STRANGER THAN FICTION
Rib Eye is Now Rib Eye By Aryeh Goldschein I know I’m supposed to continue the story of the escaping goats, but I must share what happened this past week. You may remember from the last article I wrote that I own (now owned) a bull named Rib Eye. The day he was born he couldn’t stand up to nurse, so he would have died unless I stepped in. I put him in the seat of my truck, took him home to Wurtsboro and bottle fed him in my kitchen all night. By the next day, he was standing and walking around. From that day on for the first few months, I would bottle feed him several times a day. If I had to go away, he came with me. He even spent Purim in Queens in my parents’ backyard. I was keeping him on my friend Paul’s farm for the last few months, with a few conditions; one was that when we shecht (slaughter), him my friend could get the back half of the meat (since he is not Jewish and that part is not Kosher) in return for taking care of him. I could not keep him on the dairy farm that I currently live on because the farmer did not want him breeding with his cows, and if we tried and keep him separate he could bust through the fence when the cows are in heat. After Shabbos I got a call from Paul saying that Rib Eye is dangerous and it’s
time for him to go. (Another thing we had agreed on was that when he starts causing damage and he is dangerous, then I will arrange for his shechita [slaughtering] right away.) After several calls, I arranged for a well-known shochet (slaughterer) to come up from the city on Wednesday to shecht Rib Eye. I also had a guy from down the road who traps and deals with skins on a regular basis come to gut and skin him, so that I could make the skin into an awesome blanket. After spreading the word, a few classes from the local yeshivas showed up with their rabbis to watch the event along with a few friends. In order to place Rib Eye in the right position, I had to distract him by giving him warm water to drink from a bucket with a nipple. Even though he was 10-months-old, he still loved to drink from a bottle. I won’t go into further detail, but the shechita was quite an experience. After the shechita, the shochet checked the lungs and declared Rib Eye better then glatt kosher. His lungs were chulak (perfectly smooth). I brought all the meat over to a kosher butcher. They did an incredible job and I now have 170 pounds of meat in my freezer. We just cooked some meat for supper Wednes-
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day night and will have some first cut ribs for Shabbos. I am going to include some graphic pictures, but I don’t know what will make the final cut; I guess that’s up to my brother and the editors. [Note from the editorial staff: No. Just no.] I also asked for a vegan recipe to be placed next to my article to stir up some controversy. I guess we will see what happens. I almost forgot to finish the story with the goats. I figured the first thing they would do is go back home to an area they were familiar with. Goats are
actually incredibly smart (aside from eating my tzitzit when I wore them out one day while working–– never leave them out when working with animals). When we got back to the barn, all the goats were there eating fresh hay like nothing ever happened. Have a great Shabbos everyone, and look out for Rib Eye in your local grocery store and let him know I love him. This has been the process for thousands of years and is what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. I’m thinking of naming my next cow “Spare Ribs”.
February 16, 2017 • 20 Shevat, 5777
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