Shopping on the Side of the Road

One of the reasons we moved to rural America is the high availability of good food, particularly good meat.

We couldn't care less about "organic" but "grass-fed" or "grain-fed" is our holy grail, right next to "vine-ripened" and "picked this morning".

We also love a wide variety of red meat, including venison, elk, and buffalo.

On the 95 between Coeur D'Alene and Sandpoint is a series of signs. "Fresh Jerky", "Elk Jerky", "Buffalo Jerky".

For 4 damn weeks we drove past those signs waiting for the jerky to go on sale.

One Friday the trailer finally showed up and I noticed it on my way to CdA with Daughter the Older.

On the way home we stopped at the stand with cash.

On the same sign with all the jerky prices was an item that caught my eye.

"Grass-finished beef. Steaks $6 a pound."

Really?

So I ask, and turns out I need to ask jerky-man's wife as the meat is at their house in the freezer. She will be there any moment.

So we wait a bit and the wife shows up. We talk a bit, and she just says, "well, come by the house and pick out what you want."

Her hubby tells her just to take us, it would be faster.

So the kiddo and I climb into her car and off we go with a strange woman.

An absolute treasure trove of farming info. She shows me her cows, her steers, her prize bull, her crops, her raspberries (you can have as many starts as you want, dear) and her chickens.

Oh my dear god those were fat cows.

So half an hour later or so we're climbing back in her car with 4 lbs of strip and a lb of tenderloin. For $6 a lb.

I've made some new contacts, learned a lot, and I'm coming home with unexpected steak and jerky.

As we're leaving the couple say that my husband's going to tease me for doing my grocery shopping on the side of the road.

Turns out he was too busy eating phenomenal beef to comment.