A (partially) hand made Christmas.

I live with a 10 & 5 year old. The past couple of Christmases have involved a lot of plastic, construction and batteries. 

Don't get me wrong - I'm not opposed to these things per se. I'm not drawing a line in the sand against 'consumerism', or suggesting I want to deny my kids in the cool toy of the year on some itchy-scratchy granola principle. I just have a little worry that the joy has a risk of being diluted in a shower of glitter, lights and gifts that are too quickly outgrown or broken down. 

I have always balked at tinsel, and found more joy in the ornaments my Bride made by hand out of desperation our first year in England, when we realized that we hadn't set our Christmas accoutrements aside for the packers back in California. Combine this with the covetous glances I've annually cast on the 'theme' trees in the local shops, and I made the grand statement that this year, we'd have a "Christmas made by hand!" 

When I heard the crazy that had just come out of my mouth I immediately tried to back away from this statement. 

"This year," I amended, "We'll have a Christmas with many things made by hand! And by many, I mean some. In this one room over here. Not the main room. Or the main tree. But a few. And it shall be awesome. "

My Bride nodded and pet me on the head. Which proves once again that she has the patience of a saint.

Some of the ideas I had were to look back at some of the ways our home might have been decorated some time ago. It's a 1739 colonial. I wasn't sure how ambitious I could get in the 3 weeks I had between making that statement and our Christmas party, but I figured I'd give it a go. 

By starting early, though, I did manage to work in a few things in time for the party. I made garland for the fireplace from walnuts and small wooden beads that I think turned out nicely. It took me about two bags of walnuts to figure out how to drill the hole without cracking the shell. And even then, I'd still lose about one in four. But hey! Garland! 

Boxwood and fir branches gathered and hung, and a few clementimes strategically scattered and it feels about right. 

Greenery from our yard has always made up a part of our decorations for the Christmas party. It's easy enough to gather in bunches to hang from the sconces and lighting, and it brings the scent and feel of the holidays in the house in a way that I particularly enjoy. 

It helps that in both this house and the last, the designers were apparent sconce-o-philiacs, providing 10 or 12 convenient places to mount our holiday swags around the first floor living area. 

Thanks, crazy designer!

For years I struggled with the right way to display the Christmas cards we received. It used to be easy to set them out on any flat surface, but then the postcard-photo-of-your-kids became a fad. And what do you do then? 

Last year I found a big box of old wooden clothespins. Hang a rope. Hook them on. And make merry with the cards, people. 

Also: more greens, and another random orange. Laura Ingles Wilder told me that oranges are Christmas-y. Go with it. 

Which probably explains why I sliced and dried a bunch of oranges to hang with red ribbon on the small tree in the dining room. Every year we end up with two trees. Originally, I got an 'extra', smaller tree and called it the 'family' tree, and the big tree was the 'formal' tree - the one with the presents.  This was code for "Sure, kids. We can hang your macaroni ornaments on that tree over there." 

Somehow I lost control of this, and they got swapped around. But they did leave the little tree up to me. Which is something. 

I rounded it off with the old Christmas paper cut-outs from that first Christmas in England I mentioned above, and a simple ribbon garland cut out of plain burlap. The star was made by tying some twiggy garden remnants together. 

(I also tried drying lemon slices to complement the orange slices that turned out so prettily. You know what happens when you try and dry lemon slices? They turn black. Which is not at all as Christmas-y as I hoped.)

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We let our Elf on the Shelf in on the fun as well. If you haven't experienced the joy of the Elf, it's a little figure that magically moves around your house into new places after the kids are asleep. He watches you all day, and then disappears off to the North Pole to report on your behavior at night, returning before you wake the next day. 

You are supposed to name your elf when he appears in your family. Many of our friends named their elf things like "Snowflake," or "Minty," or "Jingles." One friend reported that his kid named their elf "Dragon," because he likes dragons. 

Our kids named our elf "Barry James." Because our kids apparently have an instinct for a funky sort of groove. 

And who's to say that Santa doesn't need an elf capable of laying down a smooth bass line during the off season?

For years, we've been carrying on another of our favorite hand-made traditions. When my Bride was a little girl, her family would hide stacks of coins in all the corners of the house, and on New Year's eve, all the cousins would get together and tear through the house on a mad dash, filling their pockets with change, and scrambling over one another, laughing to find them all. This gave you a little extra cash in your pocket to start the new year on, and a few extra memories of laughter with your cousins. 

