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Job Interview

A Girl Like You Anne Galloway, a butcheress at Enrico's Meat Market, is a better dinner companion than most wines. At 26, this former Oregonian can tell skirt steak from Chateaubriand at 50 paces. Michael Stabile caught up with Anne and got the beef on cutting meat. Michael: What's your job? Anne: I schlep meat. Some people call me a butcheress. ... In [the phrase] "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" I'm the "girl like you." Michael: Do you like it? Anne: I love my job. I really do. I like cutting meat. I love playing with meat. I eat at least two meals of meat a day. I eat more meat than most people do. If I weren't here, I could be some big activist chaining myself to Neiman Marcus: [screaming in a high-pitched voice] "Don't eat or kill animals for their fur or food." [Laughs]. Michael: How did you start? Anne: Do you want the real truth? My husband got a job here, [but] due to an injury he's not working here--or welcome to work here--anymore, so I got volunteered. I've been doing it a year off and on. Michael: Do you have prior meat experience? Anne: Doesn't every woman? I have a kid--of course I have prior meat experience! Yes, I cook with meat as often as I can. I barbecue it. I burn it. I broil it. Michael: What's your favorite cut of meat? Anne: I love porterhouse [steaks]. Definitely, porterhouse. I bake them to death in the broiler, and I love to burn them just enough that the filet mignon crumbles apart. It's the best in the world. Michael: What's the most popular cut of meat? Anne: It depends. The Russians like the tongue. But probably ground beef. I sell a lot of ground meat. Michael: Is there some meat you won't eat? Anne: Oh God, yeah. I don't eat veal. I don't eat anything that comes from inside an animal that's not a muscle like meat. I don't even touch the kidneys. I steal gloves from the deli so that I don't have to smell like innards--they're horrible. Michael: If you weren't doing this, what would you be doing? Anne: I would be practicing my guitar. I'd be trying to be a rock guitar player more avidly than I am now. Or [I'd be] working on a suntan somewhere, anywhere else. [ San Francisco | MetroActive Central | Archives ]