comfortably.  The sky is clear and bright, the air crisp and tinged with the scent of burning wood. 

I haven’t showered since Thursday (it’s Saturday).  Got to my day job yesterday; my undershirt was on backwards and inside out.  I’d only gotten like two hours of sleep the night before, but it was totally worth it.  It was Halloween, after all, my favorite holiday. 

There’s a slight headache forming in the back of my brain while I examine the ever-present circles under my eyes . . . I slept eleven hours last night.  I almost feel hungover, but I didn’t have a drop of alcohol last night.  Drank enough Thursday to cover both days.  That ghost-pepper moonshine—

Ugh.  I’d forgotten about that shit.  And the four-five shots of saké we had at dinner.  No wonder I was putting my clothes on backwards yesterday!  But it was a birthday party for my beautiful, talented, sweet sexy red-headed friend (the girl dating a Schnucks butcher from this post).  I gave her beef jerky.  The next day she posted on my Facebook wall for all the world to see: 

So I promised that I would save some of the Most Incredible Jerky Ever for my boyfriend but I thought I would have myself a nibble or two.  I was kind of worried that I might not be able to stop at just a little but decided it was worth the risk.  Surprisingly enough I only had one piece!  And it was not because I exerted any kind of self-control, either, because honestly I’m not wired for that.  I think I . . . I think I Respect it.  Your jerky is so good I have developed emotion for it. 

            My response?

            “It’s always better when you can make it last longer . . . and longer . . . and longer . . .”

            “I’ve heard that!  Your meat makes me a believer.”

            Also, “Meat Emotions” would make a great band name. 

Crave

 I woke up with the strangest craving today. 

            I awoke in a place that was not my own . . . a place not unfamiliar to me. 

This craving . . . rumbled in my gut, forcing me bolt upright in bed.  Loud, deliberate, and insistent, I could not ignore it.  I had to heed its call.

Conversations with The Butcher's Apprentice

 

 

The Butcher’s Apprentice Stops in to Grab some Jerky and Talks with Tommy

“How come you don’t work here anymore?”

            “Because a sprained foot doesn’t heal in two weeks.  If I can’t stand on it for one hour, I definitely can’t stand and walk and carry heavy shit for EIGHT hours.”

            I’ve been saltier than usual lately.  Must be to do with this Franken-Foot that I’ve injured for the hundred and eighty thousandth time.  It’s not even a re-injury, either; it’s a new one.  How many ways can one person fuck up the same goddamn appendage?  I sprained the “capsule” on top of the ligament connecting my big toe to the rest of my foot . . . while playing barefoot soccer, after attending the Real Madrid v. Inter Milan game . . . where I may have drank several pints of beer.  Allegedly.  Lesson learned:  from now on, shoes must be worn during any and all periods of questionable sobriety.  

All Trussed Up and Ready to Go

Seems to me that this blog used to be a lot sexier, and I’m not just referring to the wiener jokes.  You already know that I love me a big slab of meat that just lasts and lasts.

            The passion went out of my cooking when the passion went out of my life.  Making food is romantic to me; a lot of love goes into what I make.  It is a very intimate experience, creating something that fills a void and satisfies an insatiable craving. 

            A little of that romance seems to have faded. 

The flame has died down. 

I got lazy—cooking crock pot meals every week, falling back on old favorites—stopped challenging myself.  When my Green Bean Delivery arrives, sometimes I just make a salad and steam some vegetables; I don’t even take the time to look up a recipe.  I don’t even bother mixing up any salad dressing even though I have the ingredients for it and know how to from memory; I just splash a little balsamic over the lettuce and heirloom tomatoes.   

It’s been long enough. 

I think it’s time to bring the passion back into my life.

Time to relight the fire.

Balls.

Hello everyone. 

            Today I’d like to talk about balls.

            That’s right, this week it’s all about balls.

            Balls of all shapes, sizes, textures, and consistencies.  Come along; we’re going on a journey together.  Bring beers.   

The Bridge

“The next time a guy wants to date you, you should bring him here.  If he can’t navigate this menu, it’s a clear sign he’s not right for you.”

“Excuse me?  The next time a guy wants to date me, he’ll be the one bringing me here, not the other way around.  Cuz those days are long gone.” 

“You know what I meant; this cheese page is a good test to see whether or not someone can keep up with you food-wise.  And I know that’s important to you.”

He’s right, as he usually is.  Hence the reason I call him my Spirit Guide.  I can’t quite manage to bite back my retort, but I quietly mutter it under my breath.  We are in our fancy goin’-out clothes, after all—I have to at least try show a little class—because despite what you’ve heard, this knife-wielding tomboy cleans up pretty well and rocks a maxi dress like it’s nobody’s business. 

Sam ignores my comment although he hears every syllable, says instead, “If I’m not mistaken, I am a boy and you are a girl, and aren’t you taking me out at this very moment, or did I read your email wrong?”

