Weiners!

Today I drove by Talones. Talones is a meat market near the railroad tracks in an industrial area of Escondido. Talones has been there ever since I can remember. It doesn't smell the same. When I was a child Talones was also a slaughter house. Obviously they had the freshest meat, so it was a popular place to shop. Now it is just a meat market with signs in the window in Spanish. I didn't go in.

My grandfather, John Ulrich was a butcher. He started at the Piggly Wiggly and when they went out of business he moved to Talones. My mother never had to make a decision about which piece of meat to select, she just told Gramps what she wanted. "Round steak today and a beef roast, along with a 3 lbs of hamburger." He would then put the round steak through the tenderizer (did you know you can have the butcher at the meat counter do this today?) which would eliminate the need to pound the round steak. He would select the very best cut of roast, guaranteed to be tender and flavorful. And the hamburger was always pink and wrapped up carefully.

She always took the kids with her to Talones. It was always on a Saturday. We loved to go to Talones. As we got out of the car you could hear the cows mooing. What fun! Sometimes they were in their pens outside and we got to see them, even better. And the smell......oh, I loved the smell. It smelled just like wieners! Yep, that's right wieners!

After Gramps had finished wrapping up Mother's purchase he would reach into the chilled meat display and from the large tray of stacked wieners grab a few. He would then turn to us and hand each one of us a raw wiener. You would have thought it was a Popsicle we were so excited. We would stand looking at the other customers with pride, no one else was munching on a wiener! Obviously we were very special. With boisterous goodbys I would clutch my treasure and munch my way back to the car. I loved Talones. I still like raw weiners.