Steak Enthusiast

I took my kids to the mall last week and we encountered some people enjoying a bit of steak in a very strange way.

Yeah, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a dude sitting on that egg next to a huge T-bone.

This is the soft play area at our local mall and it cracks me up. I’m particularly interested in the glob of ketchup plopped on the steak.

Who does that?

My kids think this place is da bomb and they love to bounce around on the food. It’s very springy and when they go from the egg to the steak back to the egg they boing in the air.

It’s great fun.

Here’s my oldest boy taking a break from putting his feet all over the food. He went a little crazy cuz he’s not allowed to do that at home. I know, I know, lighten up, Mom.

I took these pics on my camera phone so the quality is not the greatest. But you had to see this to believe it. People sitting on steak is hard to describe accurately.

I’m afraid this has opened up a whole new can of worms at our house. Perhaps my kids will ask, Why is it okay to jump on the steak at the mall but not at home when it’s taco night or steakburger night or meatloaf night . . . ?

I might have to write a letter to someone.

Dear Mr. Mall Man,

Not only have you desecrated a perfectly good T-bone in your play area, but you have encouraged poor behavior and disappointing food etiquette in my children.

I will be sending all of their therapy bills to you.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen

Think I can get away with it?

This recipe for steak and potatoes is a slight departure from the tried-and-true baked potato and grilled steak.

I absolutely LOVE a baked potato and grilled steak, but this combines chunks of red potatoes, mushrooms and shallots with a grilled, sliced sirloin. The photos are to die for.

Try it and impress yourself!

Here’s the link:

http://thebarefootkitchenwitch.typepad.com/the_barefoot_kitchen_witc/2008/02/valentines-da-8.html

Good Monday to you!

I was watching old “Seinfeld” reruns (a common theme in my life when I can’t sleep due to an overactive mind and borderline OCD) and I caught the one where Kramer gets a nice shiner and busts into Jerry’s apartment looking for a steak to heal it.

Jerry hands him a big T-bone and Kramer puts it right on his eye with a huge, “Ahhhhh!”

Now, we see this all the time in the arts — plays, movies, TV shows, cartoons — where someone puts a raw steak on their eye to soothe a black-and-blue bruise.

Is it really true? Does steak really have healing powers?

My inquiring mind wanted to know. So I set about looking for the answer. First stop, Wikipedia. Here’s what the collective wisdom was there:

Putting a raw steak on a black eye (an old wives’ tale) has long been known to have no medicinal value; doing this will lessen the bruise, but not the inflammation.

Here’s what I found at answers.yahoo.com (if it has the word “answers” in it, it must be correct, right?):

No . . . however the coldness of raw meat act like ice. 
A bag of frozen peas is better and cheaper, but to get rid of the discolouration you need an astringent like witch hazel or good old vinegar, the white one works the best.

MotherNature.com says this:

“Sirloin steak is what my father used,” says Jimmy, a second-generation butcher at Richard and Vinnie’s Quality Meats in Brooklyn, New York. “When I was a kid, I used to get a lot of black eyes, and my father, being a butcher, used to put steaks on them. And it worked!”

Jimmy’s dad had the right idea, but it was the coldness of the steak, not the meat itself, that did the trick. In fact, a vegetarian would have gotten the same results by using iceberg lettuce!

So . . . looks like our steak’s coldness is its true healing power. But my belief is:  If YOU believe it helps you, then it does!