PETA is coming for my soul

Tonight I made mussels again. I have done this only twice in my lifetime -- prepared mussels at home, that is -- a fact which shocked (shocked!) the Freeds a couple of weeks ago. Alisa and I, you know, both adore mussels, and I think our husbands are on the positive side of "liking more than normal," so it's odd I never took the plunge (...hee!) and made them at home.

However, making mussels does take a fair amount of planning. They are not the kind of protein you can bring home and keep in the fridge for a day or two before you get around to cooking them, so it's really one of those things where you have to be shopping with "What am I going to make tonight?" firmly in the forefront of the mind.

They were delicious a couple of weeks ago, though, thanks to Jim doing the hard work of debearding, and I decided to make them again tonight, so I went to Wild Oats to procure some good Prince Edward Island specimens.

I had a coupon to use, so while I was there I also splurged on some lamb rib chops.

This got me to thinking about when my parents or my aunt and uncle would send solicited, or unsolicited, packages of meat (hi, Mom!). The meat in all its forms was uniformly fantastic, but I was particularly entranced by the gorgeous frenched rack of lamb, which really did not seem to be beyond the realm of reasonable price, even compared to that available in this here neck of the woods.

I started surfing around Lobel's tonight, then, to see what I could find.

Frankly? Their rack of lamb is obscenely affordable, unless I've been going to the wrong butchers up here, and I'm not implicating the marked-up grocery stores in that comment (I'm looking at you, butcher-on-Brackett-whom-I-won't-name-here-for-liability-reasons). So forget the financial implications -- it's tax time, after all, and we're due a big refund -- I'm thinking it's time to order* something delicious from The Powers That Be.

Dinner's at 7, if you're interested.


*Ordering postponed until we determine definitively if, and what, our tax refund will be. IRS, are you reading? Good.