Homegrown Tender Meat with Lime Butter

Ma always told me that choosing not to eat meat is a decision, but eating meat will always be human instinct. And she’s right—if she was wrong, I would’ve turned to veganism years ago. There’s something so satisfying about sinking your teeth into a properly prepared piece of lamb, chewing on each bite with half-crooked teeth from years of not wearing your retainer. Watching Ma craft a new meal with her freshly grown garlic and lime and having Father take our waiting cattle to their fate is something that has stuck with me into my adult years.

For this recipe, I want you to step into my family home and try my ma’s most favorite delicacy: homegrown tender meat with lime butter. This meal will guide your foreign tastebuds into a new world of possibilities for your cooking—a world that’s been right under your nose.

The ingredients are as follows:

▢ 1 small garlic clove, minced
▢ 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
▢ ¼ teaspoon of finely grated lime zest
▢ ¼ teaspoon of black pepper
▢ 1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
▢ ½ teaspoon of salt
▢ 4 12-ounce, 1-inch thick, boneless meat of your choosing

You want to be extra careful when you’re grilling your meat. Be sure to have your oven preheated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit—that’s 260 Celsius if you’re a friend across the ocean.

Always be sure to check in on your cattle. Keep your basement door open just a crack to listen out for any that try to escape. I recommend taking in one at a time so to not waste rope. Back when I regularly served this dish, I liked to take them to the bathroom tub for good measure since it was closer to the kitchen.

If you can’t be sure that your dinner won’t escape, then you need to make sure they’re already dead—no ifs, ands, or buts. You don’t want a pig screaming in your kitchen while you’re buttering them up. Anesthetize them if you have a heart, but Ma always had Father take care of them downstairs before she even got a chance to see life breathe out from the poor things’ faces. If you can’t find your own, kidnapping your neighbors is fine.

Smear butter into your skillet, then sprinkle your salt and black pepper of choice into the pan. Father always liked his extra peppery, but I like to add just a smidgeon of my own favorite garlic. Combine your lime zest and lime juice into a separate bowl before slowly pouring 3⁄4 of it into the skillet. Ignore the shouting coming from down the hall. Their screaming won’t matter in a week’s time, and you don’t wanna distract yourself from saving some lime butter on the side. I’ve eaten enough fresh cuts in my day to confirm they taste amazing when you drizzle the excess on top.

Grill your meat of choice for about 12 minutes. Turn them once over in the skillet until the edges are slightly charred and any leftover skin is barely visible. It’s okay if you forget to remove some of the skin—Father would get mad at you, but I won’t, since it will just sizzle out into your skillet anyways. Skinning someone down to their muscle beforehand isn’t exactly a pleasant experience, anyways. It’s messy and gross and you can’t eat the skin anyways so there’s no point.

Ma always called for medium rare, but I always preferred a nice, well-done cut as my outcome. I don’t want my meal to look half-alive squirming on my plate, and I’m sure you don’t, either.

Otto did that a lot—squirming. I remember one night he was sitting across from me on the couch, he was reading a book and I was watching the TV with the volume down. The bottoms of his feet were shifting like crickets against my calves under the blanket we shared. I asked him if he was okay, and he started shivering like a newborn calf, saying it was too cold in the apartment. I stared for a second too long, having half the mind to say he should be grateful he’s in an apartment and not a porcelain tub, but I shook my head and instead offered to turn up the heat.

He immediately objected and went back to staring at the book in his lap. Man-Eater was the title. The moment read like a joke. Like I was his crowd work at a shitty stand-up show.

“I’ll be fine,” he told me, but it was an obvious lie. I knew he didn’t like the cold. Not after all those hours he did spend in the tub. So I pushed myself off the couch to turn up the heat anyway.

When I returned, I slid back under the throw blanket, and I felt Otto’s hand clamber for mine. I could feel the indent of the long scar across his palm as he clasped our fingers together. The TV had gone quiet, replaced with whipping winter wind outside the windows, and a beat of silence later, Otto was asking me what I wanted for dinner.

I shrugged, staring at his book, long forgotten on the coffee table in front of us. Otto followed my gaze, the tension in the room so icy despite the heater kicking on and making us both sink into our skin. We both stared at the title for a moment too long.

He suggested a vegetable dish for dinner that night. But I don’t know how to cook any of those.