(VIDEO) Journalist Gets Some New Chops

I love to cook. I love cookbooks. I love cooking shows. I have dreams of Viking Ranges and KitchenAid stand mixers. I think Ratatouille is quite possibly the best movie ever made and that Williams-Sonoma is a little piece of heaven right here on earth. I have the world’s biggest crush on Jacques Pépin and would run away with him in a heartbeat. I could go on forever but I think you get the idea.

And while I enjoy cooking/food preparation/food shopping very very very much, I don't do it as often as I like—mostly at my family's request. You see, while I feel like Julia Child in the kitchen, my food doesn't taste like the work of a culinary master. It—my ridiculously lousy cooking— is actually a family joke. “Stick to the eating,” I’ve been told.

So, upon taking on this assignment, I was excited. Here was my chance to have fun in a kitchen, to imagine myself as a finalist on Top Chef, to prep this meat like a true gourmet, without having my children/parents/siblings/friends on hand to ridicule my efforts.

And effort it was! As I prepped a large pork loin into a round of thick chops (some of them butterflied—take that ridiculously good cook mother-of-mine), my arms burned, muscles that most often rest in dormant state were instead being used in this awesome culinary undertaking!

The marvelous smell inside this meat shop had the meat lover in me going!  is the quintessential meat shop—family owned for three generations, open since 1928. And it’s filled to the brim with meats of all kind—steaks, chops, roasts and even 60 kinds of homemade sausage. It was glorious. 

While there, I was asked to make a large pork roast—using ties like I see the amazing Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, do herself on television! Heaven. And, except for the time my plastic glove got caught in the tie as I was prepping the meat, it went off without a hitch! 

Never was I told to, “Pack my knives and go.” In fact, familial skeptics beware: after this meat cutting triumph, my next attempt at haute cuisine could just be a success.

That day, I went home, the smell of meat ingrained in my clothing (my cats loved that) and I felt like I had accomplished something. In my dreams that night, I was not merely Katelynn Metz, Patch editor/mom. Nope—my inner sous chef was a 3-star Michelin master!