Ivar The Boneless

I have always wondered at the trade off between paying by the pound for bones (that are almost always thrown away) vs. the extra flavour you get for eating the meat that is right up "agin them". What got me started on this was a YouTube video from a British butcher that I like to watch.

He had half a pig for which he paid £280. He then proceeded to break it down weighing and pricing each cut and keeping a running total. I picked pork as there is not much you can do with pork bones, that are not trotters. Trotters make pickled pigs feet and they gold! Beef bones and chicken carcasses are worth ... something. So, the difference in price (for pork) is basically what he charges for getting the bone out or put another way, being a butcher. I figured chicken would be the easiest to do, but did not realize how hard it was to get a direct comparison (cut by cut) at Zehr's. Ignoring sale pricing from flyers or offers, there are still Club Pack prices, Blue Menu prices, Free From prices, Halal prices, organic prices & non-organic prices. So I used AI and asked for (ready for this?) the current price of a chicken breast. I want it:
* bone-in (not boneless)
* normal packaging (non-bulk)
* normal fat (not Blue Menu)
* antibiotic treated (not organic)
* and unblessed (not Halal)
After a minute on a spreadsheet I came up with some general guidelines that you can use without going to crazyland when deciding what cut of anything to buy. Pork loins, New York striploins, T-bones, etc are very efficient in term of waste. Call it 10%, so just buy those on sale when you want them. Prime ribs roasts are about 20%, so again, if you want one, buy one(on sale for God's sake, if you don't want to sell an organ). On the other end of the spectrum, are chicken drumsticks. 45% (by weight) will go straight to waste. Unless you want the drumstick because you are having a picnic and want the built-in handles that drumsticks afford, you are much better off with breasts or thighs. Those along with all other cuts of beef and pork fall into the middle ground at right around 1/3 waste. It makes the math easy. Boneless anything can be one-third more expensive and still deliver more meat for the price. Choose wisely.

BTW - He provided some metrics for meat retailing. He needs to double his money to net 20%. So, the £280 he paid must sell out the front door for £560. His business expenses, building, insurance, lights, heating and equipment eats up 80% of that ... leaving him with 20% profit. About fifty pounds. That assumes that it all goes at full price, nothing needs to be placed on sale or discounted just before it goes bad or is simply thrown out. As it all sat there in his service case at the end of the video , it was priced out at £511. That pretty much explains why you don't see a butcher shop on every street corner any more.

Our Optimum Week

One of the favourites when I used to plan BBQ's at work was Marion Beans (original recipe from KM) which I have screwed with over the years. I made them again last weekend on the woodstove. It was a beauty Halloween day. When my boys were small, I much preferred trick or treating with a stiff breeze driving a freezing drizzle into my eyes. Those were the days! You'd get the occasional shot at the door or a quick beer in a neighbours garage! I suppose that's probably grounds for the death penalty these days? I hear they outlawed drinking and smoking at soccer games as well, which was one of the last bastions of sanity in children's sports! Anyway, I ended up with half a can of five-bean medley, half a can of refried beans and half a can of white kidney beans. I found this recipe for a Aztec soup:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 can (14–15 oz) white kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
• 1 cup refried beans
• 4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 can (14.5 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes (with juices)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• A dollup of sour cream, a couple of tortilla chips, a spring of cilantro, salt and pepper to taste

Boy, the flyer was underwhelming but they did bring out a whole new slate of Offers which makes it pretty easy to collect 24,000 points over the next few weeks. They all end on December 2nd and I concentrated on those for your list this week. BTW, even with our limited spend lately on groceries, I did manage to push past the 500K mark last week. Sooner or later, the stuff I have in the pantry and the freezer will run out and I can start to buy groceries again. Here's your list:

We Are Watching

Below on Netflix - I like Josh Harnett in just about anything and our story takes place in a little Newfoundland village where cod fishing has been suspended while stocks recover. It's a nice touch. The series has a great soundtrack (for some unknown reason) and the first couple of episode are great. It's a monster movie. m OK, cool! About the fourth episode, it all goes to shit. You have the rich researchers with the expensive boat ... right out of Jaws, a couple of mob debt collectors, an entire story line based on hallucinations, and a creature worship cult. Oh, and the government is keeping the discovery of cobalt under the village secret so they can exploit the minerals without paying for mining leases ? We got through it but what a waste of a fresh setting and likeable cast. Pass.

The Diplomat on Netflix - You get Josh, CJ, that smoke show from The Americans and the guy from The Man In The High Tower to create one the finest headlining casts working in television today. You also get Debra Cahn and her team of writing royalty who garnered 26 Primetime Emmy's as they turned The West Wing into a global phenomenon. Last week, I wrote about television shows falling off a cliff in the second or the third season. This is the opposite. In season four, they introduce new complex heroes and villains. SWMBO and I promised ourselves we would pace out our viewing to shorten the wait until next year? Ya, not so much. We inhaled all eight episodes in about two days! Sigh.

Tony on Prime - I am a huge Anthony Bourdain fan so a movie based on his first book (Kitchen Confidential) is going to get a look. He is obnoxious, rude, and an inveterate liar, all things he admits of himself, upon reflection in later life. You can only wish that the creative genius you see hints of in this movie weren't so closely associated with self harm? It makes it a painful ninety minutes for a fanboy like myself but it is pretty true to his book. I don't suspect Domenic Sessa (the actor who plays him) will win Best Actor for his fantastic first big outing in a lead role, but don't be surprised to see Antonio Banderas up for Best Supporting Actor next January. It's good.

... and finally

Ivar the Boneless was almost certainly not the son of Ragnar Lothbrok from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the TV show Vikings. He may have been an Irish king of nordic descent known in our history books as Inar (which translates to Ivar in old Norse). The only reason I mention it is that some accounts claim that he was born with a skeletal condition which left him unable to walk. That's the tack they took in Vikings and they have him racing around in chariot behind a war pony. Wikipedia is saying it could be because he was impotent. Not the same thing at all really? History is slippery.

Dems made some history on Tuesday!! I will talk about that next week, other than to say: All of the naysayers who have been trashing Carney for the past six months for not signing a bad trade deal (like most of the rest of the world did) can suck a bag of dicks. I predict negotiations will pick up shortly.

Mitch & Maddie & Fat Baby