You become a butcher! “Julie And Julia: My Year Of Cooking Dangerously” author Julie Powell has released her next book, “Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession”, her “Julie and Julia” marriage gone awry “set against a backdrop of butchery.”

Most of “Cleaving” was written while Powell was an apprentice at Fleisher’s, a grass-fed and organic meat butcher shop in Kingston, New York. We haven’t read the book, but a colleague who did passes on her wishes for “more food and less sex—does anybody care about Julie Powell’s sex life?” (Yes: People who buy books to make into films will probably like it just the way it is.)

Fleisher’s has launched a formal butchery apprentice program that has already graduated three successful butchers. If your New Year’s plans include training in the culinary arts, learn more about Fleisher’s butcher classes.

As the Fleisher’s folks say, Carne diem!

• Learn your cuts of beef and cuts of lamb in our two popular meat glossaries.

This could be you, learning the craft (and
trade) of fine butchering. Photo courtesy Fleisher’s.