Sweet Hubby and I can live happily on leftovers, but I also love to cook. I have about 30 cookbooks as well as stacks and stacks of clipped and copied recipes. In fact, the day I stop collecting recipes is the day I'll know I have finally accepted that I'm eventually going to die.
Anyway, I felt like cooking this evening, but the recipes I was considering all called for ground chicken, and I only had thighs. I really didn't feel like going to the grocery story. And then I remembered. In a big shoe box high up on the top shelf of a cupboard I don't use very often, there is a big iron meat grinder.
I don't know where I got it, although it's a good bet my mother passed it along to me and her mother had to her. It's heavy and old and takes a bit of setting up - and it works just great. I felt like Mrs. Lovett, turning that big handle, watching the bird muscle going in one opening whole and coming out the other opening ground up. (This is probably making my vegan and vegetarian friends sick.) I felt like a pioneer, like an elemental woman, like someone who could make jam or pickled okra from produce she grew herself. It was delightful to discover what a pleasure such a simple act could be.
I've been lugging that grinder around for decades, but it certainly earned it's keep tonight. Next time I go to the store, I'm going to compare the cost of a pound of ground beef to a pound to good steak. I may have some more grinding to do.
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