Beef Eaters

Bjorn's parents are very even in their parenting. Even, perhaps most obviously, in what they give to their children. I have never known such even parents. My parents were (are?) not that even. Roscivs' parents were definitely not even even.
   What is it that makes his parents so even? I conjecture. It's that they are Ts, not Fs. It's that they have two children and not five. It's that they have one of each sex. It's that one of them suffered unfairness with a sibling.
   It's my perception. Moreover, it is the perception of both children that their parents are fair!!

In all this this fairness, we have gotten ourselves a mighty chest freezer. His parents bought a stand-alone freezer for Em and En when they got a house, and so when we bought our house they offered to buy one for us. They didn't shop for it: "Pick the freezer you want", they said. So we did. We picked the grandaddy of all freezers. (The geezer freezer?) This is a freezer that will hold approximately 25 cubic feet of chopped up bodies.

This was on our long list (as opposed to our short list) of reasons to get a house: we could have a freezer. (We didn't know, before we moved, that his parents would buy us a freezer. That they'd bought one for Em and En was information retrieved only from the fairness.xls file in his parents' minds.) In this our dream scenario, we would buy "locker meat", which is to say, buy an animal by the quarter, half, or whole directly from a local, sustainable-scale rancher/farmer/grower/herder.

Being busy with other things, we did not get a freezer right away. November and December passed freezerless. Then Bjorn spent much of January organizing the garage to be ready for it. It was partly because I was pregnant, and it had been suggested that I really should have a freezer in order for it to be stocked by my mother and sister-in-law for meals to eat in the first month after birth.
   And so the space was made, the husband fabulous, the freezer acquired and (not long after the miscarriage) delivered.

The majority of small-scale slaughters happen in the fall, I thought, so we didn't know when we would be able to get any meat to fill our behemoth freezer. I started making inquiries early — now — to get on wait lists.
   In a piece of luck, we got an opportunity to buy cow from our second-choice cow folk. (Our first choice is doing "herd maintenance" this year and won't have any available animals for at least another season.) w00t!
   This is very exciting for us.
   We bought a cow, a whole cow! The term that our cow-seller uses is "a whole beef". I thought that "a whole beef" sounded weird. It sounded more like the other kind of beef. It sounded inappropriately countable. Now I'm used to it.
   We had a deadline if we were to make the midwinter slaughter (today). I agonized over the butcher/cutting order. I called the butcher. How was I to make sure I got my oxtail?! There was nothing on the order form about it. What about the skirt steak? Should I get the top of the top round cubed and the bottom of the top round in fajita meat? Yes I want the brisket cut but no I don't know how! I was overly whelmed. I made the order. Bjorn posted it, with our deposit.
   The price/pound is $3.80 (that includes the wrapping fee). That's a little more than half what we pay for ground beef at the co-op. Estimating we eat 300 lb of beef a year, this will be at least $1,000/year in savings. This is a happy animal. Born on the same farm where it died, never stressed by travel and filled up with stress hormones; weaned in contact with its mother; loved; named; fed on pasture.
   In a couple of weeks (like any respectable outfit the dry aging lasts a fortnight), the cow will come home.