I did my first soaking of my chef whites today and it was quite successful due to the aforementioned dynamic duo. They are like secret stain fighting ninjas. It was awesome how quickly and easily the beef blood just disappeared from my whites. To anyone who does laundry and is trying to get rid of food stains, use what we use to get food off other surfaces (like plates, cups, and silveware) to get food out of our clothes! It's an awesome and totally logical idea. And it works.
Speaking of beef blood-- I love beef shanks. Not eating them, but butchering them. It is quite comforting knowing that while it seems everything else in this world is in disarray, the tendons, veins, and muscles of cow's leg will be in exactly the same place every time. In addition, there are what my chef calls "natural seams" that are supposed to be like the dotted cut-here lines that I so miss from my arts and crafts kits. What I saw on the first day of class was a whole hunk of raw, confusing meat. In fact, the first two days of my meat class reminded me of a particularly frustrating afternoon in my high school culinary class where my chef tried to teach me how to break down a chicken. I don't ever remember feel quite as frustrated with a single piece of food before. I thought it was so confusing and I had no idea how he knew where to cut and when he talked about following the natural lines of the chicken, I was convinced he was making it up. However, as I watched my Meat ID and Fabrication Chef pry around, running his fingers along the bones pointing out important connective tissue, telling jokes about the cuts of meat, and make small careful cuts, it became apparent to me that he was right. There are natural seams in meat. I see them now and I think they're beautiful.
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