When I first sat down to write this
post, I included a lengthy explanation about my absence. Then I realized that all I really cared about
was the food. I was in school. I got overwhelmed. Either you are still here or you aren't. So let's skip any long-winded allusions to
the prodigal son and get to cooking.
Now,
I grew up in a very meat and potatoes kind of household. Not just figuratively, either. My mother is required as part of her job
description to serve meat at every meal.
While I am sure that vegetarian ranch hands do exist, they are few and
far between, and the bulk of the men and women who work out there want
something more substantial than "hippie food." Sometimes we had chicken. Sometimes we had
pork. On rare occasions fish (albeit in
the form of "sticks,") made it onto the menu. But mostly we ate beef. Steaks followed hamburgers followed big beefy
lasagnas followed sloppy Joes followed yet more steaks. I'm not complaining. Sometimes, like right after helping my dad
butcher a cow, I might have questioned my eating habits; for the most part I
ate of the meat and the meat was good.