I love steak and kidney pie with a passion!

But, more's the pity, it's been several years since I had any. "Why?", I hear someone ask.

It's hard, hard, hard to find lamb kidneys these days. The way meats are distributed--precut at the plant, and sent out to stores where there usually are meat merchandisers or meat-counter help but not real butchers--means that the kidneys are separated from the carcasses rather than sent to the stores. I suspect that the kidneys are diverted to the petfood industry.

My wife has started frequenting farmers markets these days, where it's sometimes possible to find a small, independent, family meat producer supplying and manning a booth, and just sometimes they may have lamb kidneys, but they are often snapped up by the early-morning shoppers at the farmers market.

Dave Oesterreich