In Which Liver Tastes Mighty Good

In September we got an eighth of a cow from Phillycowshare, and the liver was included in our eighth, lucky us. Finally this week I worked up the nerve to thaw it. How to cook this much-maligned organ? Classic liver and onions sounded OK but too close to the liver I was forced to eat as a child. It was tough and gray and it took forever to eat. So I found a recipe for liver with, yes, bacon and onions, but also ketchup. It sounded palatable enough to try to feed the kids. Instead of ketchup I used Trader Joe's barbecue sauce because that's what we had. Personally, I thought it was kinda fantastic. And the liver was not tough in the least. The pieces were about 1/2 inch thick and I only cooked them for two minutes on each side.

Mr. Dream Kitchen thought the liver was just fine. He is an agreeable, low-maintenance guy. My younger son made dire faces and writhed about in his chair for a minute, and groaned, while the rest of us ignored him. He eventually ate a few bites, and all the bacon. (This is a kid who made a baconmobile the other week for the Pinewood Derby.) My older son had a couple of bites.

In other words, the liver was a raging success!!! As Julia Child once said, "When it comes to liver, you gotta set the bar low, girl!" Maybe she didn't actually say it, but I feel she might have said it in a comment below, had she been imbibing, and had she never taken classes at Le Cordon Bleu.