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Would you like to help support our friends at The Stop Community Food Hub this holiday season? It’s easy if you’re a member of the Sanagan’s 5 Star Rewards Points Program. For every 500 rewards points you chose to donate, Sanagans will donate $25 to The Stop. You give the points, we give the money. That's a lot of good will going around! !

You can make your points donation at either store, just ask a meat hawker. Or email info@sanangansmeatlocker.com The email should include the phone number of your rewards account and the number of points (500 = $25, 1000 = $50, etc.) you wish to donate. Or give us a call at 416-593-9747 and talk to Customer Service. We will be accepting Rewards Points Donations all the way until December 31st.

To see what the Stop Community Food Hub does, go here https://www.thestop.org/

Ten years ago, I wasn’t sleeping very well. I had just opened Sanagan’s Meat Locker to little fanfare, and I wasn’t sure how well I was doing. The customers were coming in, but I had no idea how to operate a business to make sure I didn’t lose any money. My focus was simply on taking care of my customers and making sure the quality of the product was high. I didn’t think about my prices enough (as it turns out, they were too low), or what kind of people I should be hiring (friends would have to do), or how to file WSIB (which I did a year later). There were many, many things I knew little about, and the thought of what I didn’t know weighed on me. Also, my days started at 7:30 am and I worked until 8 at night, six days a week (I saved the seventh day for banking). So, I wasn’t sleeping very well. Life was going full tilt and I was just trying to hang on, making decisions on the fly that would affect how well the business did that day, that week, or that month. I was scared shitless and didn’t have many people to turn to, and my pride and ego prevented me from asking for help anyways. But, funnily enough, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was a wild time in my life, and the life of the shop. I learned how to run a business, and I did it because of my customers, my staff, and my partner. My pride and ego may have prevented me from asking for help, but I got it anyways, and for that I am forever grateful. Anniversaries are a time for reflection, and I was encouraged (by Claire – Store Manager and long time all star) to format my reflections in a list. Some memories are of difficult times, and some are of funny times. I tend not to remember the “great” times, as I have a weird complex that doesn’t allow me to be satisfied in any achievement for too long. I find the stressful times make for the best stories anyways. So, without further ado, here is a list of a random assortment of memories, in no particular order. 1) The time that the gravity coil on the ceiling of the walk-in refrigerator fell down, overwhelmed by the amount of ice that had built up on the coils. I came into work one morning, opened the walk-in door, and was greeted by too-warm air. The cooling unit had actually fallen right out of the ceiling and landed on a stack of boxes. I lost a bunch of products because the temperatures were too high. That really sucked. 2) That Saturday when I was renovating the larger store before moving in, and overnight some graffiti “artist” bombed the entire front of the store with some garbage tag. I spent the whole day on my hands and knees, cleaning the windows and frames with nail polish remover and a razor blade. I met a lot of people that day, all commenting on “why bother – it’ll just happen again”. It has, but none were that bad. 3) The time when our giant walk-in cooler broke down three days before Christmas, and Alia, Brian, and I had to hand-bomb the entire contents of the fridge down a flight of stairs (at 11pm) to the back-up cooler, which wasn’t big enough but we managed to make it work for the evening while the main fridge was repaired. Did I mention this happened three days before Christmas? Yeah. 4) The time I was at my in-laws for a holiday Monday while the store was closed and I decided that “for once, I’m going to leave my phone in the bedroom while I unplug and go outside”. I forgot that I had a repairman at the shop, who was taking advantage of the fact that the store was closed and no one was there to do some fridge repairs. What he forgot was that the latch on the walk-in cooler door was broken and he locked himself in the fridge. He tried calling me 20 times but, of course, I had “unplugged”. He finally got a hold of his daughter who called the police, and they came and broke into my store to rescue the repairman. When I finally looked at my phone again and found out what I had missed, I realized that he had almost died. So now I don’t “unplug”. It’s not worth it. 5) The time I had ordered 100 turkeys from a farmer for Thanksgiving, pre-sold them all, then found out that a pack of foxes got into the turkey barn a day before they were supposed to go to slaughter and ate them all. Because of this, there were only a few days until Thanksgiving and I had to find another source for turkeys for all of my customers. I ended up meeting a farmer in a parking lot in Mississauga to make the trade off. They were all beautiful organic birds, and almost double the price of what I had promised my customers. Whatcha gonna do? I took a hit, sold them at the quoted price, and put a hex on foxes as a group. 6) The dozens of times my alarm company would wake me up in the middle of the night to say there was a burglary alarm going off at the store, but when I drove to the shop at that hour I would find out it was just the wind blowing a door just enough to jostle the alarm contact. It took me at least 12 times of going to the store for no reason at three am to figure out how to stop that from happening. I started ignoring those three am phone calls. 7) That time I ignored a 3 am phone call from my alarm company, and found out the next day that someone had broken in to the shop, went directly into my office where I kept the safe, and stole the whole thing with about $15,000 inside. It remains a mystery to this day who did it, and unfortunately, I have become less trusting because of that experience. But my new safe is steal-proof! I think. 8) The time water started leaking through the ceiling on the second floor, and we didn’t know where it was coming from, and then the ceiling collapsed because there was so much water coming down from a burst sprinkler pipe on the roof. It was - 25°C outside, and my staff soaked themselves trying to fix the problem. They are all awesome, that day sucked. 9) That time I was bringing food down to the Drake Hotel to host a BBQ on their patio, and when we got there, we realized that the food had all fallen out of the back of the van on the way down because the driver forgot to latch the door properly. We had to change the menu really quickly that night…. 10) I could keep going on with stories about things that didn’t work out so well, but I think I’ll end this list with a positive story. The time Alia and I got the news that we were going to have a son. I was standing in my office at the time, and I immediately teared up. We had been trying to have a child for a really long time, and I hadn’t been sure if we were going to get to be parents. Alia had been pregnant for weeks by the time of this phone call, but it’s almost as if I was in denial. Then, when we got that call, emotions and thoughts of promise flooded over me. Desmond was born a few months later, and after years of working overtime, all the time, I decided to change my daily routine. I decided that I didn’t need to be at the shop for 12 hours each day, or look over my staff’s shoulders to make sure they were doing it “my” way. They were quite excellent at doing it their way, which to be honest was just as good or better than mine 99% of the time. I am now able to focus my energy on how to make their lives better, and the experience of our customers. I am able to be a better business owner because of them, and because of our customers, who continue to enjoy what we do. Here’s to the beginning of the next ten years. We have some exciting projects on the horizon, and I will leave you with a bit of a sneak peek. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope to be writing to you in another decade. On the Horizon: 1) Contest Alert! In celebration of our anniversary, we will be giving away a few valuable gift cards. Look for signs in-store for more details, and follow us on Facebook or Instagram (@sanagansmeatlocker) for upcoming details. 2) We have been slowly, but surely, building a new website. This website will have tons of info on cooking meat, and what cuts to choose. But most importantly, it will be a shopping site, where you can order your favorite cuts and have them delivered straight to your door. Look for this early in the new year. 3) Speaking of delivery, we will be launching our official catering menu at the same time as the website. You can order online or by calling the shop and we can have a party tray delivered to your office or home the very next day! 4) The biggest project of all is the cookbook I have spent the last two years writing. This one is going to be huge. I can’t talk too much about it yet; all I will say is that it will be the only meat cookbook you will ever want. No big deal! We’re shooting for a fall 2020 release, so you have plenty of time to get excited! Thanks again to everyone for helping make Sanagan’s such an awesome part of the Toronto food scene. We’re so happy to be a part of it, and glad you can join us for the ride. See you in the store soon! Peter

