We have many, many incinerating days to go before covering our Weber. Labor Day, the World Cup of coal-stoking, beef marinating, pepper peeling and sausage stuffing, feels as distant as wearing those argyle sweaters wrapped in mothballs and stored in the basement.
Here’s a comfort: Longhorn & Lager butchery and seafood shop in the outer reaches of Midlothian has enough grass-fed beef, wild-caught fish and, my favorite food group, sausage, to keep all that summer grilling from getting monotonous.
This week, grass-fed Charolais (pronounced Char-lay) burgers, strip steak and tenderloin arrive from Baldwin Family Farms, just over the North Carolina border, in time for Father’s Day.
Baldwin has been supplying additive-free, hormone-free Halal beef to N.C. farmers’ markets and restaurants since 1969. Longhorn & Lager sells freshly ground, Charolais burgers for $7.99 a pound on a first-come-first-served basis. Steaks cost a little more, but sell out just as fast. Should the thrill of pursuit not be your thing, plan ahead and stock up on beef “bundles” of Charolais.
Steak, burger and roast bundles are available, ranging from $7 to $9 a pound according to quantity. Laying in this kind of supply is not recommended if you’ve never tried grass-fed beef, which is leaner, with a hint of liver flavor to the filet and a hint of dryness to the burger—shockingly different than the rich, waxy, corn-fed beef I grew up on. I’ve had a lot of grass-fed beef, but have found, in general, unless in Argentina, I prefer corn-fed cow. Eating (and preferring) beef fed against the ruminant’s natural inclination —guess that makes me a Philistine without apology.
Another convention I’d like to suggest is a sausage party. It’s the thing to do for your get-acquainted visit to this mom-n-pop butchery. The owner’s teens are behind the counter on weekends, and, like it or not, they’ll be serving you.
Sausage king and owner, Eric Anderson, ain’t from around here, but he knows his pig. He’s worked in the business for decades in northern towns devoted to brats and Polish dogs. At Longhorn & Lager, he stocks nearly a dozen homemade, high-quality sausages from German-immigrant-influenced states that bring the squeal—Wisconsin and Michigan to list just two. In Midlothian, he has sourced an indie bakery to bake his hot dog rolls, which would make a mean under-liner for a lobster roll, should you want to experiment outside the suggested pork fest.
The fresh bratwurst sold is from Usinger’s, whose headquarters on Old World Third Street in Milwaukee, look much like they did in the 1870s, when Fred Usinger, a German sausage maker, set up shop to feed hungry Minnesota barflies. The fourth generation of the Usinger family still makes the toe-curling, shudder-inducing links, including a Polish sausage that requires a case of beer and plenty of hot mustard.
Hedonist with a death wish that I am, I get excited just thinking about grilled bochwurst, $8 lb. This combination of pork and veal is luscious, held together by rich fat and a whisper of casing. For something different, try topping the links with spicy mango chutney and serving with lime pickle on the side.
On the simpler side, the Vienna hot dogs from Michigan are 60 percent beef and 40 percent pork and take to grill marks like a cow to clover. For more exotic tastes, the buffalo hot dogs, which resemble neon red, super-fat Slim Jims, are not as lean as one would think, but that’s a good thing. Incredibly flavorful, but at $16 a pound, a couple to try is enough of that. Buffalo hot dogs are now crossed off the foods-I-must-try-before-I-die list. The other sausages sell for about $8 a pound and are preferential in flavor and girth.
Food geeks, here’s a homework assignment: Compare and contrast the Fresliens kielbasa (Polish sausage) from New England to the German-style and Italian tube steaks sold at Longhorn and report back. I can’t continue to buy eight types of sausage. The sausage party has to end.
Longhorn & Lager ***
1318 Sycamore Square
(804) 464-1712
What’s in the Stars:
0—don’t go
*-average
** above average
*** very good
**** excellent dining experience
Imagine learning to process caviar in Russia after a childhood of Cup-a-Soup. Needless to say, Varmit Pickeral was inspired. Thus began 20 years of restaurant gypsy-hood, beginning with Varmit’s first job as a dishwasher in an institutional kitchen and then trying out most any job Varmit could get in the hospitality industry, including; NC BBQ pit line-cook, cheese steward at Artisanal in Manhattan, grape picker, and specialty buyer for Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market in Northern Virginia.
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