Editor's Corner
Death and the maiden

As a child, I used to sneak into the shearing shed and watch my grandfather kill sheep. He was a farmer, and it seemed to be the natural order of things.

By Nicolee Stevens Associate Editor

Death has a particular smell: the sweet, sickly aroma of fresh blood; the pungent stench of multicolored organs and innards; the delicately marbled underside of the sheepskin.

Then one day, when I was about 15, I became a vegetarian. I could no longer deny the connection between the hunk of meat on my plate and the glazed stare of a sacrificial lamb, slipping silently from life in a pool of bright red blood.

After a decade of vegetarianism, I became a non-red meat eater, somehow kidding myself that chickens and fish don't feel pain like their dark-fleshed brethren. Then, when I came to Virginia, social circumstance and the gentle cajoling of a talented chef finally corrupted my resolve.

Imagine my conflicted soul when — as a recently reformed vegetarian — I found myself motoring down Interstate 95 with the bloody hide of a cow in a bucket.

Like many murderous affairs, it all began quite innocently. Virginia Business holds a competition each year to identify the state's hottest brands. The winners receive real branding irons in the shape of Virginia, handsomely mounted and bearing a brass plaques with their names engraved on them.

With "Virginia's Hottest Brands" as the December cover story (beginning on Page 8), we wanted to sear an image into the minds of our readers. "Why not photograph one of the irons actually branding a hide?" suggested some bright spark. "Brilliant," we thought ... and so I set out on my morbid mission.

While the branding irons are authentic, we didn't want to brand a live beast. I called a few leather stores, but found they sold, ahem, other kinds of leather goods. So, looking for a cheap, quick solution, I called Richard Lloyd at the Virginia Department of Agriculture.

He put me in touch with Fredericks-burg farmer Jerry Silver who, Lloyd said, operated a "boutique abattoir." I called Silver and hit the jackpot: He had killed a cow that very morning and urged me to drive immediately to Silver Ridge farm and collect the "green skin."

Upon my arrival, Silver led me into one of the many sheds on the farm. It was nice, as slaughterhouses go, but the butcher-shop smell instantly transported me back to the shearing shed of my childhood.

Silver presented me with the cow hide, stuffed into a large white bucket. I may have been in shock, but I had enough sense to buy the bucket as well.

Then I delivered the grotesque cargo to the photographer, Chad Hunt, who blithely agreed to shoot the cover with some help from Catherine Leitch, our editorial assistant at the time. "We pulled it out of the bucket, spread it out — tail, udder and all — and tried to find a place without blood," Leitch says. Next, they cut a section, rolled it up and put it on ice. "It looked like we'd killed someone," Leitch recalls. "I felt like a murderer."

The next day, Hunt went into the studio and set about his business. A blow torch and a bunch of coals later, the iron was hot enough to brand the succulent green skin. The smell, Leitch assured me, was just like the real thing.

Shortly after this assignment, Catherine left Virginia Business for another job.

I can't imagine why.