I don't know how bad it is. I don't know how bad it is if something or someone dies a death that is more painful than necessary, or experienced in fear, or in vain, or when their death fails to fit into the role someone had planned for it.

This is a blog about hunting and eating.

Looking at an animal in terms of meat creates tension for someone who has already studied anatomy. “Psoas” is a beautiful word, a perfectly good name for a thing, and has useful specificity, whereas “Tenderloin” has to be one of the creepiest words I know. I suppose Tenderloin is about eating and Psoas is about a functioning body and puts us in danger of relating to our meat. I have a Psoas, just like this deer, and I don’t want to think about that when I sear it with course salt and cracked pepper on cast iron, then cut it into pink medallions.

You don't have to have gotten food poisoning from a family member’s brain to feel nauseous about eating one.

Standing still at dawn with the tide of sound and smell rising around me is the most exciting thing I know of in hunting. Everything is being born, every solid, real thing that will exist during the day is forming in the the low clouds that rake the trees and linger on the meadow.

Many hunters pride themselves on turning down such shots and many feel a lot of anguish for leaving a wounded animal when a blood trail peters out. The story is not over, but the hunter is written out of the script. Bowhunting hogs at granger is not like that. Here, you take what shot you can get.

Preheat oven to 290.

1. Thaw mysterious butcher paper from freezer in garage. Unwrap in the sink and see what your working with. Looks like a rump roast type thing.