[Sca-cooks] foods/meats/etc

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

>
> but back to the topic.....
> how do most of you go shopping for feasts?
> where do you go to get your meats and vegetables (in general, i mean)
> where do you get good prices on beef?
> how do you get hold of.. duck, for example...
>
> how far in advance do you shop for feasts?
> Kirsten

Oooh, good questions.

I do scouting trips before I buy anything, and take notes.

The Barony has a will-call account with Alliant Foodservice, which is good
for foodservice quantities of stuff. They sometimes have better prices
than retail, sometimes not, but you can't argue the quantities.

There's also Sam's Club, the two major grocery chains Cub and Rainbow
which sometimes have really good prices, and Steve's Scratch-n-Dent Foods
(which is not the actual name, but it's a pretty good summary). Steve's
has probably the best prices for meat anywhere, and they do custom orders.
They don't actually stock a whole lot of produce, and it's no better than
anywhere else. A lot of the dry goods are bizarre overruns from other
places, so you're never sure what is going to be there. We usually make a
couple of trips.

For food storage, it depends on when the feast is. A number of people have
available freezer space that they're willing to lend, which is useful. If
the weather cooperates, this being Minnesota, winter temperatures mean
that I can store things in the garage, or in coolers outside if the item
shouldn't freeze but should be kept cold. My assistant/drop-dead
replacement used to have a balcony that was north-facing, and wonderful
for winter food storage. And I have no problems with the concept of using
my truck as a mobile ambient-temp storage locker.

If you're looking for a good price on beef, and you have someone who has
butchering skill, you might want to seek out a quarter or a side of beef,
if you have the space, and cut it into bits yourself. MN, for instance,
has a lot of small farmers who produce meats, specialty and not, and
sometimes it's cheaper to buy from them.

For duck, *I* would check the Minnesota Grown directory for meat producers
and start making phone calls (and hitting web sites, if listed). I'd also
talk to any butchers in the area and the guys at Steve's. That would be
me. For someone not in this state (ie, most of the list), I would start by
talking to butchers and grocery store meat counter people, and go from
there. You probably also have specialty meat producers in the state
somewhere.

Also consider that duck is a very rich meat, and you will probably find
that not all people care for it. So you can probably get away with less
duck than you would chicken.

Margaret