This will be brief since I'm saving the details for part of a larger piece I need to write, but this Saturday, I bought meat from the back of a van in a random Central Square parking lot. Sounds pretty sketchy, doesn't it?
JJ Gonson (Cuisine En Locale) teams up with Stillman's at the Turkey Farm to bring wonderful local meat to hungry local carnivores a couple times a month throughout the winter. (Stillman's also has a meat CSA program, but Meat Meets are a bit more random, last minute, and non-membership-requiring.)
Ah, the wonders of Twitter. I'm grudgingly accepting that it has some good qualities. I wouldn't have known about the Meat Meet had JJ not tweeted about it earlier that day, and I happened to be a very quick T ride away from the random parking lot, so I figured I'd go for an adventure.
I arrived at the parking lot a few minutes early and spotted the Stillman's van, but I didn't see anyone taking meat from it, so I stood awkwardly in the parking lot until some other people showed up. Then, out came the coolers of meat - lamb chops, ribs, pork butt, chicken, even pigs' legs. While the other customers seemed to be stocking up for many meals, I figured I'd just try something small since I was new to this strange buying experience. I got four lamb chops for $13. (I've actually never bought lamb before - how does this price compare to lamb chops at the supermarket? Feel free to leave a comment!)
I quickly headed back to my dining companion's apartment in nearby Porter Square, and we let the lamb defrost while we prepared a rosemary garlic paste for the chops (recommended by JJ.) Ok, that "we" in the previous sentence is a lie. He did all the work while I studied for an exam. Anyway, the end result was delicious - see the slideshow below for some photos. (To see captions, expand the slideshow to full size by clicking on the button with the four diagonal arrows (bottom right hand corner of the slideshow) and then click "Show Info" in the upper right corner.)
Check out JJ's blog for more info on Meat Meets.
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