Buffalo

The Food:
For tonight's dinner, Avi and I enjoyed some buffalo shoulder steaks. The shoulder is a tougher cut of meat, and it is recommended to either braise it or marinate it for 24 hours. We did not do either of those things (we did marinate it, but we were 19 hours short of the target), and the meat was a bit chewy, but not unpleasantly so.
It was served over a fluffy mound of mashed potatoes and beside a medley of steamed kale and cabbage. This whole ensemble was covered with a spectacular pan sauce that Avi made using some red wine, the pan drippings from when he seared the meat, garlic, brown sugar, worchetershire sauce, ketchup and other things that were added in a moment of inspiration and then promptly forgotten. The combo sounds pretty awful when thinking about it, but it was one of the best sauces I have ever had. It complimented the buffalo perfectly.

The Animal it Came From - some fun facts about buffalo and their meat:

• Buffalo meat has 70-90% less fat than beef and half as much cholesterol
• The meat also has more protein than beef
• The Buffalo is the largest land mammal who has lived in North America since the end of the ice age
• They actually aren't called Buffalo, the official name is the North American Bison. Buffalos are only in Africa and Asia.
  
• Bison can run up to 35 miles an hour
• During mating season, you can hear a male bison bellow from up to a mile away
• They can climb over fences up to 7 feet high.
  
• And a cheesy buffalo (sorry,bison) joke for good measure:
  

What does the father buffalo say to his son before he leaves? Bi-son!