“This is different.  We’re friends.  And it’s your birthday.”  His forty-first birthday, to be exact, though you’d never know it to look at him. 

Ivan

I’m fortunate enough to have a job that provides me with amazing health insurance that covers things like the surgery I talked about in my last post, so I don’t have so much to worry about.  (Obviously everything went just fine; the doc said that once she got in there, it did turn out to be worse than she expected—severe rather than moderate dysplasia—but they got it all out and I’m good to go.)

Not everyone is so fortunate.

            My friend Ivan is an amazing individual who has fought a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis, and is still fighting it.  After his insurance company determined that his MS was not a “pre-existing condition,” they changed their minds and took back the several thousand dollars they had already paid the hospital for his treatments.  This . . . didn’t go over well with the hospital, and now they’re looking for Ivan to foot the bill.

The Butcher's Apprentice Goes under the Knife

What made you think you were different from any other hunk of meat?

Opposable thumbs?  A heartbeat?  Bipedalism?

You’re nothing but an upright carcass, honey.  They can slit you open just as easily as anything with hooves.  

They tell me I’ll bleed a lot.

Things that are alive typically bleed a lot when they’re cut.

Although, depending on the method of slaughter, things can still bleed a lot after they’re dead.  For example, in Tanzania, the Masai tribe kills goats by asphyxiation, so that they can drink the blood warm from the carcass. 

They say I’ll bleed a lot.  

I’m 29 in a week and I just wrote my first Death List.

Death List, not a Kill List; I’m not Beatrix Kiddo.  You know, that little piece of yellow paper that you give your mom, listing everyone you want her to notify, ya know, “just in case” something goes wrong. 

I didn’t originally plan on writing about this; it’s far too personal I think.  But come on, the irony is just too good to pass up.  Someone cuttin’ on the butcher?  Too good. 

Butcher This, Filet That

I should be at work, but instead I’m pretending to peruse the “Local Brews” section of the liquor department for the seventh time.

            Cory convinced me this would be good for me—maybe a chance to network with real butchers—but he couldn’t come because he’s out of town at a barbecue competition.  Seems like he’s competing somewhere almost every other week.

            It feels like ages since I’ve been behind the block.  The last real butchering I did was in Ste. Gen with Eli.  The opening of Foster’s restaurant keeps getting pushed back, and I don’t want to bother him because I know he’s really busy with that.  The last time I talked to him he said May first; I just read on interview he gave for St. Louis Magazine’ June issue, which didn’t have an opening date.  He posted a picture on Facebook of a shiny new tabletop bone saw and Dick Machine and I about crapped my pants.  No more dull hand saw!  
            And between two vacations, Mother’s Day, a head cold, and the start of summer—which means weekends fishing and/or camping out of town (signing up for that Sunday morning outdoor soccer league was a huge mistake)—I’ve seen very little of the shop.

            I feel stagnant.

I need to branch out.

So here I am.

La Aprendiz del Carnicero

I have always belonged to the ocean, and the moon.  Two entities forever locked in a love affair—a constant push and pull, back and forth—and like an anchor, my adulation for them has always been rooted inside of me.  They can’t form words, yet their existences are inexorably linked for all of time; something outside of them draws them back to each other again and again.

As I sit back in the sand and listen to the crashing waves, I allow the sound to enter me; to become my breath and my heartbeat, the pulsing of blood in my veins.  There is a gentleness in the way the tide washes over the shore, but there is violence crashing far across the bounding main.  Watching the silver glint on the roiling black sea, I know that this is the most I could ask for out of life:  the moon and the stars, the salt on the air, the surf and the sand.   

Food Preview

The Best of the Wurst

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen . . . welcome to . . . the wiener fest. 

That’s right . . . because this blog doesn’t have enough dick jokes.

This . . . is The Best of the Wurst:  annual sausage festival in Hermann, Missouri.  Meat shops from all over Missouri and Illinois show off all the different kinds of sausage they make; you try, you buy; and of course, there’s a competition to see whose wurst is best.  Six bucks for all the wieners you want to taste in your mouth; eleven vendors; two-hundred twenty-three different varieties.  More meat than the average person can handle.  In the mouth.

Really had you guys goin’ there, with all that “on a break from meat” stuff, didn’t I?           

Where's the F@#$%&g Meat?!?!

This is a delicious marinated vegetable salad dressed with olive oil, white wine vinegar, Italian seasonings, Dijon mustard, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper.  No cooking necessary!  It’s great to serve as a side dish at an afternoon barbecue, but doesn’t keep well, so it works best if you have a large group of people who can eat it all at once.  I however don’t have that luxury; this has been my lunch for the past week. 

The . . . Baker's Apprentice?

