h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This will be my second as a US citizen. I doubt I had a turkey last year, and I certainly won't have one this year - there's little point in having anything that big when you live on your own. Maybe I had a chicken last time.

This year though, I fancy giving it a bit of side. I think I'll allow my Britishness to influence the meal by making a Sunday roast, probably pork, although I'd prefer lamb. But lamb is so expensive here. And it's not easy to get a decent joint.

So it'll probably be a shoulder of pork, which should take me through the weekend.

Although, I've never made Beef Wellington...

I'll go with something American for dessert, just because.

what? no sweet potato pie? no green bean casserole? no jello salad?

c'mon, man, get with it! you're un-American if you don't

And yams with marshmallows on top.

I can definitely go for sweet potato pie Didn't I make one of those some months ago? Or am I thinking of the buttermilk pie I made a few weeks ago? I've never made green bean casserole cos, well, I'm not that keen on green beans. But I quite like the casserole bit. There was jelly in the I made last week (which everyone who could eat them raved about), and would you be okay if I just made candied yams TC?

And anyway, I am un-American. I may well vote for a socialist in next year's elections if I get the chance

Whichever way I go, I might have made a bit of a bish regarding buying the purchase of a joint.

I buy 99% of my food from two places - a co-op and a big foodie supermarket (BG can probably guess which one that is). I'm not going anywhere near the latter this week because, even at my usual shopping time of just after they open at 8am, it's going to be mayhem. Like a few days before Christmas in a British Tesco or Sainsbury's. So it'll be the co-op, hopefully this morning if I can get my shopping list ready in time (currently 5.45), because there's rain forecast for tomorrow, and whichever of the two I go to I like to get the shopping out of the way before 10am if I can.

Either way though, the meat cabinet is going to be stuffed (no pun intended) with turkeys, and everything else pushed out of the way The co-op has a much smaller selection that the supermarket anyway, and some of the items that are sold at both places are simply too expensive at the co-op. Maybe if I was on 50 grand a year I'd get them at the co-op, but not today.

Is it this one?
http://youtu.be/2sBZstD-UEk

Close, but no cigar. It's the other big Texas-based one. I won't have anything to do with Wholepaycheque.

OK... Yeah, I know the one. Howard E. Butts' grocery store.

Yep, his... more upmarket one

Y'know, I think it's time I used up some of that suet in my freezer, and the box of Atora I bought in Dallas when I went to see Dewey (and Mrs Gosho) a few months ago.

Spotted Dick

Do you know how hard it is to find a joint of pork on the bone around here? Two words: im possible.

Are there any proper butchers or meat markets on your side of town? Maybe even a carniceria?

When I was a kid, my mother went to a butcher/meat market. She would sometimes buy half a cow. It would stay at the meat market and she would pick up whatever cuts she wanted that day.

It seems such a foreign concept to me now.

It was called a "side of beef", not "half a cow".

There might be a carniceria on the east side that would do something like that. And if you can rope in a few friends to make it worthwhile, the Bastrop Cattle Company will deliver half a cow.