CrossRoads Farm

My Weight in Ground Beef

10 November, 2004 - 8:44 am

Yesterday I bought “a-half-a-beef.” I’d spoken to farmer just up the road a couple weeks ago. He reserved one half one the last cow he would butcher this season. D and I talked to Nellie and Curt and we decided to split the half between us. Then the farmer gave me the number of the guy that does the processing, he lives just up the road in the other direction. Joe and I made an appointment for processing. My half cow was hanging in a cooler at a farm in a neighboring town and the guy that owned that farm had all the equipment you need to process meat. So I arranged a babysitter and yesterday I went to get our cow.

Nellie was watching the kids here and just before I left I turned to her and said, ‘Does this sound dumb to you? I’m going out to a farm in the middle of nowhere to meet at least one man I’ve never met.”

”Take my cell phone….just in case.” I told her where I would be and off I went. The going was slow because it was snowing yesterday. It was terribly slick yesterday morning when I almost ended up in a ditch near Tom’s house on the way to class. That had scared me pretty well so I was going even slower than I probably had to.

The LB Farm is a beautiful spread up in the hills. There’s a big white farmhouse and a long garage with several stalls for farm equipment. A huge cattle barn and a couple other small buildings make up quite a complex. I parked at the foot of the driveway, out of the way, and got out. There was no one around so I headed towards the house. This kind of thing is still new to me. Just walking up to the farmhouse and asking for folks. D and I can’t get to that mental place where we can just stop at a farm and buy eggs or maple syrup. We’re still to ‘citified’ for that. I was just hoping I’d see someone out in the yard before I got to the door. Just then I saw a man come around the corner of the house carrying a few lengths of stove wood in his arms. “Hey, there,” I said, “I’m looking for Joe.”

”Well, I guess you found him. You must be kc. Thought we might want a fire, it is something cold today.” He spoke in that sing song Yankee accent I love so much. I imagine I’ll have that accent one day. When I’m an old bat living on a small farm in the back woods.

He led me into a small building in the middle of the complex of buildings. Just inside the door was the woodstove, to my right was the cooler door – the cooler made up most of the footprint of the building and the workspace makes an ‘L” shape around it. Beyond the woodstove was an electric meat saw. It looked like a version of D’s band saw. Then there was a counter for cutting. And in the far end of the “L” was a table with a roll of lime green freezer paper, some tape ad a couple Sharpie pens.

There on the cutting table was a piece of meat easily as big as I am. “Wow.” I said, “that must be my beef.”
“Quite a critter ain’t he? Actually that’s a quarter. The rest of him’s in the cooler.”

I told him how I wanted it cut and of course I was on hand to ask questions the whole time. I had it trimmed just the way I wanted it. And when he was done cutting the first bunch of steaks – a whole pile of porterhouse and T-bones – Joe got me to work wrapping. And of course I wrapped it the way that would be easiest to separate and store when we got it home. I took soup bones and suet for the birds. You pay for the beef’s ‘hanging weight.’ In other words, after slaughter but before being cut. Anything thrown away is loss. So I figured I may as well take the suet – which is just fat. And the big bones for soup. It took us nearly four hours.

Joe and I chatted on and off about the weather and good food and rural living and the like. He has a grandson in H’s class at school, and I have met his daughter. No surprise there. At one point I mentioned to Joe how I still feel uncomfortable just coming into someone’s dooryard because you just don’t do that in the city where I grew up. He stopped what he was doing for a moment and said, “You’re not from around here?”
I said that no I wasn’t and he just made a face that said he was pretty surprised but he left it at that.

When all was said and done the back of my car was full of beef at about $1.95 per pound. T-bones, tenderloin, porterhouse, the whole bit. Heck that’s even a good price for ground beef. Not to mention it has no antibiotics or growth hormones and it was grass fed. Not certified organic but damn close. Nellie and I divided it here on my kitchen floor. She got a cut to order roast and we got some extra ribs. Everything else got divided equal except for one thing. My prize for being the one who had to wrap it all……

Joe was cutting away and said, “You know what sweetbreads are?”
”That’s the thymus gland of a cow isn’t it?” I said as I walked over to see what he was doing.
”Yep, that’s this right here. And he set what looks almost like a glob of fat the size of my hand on the table. “You take this and fry it in a little butter and it taste almost like scallops. Goood stuff. Very rich.” I started wrapping it up. “Ok, it tastes good but what is the texture like?”
’Well, if you’ve never eaten them before they take a little getting used to.”
“Right. This will be all mine then.” Later when Nellie and I were going through the stuff she found the package of sweetbreads. I explained it to her and she said, “No, no, you keep that.”

Oh and the rib eye we had for dinner last night was fantastic…..

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