Julie's Good Time, Part II

One last arty cow picture...


... before they go off their fate and I go to the sausage plant. Unfortunately, they don't let me take pictures here, but it is absolutely mind boggling. My friends at Fleisher's would lose their SHIT. You know guys and their heavy machinery... well the machinery here is about as big as you can get, meat-wise. Endless rooms of sausage, of prosciutto drying. They stuff bladders for sausage with a stuffer ten feet tall. It is wonderful. It is frightening. The workers look like Oompa Loompas in their funny hats. I am happy.

Then a lunch of ribs, sweetbreads, bean salad, wine and coffee ($27 for two) before visiting a second processing planning, where I can take pictures.

Here they break down sides of beef like this into their parts.


Some of what they do is very different from what I'm used to - witness one of many handsome butchers removing what they call the metambre, a cut we throw in the grinder for burgers, but which they value most particularly:


Other things seem familiar, if on a much larger scale than I'm used to:


And shit I'm out of space again. Okay, party III coming up, like it or not...