Month: December 2018

2018-12-31 12.33.08

Family Lore, Memories and a Wiki by Brad Brad (ramblinggit.com)

I have a project I’ve been thinking about, off and on for about 9 months: I want to write down what I can remember of my family lore and also my own family memories from my youth. Stories told to me by family members about themselves or other family members. Stuff I was a part of.

I was thinking about this very topic the other day. I was born and raised in the British West Indies and immigrated to the USA in 1986 for college but become a naturalized US citizen in 1993.

I learned much about my family from the stories my mother, aunts, uncles, and grandparents told me. Many of these people are long gone and I feel disappointed that I did not do this with my kids. In my defence, living in New Jersey, I did not have the support of having family members (or photographs) who could help me pass along family history to my American children. Perhaps it's not too late.

The Web We Have to Save

An old post (discovered via Zsolt Benke website feed) by Hossein Derakhshan who spent 6 years in prison (2008-2014) over blogging in Iran. He returns a world overrun by social media.

Being watched is something we all eventually have to get used to and live with and, sadly, it has nothing to do with the country of our residence. Ironically enough, states that cooperate with Facebook and Twitter know much more about their citizens than those, like Iran, where the state has a tight grip on the Internet but does not have legal access to social media companies.

What is more frightening than being merely watched, though, is being controlled. When Facebook can know us better than our parents with only 150 likes, and better than our spouses with 300 likes, the world appears quite predictable, both for governments and for businesses. And predictability means control.

Cow Party?

Spoils from a cow party (BoffoSocko)

A few months back, I got roped into joining in on a co-op purchase of a whole cow that was estimated to come in at around 600 pounds. It was grass fed, organically raised, and was to be humanely butchered, packaged, and frozen. I made an initial $200 deposit, and this morning I paid the $290.50 balance at what was billed as a "Cow Party". Thirteen of the "partners" got together at 11:30am to draw lots to form a line to take turns choosing individual cuts from the cow. Though it was just one entire cow, the butcher threw in some additional tongues, testicles, and other additional offal for us to select from as well. Here's what was included in my 18 turns: 1.2 lb New York steak, bone in 1.0 lb New York steak, bone in 1.2 New York steak, bone in 1.4 lb Ribeye, bone in 0.5 lb top sirloin steak 0.5 lb top sirloin steak 2.4 lb bottom round roast 2.5 lb beef tritip large 0.4 lb top sirloin steak 1.9 lb beef short ribs 1.1 lb stew beef 1.1 lb stew beef 1.1 lb stew beef 1.2 lb beef cheek 1.4

Chris, I only occasionally (a few times a year) ate beef when I was growing up in the West Indies. Small mountainous volcanic islands don't have the flat land and resources to raise cattle. I ate chiefly fish, chicken, goat and lamb and the fish were almost invariably freshly caught that day. The chicken was always purchased frozen and was imported.

My wife is a vegetarian. The kids and I are not but we infrequently eat beef outside of the weekend summer burger. And in recent years not even that. My son won't touch beef so we've switched to turkey burgers from the local poultry farm.

How are you doing to eat that much beef that quickly? How will you prevent freezer burn? Looking forward to seeing your recipes.