Nov
23
Winter wonderland
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You start with a baby harp seal, which you hunt through the ice of eastern Greenland or the chilly Magdalen Islands with your double-barreled shotgun.
(Are they . . . gone yet?)
So anyway, how about the weather? No really: Seattle is in the midst of Snowpocalypse ’10, or as our local news has been referring to it—usually via infographic while airing footage of some poor reporter shivering on the side of the road somewhere saying “Yeah, it’s totally cold as fuck, back to you Jean”—ARCTIC BLAST.
A little snow can do a whole lot of damage in Seattle, and I’ve never been so grateful to have my commuting days behind me. Yes, I may be getting slobby and (more) socially inept and frankly, kind of fat, but thank god I don’t have that shitty drive any more. Yesterday’s icy streets resulted in a horrific traffic nightmare that trapped hundreds of commuters, like my friend Mona, who was on a bus for five hours trying to get home, and my former coworker Kristina, who spent a jaw-dropping 11.5 hours stuck on I-5.
Nearly twelve hours with no water or bathroom, you guys. I just saw 127 Hours and I was like, KRISTINA TO SAVE YOURSELF YOU MAY NEED TO DRINK YOUR OWN URINE ALSO DO YOU HAVE A KNIFE.
Seriously, I feel so bad for anyone who got stuck in yesterday’s mess. What a crazy situation, and after just a few inches of snow, too. It worries me to know we live in an area that can be completely and utterly gridlocked like that—in a natural disaster, there would be no way to leave unless you had a spare Blackhawk helicopter stored in the garage.
In other words, Seattle = zombie chow.
The upside of the snow is that it’s beautiful and the boys have been loving it. Today I bundled them up, stuck them in a sled, and dragged them down the street to a park where a bunch of kids were sledding, and man, if that wasn’t one of those parenthood File: Save As moments. Riley went down the hill again and again and again, just wild with joy. Dylan rode with me, hooting “WHEEEEE!” in my ear. Just perfect.
Nov
21
Clean eating
Filed Under Uncategorized | 232 Comments
You start with an elk, which you hunt through thick overgrown timber or soggy open clearcuts with your single shot rifle.
You aim for the animal’s vital zone, as close to the heart as possible. You assess the shot to see what the elk does—an instant-death hit is rare—and you may take a second shot.
The herd is long gone, and you hike a couple hundred yards to your elk’s body. First thing you do is roll it on its back, cut into the belly, and remove the guts. Drag it—all 700 pounds—up onto a landing to start the process of skinning it out.
Cut the legs off at the lower joints, and hook a gambrel under the strong exposed tendons. Throw a line over a tree or use a hoist attached to a truck, and haul your elk up in the air.
Now you begin cutting away the hide with a knife and pulling it down the body.
Down it goes as you cut and pull, cut and pull, cut and pull. All the way to the head, which you cut off. Maybe you take the hide off the head and turn it into a European mount, or maybe you just keep the antlers. Up to you.
At this point you begin quartering the animal. Cut the spine in half as best you can, top to bottom.
Then cut off the hindquarters and front shoulders, until you’re left with six large pieces: 2 hindquarters, 2 shoulders, 2 racks of ribs.
Take it all to a big walk-in cooler, and let it age for about a week. Then assemble as many helpers as you can to spend a long, tiring day cutting the meat off the bones and wrapping up steaks and meat that can be turned into burger.
Now the meat is in your freezer, ready to be turned into dinner.
There: you’ve got a perfectly organic, grass-fed, free-range, sustainable, low-fat meal. No chemicals, no holding pens, no factories, no antibiotics, no corn feed, no hormones, no slaughterhouses.
Ready to start hunting?
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