Explosions of Beef on the 4th of July…

So it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Over a month, goddamn! Well, I’ve been a busy boy (working on some semi-Top Secret stuff); a very busy boy. How busy you ask? Well, I’ve worked thirty-three of the last thirty-four days…THIRTY-THREE out of THIRTY-FOUR; even as I sit here writing this, I do it from work. To that end, you know what pisses me off to no end? People who can’t perform simple tasks and people who complain about how busy they are, when in all actuality, they have no idea what it means to actually be “busy.”
Maybe I’m taking myself too seriously. Maybe I’m just tired because I’ve been working so damn much. I find myself snapping at people and find that my already somewhat short fuse, has gotten even shorter. Either way, I think I’ve got good reason to want to, “put a bullet between the eyes of every panda that wouldn’t screw to save its species…to open dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I’d never see…I wanted to breath smoke.”
Let me preface this next statement with something a new friend of mine told me yesterday, “stop being such a burger snob, go to Western Beef and cook some burgers,” now I let you decide whether he’s right or I’m right.
Every year for Independence Day, for maybe the past four years, I’ve gone to a buddy’s place and cooked burgers and wings and whatnot before everyone goes up to his roof and watches the fireworks show in the East River. As my palate has changed and my knowledge has grown, I’ve gotten (shall we say) “fancier,” and tried to be more cognizant of things like: the freshness of my ingredients, the quality of my meat and above all giving the people there an experience they won’t soon forget. Fireworks are nice to look at, but people remember when you make them a Pork and Beef Burger, stuffed with Gorgonzola and Bacon.
As I’ve become more in tune with what I put in my body and what I put into other people’s bodies, I’ve started steering myself away from things like pre-packaged ground beef in grocery stores and prefer to instead buy freshly ground meat; preferably at a place where I can watch a guy in a blood stained apron grind it right before my eyes. Why, you ask? Well, because pre-packaged ground beef gets ground in a meat processing plant in god-knows-where and a single package of beef at a supermarket might contain meat from approximately thirty different cows…if you’re lucky. Why is this a big deal? Well, because in addition to the nasty bits from two dozen cows your package might also contain some really not-so-nice things like: “Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus.” The biggest danger is E. coli, and this is directly from the USDA website:

E. coli O157:H7 can colonize in the intestines of animals, which could contaminate muscle meat at slaughter.
O157:H7 is a strain of E. coli that produces large quantities of a potent toxin that forms in the intestine and causes severe damage to the lining of the intestine. The disease produced by the bacteria is called Hemorrhagic Colitis.

So freshly ground beef might cost a little more, but I have the added benefit of not pissing out my ass from eating shitty beef.

Whew, that was a lot!
So I asked my buddy to drop by Ottomanelli’s, on Bleecker, and have them grind 2 ½ pounds of beef brisket and 1 ½ pounds of chuck steak. I love the Ottomanelli’s guys, they’re super friendly and they always take care of me. Seeing as I wasn’t able to take Thursday or Friday off, and knew that I’d be working today, I asked my buddy to do me one favour…go to Ottomanelli’s and pick up the aforementioned quantities of beef. That’s it, one favour that did not involve the movement of Heaven or Earth. I even offered to call ahead and let them know he would be coming as my proxy. Wednesday, after my e-mail, I started to receive the first bit of blow back: questions about price and the exact location of Ottomanelli’s. Then, all day Thursday goes by, sun rises, sun sets and he hasn’t picked up the meat.

Him: “Why can’t we just use stuff from the supermarket?”
Me: “Because it tastes like shit and has the potential to make you sick.”
Him: “C’mon, can’t be that bad.”
Me: “I’m not risking getting people sick with my reputation on the line. Go to Ottomanelli’s.”

Friday rolls around, sun rises, sun gets high in the sky and there is still massive resistance to picking up meat that won’t make everyone sick. Mind you, by this point I have spent approximately 22 hours inside a restaurant and my patience in the face of this resistance is beginning to seriously wane. I update my facebook status, now full of visceral hatred (five of my friends agree with me, by the way), but like a fool, hold out hope. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel after all. I am informed there is a problem with his phone and he will be driving into the City to have it looked at; perhaps the meat can be picked up on the drive? This seems reasonable, considering google Maps tells me it’s only 3.9 miles from his place to Ottomanelli’s. I take a deep breath and smile. Calling Ottomanelli’s, for the fourth time in two days to let them know someone is coming by to pick up the meat I have requested. Things; however, take a turn for the worst when I find myself on the phone with him; standing in the bathroom, my head resting against the wall, my eyes closed, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of my nose; resisting the urge to throttle any and everything within reach; as he explains he’s saddened by the present condition of his phone and was unable to make it to Ottomanelli’s. I am saddened by the sheer laziness of a person who can’t undertake a simple fucking task such as picking up four pounds of ground meat, when they have seemingly done NOTHING for the past two days.
I make one final attempt this morning, as I stand in front of the stove, the hood-vents whirring above me, tongs in my hand and a red bell pepper popping, sizzling and whistling at me as the flames lick its surface. I text the address of an Italian butcher shop in downtown Brooklyn, perhaps the meat can be picked up there? “You don’t even need to leave Brooklyn,” I not-so-jokingly add. My phone rings with, first a sob story about the phone (which seems to be working well enough to place phone calls), followed immediately by news that a mutual friend has just arrived from Spain and then more resistance, with a compromise offered in the form of a “butcher shop” in his neighborhood where the meat can “probably” be picked up. I quickly think to myself, “I don’t remember ever seeing a butcher around there, I’m not even sure they’ll have brisket or if they’re even open today; and furthermore my buddy wouldn’t know an actual butcher shop if it sat on his face! And any place he is calling a butcher is probably a shitty-ass deli. Just because they have a meat slicer doesn’t make them a butcher.” I close my phone, not-so-quietly cursing his name, and go back to roasting my pepper. My phone rings again, but this time I am an in the middle slicing a pepper I roasted yesterday into a fine julienne, in preparation for folding said pepper into my Roasted Red Pepper Mayonnaise; not to mention I am in no mood to talk on the phone.

So am I a burger snob or is my buddy a lazy douchebag who can’t perform a single task asked of him? Personally, I think I’ve got every right to be pissed off.