Everyone reading this newsletter knows that Peter Sanagan runs two butcher shops in Toronto. But, like any other reasonable, well-rounded person, he had a life before the meat business and continues to have a life in spite of it — a very busy ambitious life. Here are some excerpts from an interview I conducted with the boss regarding the latest installment in the life of Peter.

Graham: So Peter, how would you describe this new project.

Peter: laughs I think you can only describe it as a musical.

Graham: I think it’s safe to say that most people didn’t see that coming.

Peter: Oh, for sure but that’s what’s so fun, and frankly, therapeutic about it; it’s so far away from running two butcher shops.

Graham: So, is it like a traditional singing and dancing musical?

Peter: Yeah, I’m a big fan of the genre: Rodgers and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Rent — all the greats.

Graham: Is this something you have a background in?

Peter: Well, before I got into food, I was a bit of a stage brat. As a kid I was in the touring version of the Polka Dot Door. I did a few commercials. Google https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz2ARTdaqE0 I was on my way to gaining admittance to the National Theatre School when I got a summer job at Licks, and then that was that. From there it was food all the way. But now I really need something other than work and family.

Graham: What’s it about?

Peter: It’s totally based around my experiences starting up a butcher shop in the market. In a lots of ways it’s about Kensington Market and so therefore about the city itself.

Graham: Wow. So what are some of the numbers?

Peter: Right off the top of my head? Long pause I Can See Myself In That Shop Window; Cows and Pigs and Chickens and Me; Help Wanted - Apply Within; Sing-agan’s…

Graham: That sounds like fun. Are you pitching this to any producers or theatre companies?

Peter: Oh it’s early days for that but The Ontario Cattle Breeders Association is on board.

Graham: Where do you envision staging it?

Peter: Well the truth of the matter is, we’ve got so many talented performers working here at Sanagan’s, that I think I might try doing it in-house. I mean, it’s like the shop is already a stage.

Graham: Does it have a name?

