Butcher

Howard J. "Babe" Leidy, 84, of Blackwood Terrace, Gloucester County, the longtime owner of Leidy Market who also served as president of the Union Fire Company and founded the Deptford Township Fire Commission, died following complications from surgery on Friday, Dec. 17, at Cooper University Hospital. When large chain grocery stores in the area forced Mr. Leidy's family-owned market to close in 1986, he expressed his disappointment at the change in the milelong stretch on Good Intent Road, which once was lined with businesses.

It was high time, I was notified over the weekend, to just cook the darn rabbit. He was taking up valuable freezer space, burrowed between the split-top hot dog buns and the stewed heirloom tomatoes of September. The rabbit was a Vermonter, purchased on our summer visit to West Glover. He was pink through the Cryovac; and as hard as tombstone granite. And he wasn't going easy into that pot. First, he set off a foraging expedition. Then he instigated a series of encounters that, in retrospect, appeared aimed at seasoning the cook, if not necessarily the cooked.

The lights were off at the butcher stall (No. 620-616) at the heart of the Reading Terminal Market, the meat cases as empty as a waiting tomb. It has been here since 1906, and rarely - and certainly few times in recent memory - have those lights been off during business hours, or those cases been empty. This was (it still is, in fact) Harry G. Ochs Prime Meats, and in the dim light early Monday the tools of its trade were still easily visible - meat hooks overhead like so many rhino horns, and stubby-legged butcher's blocks (three of them)

Harry G. Ochs Jr., the feisty Italian teenager who apprenticed at the Reading Terminal Market when it was still a lively railroad hub and stayed on to become its iconic butcher and for more than half a century the market's convivial public face, died yesterday. Mr. Ochs, 80, was more than just another prime butcher at the market. He was a living link to its storied past, for decades holding down a stall at center court, hailing customers like a carnival barker. His meat stand was there through fat and lean, serving generations of Philadelphians who marched down loyally for Christmas roasts and spring lamb at Easter.

On the screen set up off center court at the Reading Terminal Market, the last of the Mohicans were having their say Saturday evening, giving accounts of the old days - the tremble in the rafters when trains still ran above, the buckets kept handy to accommodate the leaky roof, razzing one another, albeit gently, about the drinkability of fresh buttermilk. The stars mingled with the assemblage - tuxedoed Domenic Spataro, 92, bent but unbowed, who has cut back to six days a week at the sandwich stand now run by his son; the iconic butcher, Harry Ochs, just turning 80, with 62 years of meat-cutting under his belt; and, among others, Carol and Willman Spawn, customers since their first date here decades before their hair turned gray.

Before we bury the dear departed Striped Bass beneath a stampede of hungry meat-eaters, let us first pay tribute to the lasting splash of the big fish. In terms of a culinary legacy, there's no denying its impact: In the last year alone, no fewer than 10 chefs reviewed in this column worked at some point behind the lines of Striped Bass' open kitchen. Of course, its closing last year and recent replacement by a less-adventurous concept, a steak house called Butcher & Singer, marked the beginning of the end of an era, too, adding a scratch to the gold-plated culinary ambition of Walnut Street's Restaurant Row. That veneer has since taken a few more scuffs with the recent closing of Brasserie Perrier and news that Susanna Foo, ever the survivor, wasn't above starting to offer home delivery.

Stephen Starr says he's always been intrigued by such old-time, post-Prohibition clubhouses as 21 Club in New York and the Brown Derby in L.A. He's converted the Striped Bass, which he bought out of bankruptcy and reopened in April 2004, into Butcher & Singer (1500 Walnut St., 215-732-4444), a steak and chop house whose leather, horseshoe-shaped booths and velvet tufting look right out of an old movie. The two crystal chandeliers hanging from the 28-foot ceiling were taken from the old Fontainebleau in Miami.

Elizabeth Hurley has made a major career move: She breeds pigs. Over in the Cotswolds region of England, she is using her 100-acre estate to breed Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs. After she raises a healthy and hearty clan of squealers, she sells the meat off to butchers in the U.K. This beautiful pig farmer's call to duty could have been predicted after her marriage to Arun Nayar at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Around that time, Liz said she was "obsessed with sausages"; she'd "like to eat them every day. " The Hurley Old Spot pigs are quickly making a name for themselves: It is the most popular brand at the Jesse Smith butcher shop in Cirencester, AOL UK reported.

In recent weeks, some voters may have acquired a curiosity, if not a taste, for moose - after hearing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has stalked, shot, skinned and stewed moose. That may sound like a startling achievement to urbanites, though I'm not certain it bears much relevance to her vice-presidential qualifications. But there are women in other parts of the country who hunt moose for the meat - using either bows or rifles. And that got me thinking - What if I wanted to put myself to the moose test?

In recent weeks, some voters may have acquired a curiosity, if not a taste, for moose - after hearing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has stalked, shot, skinned and stewed moose. That may sound like a startling achievement to urbanites, though I'm not certain it bears much relevance to her vice-presidential qualifications. But there are women in other parts of the country who hunt moose for the meat - using either bows or rifles. And that got me thinking - What if I wanted to put myself to the moose test?