does anyone know a retail source for smallish amounts of beef tallow?

any busy kitchen generates enough beef fat for all its needs, if you're watchful. you should be able to get the tallow you need by making beef stock every few days. anything you can't serve or grind or make sausages with is stock fodder, unless it's gone bad. don't tell me you're throwing out what you skim off the white and browned beef stock. chuck it in the fridge and harvest it, for god's sake, along with the rendered fat in all those pans of roasted beef. that stuff is gold, and the browned version can be chilled and added to hamburgers to make them more succulent. (btw, 1/2 browned beef fat and 1/2 whole butter will make the best yorkies you've ever tasted.) stop throwing out what you've already got, and forget about buying it.

LOL, I save everything. I have ziploc baggies full of chicken skins for wrapping around my chicken roulades and galantines. I keep all the fats from my stocks in my freezer, too. And when I do bulk bacon for a buffet, I save that too, in a jar in the freezer, and chip out chunks of it as necessary. As my Chef-Instructor used to say, "fat is good"! When I have leftover cream from a party, I whip it into butter and freeze it. The only downside is that my condo is small and I have to keep my chest freezer in my living room :-/