Well, the largest day for retail meat has come and gone, and mine was just fine, thanks for asking. My shop didn't move many cases of birds this year, but I'm not all that concerned. Turkeys are generally a loss leader, so I tried really hard to push my ham and beef roast sales.

Last night my in laws came into town to stay with us, so I made a pot of beef bourgeonon that simmered while I cleaned and waited for them. This morning I cooked AB's Sweet Potato Waffles. My family is definitly a tradional type. We always have a late-lunch meal, with turkey (hen's only. If more turkey is needed we'll buy a second breast or a second hen), my mom's savory, sage-y bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, Waldorf Salad, a scalloped corn pudding, pumpkin pie, etc. Lots of wine (Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc was a tasty, budget friendly Chilean wine served).

This is how I spent my lunch hour. This lady has been bugging yours truely for several weeks to buy one of her buck kids. Finally she just asked me to take him of her hands. 65lbs. lLive yeilded ~35 dressed. It would have been more if i had kept more offall, but I only kept the liver. It was so bitterly cold that I didn't want to sort through everything. The lady's dog got a nice treat.

This is the "easy" way to price turkeys according to my supervisor. Y'know, instead of just slapping a price tag on them, he decided to write the approximate weight (which required him putting them on the scales anyway) and then confuse the hell out of the customers by coming up with this bizarre sign.

I, for the life of me, couldn't figure out why he would want to do this. I finally asked him, and he told me that otherwise, they would have to be reweighed when the sale price changed. Yeah. EVERY store has to do this EVERY year. It's not that big of an inconvenience. Not to mention that we sell maybe 50 birds total at this small country grocery store (I've sold literally ten or more PALLETS of turkeys at my previous, busier stores).

Today was pretty cool though. I didn't have a lot to do when I came in, but did an update count on my turkeys sold. We sell few enough that it's better just to do it by hand and save it so we can trend sales. The last four years are all pretty steady, and I'm right on pace to match. Then, the high school home economics class came in with their teacher. They were making fried chicken, and bought 4 whole fryer chickens. I asked the teacher if she wanted me to break it down into fryer pieces. She seemed relieved, but then decided I should show the class how it was done. Kinda cool to have the kids around the table, showing how to bone a chicken.

Then I found busy work. I was sharpening knives towards the end of the day. This is what I did to myself.

A classic makes a glorious return

I thought I would do a photo-montage of how to bone a pork butt:





First, place the butt with the aitch bone facing away from you. 

There should be a pin bone on the right side.  Above:  top

arrow shows the aitch bone, bottom arrows shows the pin bone.





Next, cut a line from the top right of the aitch bone down to the pin bone, following the curve of the shoulder blade.






Here's the entire top of the bone exposed.  Run the tip of your

knife down the bottom edge of this triangle, just enough to go under

the bone.  Follow the bottom of this bone with the knife, until

you can flip the bone away from the butt.







Here we've flipped the butt.  We've pulled the bone away from the

butt.  We need only to follow the aitch, and sever the connection

at the very top of the bone.


 




Here's the top of the bone, after running the knife around the inside of the aitch. 






and we're done.  fold back the shoulder muscle into the butt and

either net, tie with butcher's twine, or slice steaks off of it,

working from the opposite end.