I must say, for a site that seems to discuss just about every topic imaginable, we don't have a whole lot of food threads around here.

I must say, for a site that seems to discuss just about every topic imaginable, we don't have a whole lot of food threads around here.

Food options are limited in our mothers' basements.

I don't know, I'd say we have a bunch of them. Probably somewhere around the same amount of food threads as movie and music threads.

We've had enough steak threads for everyone to know the direction this thread was going to go, that is for sure. Filet = bad. Porterhouse = good. Raw = only way to do it. And at least one 'I am a chef/butcher/worked in a restaurant' (which is not intended to be snarky at all, it seems like there is a pro in every field imaginable here at BBTF).

Do you cooking folks have any recommendations for websites with good cooking discussions?

Egullet is a good community. I'm not active in it, but the members are a mix of amateurs and pros, and the amateurs are the type of weirdos that cook every single night and document everything with notes and photos.

I must say, for a site that seems to discuss just about every topic imaginable, we don't have a whole lot of food threads around here.

Every movie and music thread devolves to a point where it's mostly just people talking to themselves. "No love for The Lion in Winter?" "I can't believe nobody's mentioned The Buzzcocks!" Food threads don't take off in the same way. Also because we're not consuming exactly the same thing (except, I suppose, with chain restaurants) you can't approach the same level of detailed argument.

How much more expensive is it to buy meat at a butcher, vs. a supermarket?

I don't have a very good answer for this. I would assume that supermarkets are usually cheaper, if only because they have more negotiating power. The place I worked sold fancy local meat that was very expensive.

Every movie and music thread devolves to a point where it's mostly just people talking to themselves. "No love for The Lion in Winter?" "I can't believe nobody's mentioned The Buzzcocks!"

KITFO or GTFO.

The place I worked sold fancy local meat that was very expensive.

thus the reason it is hard to do a direct comparison. Most butcher shops nowadays operate in the high end high margin are of meats. They simply can't make money or survive operating at the low to medium end of the business because the supermarkets have them beat. Consequently you can't compare a filet at Safeway to a filet at Lobel's or any other butcher shop because it isn't the same kind of filet. If a grocery store carried the high end stuff it would likely be cheaper than a butcher shop's price but the difference wouldn't be as great as we see nowadays when comparing meats while ignoring grade and such. I'd guess maybe 10 to 20% cheaper than a butcher if using the same high end products.

For a political read on the food situation with respect to industrial vs artisanal food production, I like to browse FoodPolitics.com. The author Marion Nestle holds the same opinion of Big Food that Neil DeMause holds of new-stadium touts: essentially irreformable and irredeemable monsters whom the public sector regularly has carnal relations with, and whom consequently only an act of God or a Bolshevik revolution can dislodge. She regularly documents the carnival of non-regulations, food mislabeling, dumbing down of "organic," and craven sucking up to ADM and friends.

My local gourmet/organic/sustainable butcher shop is named (of course) Bill the Butcher.

My local gourmet/organic/sustainable butcher shop is named (of course) Bill the Butcher.

We also have a butcher shop called Bill the Butcher, which had a bit of controversy over whether their organic labeling was accurate.