if you are my grandparents and you are reading this blog i apologize in advance for the swearing

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

the best part of my job is also the worst part

you should have seen my face
I'm talking about provisiong. There is a lot to be said about the markets in Europe, just not now. It's the super market roulette you play in whatever port you happen to be in, and the orders sent to agents that get so lost in translation. This is the frustrating, albeit interesting part. Went to shore yesterday, got some meat with the captain (by the way, thank you very much dean!) and on the way back in the tender he said "it might not be what you are used to". Ok fine, I am at that point happy to know we got something other than veal (side note: they don't seem to let many animals grow to maturity here. piglets, lamb, baby cows, it's all like that. tough to get adults). Get back to the boat, organizing meals for the next day and pull out a leg of lamb (with a bonus!)
should have brought
my own knives

Me: oh my god. the tail is still on it

Michelle: well, you are the chef after all

Me: asshole

that's not sunlight streaming in.
That is god saying do not fling the
baby's tail. 
Maybe so, I am the "chef". But I am not the butcher. And beside the unexpected body parts there seems to be a lot of bloodletting still to be done. It's like a fucking DIY abattoir around here. here being my galley. i must have put about 3 liters of blood down the drain and definitely 3 tails went flying overboard. It's funny how a lamb tail can make me "oh my god" but i happen to love ox-tail soup. it's just different. i don't know why, but it is. i have been eating cereal since yesterday afternoon , and to think there was a point a couple years ago when all i wanted was to do an advanced butchering class.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

All that Ballymaloe training down the drain so to speak! Maybe a new recipe BaaTailSoup?

Ali B said...

yeah mum, it's one part ocean and three parts tail. fling and enjoy!

Don said...

Thanks to a comment you posted on Annah’s Red Means Go I just read my first post here on your blog and I think I’m hooked and will have to read more.

Your occupation, with the opportunity it provides for travel, sounds like a dream job. I just wonder if you ever travel beyond Europe and the Mediterranean.

Ali B said...

Thanks to you Don my day is made. Not really sure how to get people to read my stuff but you have to start somewhere right? Next month I am going to Thailand to do volunteer work with elephants. Annah is so jeal! Thanks for reading, feel free to follow :)! ( think that is a smile, not sure how to do those things) a

Don said...

Ali, if what this grizzled old fogey wrote in my comment made your day you must be very easily satisfied. I appreciate what I take as a compliment in your comment following mine.

I believe I’ve read every post on your blog this afternoon and I have so many questions I’d like to ask you that I would be hijacking your blog with my comments if I did. For instance, like my blogger internet friend Mynx in Australia (http://justtish.blogspot.com/) you use some words I don’t know the meaning of because they’re not used here in the USA…..or at least around where I live in Alabama.

If you’d care to start communicating by email so I can ask those questions, and possibly more, you can click on my name here and see an email address you can use to send an email me, and then I’ll have your address and I can reply.

By the way, I’m now officially stalking your blog.. :-)