Let them Eat Filet

The masses are clambering for filet mignon and my hands glisten with bacon fat.

            “Welcome to Burt and Grace’s meat shop:  the only place in town with one meat cutter on Memorial Day weekend,” Tommy gripes.

            “Hey,” I say indignantly, “don’t I count for something?”

            Tommy says nothing.

            “Don’t I count for . . . half of something?”

Tommy pretends not to hear me as he goes to help a customer.

It’s almost noon and I’m still waking up.  I . . . may have stayed out a bit too late last night riding motorcycles with a group of friends.  But I’m riding confidently these days.  A mutual trust has formed between my bike and I:  first, that I can control her and make her do what I want her to do; no longer am I afraid of her power or her weight.  And second, that she will hold up her end of the bargain and perform as I need her to—she will . . . take care of me, so to speak (as long as I keep gas in the tank . . . it’s a long walk up a steep hill to the nearest gas station from my house—don’t ask me how I know that). 

The moment of clarity came when a friend described riding to me as simple muscle memory.  Muscle memory.  That I understand.  As an athlete, I understand repetition of drills over, and over, and over, until I could do them in my sleep.  Muscle memory is an instinctual thing—primal, animalistic—when the mind shifts from the forefront and the body takes over.  Which is good, because there are a million things your mind needs to focus on while riding, aside from the basic mechanics of brake/clutch/shift/throttle/steer/balance/etc. 

Butchering is no different; all it takes to break down a beef rib primal is a bone saw, a strong stomach, and muscle memory.  Every animal breaks down in pretty much the same way . . . the concept of making meat pretty is quite simple:  cut off all the ugly stuff.  Of course, having sharp knives helps; it always helps to have tools you trust.  Know how to keep your knives sharp?  Sharpen them!  Every single time you use them.  And don’t ever hit them against metal. 

I might not be the quickest meat cutter in the city—it takes me as much time to trim one tenderloin as it takes Tommy, Cory, or Burt to do three—but damn if my filets aren’t gorgeous. 

 

“If you weren’t here, Tommy and I would still be trimming filets!”  At least Grace is glad I’m here.

“Where’s Cory?  What’s he up to?” Tommy asks me.  “I haven’t seen him since that day you guys cut out early to go drinking and watch him on TV.”

“Working.  He’s working at all three locations now, so he doesn’t have a day off.”  That might not be . . . entirely true; he does have one day off . . . but maybe he doesn’t want to spend it working, so I will say no more than that.  When I came by earlier in the week, Grace asked me the same question—said she couldn’t get hold of him.  If he’s not answering her calls, he probably has a good reason, and it’s not my place to speculate.  All I know is, the restaurant is doing really well, he’s overseeing the pit at three different locations, and there are rumors of a fourth one opening up in the future. 

“Where’s Max?” I ask Tommy.

“Max doesn’t work here anymore.”  He got a full-time job landscaping.

Grace hangs up the phone.  “Cory’s coming by for a minute to do something with the bone saw.”

I guess they’ll get answers to their questions after all. 

Cory swoops me up into big bear hug, then shows me—for the second time—the tattoo he got while competing at Memphis in May (they took third in poultry and were in the top ten for chicken wings).  He needs the bone saw to square off some spare ribs he’s using in a competition today. 

“Where is there a barbecue competition today?”

“In Chesterfield, at Bluesweek.”
            Oh yeah, the Bluesweek Festival:  just one of several awesome festivals that used to take place in a shady plaza downtown, but have now moved to a barren parking lot just far enough west of the city to be out of reach for those who rely on MetroLink transportation.  Draw your own conclusions. 

I observe as Cory stands at the far end of the bone saw and precisely shears a diagonal section off each rack, using just his hands and eyes for measurement.  Everything must be perfectly square for the judges.

We wish him luck, and he is gone as quickly as he arrived.   

When Tommy likes a customer, he’ll grab a full primal from the cooler and cut them fresh steaks, rather than use the ones already sitting in the case.  There’s nothing wrong with the steaks in the case, he just does that to make people feel special.  However, he has the bad habit of cutting a few steaks from the middle of a primal, and then leaving the end parts sitting on the cutting board while he goes to help the next person.  For the most part, I can usually identify them and return them to their spots in the cooler . . . but today is simply too hectic and the meat has just been piling up, so I have to ask him what this is and what that is and what is happening with this weird hunk here? 

The ends of a primal are called “face pieces,” because they face out (Clever, huh?).  They’re not symmetrical, and often have nodules of cartilage in their centers that we can’t cut out without completely mutilating the steak’s form.  It’s a cosmetic issue:  they simply aren’t “pretty” enough for the case—customers will not choose them.  So when I ask Tommy about the heap on the cutting board, he tells me to wrap up the ribeye face pieces or they’ll go to the grind.  Five times I ask him this, and five times he throws a fat ribeye at me.  I see steak tacos in my future. 

Around 3pm, I inhale three chicken wings, in front of a customer, and talk with my mouth full, because it’s the only thing I’ve eaten all day and I just don’t give a crap anymore.  I’m all out of coffee.  Time for a soda.  I open the door to the cooler to find Burt standing within, and I let out a long sigh.

He laughs, “Hey, you wanted to be a meat cutter.”

And I still do.  “I get more fulfillment out of a busy day here than I do at my day job.  At the end of the day there, I have nothing to show for it.”  Nicole’s daughter Jill is working the register for us today, and she can’t believe that I work in a cubicle farm for a living; she thought I worked at another shop somewhere during the week. 

“I can not picture you working at a desk all day, doing insurance stuff!”   

As the day winds down, we start to shut everything down, but the stream of customers doesn’t slow down, because no one turns off the “Open” sign.  Burt is cleaning the bone saw when a customer asks for 4 bone-in pork chops to be cut.  He sighs and mutters under his breath.  I’d do it myself, if I knew what I was doing.  Burt ran through it with me, once, quickly.

Tommy calls to me from the little hallway between the front of the shop and the back.  “Come here.”  He walks into the cooler and closes the door behind him.

I enter the cooler to find him smoking a cigarette, flanked by massive hunks of raw meat.  He spins around and faces me.

“Here,” he holds out a wad of cash, “this is from me and Grace; thanks for all your help today.”

“Thank you, Tommy.”

“You got everything you need?”

“You gave me five ribeyes; I think that’ll be plenty.”

“Take some jerky.”

Okay boss.  We say farewell and he goes home for the day. 

As I untie my apron and gather my things to leave, Burt asks me if I got paid yet. 

“Yeah Tommy gave me some cash.”

“I don’t know why he insisted on giving it to you.”

I smile, “Aw, I thought it was cute.  He wants me to think it’s really him that’s paying me.”

“Well thanks for coming in today; don’t know how we’d have done without you.”

It’s nice to feel needed.  It’s been a long hard day, and I’m exhausted; my feet hurt, my back hurts, there’s blood on my shins and my shoes.  I’m ready for a beer (or six), and a big salad.  After seeing meat and smelling meat and touching meat all day . . . I’m really craving something green.  

 

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