A pound (or 4) of flesh

UPDATE: The roast smells...divine! :) Hope it tastes as good :)

DISCLAIMER: Dinner group friends, you probably should wait until after dinner to read this. Also, anyone with easily-upset stomachs...well, read at your own risk.

So it's Tuesday and my turn to make dinner for dinner group. (psst! if you haven't checked out our dinner group blog, please do! ).

Anyway. I'm excited. Really excited, actually. Hopefully slaving away in the kitchen all day will pay off and the food will taste almost as good as my mom's or oma's.

My plan is to make a roast (in the crockpot) and potatoes and Sour Cream and Chive Potato bread.

Let's rewind for a minute: to Monday night. My wonderful roommate Kim, who is in possession of a silver Taurus, took me to the grocery store to buy the necessary ingredients.

I went straight to the meat section in search of the perfect roast.

Note: My first year of college, I lived in the dorms and ate in the cafeteria. My second year, I was a vegetarian. Thus, I don't really know how to buy/prepare meat (other than chicken from a can).

I'm walking down the aisle of red uncooked used-to-be cows and pigs, looking for a "rump roast" as per my mother's instructions.

{While talking to her on the phone the entire time}

I read the names on the labels: Pork Loin, Beef Chuck Chuck Roast (how much beef in a chuck chuck roast...if the beef chuck would chuck roast?), Tip roast, Top Sirloin, etc.

And then I see it: rump roast! But there are two choices: top and bottom. (isn't the rump roast, by definition, the bottom?) Apparently not.

A few things I discovered in the meat department at Smith's:
-the sanitation station is a glorious place.
-the pink/purple ink stains on the fat of the meat...that's where they stamp the dead cow. Yuck. (note: I'm NOT an animal rights activist, and I'm not against eating meat. But that did make my stomach turn, just a little.)
-meat is dang expensive. or at least it feels like it when you never buy it, and then buy a 4.399 pound roast.

I select a "super value pack," 4.399 pound bottom rump roast, grab a package of Beefy Onion Lipton Onion Soup Mix and some milk and go home.

Nevertheless, this morning I put it in the crockpot (correction: my roommate Natalie actually put it in the crockpot, because I was too grossed out...I poured the soup mix over it and put the lid on.) The point is, it's there. And it's going to be really good, I hope.

I'm off to go see if the bread is done rising....

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