At 87, Leroy Peachey still has a hand in Sal-Lee’s Goose Day tradition
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LEWISTOWN -- At 87, Leroy Peachey still has standards when he picks up a knife. He can skin a goose quickly after a lifetime around butcher blocks, but speed isn't the point. The cut has to be right.
Tammy Lucci, his daughter, said her father is particular about one thing: He doesn't want the knife cutting into the meat.
That precision has followed Peachey through decades of Goose Days, first through the family meat market and later at Sal-Lee's, where Goose Day has grown into a family production that begins long before Sept. 29.
This year, Sal-Lee's expects to serve more than 700 goose dinners. More than 500 have been reserved for takeout, with dine-in customers coming through another line. The restaurant will serve its regular menu, except breakfast, while the Goose Day meals move out of the kitchen.
The work began in the middle of last week. Several people helped with the preparation at different times. They skinned and baked the geese, then picked and cut the meat. They weighed each portion, wrapped it in paper, and set it aside for the orders. On Goose Day morning, the staff pours broth over the meat and bakes it again until hot.
Peachey was still at work, cutting what Lucci believed was the final pan of goose. A 10-pound goose, he said, yields roughly four to five pounds of meat.
The scale of the job shows up in the potatoes. Employees peeled 16 or 17 five-gallon buckets of potatoes for this year's meals. The restaurant makes its own gravy and filling. Peachey made the filling for roughly 700 goose dinners this year.
Sal-Lee's also sold over 100 turkey dinners before stopping additional orders to make sure it could fill its reservations.
Peachey has spent most of his life doing this kind of work. His parents opened their butcher shop when he was 15. He worked there and learned the trade years before Sal-Lee's began serving goose.
The restaurant's Goose Day tradition dates to 1989, Lucci said. She recalled about 20 geese arriving in a barrel that first year. The family had prepared goose before that at its meat market, where Peachey had spent years working as a butcher.
More than seven decades have passed since Peachey first went to work in the butcher shop. The skills he learned there still show up every September in Sal-Lee's kitchen.
Lucci sees it when her father cuts the cooked meat. She said Peachey knows how to crosscut the meat to avoid bone. She also credits the family's preparation and cooking method for producing goose that isn't greasy.
At 87, Peachey still skins and cuts the goose and makes the filling. Asked why, he gave an answer that required no speech about family history or tradition.
"I like it," he said.
When asked what all those Goose Days had taught the family, Lucci laughed.
"Don't do it," she said.
Goose Day is never confined to Sept. 29 at Sal-Lee's. She ordered this year's geese in July. Reservations began Sept. 1. Preparation stretches across several days, and Lucci said demand continues to grow. The celebration, she said, has reached the point where it feels almost like a local holiday.
For Sal-Lee's, that growth requires the whole family and much of the staff. Peachey still handles major preparation and makes the filling. Lucci's brother, Tim, does much of the cooking. Lucci handles much of the baking, including homemade cakes and pies.
Her daughter, Maria, calls every takeout customer personally to go over the side dishes. It’s one more job in a process that starts weeks before the first plate leaves the kitchen.
"This is not a one-man show at all," Lucci said. "This takes people."
The work has spread through the family. Peachey remains a central part of the preparation, but his children have taken their places in the process. A granddaughter handles customer calls. Employees peel potatoes by the bucket. Customers call weeks ahead to reserve meals.
Peachey keeps working. After a lifetime as a butcher, he knows where the blade should go and where it shouldn't. He can skin a goose quickly, Lucci said, but he remains particular about the result.
For Lucci, part of the meaning comes from the people waiting on the other side of the counter.
"It's just the excitement of the people," she said. "I mean, a lot of people around here are just so into Goose Day."
That excitement will show up in the lines and in the hundreds of orders. It will be there in the potatoes peeled by the bucket, in the homemade filling and in the pans coming out of the kitchen after days of preparation.
For Peachey, it will show up in something smaller: a clean cut, no knife mark in the meat, and another Goose Day done the way he believes it should be done.