Steak Enthusiast

My oldest son’s first-ever basketball practice was held last night. It was a mixture of chaos, some glimmers of raw talent, cuteness and a touch of frustration.

One kid never took his hands out of his pants the entire practice. I’m interested to see how that technique will work in a game — you know, a game where you kinda need your hands.

The coaches are two amazing fathers who have just the right combination of toughness, light-heartedness and drive.

While the kids were taking shots and balls were flying everywhere, they were very encouraging. And when someone put a little too much muscle behind a shot and it went soaring too fast at the basket one of them screamed, “You ate too much steak tonight, son!”

It’s funny because those kids knew exactly what that meant the first time he said it. And they tried to back off a little bit.

This happened a lot because, after all, this is a group of 6-year-old boys. No one is exactly Shaquille O’Neal quite yet.

And since the coach had to use this phrase about a million times throughout the night he decided to just shorten it. Then he started yelling simply, “Too much steak, baby!”

So after all the high-fives and the “attaboys” were done and we were back in the car I was SERIOUSLY hungry for a steak. Those kids are either going to have to get really good in a hurry or I’m going to have to ask the coach to change his phrase to “sea squid” or something. I can’t face a whole season of daydreaming about steak . . .

We all know there are degrees of doneness for steaks — medium rare, well done, etc.

But did you know you can have yours blue rare? That’s a new one on me. So, here’s Dr. Tim Bennett’s descriptions of the many gradations of cooking steaks. I love it when I learn something new!

Raw – for some special dishes the steak is not cooked at all.  Most famous is perhaps steak tartare which consists of seasoned ground raw beef topped with an egg.

Blue rare – the outside of the steak is seared so that the inside is warmed; the steak will retain much of the redness of the uncooked meat.

Rare – the steak appears cooked on the outside and is very pink on the inside; the center of the steak, particularly on filets, will be red.

Medium rare – the steak appears cooked on the outside; the inside will be pink, especially in the center.

Medium – the steak appears cooked on the outside; the inside will be slightly pink in the center.

Medium well – the steak appears cooked on the outside and there will be traces of pink in the center.  The steak may taste slightly dry.

Well done – the steak appears cooked on the outside; there will be no traces of pink at all in steak.  The steak will taste hard and dry.

You can read Dr. Bennett’s full article here — and learn EVEN MORE!

I just read an article about scientists who discovered a gene associated with the tenderness of beef — and, therefore, great steaks.

So, what do we think about scientifically-designed steaks?

It’s a topic that goes much deeper than just great taste. It’s a matter of science, ethics, even politics.

We won’t really get into that here cuz, really, all I care about is nice, tender, juicy steaks. I don’t want to think about what was going on with them before they arrived at my doorstep. Seriously.

But one thing in this article I read made me fall out of my chair with laughter. And it was this quote:

“Scientists have identified a particular gene associated with beef tenderness, and have also found that slower-moving cattle taste better than their quicker cousins.”

So, what we really want is the porky one who dawdles in the back of the herd.

That cracks me up! In almost every other scenario you would pick the opposite of this guy. If you were picking a racehorse, you wouldn’t say, “I’ll take the brown one with the big gut staring off into space at the back.”

If choosing a hunting dog, I can’t imagine a prospective buyer saying, “Yeah, give me the dude who looks like he’s a couple cards short of a deck. Uh huh, the roly poly one.”

So, the moral of this story? When choosing a Porterhouse, make sure it came from the cow who couldn’t keep up with the rest of ’em.

You can check out the entire article here.