Bringing the Sheep Home

I bought a sheep today. Okay, it's not a live sheep - it's a freezer chest full of sheep cut into approximately sixty pounds of meet. Living in an urban neighborhood in Philadelphia with a backyard that's smaller than my bedroom, we didn't really have the room for a live sheep. But I have grown to love the taste of humanely raised, locally sourced lamb meat - not the kind that you buy at the grocery store, but the kind you buy at the farmer's market. So what's a city girl to do? Befriend a farmer and buy meat in bulk!

I have been buying meat from the same farmer for a year - Mark from Natural Meadows Farm in the Lehigh Valley. Sometime last year, I asked him if he ever sourced whole animals for people who wanted to buy in bulk. We planned to buy a chest freezer to accomodate my husband's berry-picking habit and would soon have room for lots of meat. Buying local meat was expensive and I was hoping to get a better deal by buying a whole animal. Mark told me he had never sold a whole animal, but it was something he was hoping to do. Throughout the summer and into the fall, every few weeks, I'd ask if he found a sheep for me to buy. The answer was always no, not yet. Meanwhile, the chest freezer filled up with homemade tomato sauce, soups and lots of berries and the market closed for the season without us getting a lamb.

The farmer's market opened for the season on May 29th and Mark was back with lots of meat. We missed him and were eager to stock up: we bought steaks, chicken, eggs and bacon on that first trip. He had a new price sheet this year and I was excited to see that it listed whole animals as an option. I asked Mark if he had any lambs available and he didn't yet, but would see what he could do. I left the market with visions of lamb chops in my head.

The next Saturday, my cell phone rang. Mark had a sheep for us! He found a farmer about 30 minutes from him who had whole lambs to sell. The problem was, he didn't know how much to charge me. He knew my day job was running a local business network that supported companies that wanted to have a positive social and environmental impact. As the "sustainable business person," he figured that I could help him to determine a fair price. We walked through it together - total live weight, live price per pound, processing fee, total processed weight, packing and freezing fee, and a handling fee for his labor. Neither of us was sure what the handling fee should be, so I told him to do some market research by talking to other farmers. He called me back a few days later with a price and I ordered the sheep. He said that it would take a few days for processing and packaging and I could pick it up at the farmer's market the next Saturday.

He called a few times during the next week with sheep-related questions: did I want any of the sheep processed into ground meat? He recommended doing so with the least tender cuts, and I agreed. Did I want lamb ribs? Yes. Shanks? Sure. Whole leg cuts? Why not? I said yes every time, not really knowing what I was agreeing to but figuring that the whole project would be an adventure. The last phone call was to inform me that the sheep was bigger than expected and rather than the forty pounds of processed meat that we expected, I would be getting closer to sixty pounds. I went down to the basement to look at the freezer and crossed my fingers that it would all fit.

We finally went to pick up the sheep this morning - everything but the eight pound legs of lamp because they weren't fully frozen yet, so they'll arrive next week. We showed up at the farmer's market with two coolers and loaded everything up. Lamb chops, ground lamb, shoulder steaks, roasts, heart, tongue (what do I do with heart and tongue? I wondered), lamb ribs. We filled our largest cooler to the top and brought it home. It fit easily into our chest freezer and the top basket was the perfect size for the lamp chops and shoulder steaks.

And now for the research! The only two cuts of lamb I've ever cooked are lamb chops and leg of lamb. I have to find recipes for everything else. The tongue? I polled some friends and learned that lots of people loved it. One chef friend recommended corning it, like corned beef. Another friend recommended slicing it cold for a sandwich. As for the heart, the best suggestion to date: "Feed it to the dog!"