"butcher" news and stories

• Lindy & Grundy are a couple of short ladies with sharp knives (and a sustainable butchering philosophy).
• Do you celebrate the Jewish holiday Tu Bishvat? It's a sweet one.
• You want to go out, you want good food, and you don't want to spend a ton. Lucky for you, you live in LA.
• Craving the Cuban dish pollo al colmao? Here you go.

The shift toward local, sustainable eating has gone beyond farmers markets, CSAs, and restaurant menus and into a bloodier realm: butcher shops. In search of meat with traceable origins, consumers are bypassing mega-market meat counters in favor of small butchers where local cuts are king.

"Our goal was to create a place where people can come and feel good about what they eat," Joshua Applestone told Slashfood, who started Fleisher's Grass-fed & Organic Meats in Kingston, NY, with his wife Jessica in 2004. Their philosophy is paying off -- literally. Fleisher's has been a smashing success, drawing national attention (Applestone has been in a number of food publications and recently appeared on Martha Stewart's television show) and securing some of New York City's biggest restaurants as customers. All of the shop's meat comes from family-run farms and slaughterhouses within 50 miles of their operation in Kingston. Applestone says they made that choice not just to support local agriculture, but also to minimize environmental impact. (Shipping meat cross-country requires extra packaging, refrigeration, and fuel to transport.)

At John's Custom Meats in Smiths Grove, Ky., Amy Sipes and her husband John Rediess make no secret of their pride in local cuts, and they want their customers to question where mass-produced cuts originate. "Ever Wonder Where Your Dinner Comes From?" asks the banner at the top of their website. The couple is somewhat unique in that they process all of their own cattle. And what they don't raise themselves, they buy locally.

Metzger in Steinbach, Germany. From Flickr user aniika.

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

Previously-- Midnight Sausage: Lima, Peru

Meat market in Lima, Peru. From Flickr user ravakhan2.

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

Previously-- Midnight Sausage: Saugus, MA

Lobel's of New York is a family business, owned and operated by brothers Leon and Stanley Lobel, and their sons Evan, Mark, and David, where everyone is a certifiable expert in meat. It is not surprising, therefore, that they all know how to cook everything from veal to chicken and how to match it with wine. After all, once you've eaten a lot of meat, it has to be washed down with something, right? Lobel's Meat and Wine: Great Recipes for Cooking and Pairing is not necessarily about pairing a dish with the one wine that will go with it, but about learning how to match foods - meats, specifically - with wines.

The first chapter of the book explains what types of wines are food-friendly and what it is about them that makes them work. It then goes on to introduce recipes and matches for beef, pork, veal, chicken, game, pork and organ meats. The only complaint that a wine-lover could have about this crash course is that it focuses quite heavily on French and Italian wines, with only a sprinkling of those from other regions. Of course, this criticism is easily smoothed by the fact that the knowledge contained in the book will better enable you to match wines from California or New Zealand, as well as from Burgundy.

If you want to brush up on your meat knowledge before you read the book, take a look at the Guide to Meat that is on the Lobels' website.

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