You’ve likely noticed that food costs continue to rise, including the cost of meat, especially beef. 

It happens that I come from a long line of butchers. My paternal great-great-grandfather arrived in New York along with a huge pile of sons, including my own great-grandfather, and they quickly set up shop on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It was the family business, and I imagine it had been that way in Podhajce, Poland, for many generations prior. It skipped a generation because my grandfather declined to participate, but only one, because my father, his son, then decided that he wanted to raise steer on a small farm in northwest New Jersey, which is exactly what he did for the next forty-four years.  Continue reading →