Avon's Neighborhood Butcher Offers Connecticut Meat for Your Holiday Dinner

Right when Thanksgiving ends, the holiday season begins at The Meat House in Avon. 

The neighborhood butcher and specialty grocer is already taking reservations for your holiday roast, including multiple rib roasts, tenderloins, beef Wellington, turkey, chicken, Turducken, duck, pheasant, Cornish hen, goose, capon, multiple lamb including boneless, multiple pork options, a variety of hams, salmon, shrimp, lobster tails, rabbit and wild board shoulder roast.

The most popular meats are prime ribs and tenderloin roasts. Cormier said that The Meat House gets about 500 orders around the holidays for family dinners. 

"We try to give an education to our guests about how beef is graded because a lot of people don't understand it and there are no stores around here that carry prime meats," Cormier said. "Prime meats are the best grade of beef. Only the government can grade beef. We can't. The government grades it. So, we carry prime, which is the best and have that available. People want to splurge on Christmas and to have the best of the best. And we're affordable pricing too on those."

Some of the selection comes from local farms, such as pork in the crown roasts from Rowland Farms in Oxford, lamb from Sepe Farms in Sandy Hook, veal from Blue Slope Farms in Franklin and grass-fed beef from Litchfield. 

"All of our lamb will be either Denver or local, so it won't be from New Zealand. A lot of local stores carry New Zealand rack of lamb," Cormier said. "It's smaller. It's harvested, if you will, at a younger age and a lower weight. American lamb is at an older weight so it's bigger. If lamb's coming from New Zealand, it's frozen."

Cormier said that there are a lot of English and European people in the Farmington Valley who come to The Meat House to get specialties like Swedish ham with breading or goose. 

The Meat House also carries holiday gift items from Santa Claus items, brownie mixes and candy to treats for pets from Brownstone Bakery for Dogs in Avon.

The specialty butcher and grocer is one of more than 100 Connecticut stores that sells a new book called The Story of Magic Kringle by West Hartford author and customer, Jessica Mikan, who writes under the pen name Alice Cosgrove. 

"The story of the magic reindeer food. Some kids have relocated. As a way to make sure that Santa knows how to find them, there's really cool book called The Story of Magic Kringle," Cormier said, which you can purchase for $12.99 and/or reindeer food, or oats. "The kids take this and sprinkle it on Christmas Eve so that Santa Claus knows where to go."

Customers can also pre-order hors d'oeuvres like fruit and cheese, shrimp, spinach and artichoke stuffed mushrooms, scallops and bacon, crab cakes, clams and oysters; sides in two-quart containers like sweet potato soufflé, corn soufflé, stuffing, creamed spinach, bacon cheddar mashed potato, twice baked potato, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, glazed carrots, lobster macaroni and cheese, green beans, kale and winter greens soup with white beans and chorizo, sauteed kale and winter greens, roasted root vegetables, broccoli and cheese casserole with fried onions and roasted butternut and cranberries.

Eighty percent of the sides in the deli and 90 percent from the ones sold on retail come from Farmington Valley Gourmet Foods, which has a kitchen in East Hartford.  

Desserts are also available for pre-order, including cheesecake, chocolate ganache tart, fruit tart and local pies. 

The Meat House will host three Try It Before You Buy It events with food samplings on Saturday, Dec. 7, 14 and 21 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A butcher from the store will be cooking meats available for holiday dinners for sampling and side options will also be available for customers to taste. 

The Meat House is also doing a toy drive for Connecticut Children's Medical Center as one of many ways the store gives back to the community. 

To check out The Meat House's holiday recipes, click on the link provided. 

Customers can make orders up until Christmas Eve when the store will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Meat House is closed on Christmas Day and opens at 10 a.m. on the day after Christmas.