Eating high on the 'hog'
Charley Mallery and Rebecca Allina rolled up to Jack’s place in Gallup, just as the sun set last Wednesday, with a gooseneck livestock trailer that still smelled of their grass-fed, organic Black Angus cattle. Animals that now filled the coolers partially-covering the long ribbed floor.
Rio, Charley, and Jack inspect the cargo
They had just driven down from picking up the load of meat, USDA packaged and flash frozen, at Sunnyside Meats in Durango, CO --dry-aged for 3 weeks! A 120-quart cooler, a decent river-trip size cooler (36x21x18”), just barely held the 120 lbs. of frozen beef. Jack and I, each buying a quarter ($120 lbs. x $4.50/lbs), opted for a couple extra pounds of optional beef liver, and I graciously accepted 25 lbs. of bones to boil into beef stock.
The final resting place for this Black Angus
The quarter was an equal proportion of every cut on the cow and I marveled at the beauty and diversity of the meat, half wrapped in paper, and half in clear plastic shrink-wrap as I filled most of a mid-size upright freezer. The cuts ranged from filet mignon and brisket, to stew meat and ground beef, and everything in between, literally, but no tongue, perhaps that’s in the ground beef. )
Eating lower on the animal
As if their ranch’s growing reputation needed bolstering, be sure to check out the cover photo on the Sept/Oct issue of the Ramah Farmers’ Beet to see Rebecca and Charley’s first-place winning harvest display at the Ramah Farmers’ Market 2009 Harvest Festival. Wow and thanks!
