lamb

 I roasted a leg of lamb because I felt like I needed to. I lived with my grandparents on their sheep farm when I was growing up, twice. First for three years when I was a child, then for a few when I was a teenager. Every spring lambs would be born. Some ewes birthed three or four, others only one, a few lambs were born still. My pépère showed me how to clip their tails off with a contraption that looked like a nutcracker. You insert their tails into the slot and squeeze the handles closed. The tail falls to the ground and you plunge the nub into a chemical that sterilizes the wound. As a child I preferred to just hold the lambs in my arms as he did the chopping. I squeezed them very tight and they became still. I nuzzled them against my cheek and whispered to them so they’d be calm. When the cleaver closed, they jolted and mewed and often writhed out of my small arms. I played with them afterward.

My pepere sheared sheep expertly. He has since he was 16. He wrestled them into a position in which their shoulders were against his knees, and their back hooves and legs perpendicular to his legs. In this position they fell limp, like dummies. Their bellies fell over their thighs. They understood now was not the time to fight, but be taken. He sheared up and down with a razor, until their wool was short and groovy. Fluffs fell on the cement slab that was at the entrance of the barn. I would play with them in my hands, stretching them apart, padding them together, pulling them into shapes. The rest he swept up into a pile.
The lambs would stand close to their mothers in the field. They’d play, kick their legs up. They’d also lay and nuzzle against their mums’ new haircuts. The girls would grow up and most boys would be picked up and brought to slaughter. We would get some of the meat back and eat it for supper. Lots of stews and curries. On more celebratory occasions, my mémère would cook a roast.
I'd never cooked one myself. My birthday is near and I deeply wanted to cook a hunk of meat and serve it to people I love in a beautiful way. Providing in this way is very romantic to me.
I bought 6.5 pounds from Akropolis Meat Market. They weighed it in front of me, and I asked them to keep the bone in. I brought it home and dropped it on the counter and unwrapped the paper. It looked very much like a muscle. Pale ligaments stretched beyond its deep redness. Snow white fat fell in thick lines. 

I made a dozen incisions in the meat. 

I ground up anchovies, garlic, and rosemary and 

I stuffed it inside them with my fingers, heavily dosing the little cavities. 

I squeezed anchovies into butter with my hands and 

I smeared the paste atop the whole surface, covering it completely. 

I licked off every remnant left on me. 

I placed it on the oven rack at 325° for 20 minutes per pound, per memere’s instruction—

she likes it bloody and so, 

I like it bloody. 

I put a pyrex pan underneath it to catch excess drippings, and 

I used that to season the potatoes I roasted afterward, along with olive oil, salt, pepper, and more rosemary. (Next time, 

I will roast the potatoes underneath the lamb simultaneously.) 

The lamb is such an innocent thing, a famous beacon of purity. But there is something so vulgar about the act of cooking it. What a delicious contradiction I served on a silver platter