The Pot Roast Incident

Since moving into the coop and adjusting to a graduate school lifestyle, I have inexplicably grown to crave red meat in quantities that would probably make my vegan friends faint. I hide my carnivore tendencies with tofu purchases and veggie stir fries in public, but behind closed doors I am eating the weirdest lunch meat, sausages, and other assorted meat products I've ever engaged in. I think I may be protein deficient.

While grocery shopping earlier this week, I decided the best way to indulge my new found love of the butcher aisle would be to cook a pot roast. This is strange both because I ostensibly HATE pot roast and used to complain non-stop about my parents cooking it nearly every day and because I have no idea how to cook one.

I bought the roast, and immediately called my dad. "Dad, when we were growing up, we had roast beef almost every day. I went to buy one today, and they cost $24!" I grew up with a freezer full of unmarked, unpriced beef packages simply labeled "ground," "chuck," or "roast." This marked the first time I had ever in my life bought fresh meat from a grocery store. I think it's weird that I didn't have some sort of sense where the cow had originally grazed, although I realize this is not typical of the average meat consumer.

My mom and dad became top strategists for my new plan to cook the roast. My mom emailed me recipes every day, and every day the meat stayed in fridge. I just wasn't up to the task of cooking it. After she sent me a link to help me discover what was for dinner (beef), I gritted my teeth and stuck the thing in a crock pot. I thought four and half hours would be long enough, apparently, pot roasts cook for nine or ten hours! My mom and I shared a frantic exchange when she learned I had the roast on low and guests arriving in two hours. "Andrea! It will never get done!" But I think it did, my luncheon guests were extremely sweet and today's left overs were great. Mom and dad, rest easy, after a week of planning, the pot roast ordeal is over, and I'm going to make the stew out of its leftovers, I promise.