neck bones

They say that cooking and baking skips a generation.

Not that my mother was a terrible cook by any means, she simply wasn’t as interested in making everything from scratch like my Grandmother and I. I want to know not only the flavors, but the science behind it.

But, I’m kinda Martha Stewart about it.

It’s not just about making excellent food from the most basic ingredients. It’s about making food that my guests will enjoy. I’m not interested in force feeding my picky Dad cottage cheese or trying to insist Tofu is “Just like meat!” Tofu isn’t meat, it’s tofu, and it’s delicious just the way it is.

I have a whole process for how I make my Thanksgiving turkey, and it is delightful. I make my own stocks, my own tomato sauces, pickled veggies, the herbs come from the garden, and I have a whole drawer dedicated to spices.

All this being said, stock requires bones, and lots of them.

Mostly, I rely on the Asian or Hispanic grocery stores to find my bits and pieces of animals. They don’t give me that wide-eyed vacant stare American grocers give me when I ask if they have scraps. Besides, my relationship with the butcher at my local Safeway is tenuous at best. He’s often annoyed with me because he dedicates his morning to laying out his meat display only for me to swoop in five minutes later and buy up a sale item.

He rolls his eyes. I don’t complain. And to me, this is a type of understanding. A relationship if you will.

This all came crashing to an end one day. The day I made the mistake of asking a question.

The Safeway is so close… Would it be that outrageous if my stern, no-nonsense butcher had a few bone scraps for stock? I do realize grocery chains are not full scale butchers and don’t receive half a cow to portion out but sometimes I spot cow knuckles and other oddities so maybe the neckbones end up in the mix from time to time.

I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask, but I was wrong.

“Do you have any neckbones or scraps back there?”

He looked at me from over his counter and said, “Cows don’t have neck bones.”

Cows don’t have neck bones.

…Cows don’t have… Neck bones…

For the most part, I am able to reign in my Autism. Maybe not for extended periods of time, but in polite company I can usually keep it together. I might be viewed as high strung or eccentric, my humor dry, but generally I’m well-received.

But that’s only under ordinary situations. You can’t put me under florescent lights and tell me cows don’t have neck bones and expect me to be okay.

So I stared at the butcher, I blinked a few times, and then I had an internal meltdown.

Seriously.

I can handle most situations with ease. I can confront a boss who’s paying me 3$ less an hour to do a better job than the guy they hired at the same time. I can clean up a literal crime scene. Lung debris everywhere? No problem. I got you. Did you shit your pants or have a Sickle Cell episode in my bushes? Homie, we good. I know just what to do.

But when a butcher dead ass tells me that thee most commonly butchered vertebrated animal does not possess neckbones, I’m going to lose my goddamned mind. The screams were coming from inside the house.

I just… Can’t… WHY! Cows don’t have neck bones? Why are you doing this to me?

And like, we all say dumb things that don’t make sense. Especially in retail when you’re trying to do five other things and a customer asks a question that is unequivocally “No”, sometimes you just say whatever to get the customer to go away.

But he had several awkward moments to correct the mistake. Instead of doing that, he chose to stare back. So, I tried to clarify, “Scraps… For Stock?”

“We have marrow bones in the freezer.”

Yes. I saw those. Bleached and picked clean. That is, he had every chance in the world to correct the neck bone situation but stood firm on Cows Not Having Neck Bones.

I’m never making eye contact with that man ever again.