Meatventures. This is something Lee and I came up with after several years of being meat lovers together. We once had a Meatfest BBQ where everything, including the salad, contained meat. If there could have been meat in the beer, by golly we would have given it a crack. Meatfest was a huge success, but not enitrely original. Lee's best mate from high school actually did his communication project on meat. Well, a bbq, but otherwise known as Meat Bonanza. This project was legendary to epic proportions. Many folks know about Meat Bonanza who were not even there. Some are not even connected to the original attendees, not even by 7 degrees of separation. How the tale became a legend of copious amounts of meat and rivers of meat sweats, well I guess we will never know.
Back in Melbourne we would always 'steak it up' with mates at bbq's. Steak is a real bonding meat, a social meat. I remember once we went to a friend and colleagues bbq, and we were on our way to a meat market, so I offered to buy some for my best mate Vickie and her husband Drew. I picked up some chicken for Vick (back then she didn't eat any actual meat, oh how things have changed and my heart just grows fonder!), and Drew gave me a challange. "Find me a steak as big as my head" he said.
Challenge accepted, "can and will" I thought. And I did.
I love Drew and his meat eating ways, and I love his patience with Vickie's previous lack of it. I am still not sure how Drew managed it. I think it may have been chilli salami that did it.
I had an album on facebook where I would post pictures of our Meatventures together. A fantastic hot little friend of mine in London, Helyn Laing, got on board with this, and I didn't even have to twist her arm. We worked together starting in 2007 and as we soon bonded, I also found that she had a love for food, especially meat, that I could not only relate to but also admire.
Honestly, at times, it felt like together the three of us took on London and all the meat that it had to offer. Helyn introduced me to things I had previously been afraid of. One was pulled pork. The other, well, the other just had to be ribs really, didn't it.
I remember walking in to work one day I passed a new restaurant opening up. "Bodeans" I thought, as I saw the brass trotter on the door and the brass pigs head above it. "Interesting, thats gotta be a new meatery". When I got to work I told my team about this Bodeans discovery, and Mel got well excited, and said we have to go when it opened. Our first experience was take-out pulled pork sandwiches. Bodeans has a smoked hickory bbq sauce to die for. So one lunch we decided to venture back and actually 'dine in', being somewhat civil.
Anyway, there we all are, ordering modestly, when Helyn gets her turn to order, and orders a full rack of ribs with the works. I swear when those ribs came out they were bigger than she was. She turns to us, as we are all drooling over the smells emitting from our collective lunch, with a serious look and a twinkle in her eye she says "Guys, you are about to see something really special", and started. And she wasn't lying. The rest of us were all done, while Helyn was still going on those ribs, but she didn't stop, she didn't even slow down. At last when she finally put the last bone on the plate, all of which were sucked completely dry and void of any meat stragglers, the smoked hickory bbq sauce bottle empty, she picked up a few chips, ate them and drank her coke. We all gasped and stared at her with our own eyes bigger than our stomachs, and she just smiled her usual cheeky satisfied smile and ate some more chips. It wasn't for a couple of years that she came up with the 'SAME AGAIN' after we all stuffed our faces and were in food comas over three massive rounds of yum cha, but I am pretty sure she would have. That was one of those moments that you know you have a friend for life. A food friend at that. And it amazes me how little and hot she remains, regardless of her food and meatventures. Hats off to you Helyn.
Meatventures took us on many journeys in London, and during our travels through different countries, and there are many photos. If there is meat on the menu, well, we will probably give it a go. We have friends and relatives who are fellow meat lovers and the stories & experiences are easily shared. Meatventures were being had by all, and we all talk about them, like its the done thing, a standard. One time I helped butcher a pig when I did my cooking course, and not only did I take loads of photos, but I had to tell just about anyone I met about it. It's all part of Meatventures.
I think one of my favourite Meatventures was a bbq Helyn held in our honour before leaving the UK. I actually ordered the meat from an online gourmet meat shop, and Helyn was home to accept the delivery. She took a picture of it when it arrived and sent it to my work phone. It honestly looked disgusting, but we were excited by it at the same time. 8 racks of ribs, enough lean delicous beef to make 20 hamburgers, and while it looked like a body bag from CSI with grusome findings, it was the beginning of what would be another beautiful Roderick Road bbq.
I would like to continue Meatventures to some capacity, but I am not sure how to do this at the moment. Maybe from a cooking point rather than just an eating point, but I need to get my hands on some great meats here, and no idea where to start. For example, I cant find wild boar anywhere. Venison is fairly popular, but apparently you cant buy kangaroo here, there is some importation law restricting it. Beef is popular here, I would say its the primary meat, but even beef gets boring (am I allowed to say that?!).
Maybe Meatventures can be made into an online 'community' page, where people can write in and add pictures of their own of their experiences with meat, I am not sure yet. It would be nice to have it as more of a collective contribution than just me and my experiences, but we will have to wait and see. I need to get through this food project before coming up with any other random ideas. Until then, may you have Meatventures of your own, and enjoy your meat sweats and your meat comas. Meat out.
