LAMB CHOPS & CHEETOS

U.S. citizens eat an average of one pound of lamb a year—compared to 85 pounds of beef. However, lamb-loving New Zealanders eat 57 pounds, and Australians, 30 pounds.

Grilled double lamb chops, pommes puree, Brussels sprouts, baby fava beans, and fresh peas from purple shells for Easter

About Lamb

Leite's Culinaria has 49 recipes for lamb dishes. This is one of the top online sites of all of them. Lamb chops are just the start, says Delish, whose website includes 32 of its best lamb recipes. The Spruce Eats has 172 some lamb recipes. FOOD52 has 530 lamb recipes.

I have a couple lamb farmers that I’m nutso about. Hoodley Creek, near Knoxville, Tenn. The other is Chavez Lamb north of San Francisco. I’ve queried both to find out whether then can ship. Chavez can ship to addresses in Northern California. I don’t know about Hoodley Creek. But I do know both visit area farmers’ markets near each of their nearby cities. While it may be obvious, I suggest this: Check with your fav butcher, grocery store with actual butchers behind the meat counter, a nearby farmers’ market, or go online to find worthy American lamb near you.

Adult female lambs not thinking about lamb chops

Footnote: I could post photos of all the lamb cuts pointed out here, but have you ever tried to make brown food look good in a photograph? I’m just a beginner at this craft so I’ll spare y’all. Instead, enjoy the one pic of the rare lamb chop above, the pic of adult female lambs happily grazing in paradise somewhere, the pic of my fav style of Cheetos below, and the pic of one stinking recently departed boot toward the end of this newsletter. 

Lamb Chops

I’ve flipped over grilled lamb chops eons ago. Of late, the flipping turned to double lollipop chops. Single chops just aren’t enough. I just wing it when grilling. If blood appears on the top of a chop after 5 or so minutes, I flip it over for at most a minute. For me, this turns out medium rare. Go ahead and use a meat thermometer if you must.

Lamb chops may be one the the finest cuts you can buy. Lamb tenderloin is equally dazzling. But there are so many more cuts than these two. Welcome to the multitude of other cuts of lamb with 783 recipes here, many tantalizing, others not so much. In any case, wading your way through this mountain of recipes is a mountain of work. So I’ve highlighted some of the ones that reverberate with me.

Lamb tenderloin

Leg of Lamb

Who knew May 7th is National Roast Leg of Lamb Day in the U.S.? Not me! But now I wanna know more. . . .

Jamie Oliver is one of the most creative cooks working today. I can count on him when I’m searching for recipes to deliver to me something no other chef does. In this recipe he makes use of anchovies, which, of course, are optional, but that’s a coolio idea, indeed.

Leite's Culinaria is certainly another fav go to recipe source of late. This offering is a Tuscan style leg seasoned with rosemary and olive oil. Plus the prose is imbued with the afterglow of a master storyteller.

The Spruce Eats is another favorite online site. It is utterly thorough when reporting on a food or trend. This is its traditional leg of lamb preparation. Another I’m quite fond of, and requires much less cooking time, is a butterflied leg of lamb, which can be cooked conveniently on a grill.

Rounding out my hit parade of favorites, is this Mark Bittman grilled whole leg of lamb, sans the shank, if at all possible, since it doesn’t take to grilling nearly as well as to braising.

Lamb Shanks

With spring still ahead of us in much of the northern U.S., squeezing in one more lamb shank dinner is a cardinal idea. Southern Living offers one here with parmesan-chive grits, of course.

Thomas Keller is famous as the chef of The French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., plus other things including his teaching. I’ve taken a couple of his MasterClasses. And I couldn’t be happier because I’ve taken for my own some of his basic, easily-learned techniques.

Lamb Stew

This Mark Bittman lamb stew recipe is at the tip top of my to-do list before grilling season captures all of my cooking attention. He uses some pork and some beef, along with colorful vegetables, combining to create the flavor of which intrigues me to distraction.

What About Cheetos?

Court jester Donny Deutsch said the words “lamb chops & Cheetos” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe sometime ago. It stuck with me both because I used to devour them and because of alliterative swagger of those words. And the idea of preparing iconic foods lamb chops and pairing it with a store-bought salty, cheesy, crunchy—my preference among all those flavors—treat that requires no cooking is a wacky, fun, free-from-any-food-doctrine idea. But I have my limits. I will not be sharing recipes that include Cheetos. Check them out on your own, if you must....

My last 100 Days

The Boot

Am I the first person in world history to go without showers for 100 days? Not a chance. King Louis XIV (1638-1715) was terrified of bathing. He’s said to have taken only three baths in his life. Now that is disgusting! It was thought in his day that water spread disease. Yet at Versailles, his cozy rural royal residential Palace, bowls were filled with flower petals to sweeten the air. Furniture was sprayed with perfume. And pitifully unhygienic visitors were sprayed with perfume on entering. While 17th Century folks didn’t bathe back then, today, a quarter of Russia’s citizens, (Some 35 million!) this very day, can’t. They don’t have indoor plumbing. Could any of those Putin oligarchs who own $500 million superyachts sacrifice its indoor plumbing to give a bunch of suffering Russian families toilets? Just wondering.

For 100 days, I couldn’t climb up the stairs to the second floor of my condo. So, I couldn’t use my shower. I couldn’t sleep in my bed. I had to sleep on a blowup bed downstairs. I lost my mobility. And I couldn’t cook!

First, my left leg was put in a heavy cast. Then my leg was booted. All during my convalescence, I couldn’t get around without my wheelchair, crutches, desk chair with rollers, or my walker. Later in my recovery, I could use my walker to get to the kitchen, plate my meals, but my wife had to deliver the plate to my eating chair. Having lost all my solo mobility, I came to love that walker, but it needed both of my hands to navigate. I couldn’t cook—or did I say that already?

After weeks and weeks my mobility began returning slowly but surely.

And after 100 days, a recent Friday night was marked by firsts: Climbing 20+ stairs, sleeping in my own real bed, and hearing packs of coyotes singing in the early morning hours outside my window, just cracked open. Another first, a long, long, long shower, Saturday morning, after my all those days. It was like being upgraded to the presidential suite in a fancy hotel!

As for cooking, now I’m going to be peeling! whipping! stirring! boiling! braising! baking! frying! and grilling! again.

---