Peter: Oh that was easy. April Fools.

"So, I think I'm buying a butcher shop."

The summer of 2009 was a very different time in our lives, but I still remember the bar we were sitting in (each with our then-girlfriends/now-wives) when Peter told me his next move. He was moving away from restaurants and teaching at George Brown and heading into business for himself at the site of the old 'Max and Sons' butcher shop in Kensington Market. From the beginning Peter saw the opportunity to connect smaller Ontario farmers with consumers in Toronto. It was a risk then, but like the store on Gerrard St. (I'm bringing this all together here...) it pretty quickly became a fixture within the neighbourhood.

Though the move to Gerrard St. had a few parallels (smaller store, window display, more blending of front of house and butchery work), our 'new' space on Gerrard St. couldn't be more different than the original. With the experience we have running the Kensington Market stores, the opening and transition into being a two-location business has been (as far as these things go) pretty smooth. Sure, there were some construction delays and tense moments right before opening, and it's been a lot of work as we get off the ground in a new part of the city, and I probably shouldn't have ordered so much lamb for Easter last year while so few people knew we were even open...but I digress.

We want to use this anniversary as an opportunity to say thank you. Thank you to the tireless efforts of our staff (big shout outs to Cole, Scott, Sophie, Lester and Steven, all of whom were there from day one right through the first Christmas), the support of our neighbours (seriously, go check out Lazy Daisy's, Swag Sisters, The Pantry, Godspeed Brewery, Pizzeria via Mercanti, The Flying Pony, Glory Hole Doughnuts and all the other great neighbourhood shops!) and our incredible and loyal customers (both the group that has shopped with us in Kensington for years, and the group that is discovering us for the first time).

The Gerrard St. store has been a great opportunity for us in a number of ways. The greatest of these opportunities is that this store provides us the means to connect a new neighbourhood with the spectacular Ontario producers we work with. We truly believe that supporting local producers is not only better for our community as a whole, but that Ontario producers have some really kick-ass products, and that should be celebrated.

Please come down to the Gerrard St. store on Sunday, March 17th for some samples and anniversary specials. Thanks for a great first year Gerrard St!

2019 = Pig. Yay!

According to the Chinese astrological calendar, 2019 is the Year of the Pig. Now that’s a chronological event Sanagan’s can really get on board with. Our domestic and heritage breeds of pork, as well as wild boar will enhance any dishes you may be considering for your Chinese New Year feast.

Gwenyn Huang has only recently hung up her meat hawker apron at our Kensington store so she can dedicate more time to her studies in Literature at University of Toronto. We asked Gwenyn what pork the Huang family likes to prepare for Chinese New Year. Here, in her own literate words, Gwenyn outlines the preparation of pork belly fried in red wine dregs.

One of the many dishes we make in our family is pork belly fried in wine dregs. The wine dregs, which is the sediment left over from making Foochow red wine, is fermented and has a very strong flavour and is bright red. It dyes the pork bright red as well, which is why it's so appropriate for the new years. In China, red has always been a festive colour that symbolises fortune and prosperity.

Only a little is needed for any recipe since it's so pungent, which is good because it's hard to come by. (The real stuff is.) My family has a jar that we guard very jealously! But for special occasions as important as the New Year, possibly the biggest holiday in China, we bring it out for sure. But first, we heat a lot of oil and deep fry cubes of pork belly. Then we strain the lot and while the excess oil drips away from the pork, we heat a little bit of oil in a pan. We throw slices of ginger into the hot oil and let it crackle and then a heaping tablespoon (no skimping on New Years) of the wine dregs. We fry the wine dregs for a few seconds, carefully since it burns easily, and then toss in the pork belly. Once all the pork belly is coated and bright red, it's ready to go!

Thanks Gwenyn. When should we come over for dinner?

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, the former cook in me screams "No! Don't do it! Why put yourself through the madness of going out to eat on one of the busiest nights of the year!" As I've matured in life and career, I still feel the same way! Don't get me wrong, any night can be a great night to go out and experience one of the hundreds of excellent restaurants that Toronto has to offer, but during the mad rush of Valentine’s, why not let Sanagan’s transform your dining room into a romantic restaurant table for two. This year, we're offering the following menu for two, with only the beef requiring actual cooking on your end: House Made Duck Liver Parfait with Blackbird Demi-Baguette Winter Greens Salad with Vinaigrette 2 Beef Tenderloin Steaks, with Potato Gratin, Green Beans Amandine, and Brandy Peppercorn Sauce Cochinitos Cookies with Cinnamon Sugar All you need to do is pick up a beverage or two and settle in for the night. The entire package will cost $80 and quantities will be limited, so order yours today by emailing info@sanagansmeatlocker.com (for Kensington Market pickups) or gerrard@sanagansmeatlocker.com (for Gerrard St. pickups), or calling in at 416-593-9747