Our generation was a little slower to create a new crop of cousins, and we've always lived pretty far away from them to boot. So a few years ago, we gave this particular tradition our own twist. We decided to incorporate this as a part of our Christmas party, and make a special point of it with the kids of all the friends and neighbors we invite over. Each year, we make up dozens and dozens of these little crepe paper packages, filled with chocolate and real coins. This year, I think we had about 180 coin packs, expecting around 45 kids.  Before the party, I walk around the house, scattering them around the baseboards, in the corners and around the house. 

You can tell the kids that have been to our Christmas party before. They're the ones that walk in the house already scanning for the little packs of coins. They nod hello, go distractedly get a plate of food, and walk around the house mumbling to themselves as they spot new hiding places. 

About halfway through the party, we gather all the kids, warn the adults to stay towards the centers of the rooms, and countdown "3...2...1... go!"

Kids are everywhere underfoot. And in less than 10 minutes, they're piled around the coffee table or huddled in groups, counting their loot and munching on chocolate. 

Maybe it doesn't bring them the same kind of good fortune for the new year, but it provides us with plenty of laughs, and a welcome chance to share a little holiday tradition with our friends. 

We still used a lot of our standard ornaments - many of them have special memories because of where we got them, or because of what they represent. But we left a lot packed away as well, and I, at least, took a little more joy from the start of this season because everyone was involved in both coming up with and making the decorations, hanging them on the tree, or getting ready to invite so many of our friends and neighbors over to spend a little time before the holiday.  

And somehow, I think we started a new tradition or two this year worth keeping. 

Sometimes, living things are unpredictable

Today I got a call from the butcher. One of my pigs had two broken femurs. Which translates into two less prosciuttos I can make - the blood from the contusion settles into the muscle and doesn't drain, and the surrounding meat is unusable. 

 

I called the farmer. It's pretty clear that the pig didn't walk on or off the truck with two broken legs. The bones were more or less splintered. It didn't - couldn't - have moved far without complaining vociferously. It looked almost like the pig had tried to back out of the chute at the last minute and been pushed forward with a tractor or hit by a heavy gate. But the farmer had loaded them and unloaded them without an issue.  (and our farmer is a great guy - He's a dairy farmer, and deals with livestock every day. Not to mention he's my neighbor. His word is more than enough to satisfy on any front). So that wasn't it. 

 

So I called the slaughterhouse. And got an "Ah. Yeah."  

 

When pigs are slaughtered, they're led to the killing floor and stunned. They're then hoisted and drained by opening an artery. It's a fairly peaceful, low-stress way to go, which is humane for the animal, and better for the product. Right after the high electric shock that stuns them -  if they jerk or otherwise react, they can thrash about, preventing the rope which loops around their back legs and hoists them from getting set properly. And boom. In the worst of accidents: broken legs. 

 

No one wants to see this, least of all the slaughterhouse. It's unfortunate, and unpleasant for anyone involved but sometimes? Living things are unpredictable. As the saying goes: Livestock happens.

  

I get it, and I sympathize, but I also balked a bit at paying for unusable meat.  No one won here (least of all the pig), so I threw it on the table to see how the various parties would respond. 

 

The farmer knocked some out of his price. Which is painful for him, because the price of grain is up more than 20% this year.  But he and I have been doing business for years, and he knows I'll be back for more. 

 

The slaughterhouse knocked out their price for that pig, which is fair, but means they're eating into their own margin, since all the rest of their work was still done.

 

I'm paying a bit more per pound because I want to meet these guys part way. The butcher won't have to prep and bag the bad meat, so I will see some lesser amount net there as well. My overall cost per pound will be up a bit, but I feel good.

 

And I thought it worth sharing, because this situation underlined the value of knowing and dealing fairly with as many parts of your supply chain as you can. Not only was this a reality of dealing with the processing of livestock into food that we've kind of forgotten about or hidden away from our daily lives, this was also the kind of fair dealing and relationships that supported agro-business for most of history.

 

(In good news: the bacon parts are still totally edible. And the other pig was flawless.)

 

So: go find a farmer and give him a hug.  I'm feeling thankful. 

Fall traditions - father/daughter slaughterhouse day

It's that time of year. 

The time of year where I send a note into the school that gets added to the Grady children's "special file". 

