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.