So, as of this moment, I still have not seen my appearance on Jamie Oliver’s show about the US. But now I have seen a couple of clips from it, thanks to Eat Me Daily.
“Scary inner workings” of the halal butcher? Maybe I’m in too deep, and way too used to going there, but…it’s not that scary.
Perhaps it is not the gleaming vision of stainless steel and bright white tile in which people fantasize their meat is being slaughtered. But nowhere is. And certainly not a Midwestern meat packer that supplies your supermarket.
No, it is not photogenic. But it is not a filthy place. And I (and thousands of others) have happily bought meat there and served it to other people. And they’ve all said, “Mmmm, delicious! This chicken tastes so good!” And they didn’t die.
I wonder if Raphael’s disgust at watching this clip came not so much from the seemingly unsanitary setting, but from the proximity of live animals to dead ones. This is not something we see often in the US. Only in the last decade or so have food magazines begun to show live, gamboling lambs on one page, then a plated rack of lamb on the next–and that was a huge, contentious step when Saveur took it.
And it’s not like I am naturally all tough and jaded and carnivorous. The first time I bought a chicken there, in 2002 or so, I had to say, “Can I do this?” to myself. And still every time I go to that butcher, I have a momentary twinge.
But if I’m going to continue to eat meat, I figure it’s the honest, upfront thing to do: look that animal in the eye. And then go home and cook every last scrap of it into something really delicious. And serve it to people you love.
Anyone curious about this place? I am happy to answer any questions, or even take people there on a tour. Seriously, I love it, and I think it’s one of the best sources of well-taken-care-of meat in the city.
I’ve lived in Astoria for 11 years. There are lots of grocery stores here, and new foodstuffs all the time. But it’s been a long time since I’ve found something I’ve never even heard of: oxymeli. It was just sitting there, all innocent, on the shelf at my usual Greek grocery, Greek House on 30th Avenue. I love this guy because it’s the best kind of tiny store–the kind where the more you look, the more you see things you need. Also because he stocks a lot of 
And because our pantry is overstuffed, I have to manage it the same way I do my clothes, tossing old to make room for new. The victim this time was a bottle of Rooh Afza, appealingly billed as “The Summer Drink of the East,” and smelling of rose and “fragrant screwpine.” Alas, it didn’t taste like much but sugar, and even its pretty label and ridiculous bright-pinkness couldn’t save it. Buh-bye, Rooh, and thanks anyway to Hamdafd Laboratories of Pakistan (though I love the sound of a drink made by Something Laboratories, don’t you?). 
Oh, but I lie. I snuck in another new thing, without quite purging something else. It’s a bottle of mulberry syrup from Syria. It was a risky thing to bring back, considering it could have made a horrific mess in my luggage. But it’s intact (if now even already a third consumed), and in a drink-mixing frenzy over the last few days, I found it goes well with gin, and with bananas in a smoothie. Now that’s versatile–a real keeper.