'Dear teacher. It's the annual father/daughter slaughterhouse day.

This makes perfect sense in our world.

No intervention needed here. Move along." 

As I discovered the first time we did this, there are very few places you can have your livestock processed in Massachusetts. In fact, there's only one in the eastern half of the state. The fifth generation Blood Farm: a small family business that is kept busy mostly by hunters and smallhold farmers and specialty butchers. It's a beautiful place in its way, situated on the outskirts of Groton, MA with a history and rhythm seeped into the chill of the cold rooms and laughter of the crew working at a steady pace on whatever carcass is in front of them. 

Along with the pigs and beef quarters, we saw plenty of deer hanging (it being November) - one of the butchers said that last week someone brought in an 800 pound moose, and another guy brought in a small-ish bear from someplace in Maine.  

Seeing the processed carcasses hanging, waiting on the butcher's knife made us all kinds of happy. The Critter was pointing out the livers and other bits, and the different animals by their shape. She's been paying attention. Here she is trying to spot our pigs from the various carcasses in the cooler.  

So what's the cost of taking a pig to slaughter these days? 

One of our pigs was 230 pounds. The other 250. This is about average for our previous years. Good, healthy, year-old pigs (more or less. probably a little bit less than a year, actually). 

The cost of slaughter was $30 for the smaller, $35 for the latter.  There are additional transportation costs, and the cost of the animals themselves, of course, but the slaughter process itself was dirt cheap. Figure that the slaughter involves management of the live pig to the killing floor. The quick kill itself. Then draining, shaving, evisceration and bisecting (the pigs are always cut in half).  Probably only about 15-20 minutes of actual effort in a highly efficient operation, and a couple/three hours of overall calendar time. There's the cost of overhead: disposal of the extra bits, the staff, refrigeration, inspection readiness (Departments of Health or Agriculture are frequent visitors).

Once you pay the staff, there's not a whole lot of profit going on here. It's a labor of love as much as convenience.  And when you add all the costs, including butchering together, I'm still coming out a dollar or a bit more per pound cheaper than the cost of meat at the grocery store, all in. So I'm definitely ok with driving out there every year, to make sure they're still there the next year when I need them. 

(if you're a little bit squeamish, feel free to skip the next picture). 

Our favorite butcher, Mike Dulock, has moved a bit further away this past year. It's a about a 45 minute drive down various highways with two pink fleshy carcasses, wrapped in plastic in the bed of my truck. (I was tempted to let a trotter stick out over the edge, just to see if I'd get a wave from folks driving by, but I contained myself.)

Mike's new shop (follow him on Twitter - @craftbutcher) is fantastic. I like it better than his old place, despite the distance. It's in the city, so it doesn't have the luxury of space that his old suburban location had, but it's set up much more intimately, with the processing area viewable to the customer and passersby. It's much more European-Olde-Worlde, much less American-sterile. And the curiosity of seeing a whole animal expertly rendered into familar parts has always drawn me in - It's why I'm so non-plussed by the grocery store butcher.  And he's set it up to take best advantage of that, and really engage the customer with what they're eating, right from the time they buy it. 

This is what 'farm-to-table' is all about.

Mike's costs are a straight by-the-pound processing, and he and I spend a few minutes talking about what I want to do with the pigs. This year, that involves 3 prosciuttos (so three of the hams are allocated). All the belly will be desitined for pancetta (so no skin left on the belly), and I want plenty of back bacon of the English, non-streaky sort (which creeps down into the belly, making it a bit less wide). 

We're more a fan of roasts than chops, and always need plenty of trimming for sausage. This year's "special" new goal will be to make guanciale - I've got last year's cheeks set aside as well in the freezer, which should be fine. Otherwise, I told Mike and his lovely assistant Maureene to just 'cut it however the pig speaks to you'. By now, he's got enough experience with how we like our animals that I have complete faith in the end result. 

At the end of the day, the Critter and I headed home and fried up some onions and fresh sausage that Mike had on hand (different pigs). They were an English breakfast sausage style recipe, and I was thinking about having him make up a few pounds for me from our animals, to save me the trouble of casing them. (of all the parts I enjoy, that is not one of them). 

We ate our sausage with toast and a little spicy mustard, and sat in companionable silence at the counter, happy with our days effort. 

She left me a good morning message in the frost on my truck this morning. 

I think she still enjoys our outings.