Your task for this week is simple, but hardly easy.
Find yourself a GOOD butcher. This means either an independent shop, or a good butcher dept. in a good supermarket), because moving plastic wrapped sirloins and boneless/skinless chicken breasts from the back to the refrigerated case is not that. You need someone who can score you the good stuff, and the hard-to-find stuff. You may want breast of veal, or a saddle of lamb or free-range capon or Kobe (or grass-fed) beef, or some unusual cuts like flatirons or hanger steaks.
You need to find someone who knows his (or her) stuff. You need to hack away the distance between the front end of your personal food chain and you. You need to find a butcher who doesn't just sell "ground beef" but rather, sells beef that he (or, again, she) will grind to your specs on the spot.
It is one of the pillars of food sense that the fewer the number of people involved with your food, the better it will taste and the better it will be for you. Food that has been lovingly -- even passionately -- raised will give you a huge-@$$ jump on getting something delicious on the plate.
And a butcher is the person who can get you that.
Find one and cultivate that relationship. A butcher who is both knowledgeable and on your side will let you know when something beautiful has come in, when you should be guided into considering a different something, when you don't need that supah-pricy cut.
Of course, this is likely easier in the big cities that have enough of a population to make such a butcher establishment economically viable. But even mid-sized locales still have a good butcher shop somewhere. All you need do is find it.
Imagine how glorious that Thomas Keller roast chicken will taste with a real chicken; one that hasn't been swimming in weirdo ingredients and hormones and antibiotics.
Be a friend, make a friend.
-J.
