When
the pit master of the best barbecue joint in St. Louis asks you if you want a
random hunk of lamb meat, the answer is
yes.
The shop gets in legs of lamb around
Easter—it’s the only time they have enough demand to justify carrying it. They have frozen ground lamb year-round, but
fresh cuts aren’t really flying off the shelves in Brentwood; you have to
frequent the more ethnic areas of the city if you’re looking for lamb stew meat
in the middle of July.
“What’re you doing here?” Tommy
asks.
“She’s here to see me,” Cory
answers. He’s mostly right. I need jerky for a birthday party I’m
attending tonight, and purposely waited all week till I knew Cory would be
working so I could say hi.
He’s
boning out a leg of lamb. He separates the
femur bone from the pelvis, and holds out what is left of the pelvis. “You want this?”
“Is
that even a question?? I course I want it!”
Luke
Johnson is hovering behind Cory. He
pokes his head around, scrunches his nose up in distaste and asks, “What’re you
gonna do with that?”
“Throw
it in a crock pot with some delicious sauce and cook it low and slow till the
meat falls off the bone.” Duh college
boy. Your parents own a meat shop and
you don’t know what to do with a random hunk of bone-in meat?
Cory
points at me with his knife and says, “Yes.” And that small amount of approval means more
to me than he knows. I wrap the lamb in
plastic wrap and white butcher paper to take home.
