Greensbury Market: Is It Good?
I swear, I no sooner sent the words I think I have just about beaten this whole February business out into the world and within 18 hours, I was completed blindsided a cold coupled with a downright tubercular cough. So, while I am lying on the couch, watching my sixth straight hour of Olympic cross-country skiing and eating yet another bowl of spicy chicken soup, I am clearing out some of my backlog of drafts for posts. First up: Greensbury Market.
The people at Greensbury Market sent along samples of their organic beef and chicken a couple of months ago, but my reluctance to write about them should not reflect badly on them at all.
Instead, I knew as soon as I wrote about organic meat, there would be someone, somewhere, who would have to be a biodegradable douchebag about it and comment something to the effect of ugh, eating meat? why don’t you just drive an SUV? or well, I only buy local homeschooled meat that I butcher myself, naturally and the idea of dealing with that just made me want to punch things.
So, let’s get this out of the way: I ain’t having it, eco-jerkwads. Okay? Good, now let’s move on.
Greensbury Market sent two strip steaks and four boneless, skinless chicken breasts (as well as some much-needed stock photos to use—seriously, if you have tips on making meat photogenic, please send them to me).
First, the steaks. I didn’t marinate them, didn’t really fuss with them at all, but just cooked them to a medium-rare in a grill pan with a little salt and pepper. I honestly cannot remember the last time I have eaten a better steak. I will be the first to admit that years of vegetarian cooking have left me a little gun-shy as far cooking meat, but I don’t think I could have screwed these up even if I tried. They were fantastic: tender, juicy, and above all, incredibly flavorful, like steak squared… so, steak2.
I was less dazzled by the boneless, skinless chicken breasts, though. I poached two whole breasts in a Filipino-style adobo and cooked other two in pieces, in a buffalo wing sort of sauce. Now, I never buy boneless or skinless chicken, so this may have been largely due to inexperience and/or inherent dislike on my part (or maybe after the amazing steaks, nothing else could hold a candle to that), so while these were much, much moister and tastier than the chicken breasts I remember my dad cooking (sorry, Dad!), they were still… lacking something for me. But, even with that in mind, the chicken breasts were still impressive enough that I would consider buying a whole chicken or chicken wings from Greensbury Market.
So… is it good? Definitely. If organically-farmed meat is important to you, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
