Meat Run

On Saturday, hours before the torrents that afflicted us later in the day, we went upstate to pick up a new order of pork, beef, and eggs at the Lowland Farm. I would have picked up some chicken too had I thought there would be room in our freezer. Rib steaks, London Broil, ground beef, hot dogs, and beef shins for us as well as more pork hocks, ground pork, boneless shoulder, tenderloin, bacon, and cured cheek. I love the cheek, I put it in anything. At first we thought the bacon was too salty, but that was only because we weren't eating bacon at all. Now we eat bacon once a week. The hocks make a wonderful, if unconventional osso buco. And to try, I added a cured ham steak (eegads!) and cured hock. We've already eaten the London Broil and rib steaks, both with flavors unknown to me until now -sweet and mellow.

My decision to eat only humanely-raised meat has been good for me and my diet. The expense had led me to believe I would eat less, but so far I have not seen that happen. Buying a lot of meat at once not only saves us money, it alleviates some of the sticker shock of individual cuts of local meat at the farmers' market. My eating habits have changed since late January and there have been improvements in the way I feel and some weight loss. We've been eating many more salads for lunch, so I'm glad that our lettuce is coming into its own now at the beach farm. Most improvements I have felt stem from cutting out the crap I would eat for lunch or dinner because I didn't plan properly for eating lunch or dinner! At school this means no more chicken and rice from the cart right outside the front door. For dinner this means no more take out chinese/pizza/something else. I've also reduced my pasta intake -understand how difficult this is for an Italian American! When my ridiculous supply of dried pasta is gone (and it soon will be), I will only purchase high quality local pasta to eat occasionally. Of course, I've cut out soda (except tonic) and hardly touch beer. I avoid juice too, but we have yogurt and frozen fruit smoothies on many summer mornings. My goal is to lose twenty pounds by August, a goal somewhat set by my surgeon who refused to fix a hernia I happen to find myself with until I lose at least twenty pounds. I have not been weighed, but based on the pant waist scale, I've already lost about ten. The ultimate goal, a goal which will require much more than I have already done in terms of exercise and eating, is to lose forty pounds.