Nearly comatose, pom relish

It is hardly worth recounting my day but because I can barely remember all that was packed in, I will do so, just for kicks. T is out of town, so when the boys awoke at 5:30am, it was off to the races solo despite my implorations to leave me alone until 6:15. Jack is good about it, Oliver less so. He has a light that's a moon at night and a sun after the time the parent sets as the "OK, now you can bother me" time. Around 5:55am, I heard him start yelling, "sun light, turn on, turn on NOW." Sigh. Then there was the requisite hullabaloo of the morning: breakfast, making beds, brushing teeth, pleas to stop dawdling, carpool, do you have your homework?, get your coats on, and so forth. I dropped Ol off early and flew to Pilates; I've missed quite a few classes this session and was desperate to attend. Then I sold some jams, raced home, took a shower, worked in J's library, sped to the market to get a few things + the Christmas package (tree/wreath/garland), had some help jamming it all in my car, flew home with 15 minutes to spare before pick-up, wrestled the tree out of my car, sawed off the bottom for a fresh cut, dragged it from the garage through the yard and up several sets of stairs to the front porch.

Sweating and this whole time in tights, patent flats, a skirt and new sweater, I sucked down a random assortment of lunch items, raced to Ol's school, picked him up, sped back home, found the tree stand, got the (8') tree in said stand, watered it, untied it, got Ol back in the car, raced to J's school, dropped his pal off at piano, flew back home with my boys to await a playdate and start in on the tree's lights.

I'm still in the skirt and tights.

The kids are going ape over the tree, one glass ball breaks, an ornament shaped like a pug is dropped and loses a leg, fir needles are everywhere, someone needs apple cider five minutes ago and my head is pounding. A client called on one phone, T on the other (which I hand to Jack and I think he hangs up on T), the perler bead angry bird loses one bead and MUST.BE.REPAIRED.NOW, and it's 4:15p, and I'm like, WTF peeps, it was just 5:30am.

I remove the tights.

For the first time in my children's lives (seriously), I order a pizza for them for dinner; they and their darling little friend seemed thrilled. I beseech them to eat veggies and fruits concurrently, and my friend and I start in on just a small glass of wine roundabout 5:15p. The garlands look like tumbleweeds that were sneezed onto the Christmas tree at random, and jesus h do we have a number of construction ornaments.

I switch the skirt for some exercise pants and put my hair up. The bags under the boys' eyes start to look positively sink-hole-like, and I declare that bathtime is nigh and unfortunately we must bid our friends adieu. "Wait, wait, just watch my Christmas tree song and performance; you can't go outside without your coat; hold on; lower the volume; great to see you; kiss kiss."

Quickest bath in the world, half a story and a literal toss into their beds. T calls again -I forgot to call him back earlier- and I tell him that I love him but am unable to speak. Seriously. We'll talk tomorrow. I make a fab pomegranate-cranberry relish, saute some chard, cook a steak and sit. Carols are playing in the background and much as I want to stay up and read, I'm cashed and calling it a day.

Pom relish recipe will be posted soon. Yum!

Em-i-lis the butcher?

É vero stasera. It is true tonight. Perhaps you remember my past high-praise of Piedmontese beef, a cattle varietal which hails from Italy (Piedmont if you hadn't already guessed) and has "1 or 2 copies of the inactive myostatin gene. This attribute provides a higher lean-to-fat ratio as well as a less marbled with less connective tissue cut of red meat than from cattle having the "active" version of the gene." (Wikipedia) Piedmont beef is lower fat, higher in protein and higher in Omega-3s than its non-Piedmont kin, and I happen to also love the taste and texture.

I order mine from Heritage Foods USA which is a group based in Brooklyn who's committed to heritage breeds, meat raised and slaughtered humanely and products which are traditional, sustainable and so forth. I saw "who's" rather than "that's" because they are a sincere bunch who truly seems to care about the farmers and animals with whom they work and they provide great customer service. Also, I can't find Piedmontese beef anywhere else.

Anyway, they've been out of the pre-cut Piedmontese filets, so I inquired about ordering a tenderloin which I could cut down myself. I wanted it fresh so that I didn't have to thaw and then refreeze the filets. HFU was awesome about this, and today I received one large Piedmontese cut, a grass-fed/regular beef tenderloin from White Oak Pastures (in VA) and some stateside Serrano about which I'm quite excited.

Now, I don't think I realized just what a 3-4 pound filet of beef really looked like in terms of size, much less a 7+ pounder. So when I opened the cold-shipment box at 7:45pm tonight, when it landed on my doorstep, I was a bit taken aback.

Having once been a vegetarian (for more than a decade I might add), I thought to myself, "there are two cow legs in a box in my kitchen which I must now deal with." Having also just enjoyed two glasses of wine (go Grgich Chard), I found myself a butcher knife, set up my vacuum-saver and jumped right in. I even drained out all the blood so that after cutting the filets and placing them in my vacuum bags, I could pour some back in to freeze with the meat. Growth in the kitch, folks, growth in the kitch.

Re: the cow leg comparison, this is the larger filet on a regular-sized stair in my home. Do you see what I mean??

Anyway, I got to work and found myself quite enjoying the whole process. Aiming for 7-8 ounces per filet, I hit the target every single time, as corroborated by my trusty Escali scale. T and I will enjoy these bazillion filets all winter long, probably with a number of bottles of excellent red wine that he has been buying from Lot18 at a quick clip because "we need to support my company." Of course!

Do you see the cup of drained blood? I swear to you I never thought I would handle butchery with such zeal and aplomb. T is out of town so for dinner, and this is totally off-topic, I had an all-veggie meal of leftover roasted squash and the weirdest good dip ever which I made from avocado, toasted coriander and mustard seeds, salt, pom molasses and chevre. I spread it on bread and topped it with pom seeds. Can you tell I'm on a pomegranate kick? The current Food52 contest is focused on poms so I've been experimenting like a lunatic. This was like a pomegranate guacamole. Fun.

Completely random thoughts

If ever I'm in charge of designing a public restroom, I will totally opt for the toilet seat covers that come from a well-designed dispenser AND whose center parts are already disconnected from the part that lines the seat. Weakly perforated things drive me batty. Two: do singers whose songs have 1-2 lyrics which they repeat over and over get as bored crooning those ditties as I do listening to them? Man there are some crappy songs out there. One literally says, "over and over again, I'm sayin' it over and over again." Yeah, I hear you and I'm falling asleep.