Brisket is lookin Really Tasty, Nicely Done, Brother! 
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I didn't get a picture of the styrofoam shipper before taping it shut, but with three frozen vacuum sealed bags (one with flat, one with burnt ends and one with sauce) and frozen gel packs, the shipper was full and packed tightly enough not to move around when shaken. Then it got put into the Lowe's cardboard box and packing material added there to prevent any movement and to help with insulation.
Shipping was...expensive. I was assured that paying the extra for overnight shipping put the parcel into their highest priority category while dealing with the rush, so let's cross our fingers and hope for the best. Tracking number has been transmitted to my friend.Comment
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Well, UPS says that the package is out for delivery today, so I may well have won the shipping lottery with overnight shipping actually working.
While we wait for my friend to open the box and tell us if the brisket is still cold, I have a funny ethics question for you folks. You will recall that I got a fine new brisket sword from my Secret Santa Beefchop. I obviously used it for this brisket. As things usually go in life, I was happily cutting along while cubing the point for burnt ends. I had been telling myself that this sword is incredibly sharp and to be careful. Despite that, I felt light contact of the knife with the end of my thumb. While cursing my stupid self, I quickly looked at the thumb and was happy to find no blood! I had not cut my skin! I was amazed, and carried on. This was Sunday, of course.
Well, sometime late Sunday or early Monday, I noticed that a chunk of the end of my thumbnail is now missing. Here's a picture, but you need to know first that the blood blister is several months old. It came during an attempt at fence repair and was caused by a hammer hitting right at the base of the nail. There obviously has been much growth of the nail since then.
I was shocked that I hadn't noticed the moment the bit of nail came off. It had to have been nicked by the brisket sword and I'm just incredibly lucky that it went no deeper.
But I don't know where the piece of nail wound up! I just finished our half of the burnt ends in my lunch today and didn't find it. My wife said nothing while working on servings of it during two meals also. Further complicating things is that I had my second cataract surgery a little over a month ago and I've gone monovision: one eye has a distance lens in it and the other eye is the reading lens. Unfortunately, the reading lens only works well for very close vision and I'm missing the mid-range vision that is important when working on a laptop or cooking. Of course, my new glasses arrived on Monday to fix the problem, but the nick was on Sunday. But the upshot of all that is that without mid-range vision, I probably couldn't tell whether the piece of nail was there or not when I checked for blood.
So, do I warn my friend to look for the bit of thumbnail or just hope it fell off elsewhere and not in the chopped up point? In fact, if it was in there, the point went back in my oven in the cast iron skillet for close to 45 minutes at 300, so the nail might have softened to the consistency of some of that terrific bark.
My instinct right now is to wait until he and his wife have finished eating everything in the package and then to casually send him the picture and ask if he happened to spot the missing piece, but I'm open to suggestions.Comment
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Jim White Haha. Yes - those slicers are SHARP!
I would be tempted to wait and see if they find it, otherwise.... well, they might be grossed out and not want to eat it. Odds are, it fell off the cutting board or onto the floor, and you didn't notice. Let's hope so anyway!
This fits nicely with my Thanksgiving Day, and this story should make you feel better:
Lately, I have a box of extra large Nitrile gloves I keep in a drawer in the kitchen, and I have been using them when pulling pork, cutting brisket, or in the case of Thanksgiving, carving a 19 pound turkey off the Weber rotisserie. They give me a little protection from the hot meat, and keep the grease off my hands and out from under my nails, and I feel make me look a little more sanitary. Don't tell anyone I bought the nitrile gloves at Autozone, haha.
Anyway, I was happily carving the turkey, and had successfully removed the wing, leg and thigh on one side of the turkey and then was using a Rapala 6-inch filet knife (very sharp) to take the full hunk of meat off the breast, and then cut the breast across the grain into strips. As I am cutting the breast, I poked my gloved left hand with the tip of the knife, said "ouch" and kept on. The family is watching this, and someone asks why the breast had red spots on it.... I was bleeding and didn't know it! Nitrile gloves don't protect you from sharp knives!
The end of that story was that I wiped the blood off (it was just a few drops, and was only on the skin), and cleaned up everything, and set that breast aside on a plate. With my hand wrapped in a paper towel, I finished carving the turkey, and everyone ate the OTHER breast, or the dark meat, and I had my very own breast, that I ate for several days...
So much for wearing "sanitary" gloves while carving the turkey...Last edited by jfmorris; December 15, 2020, 03:57 PM.Comment
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Great news! The package arrived and the contents are intact and quite cold. Here's a pic:
I didn't mention the missing thumbnail when he called...Comment
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