With various easy-to-eat vegetables, red bell pepper, zucchini, and deli coleslaw.
I must talk about this situation and this tenderloin.
This is a care package for a friend in recovery. He'll be released today.
I'm drawing on the recent experience with the pork tenderloin roast purchased from a regular grocery store, on sale, that lead to beef tenderloin roast prepared the same way, but purchased from Whole Foods at considerably greater cost. I loved both of those two things. They worked for summer meals very well. No preparation at all, after they were cooked.
I watched the butcher trim the roast and tie it up in bondage. The trimming is extraordinarily detailed. There are internal sections that are trimmed, silver skin that's a bit difficult to wrest, and bits and pieces all over the place. Each move reveals more area of trimming, so the process goes on for, I don't know, a long time, seems at least ten minutes, possibly more. He trimmed more than I would have trimmed. The resulting piece was about three pounds and barely fit stuffed into my cast iron grill pan. Charcoal grills are disallowed in downtown apartments for fire control reasons.
Another week-worth of top beef combined with Colorado peaches and berries or tomatoes at the peak of their season. I love this time of year for those two things.
Now my friend is recovering starting today and I want him to have this same thing.
But this time, instead of Whole Foods, I went to Oliver's Butcher on Capitol Hill where I can buy aged USDA prime, grass-finished beef. It's built in to be even more expensive than Whole Foods.
The Whole Foods whole tenderloin was $80.00. I didn't know this, but that was a small section. This tenderloin section is much larger plus it is aged, and it is Prime. Cost $150.00. It will not fit in my pan. I visualized giving the guy a pan-worth, the same that I had before that I know equals a week of nibbling at top meat.
This means that I'm forced to keep some. Yay! Yippie! Hurray!
I meant to say, what a bummer.
This teaches me a lesson. Tenderloin segments come in various sizes. I did not know that. I expected they're all near the same size. Not so. Their sizes vary greatly. So much that it means the difference, in a place like Olivers, between $100.00 - $150.00. At Oliver's the beef tenderloin displayed in their case was half the size of this one. That was the size I was expecting.
I also learned that telling these butcher guys that they did a great job of trimming and tying your tenderloin means a lot to them. In both cases the butchers opened up expansively once I told them how much I appreciate their acute attention to detail. A third butcher at a different Whole Foods opened expansively just talking about what I was looking for and what I intended. I told them what I notice them doing, and they deeply appreciate that. It's surprising how much mileage you get from a simple complement. This last guy told me he appreciated me saying so because he is new there at Oliver's and he hasn't trimmed that many tenderloins yet. It's a real job. Very involved.
2nd half ↓
I'm keeping the smaller portion. ↓
The bread was done last night on a whim. This is a spontaneous loaf. I want the guy to try tomato sandwiches with these outstanding tomatoes, trusting the guy has mayonnaise. If not, well, then King Soopers and Whole Foods deliver. Bell peppers because they can be eaten like an apple, and sugar peas and zucchini because they cook up in seconds. All the berries available, deli coleslaw. All the Colorado peaches a guy can eat in a week and more tomatoes than he can manage. Those can be eaten individually as well. Things that you can just grab and eat, or exceedingly little preparation. That's the idea.
This is a fine project. I had a lot of fun putting it together. Presently, it's assembled and I'm waiting for the call telling me that he's home and I'll I drive it right over there.
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