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Sheep thrills: New lamb stand at Reading Terminal Market

Border Springs Farm has opened.

Reading Terminal Market is being turned over to engineers.

Months after career-changing engineer/developer Eran Wajswol openied the artisan Valley Shepherd Creamery, which makes its cheese on premises, mechanical engineer-turned-shepherd Craig Rogers has opened a stand specializing in the lamb he raises at Border Springs Farm in Patrick County, Va., at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains near North Carolina. He also raises border collies, which eased him into the lamb business.

The stand, which replaced Basic 4 vegetarian, sells butchered cuts of lamb as well as prepared foods, such lamb pot pie, pulled lamb shoulder sandwiches, smoked leg sandwiches, lamb sausage, lamb burger and lamb kebabs. Its potato salad contains lamb fat and whole-grain mustard.

Border Springs also sells a sandwich billed on the menu board as "Name this sandwich." For all intents and purposes, it's a gyro. But because Reading Terminal Market limits the sales of certain items (cheesesteaks, pizza) to certain stands, Border Springs Farm can't advertise it as a gyro. Too bad. It's a delicious pita overloaded with tender strips of lamb, chopped onion and cucumber and tzatziki sauce.

Breakfast is due to start in a few days.

Border Springs Farm products - from grass-fed, Animal Welfare Approved, and certified naturally grown sheep - are the darlings of the Washington, D.C., culinary world. (The Washington Post, exposed to Rogers' lamb through his stand in D.C.'s Union Market, dubs it "lamb with a following.")