So the day finally came a few weeks back. A day I had been avoiding religiously all my life, I went to staunch extremes to avoid this encounter. Which when I lived alone was not all the difficult.

They day I am talking about was January 21, 2010, this was the day I had to touch RAW MEAT!!! Yes I am over 30 years of age, yes I know I am being ridiculous, but this is a MAJOR hang up of mine. I can’t even begin to tell you all the trauma of this ordeal.

It was not just a piece of raw fleshy cold meat it was 8!!!! Different types, thank you Dari Bowman.

I was helping Dari cook for night 2 of the Wahoo Tournament. She is no stranger to cooking for groups over 100 people; the tourney was about 120 or so. Most people know my aversion to raw meat, Dari got firsthand experience last year at the Wahoo tourney as I had to help her run the meat slicer for 8 huge slabs of steak. All I had to do was keep up with her pace of slicing and use tongs to put the freakin, practically raw bloody steak into a serving pan.

There I was holding my breath, trying to keep the waves of nausea from taking over and she is laughing at me, “Girl Just get over it” This has become a wide known fact on Cat that I don’t handle meat that well. At the Cat House, Billy and Dari’s house, there is always TONS of meat around. They have a huge smoker built like a blue marlin. I have not even gotten around to the fish.

So this infamous day, I had to touch/man handle/slice:

Wahoo

Dolphin (not flipper)

Quail

Beef Steak & the fat

Bacon

Sausage

Chicken

Turkey

I am a very picky person when it comes to food/eating. I don’t like to get messy, so to all those out there that enjoy eating chicken wings, crab, lobster all that food you have to tear apart with your fingers, gross! I don’t’ like to then look at my hands and see goo under my finger nails. AND if I am hungry I am not gonna go through the motions of eating said food, when the food reward is very little. All that work for a few bites, give me a bowl of pasta folks.

So this day, I first had to help brine the turkey, 4 large raw whole turkeys that we put into a cooler with juice and spices and such. Ya ever touched a raw turkey, yes I know you prolly have, but the pimply loose skin just skeeves me out like no other, blech.

After this we head to marina to check the smoker which is LOADED with fish from last night. I mean we are talking about 50lbs of smoked fish, so much so, that we had to climb up on the prep table and crawl into the smoker. Some pieces had been smoked with the skin on, so said skin then sticks like glue to racks, which you have to pull off with fingers as the tongs are too long to get the correct leverage.

After this, we have another 60lbs of fish we need to brine, Wahoo and dolphin, fresh catch from the day before. Huge ice bags that were bulging with raw fish. I have NEVER touched raw fish in my life till this moment and it is staring me in the face. Dari, “grab that bag and get started”

The slabs of fish were so big it took both hand s to get them out of the bag, some with skin still on them. I dropped about 2 pieces in the dirt cause I could not wrap my brain around what my hands were doing, touching and the skin is so slimy. As you get to the bottom of the bag you are now above elbow deep dragging your arms out of this mess. Did I mention we had 6 huge bags of fish.

I couldn’t wash my hands fast enough, of course the bathrooms at the marina had no Soap!! Wth? And dinner napkins for hand drying, fail!

Then we head to resort kitchen to prep the side dishes and deal with 6 slabs of beef and 2 slabs of ribs. I can’t recall what they weighed but it was a lot, so much that it took the both of us to carry them from the fridge to sink. They had been so thawed out that blood was everywhere, beef blood. It looked like the scene from Carrie in the kitchen. We had to open all the packages and prep them which means cutting off all the fat to use in the smoker.

Ummm, yeah beef fat and I don’t get along so well, esp when someone starts slinging fat chunks at you!!! I had to go take a breather outside. The stench of raw beef in this incredibly hot kitchen was about to do me in.

While we wait for the smoker to heat up, we have to prep one of the apps. Stuffed quail, oh goody.

Ya ever tried to stuff a quail, it’s very difficult. We had 20 birds and only half had been de-boned. CREEPY!

So I get the job of rolling up small sausage balls to stuff into the birds, um yeah, after 4 balls or so I have this nasty layer of film all over my hands that is turning to glue. We are now in the uber tiny kitchen at the marina with about 7 people in there trying to do all different things.

It took both of us to stuff the damn birds cause the ones with no bones was like trying to stuff a bowling ball into a balloon. One of us had to literally stuff the ball up the butts of the birds….fun huh? And why did I know go fishing again this day, oh right to help Dari cook, smacks head with sausage goo hand.

Then comes the fun part, now we get to wrestle some bacon around these damn birds, and tooth pick em together.

YAY, raw bacon….I am about to come unglued at this point. All I can think about is a shower and not eating the food we have been cooking all day. After touching it there is no way I can eat, I know what it feels like raw!!!

Smoker reaches temp. and I have to stick my hands into a cooler filled with brine and fish (ha) out slabs of wahoo to lie on the racks. I am sticking my hands and arms into a cooler and swimming my hands around to find slabs of raw fish!!! This is like a sick and twisted version of bobbing for apples.

Then up next the 4 turkey, Dari tosses one at me under handed like a football and I *almost* drop it I the dirt, that would have been terrible. After turkey we have the slabs o’ beef. I can see that this day is drawing to a close in the raw meat dept as all food is gona be cooked very soon, thank you god.

But oh wait, no we have a last minute addition of chicken, of goody….thankfully I only have to manhandle one of these things. I had not eaten much that day and the aroma of meat was killing me.

Now people tell me I’m strange and how could I have never touched raw meat. Well, when my sister and I (Hi Katy) live together we only bought these little frozen chicken tenders that we would marinade in the fridge then bake in the oven in foil bags. I would use a FORK! To pick up thawed chicken.

I had another roommate who insisted!!! On buying whole chickens cause it was cheaper, um yeah, a whole day of smelling, watching and listening to her maul a chicken in our kitchen sink was disgusting. And was it really worth it, all that work, when you could just buy the pieces you want separately. Come On! No one wants to hear bones snapping!

So last night Cdub was prepping some chicken for our next week with guests. This is 5 raw chicken breasts on the counter at once. He did a tasty job, based on the wonderful smells in the pan. But having to look at 5 of those while he stuffed them with a cheese pepper mixture while I handed him toothpicks to hold them closed was, well gross. My job was also to wrap them in plastic wrap after stuffing. Ok folks, cold fleshy chicken with toothpicks and plastic wrap is not that far off from actually touching them….he has an unlimited amount of patience with me and all my hang-ups.

If it was not for him we would eat way to much pasta, sandwiches and pizzas.