There’s nothing quite like a good meal and a holiday to drop a bomb on the people you love. Easter weekend 2015 seemed the perfect time to tell the rest of the family about my future. Mom had kept my epiphany a secret, but Graduation was only three weeks away. I needed to butter ‘em up for this one.
So I grabbed some flank steaks and headed south. If you’re going to be judged for your decisions, you might as well be judged while handing out food. So standing in the kitchen, searing my pinwheels, I told them my plans.
This is the point in my life where it all began. I started receiving what can only be described as the
“you’re going to be a butcher?” look.
Yes. Yes I am. Any other comments?
No? Alright. Moving on.
I’ve gotten pretty damn accustomed to that look. It’s actually starting to grow on me.
We have an old family friend who I talked to at length that day. If I had to describe Gary, I’d say, “He has a heart of gold” and “The man can shoe a horse” (that means hard worker here in Texas). I told him about an apprenticeship I was putting together for the fall in New York with a craft butcher, but what the hell was I going to do until the fall?
So Gary starts talking about a friend of his who had a small meat monopoly in South Texas.
“He’s got the only gig around, brotha."
As a kid, I remembered my mom picking up fresh cut steaks from his meat market and when she put them in the oven, my brother and I would wait patiently with a loaf of bread ready to soak up the juices.
Sometimes life just comes full circle.
Gary told me he could get me on and soak up some juices in a whole other way.
So, why the hell not?