My, such a nice heartwarming thread this!

Happy 2001 everyone!

Congrats on that buffalo dish, Larry! sounds great.

Sorcha, thanks for the tips about cooking game. I quite agree with your statements on hunting and meat eating. I grew up in a hunting household--in fact at Christmas my dad gave me a few pounds of tenderloin from the deer he got recently. He has a friend who now vaccum packs it for freezing so it will probably be great assuming all went well at the kill and butchering--it usually does, and rarely have I eaten venison attended to by him that was less than sweet and tender. Occasionally a deer downed with bow and arrow was a bit gamey; sometimes they die more slowly which toughens the meat. As it should; payback for making the animal suffer needlessly I suppose.

I do not hunt myself anymore (tried it as a kid, loved going into the woods at dawn, hated shooting a gun, but continued fishing which I still enjoy). But I try to remain VERY aware of the fact that an animal has given its life for my nourishment. Was a vegetarian for a few years...now I try to only eat naturally-raised meat, hoping the animal was treated well in its life and killed in a humane fashion...I am hoping the new organic food laws in the US will increase the trend in humane farming in this country. I worked on a bill to pass such regulations a decade ago in Massachusetts and it was a debacle.

Here's to increasing awareness of our animal brothers and sisters and thanks to those who give their lives to us. May we treat them kindly in life and mourn their loss in death, and be mindful of this sacrifice each time we are nourished by them. The way of nature is not kind, nor is it cruel, it merely IS, and the further removed we become from it, the more estranged we become from the food we eat, the water we drink, the plants that shelter and feed us, the animals that share the forests and fields with us.

oops, sorry for the tangent. Happy new year everybody!

Peg