I love my butcher!!

I shop at Safeway, and when they remodelled the store near me they added in a butcher counter. I was thrilled.

At first I would only buy the odd steak from there, but as time has gone by I find that I buy fish, lamb, sausages, steak, stuffed chicken etc.

Safeway stopped selling regular cut top sirloin steaks, which is my favourite steak and favourite cut. Now they only sell baseball cuts. I don't like those. They're too thick and didn't fit well on my George Foreman grill.

Stan, the main butcher there told me that he would cut me regular steaks if I wanted them, and he's been my favourite butcher there since!

On Saturday I stopped by to get a steak and he told me that I should wait because they were going on sale the next day. He said that if I came by on Monday evening he would cut me some regular cuts.

I went there today and what a sweetie!!! He had 3 cut and ready for me to pick up!

I so love my butcher! I hope Safeway knows what a gem they have there.

I remember when there was a butcher like that at Sobey's (then, IGA). I was actually shocked when I saw a very familiar face over that butcher's apron, not so much by the apron, but because he was so far from Winnipeg area as I had heard that he and his brother ran a butcher shop in a smaller town outside Winnipeg. It was great when he was there - he would happily split huge packs for me if there were no small packages, or make special cuts. He's back in Manitoba somewhere east of Winnipeg now....some little town has a good butcher.

We have a meat market in town and I love, love, love shopping there. The butcher is an older gentleman and knows us very well; he and I will chat about different recipes and he always teases me when I go in for my wings. (I'm addicted to wings and have been known to grill them even when there's snow on the ground.)

I buy 1/2 pound of calf's liver once a year, usually around my birthday and I will make liver and onions for myself (DH won't eat liver). The butcher teases me that it's time for my birthday liver. Once a year, that's it for my liver fix.

We order much of our meat from there now, partly because the people are so nice (and knowledgeable about the various cuts) and partly because the butcher works to ensure that we're happy. It helps to know that we're getting local meat, too, so we're helping our own economy in a way.

You can't go wrong by knowing a nice butcher!