In Which the Butcher Makes Me Laugh

I mean, how often does that happen at a butcher shop? Nice guys and all, but not exactly comedians. But oh, did I laugh when I went to the butcher yesterday. Lemme tell you all about it.

I went to the butcher shop in the Small City to pick up the brisket I had ordered. I ordered a whole brisket. I thought I knew what a whole brisket is. 

I did not.

When we would get our whole cows, we would get a couple of briskets in the boxes, maybe six or seven pounds each. That's what I thought I was getting.

When the butcher told me that it came to $57.49, I was kind of shocked. I was thinking, "Man, that is some premium beef." But it was my fault for not asking the price per pound when I ordered it. So I handed over my debit card.

My next inkling of something different than my expectation was when I saw the box the brisket was in. It was big. And reinforced on the bottom with duct tape.

And then the butcher said, "I'll carry it to your car for you."

What? He thinks I can't carry a brisket? What do I look like, a weakling?

I made some joke about having to lift it into the pot, so I might as well train by carrying it to the car.

Then I pulled the box off the counter, looked inside, and . . . laughed.

There was this HUUUUGE slab of beef, all covered with white fat, and just . . . big. Like, fifteen pounds maybe. So, so big, and so, so not what I was expecting to see.

It appears that the brisket that we would get from the meat processing place was all nicely trimmed and in two pieces: the flat and the point. I had never seen the two together.

So then I had to trim this thing up and cut it into pieces.

My cutting board was barely big enough.

First I had to cut off the fat. And cut and cut and cut. 

Happy dogs ahoy.

So that took care of about five pounds of the brisket. 

Then I sliced off the point, following this really thick kind of vein of fat that runs diagonally along the end of the brisket and separates the two pieces.

Except I missed a chunk of the point and had to cut it off separately. Who cares.

I am obviously no stranger to cutting up meat, so this wasn't as intimidating as it could have been. The nice thing about trimming meat like this is that you can't really screw it up too badly. I mean, no matter what you do, you're gonna end up with food. And the cow is past caring what you do to it, so you've got nothing to lose.

While I was doing this trimming, I was also heating my brine for the corning part. I decided to corn the point and save the flat for some other preparation. 

Any recommendations for The Best Brisket Ever? I happen to have a brisket to spare.