Killing It
Page 30
Also, across the pond at Picador, my British editor, Sophie Jonathan, pushed and prodded my text in all the right ways and the book is all the better for it.
Books take way more time than I thought they would and finding time is not my strong suit. Luckily there are organizations whose sole purpose is to give time to writers. Thank you to the Logan Nonfiction Program at the Carey Institute for Global Good for accepting me into their nascent residency. Thanks especially to fellow residents Justin Cohen, Matt Young, and Susannah Breslin for reading my first sloppy attempts. An underwater photographer named Jason weekly delivered firewood to the front door of my cabin at Caldera’s artist residency. That pretty much sums up why I love Caldera. Also, thanks to fellow resident Kim Calder for her sharp editorial eye and keen intellect. Lastly, the good folks at Willapa Bay AiR plied me with spirited conversations and delicious food while I wrote the hard stuff.
Frances Badalamenti, thanks for letting me turn your coast cabin into my regular writing retreat. It’s quite possible that most of my book came to me in the form of sauna sweat. Also, thank you for your early input and insight into my first chapters.
Zach, Aimee, and Georgia, thanks for letting me take over your basement office when things got hairy at the end and thanks for offering the kind of family support a girl needs in times like those.
My Good Meat Project board members kept the nonprofit flame going while I was busy with my head in the book. Thanks for your patience and for your continued enthusiasm for this constantly morphing project. Tanya Harding, Sarah King, and Sarah Wong—my pioneering board members—thank you for your continued belief in all of this, and in me.
Thanks also to the people who made the Portland Meat Collective run without me while I was off in the literal and metaphorical woods writing, especially Faye Holliday and Beth Collins—plus, all of our PMC instructors and class assistants who have kept the PMC running like the well-oiled machine you have helped it to become.
The tricky, shifty nature of facts—everything is complicated once you dig even a centimeter deep—keeps me up at night. Thanks to Sylvie Lubow and the folks at Unfurl for helping me sleep better. Thanks, too, to Dr. Michele Pfannenstiel, Dr. Andrew Milkowski, and Adam Danforth for vetting all the complications that worried me.
Many thanks to Emily Chenoweth, BT Shaw, and Joe Streckert, who read their work at Livestock, an event that occurred in Portland in 2009, and whose works from that event are quoted in the book.
I’ve been lucky to have stumbled upon so many generous mentors over the course of my life. If I were to draw up a family tree of all of them, the roots of that tree would take me back to Tim Goss (aka Mit Ssog) for teaching me, at a young age, how much more enjoyable it is to live a questioning, curious life, and to Marie Pickett who encouraged me to apply the wilds of my imagination to the wilds of Fruitway Road.
The number of farmers, butchers, and chefs I have learned from over the years is too numerous to list here, so let’s just say that if you have ever come into contact with the Portland Meat Collective, these pages exist because of you.
Robert Reynolds, you were supposed to be around to read this. Yet, at times, I sense you standing behind me, reminding me the commas only matter if I tell them to do something poetic, and reminding me to drink my daily dose of bubbles.
Tom, roaster of meats, you dwell in the spaces between each line of this book.
Jill Davis makes me jump out of planes and I love her for it. ’Nuff said.
I can’t really imagine writing about the world around me without Robin Romm writing somewhere nearby. Remember when we were eighteen and we moved into that cramped, rotting silver bullet trailer together up the Siuslaw a few miles from the Pacific, determined to live the young poet’s life? That’s when I knew you were the writer for me. Here we are now, still, thinking hard together about the hard stuff.
Dad, thanks for teaching me to gut my first fish. The lessons you taught me early on about the real world of real things clearly stuck, even if I forgot them for a while.
Mom, thanks for inspiring me, probably without even meaning to, to question those fish guts. Also, admit it. Without the great ongoing pork chop debate, our relationship would be so boring, and, I’d argue, so would this book. Thanks also for taking me to the library every weekend when I was a kid, for teaching me the intimidating power of the red pen in my adolescence, and for letting me, always, curl up next to you to read a good book.
T. S., it was all worth it. I warned you I might write about it someday. You said, I trust you to put the right things in there. I hope that I did.
And.
A. R., how is it that you make everything that feels so hard—everything that finds us with our hearts hanging out—all, somehow, mysteriously, seem so easy. I know you know how much I owe you. Because, math.
Finally, I will forever be indebted to Kate Hill for so generously inviting me into the life of abundance that she has chosen to create and to Dominique and Christiane Chapolard—along with the rest of their family. With you all in the world, one can never really be alone.
A NOTE FOR OTHER SEARCHING PEOPLE
For anyone wishing to learn what I have in the past nine years, there are so many more resources now than when I set out—too many, in fact, to detail here. I do, however, maintain a running list of these resources on the Portland Meat Collective Web site (pdxmeat.com/resources). Go there and ye shall find a good starting point in the form of books, films, organizations, charcuterie workshops, annual meat gatherings, Web sites, podcasts, and more to guide you on your journey.
To find out how to start your own Meat Collective, or to locate other Meat Collectives that have launched around the country—from central Texas to Seattle—visit the Good Meat Project Web site (goodmeatproject.org). If you are a farmer, butcher, or a chef looking for Meat Collective–style educational opportunities geared toward your needs and interests, you’ll find information there as well.
For all my fellow meat ladies out there, check out Grrls Meat Camp at grrlsmeatcamp.com. I’ll see you there.
Kate Hill still welcomes students into her home, onto her neighboring farms, and into the working lives of her favorite cast of butchers, bakers, and Armagnac makers. To find out more about her offerings, visit her Web site: kitchen-at-camont.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Camas Davis is a former editor and writer for magazines including Saveur and National Geographic Adventure. In 2009, she traveled to southwest France to study whole animal butchery and charcuterie and subsequently founded the Portland Meat Collective, a transparent, hands-on meat school that has become a local and national resource for meat education and reform. In 2014, Camas launched the Good Meat Project, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring responsible meat production and consumption through experiential education across the country. Camas and the Portland Meat Collective have been covered in media outlets such as the New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, and Cooking Light.
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