The Peru Gazette

Learning a few shopping and cooking techniques can save you money at the meat counter. “All About Meats” Eating Local Yet? Summer workshops in Canton, Plattsburgh and Sackets Harbor will offer cost-saving tips in hands-on classes with chefs, meat cutters, and nutrition educators. The 6-9pm workshops will be held:
– June 21 in Sackets Harbor at The Farm House Kitchen
– June 22 in Canton at the 1st Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, and
– June 23 in Plattsburgh at the CV-TEC Culinary Kitchen.

Potsdam IGA Manager Rick Cross is a Johnson & Wales-trained chef and meat cutter. Rick will be teaching the Canton workshop on how to stretch your food budget with saavy meat purchasing and preparation.

“These workshops are a great opportunity to learn how to save money by purchasing less expensive cuts of meat and preparing them so they are just as tender as more expensive cuts,” says Cross, who was a chef at the Orlando, Florida, Marriott before returning to New York and the North Country.

Eating Local Yet? workshops organizer Betsy Hodge says, “With a bit of instruction at these workshops, consumers can develop skills that will benefit their eating experience, their budgets, and the local economy.”

Cross says increasing interest in local seasonal foods, the Food Network and food magazines are driving current home culinary trends.

One tip that the instructors, including Great Adirondack Soup Company Chef Chris Dominianni in Plattsburgh and Chef Boo Wells of The Farm House Kitchen in Sackets Harbor, will cover at the meats workshop is how to buy a whole chicken, debone it, use the entire bird, and make soup stock with the bones.

The topic for following week’s workshops on June 28 in Sackets Harbor and Canton and June 30 in Plattsburgh is “All About Vegetables.”

The workshops fee is $30. Space is limited so register ahead for the Sackets Harbor workshops with Amanda Root, Cornell Cooperative Extension Jefferson County, 315-788-8450, arr27@cornell.edu; for the Canton workshops with Cornell Cooperative Extension St. Lawrence County, 315-379-9192, bmf9@cornell.edu; for the Plattsburgh workshops with Amy Ivy, Cornell Cooperative Extension Clinton County, 518-561-7450, adi2@cornell.edu.

For more information on eating local opportunities in Northern New York, contact Northern New York Regional Foods Specialist Bernadette Logozar, Cornell Cooperative Extension Franklin County, 518-483-7403, bel7@cornell.edu, http://www.nnyregionallocalfoods.com. #

More Info:
According to “Buying Locally Produced Meat” by Cornell Cooperative Extension St. Lawrence County Educator Betsy Hodge, a typical 1,000 to 1,200-lb. live beef animals will produce:
· 14 ¾-inch T-bone steaks
· 2 sirloin tip roasts
· 8 packages of stew meat
· 4 packages of soup bones
· 6 chuck roasts
· 4 packages of short ribs
· 80-100lb.s ground beef
· 8 sirloin steaks
· 4 arm roasts
· 14 rib steaks
· 8 round steaks
· 2 rump roasts
· tongue, heart, liver, tail, etc.