Baa

For Christmas I bought my husband a dozen pairs of socks, and he bought me a bread knife. Essentially, we both received what we wanted and were happy. This week, he bought me a Hoover Steam Cleaner and large quantities of meat. I'd better explain that last part.

We were in Mediterranean Foods in Omaha buying spices when my husband noticed a large bag of goat meat in the freezer case. I've never cooked goat. I don't know anyone that has cooked goat. I'm now the proud owner of five pounds of goat meat. You'd think that five pounds of meat your wife has no clue how to cook would have been enough, but it's the holidays and well, my husband is generous. My freezer now also contains a rather large leg of mutton. I heard him talking to the shopkeeper and even though he was calling it "lamb" I knew as soon as the discussion turned to "It doesn't smell like it usually does, this is good lamb" that he was talking sheep. That's OK; in fact mutton is hard to find these days so I was really pretty happy to know it was available. Granted, that's a whole lot of mutton, but I can put it to use in potpies, stews, soups and other freezable meals. Maybe I'll just have "mutton day" and do all the cooking at once. Anyone want to come over? (The shopkeeper says it doesn't smell). I'm sure somewhere my grandmother is rolling in the grave that we paid six bucks a pound for mutton (that used to be the cheap stuff) but it is quite a bit of food.

So that was yesterday. Today, I sent him out on a very simple errand to refill the water bottles (we can't drink our well water-actually, we could, the water is safe, but it tastes and smells gross). Super Saver had water refills for 8 cents a gallon. I guess he was overcome by the savings and it went to his head because he also came home with a fully cooked smoked turkey. Yeah, that was a pretty major WTF? Reaction. I think we've bought turkey (of any variety) maybe three or four times in fourteen years and that was usually a few slices from the deli when my dad used to visit. I don't eat it, and as far as I know neither does my husband. I guess we're going to though, seeing how I have a smoked turkey taking up space in my fridge.

It actually did remind me a bit of my dad. He was in the food distribution business and would often "swap" with the other delivery guys. He'd come home with all sorts of strange sausages that my mother had no clue what to do with. I seem to recall a large tray of smoked salmon (something like 5 lbs) and frozen pierogi. Because these guys dealt with restaurants and food services for hotels and offices, the stuff came in very large quantities. I just had a flashback to something like 100 packets of powdered drink mix in weird flavours like root beer and cinnamon.

I guess I'll call the extension office in the morning to see if you can freeze smoked turkey and if the home economist there has any ideas for canning goat-meat stew. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Mmm, nothin' says "Happy New Year like goat!