A woman who is very special to me recently celebrated her 70th birthday, and I wanted to give her a very special present.  I consider her my surrogate grandmother, but don’t ever tell her that—her grandbabies are all toddlers, not pushing 30—she considers herself my surrogate mom.  We used to work together (she is now retired), we are in the same yoga class and Bunco group, and I helped her cross off three items from her Bucket List:  first tattoo (she got a teddy bear wearing a pink bowtie on her ankle), first ride on a Harley (of course), and first hot air balloon ride.  She was there for me when my grandma passed away, and I was there for her when her sister-in-law (and fellow Bunco player) passed. 

Since I can’t knit her a scarf or sew her a quilt, I made her food.  That’s my craft; that’s my skill; that’s the only thing I know how to create.  Plus, giving a perishable gift means that she won’t have just another piece of crap lying around her house that she had to make space for.  She is already the knick knack queen; the last thing she needs is . . . well, more things.  I don’t get to bake much—I’m not much of a sweets person and eating dessert isn’t helpful when I need to be in goalkeeper “beast mode”—it’s something I’m good at but would like to be better at, so I made homemade truffles. 

How We Do Irish

I love the drive through my neighborhood Saturday mornings on my way to the shop.  Everything is still quiet, just waking up.  A few of the businesses are open but empty; the bar lights are on, but there is no one serving.  Well-dressed church stragglers scramble across the street to mass, perhaps for a wedding or baptism. 

            Today is not one of those days.

            Today is St. Patrick’s Day, which is bigger than Christmas for residents of Dogtown.  The neighborhood has been chaos since Friday afternoon.  The shamrocks painted on the roads have received a fresh coat of green; the banners on every lamppost that have tattered and torn over the last year have been replaced; Johnny on the Spots have materialized at every corner; dumpsters large enough to park a tow truck inside of have cropped up at random intersections, and I’m excited to see that this year they are artfully and brightly decorated instead of their usual forest green tinting.  Soon the clans will arrive, proudly flying their colors on the breeze; the dancers shall stomp; the pipes will wail their battle cries; and the streets shall run brown with the libation—nay, the lifeblood—of our homeland, that lush green country far across the sea.

Have Knives, Will Travel - Part III

DAY 3

Valentine’s Day.

I didn’t want to miss any of the cows today so I made Eli set his alarm extra early.  When it goes off, I mutter, “Five more minutes Mom . . .”

Eli gets out of his bed, stomps over to the futon where I lay, and whacks me in the head with a pillow. 

Happy fucking Valentine’s Day. 

Have Knives, Will Travel - Part II

DAY 2

 

There is nothing to kill the second day. 

The whole day is spent in the packing room, breaking down and packaging beef—no orders for pork to fill today—and of course, harassing and haranguing each other every chance we get.  I settle right in to wrapping; it’s hard for me not to gravitate to the grunt work, it’s what I’m used to.

Travis is older, wears cammo overalls (which I love), and works quietly.  He’s the kind of person I’d hang out with at one of my biker bars back home.  He is using their Dick Machine to stuff one-pound packages of hamburger.  (It’s not really a Dick Machine, but it has the same kind of nozzle, and in my mind I can’t help but identify it with our sausage stuffer.) 

Have Knives, Will Travel - Part I

It is Valentine’s Day.  I am standing in a pool of blood, a heavy pile warm viscera at my feet.  Sunlight struggles through a few grimy windows overhead; rusty metal doors creak on their hinges, nudged back and forth by the crisp late winter breeze.  The smell of farmland (read:  manure) is faint, yet constant, and somehow . . . comforting.  In this moment, I am right where I’m supposed to be. 

Teeth Bared, Knives Flashing

When my phone alarm buzzes Saturday morning, it reads, “Time to slice and dice.”  I have no trouble rising from my mattress.

I have a weakness for our beef jerky, and I’ve only had it hot out of the smoker.  I’m spoiled. 

As I spread the slices of marinated and tumbled eye of round out on a smoking rack, they look like the countries of Africa to me.  The process resembles fitting together the pieces of a puzzle; I try to get as much meat as possible per rack.  When they come out, they are left in a bucket to cool in the back room.  I keep sneaking pieces when no one is looking, happily munching while I scrub dishes.   

“I’m Back Baby”

Yes that is a Bender quote.  I took a bit of a hiatus there, but now I’m back.  I return to my sanctuary.  During my time away, my hands have healed, but my heart has been dealt another blow.  Suffice it to say that someone I loved very much (and still do, against my better judgment) loved someone else more.  Maybe I’ll write that story someday, but today is not that day.  This is, after all, the tale of the butcher shop girl, and not the tale of her epic failures in the realm of romance.  Besides, the story of the stupid girl who fell for the wrong boy?  That one’s old as the ages.

I’m taking it out on the physical labor; banging around more than necessary while hauling lugs of raw meat back and forth, scrubbing blood and fat from racks and pans, wielding the high-powered pressure washer to rinse cutting boards, filling the rag buckets with fresh water and bleach.