Mikhaël has just delivered two kilos of cut up turkey necks and two kilos of chicken wings. At the moment they are in the refrigerator until I can pack them individually tomorrow - ThreeBees is already on fast freeze so I should be able to do them all tomorrow. Friday he will bring a couple of kilos of turkey hearts but those I open freeze on trays, then put them loose in a carrier bag - I am not that daft to try and pack them individually even though Tikva has two of those with an evening meal. But - two weeks ago he brought round two kilos of turkey gizzards and as it was late he just rushed in, put the bag on the sink unit, and said to pay him next time, and next time was this evening. I am just totally confused as to how much things cost as if I owed him 20 shekels for the gizzards, how come the total for this lot and the gizzards that I owed him for only came to 77 shekels? Only he said just to give him 70 [he never bothers with any change] which is the equivalent of £14.95 He is obviously not charging me the regular price that they sell these for at their poultry stall, which of course only has human food and I am definitely not complaining, but I do feel a bit guilty especially as all the poultry I buy for Tikki [and for Pereg before her] is for us both - the only difference being that I cook mine and she has hers raw. I guess I am just lucky in having such lovely people living just up the road from me.
Thanks for this post Malka, ironically I was just looking online for something exactly like this. As you may recall we're feeding raw, and the order that I just received I ordered extra bits as well as the usual (however I've changed from 500g tubs to 1.4kgs chubbs (from http://www.nutriment.co/) as the price-per-kilogram is better). On my latest order I additionally purchased: 200g chicken wing tips 500g fresh turky necks (may go for chicken necks next as these are huge!) 200g chicken hearts 1kg bag of whole fresh sprats This is the first time that I've ordered any additional like the above - so was thinking of getting a load of freezer bags and in each bad adding: 2x wing tips, 2x hearts, and 2x sprats (and maybe chop up the necks into smaller pieces and pop that in), and putting the individual mixed bags into the freezer. I'd then take a 'mixed bag' out in the morning, so she can have it along with her evening meal. That's what you would do yes ?
Hello Tim - this is going to rather long so I hope you do not get bored, but it might help you to know how I feed raw. I buy fresh poultry from my poulterer, and fresh, large, whole sardines - ungutted with heads and fins still on, from the fish van when it comes round. The fish I open freeze then put in a bag in Pereg's freezer. [It will always be called her freezer because I bought it for her!] - everything is fast frozen in the two large open sections of ThreeBees, my big upright freezer, the open sections having pull down doors, which are above four large drawers and one double size one. I think it is a 280 litre freezer, whereas Pereg's freezer is a four-drawer 140 litre one - it is a bit larger than the freezers that are called under-the-counter ones. My big f/f is a 550 litre one. Incidentally the chicken wings are whole wings although the actual end tip has been removed [it is to do with Kashrut because the tip has a metal thingy clipped on to confirm that the chicken, or turkey, have been killed according to the laws of Kashrut so are strictly Kasher]. Once everything has been fast frozen in ThreeBees it is then packed into Pereg's freezer, and what does not fit in that goes in one of the drawers in ThreeBees. For Tikva, who is probably ~6-6½ kilos I buy 2 kilos of everything at a time, whereas Pereg weighed between 20-22 kilos according to the frequencies of her seizures and also to her medication, I would buy in 5 or even 10 kilos of some things. Chicken backs and carcasses I used to break in half and pack each half separately. Mikhaël would cut the turkey necks in half for Pereg and now for Tikki he cuts them into maybe quarters as they are very large. All the above are given frozen for her morning meal. Crunch crunch crunch! I alternate between them - yesterday it was a whole fish, this morning a large chunk of turkey neck, so tomorrow it will be a large chicken wing. Turkey gizzards, hearts and livers are an ideal size, chicken ones being too small. These are taken from the freezer the evening before and are cut up for Tikki's evening meal, mixed with diced mixed vegetables and her various vitamins and supplements which have been mixed with warm water in her bowl before I add the vegetables and meat. Basically the same as Pereg had only half the amount, in a smaller bowl, although Pereg had to have additional supplements to help protect her liver from her medication, which is processed through the liver. The vegetables come in a frozen kilo bag, which I put into five smallish containers and put in the freezer section of my refrigerator. Each container holds enough for two meals and I take one out to defrost in the refrigerator every other evening - the meat for that day having been taken to defrost every evening. Again I tend to alternate them. I also buy ox lung which I hate cutting up as it comes in a 2 kilo slab, and being light weight for the volume there is rather a lot to cut up, pack and then freeze. I do not mind handling liver but handling ox lung is not my idea of fun! But it is extremely nutritious and I do cook some for myself - in a slow-cooker - with various herbs etc, and it is quite tasty. It is also incredibly cheap. The thing is, Tim, that I started feeding raw to Pereg around the middle of 2011, buying what I could. Beef is very expensive here as it is imported chilled from Argentina [not enough land here] and lamb is exorbitant. Poultry is the main meat here. So it became automatic to me as to what and how much of each thing is needed. As for Tikva, who was only three weeks old [much much too young] I started her on raw after I had finished bottle-feeding her, then weaning her onto [human] baby cereals - very small amounts of meat etc to start with, although I had been giving her very tiny amounts when I was weaning her - chewing it up myself and hand-feeding her tiny bits at a time, which she sucked on. I hope this all makes sense to you and apologise for the length of this post. Juli
Mikhaël has done it again! I called him this morning about the turkey hearts as I had managed to shuffle what was in Pereg's freezer after I had packed the turkey necks and chicken wings in it [it is like the Tardis - holds far more than it looks it should from the outside] so asked him for three kilos of turkey hearts instead of two. And this time asked how much they were a kilo so I had cash out ready for him, knowing that being a Friday he would deliver it in a rush. 30 shekels a kilo he said, so I got 90 plus a bit more, ready to give him. So what did he charge me? 60 shekalim. OK, not quite three kilos but 2.8, presumably that was all they had left, as the stall would have been closed before 4pm for Shabbat and will not open again until Sunday when freshly slaughtered poultry will be delivered. This week's deliveries of turkeys must have been cock birds and not hens, as the chunks of turkey necks were more solid and meatier than from hen birds, and these hearts are enormous. One will do perfectly with an evening meal whereas I usually have to give Tikki two. Come Sunday and there will be a load in a crockpot for me - yum yum yum!
I wish my freezer was a Tardis. It is always full of stuff that doesn't appear to make a meal. Definitely no room for more than 500g of meat for the dogs!
Having shuffled bags of individually packed frozen meat around in Pereg's freezer, it now has all the meat and turkey neck chunks and chicken wings, plus the turkey hearts from yesterday. The top drawer now has the bags of remaining amounts of all but the turkey necks and chicken wings, the second drawer has the bag of two kilos gizzards from two weeks ago, plus the bag of still a load of frozen large sardines. The third drawer is chocka with 2.8 kilos of turkey hearts [in two bags], and the deeper bottom drawer has the two kilos each of turkey necks and chicken wings, each in separate bags. Keeping items in plastic carrier bags makes it easier to take out what I want when I want it. That freezer, which also runs very cold, is the only one that needs defrosting, but if I keep it chocka it only needs defrosting twice a year. I shifted the bags with the remainder of the previous lot of turkey necks and chicky wings to the freezer of my f/f in the kitchen, and the two fast freeze sections in ThreeBees are now empty - for the moment. Really, apart from my salon which only has the minimum furniture, my little bungalow is also like a Tardis, and with no interior doors is actually easy to maneuver through - although if I go into my tiny galley kitchen on my chair I have to reverse out!
