reichl on steaks and dads:

Need anything else be written about butchers, steaks, father/daughter adventures?

"...our journey always ended at the narrow butcher shop on Jones Street, with its sawdust floor and its find mineral aroma. The cases were filled with the bacon that they smoked themselves, pink and white strips spread out like gorgeous fabric, and a few pretty little lamb chops, red circles of meat clinging to elegantly long bones and decorated with frilly paper caps.
"Good morning, Jimmy," my father would say.
And Jimmy would look up and smile and seem delighted to see us. He'd hand me a slice of salami, or some of the liverwurst he brought down from Yorkville, or sometimes the dried beef that he made when business was slow. "Fine morning," he'd say, even when it wasn't.
"We need a porterhouse, please," my father would say. And Jimmy would reply,"The finest steak there is!" as if the thought had occurred to him for the very first time. Then he would pull open the heavy wooden door, with its huge slab of a handle, and disappear into the cooler in the back. When he reappeared he was carrying what looked to me like half a steer, although it was really just the short loins that had been hanging for a few weeks, acquiring a fine patina of age.
Picking up a hacksaw, he'd indicate a cut: "This much?" And no matter how thick it was, my father always said, "A little thicker, please." And Jimmy would nod and cut off a substantial steak, humming as he worked. When he was done he'd hold up the steak and point out the fine veins of white tracing a pattern through the dense red meat. "Good marbling," he said admiringly every week, as if this steak was a special star. "All the flavor's in the fat. Cut off the far, you can't tell the difference between beef, pork, and lamb. That's a fact. Did you know that?"
Then he'd thump the steak onto the chopping block and begin the ritual of trimming. First he'd cut the thick blue-black layer of mold from the outside of the steak, scraping it until the bright red flesh beneath the crust had been revealed. Then he'd carefully remove a few inches of fat from the edges so that only a creamy white frame remained. Carefully folding in the little tail end, he'd lay the meat on a piece of pink paper and heave it onto the scale.
"You're going to have a fine dinner," he'd say, as if the compliment were to the cook and not the cutter. "Don't be afraid of the salt."
"That's the secret!" my father always replied, carefully tucking the parcel under his arm. Waving cheerily, we'd walk out the door.

At home we had another ritual. Three hours before it was time to eat, my father would jump up from his chair and say, "No point in cooking cold meat." Together we'd go into the kitchen, remove the porterhouse from the refrigerator, carefully unwrap the package, and set the steak on a platter lined with wax paper. When it had thrown off the chill, Dad would salt it, releasing a small blizzard over the meat. "The secret to a great steak," he always said, "is that when you think you have enough salt, you add some more. The other secret," he'd say as he got out the big cast-iron skillet, "is to heat the pan until it's blazing hot and cook the meat exactly eight minutes on each side."

"And the final secret," I'd add, doing my bit, "is the butter." My job was to plunk a lump of sweet butter onto the sizzling steak just as my father set it on the platter.
My father carved the steak with long, precise strokes of the knife, carefully separating the sirloin that he and my brother preferred from the tenderloin that my mother favored. The bone was mine.
While they plied their forks like civilized people I'd bring the bone up to my face until the aroma--animal and mineral, dirt and rock--was flooding my senses. Then I'd bite into the meat, soft and chewy at the same time, rolling it around in my mouth. It was juicy, powerful, primal, and I'd take another bite, and another. The meat closest to the bone was smooth as satin, and sweet. It tasted like nothing else on earth, and I would gnaw happily until the bone was stripped naked and my face was covered with a satisfying layer of grease."

--Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise

more about dad than meat.

Yesterday's post got me thinking about all of the interesting things my dad did while I was growing up. At the time, I had difficulty understanding the way that he interacted and communicated with me. When I would get involved with whatever "making stuff" project of the moment, I would proudly show him what I was working on and usually get a raised eyebrow and "uh huh" sound. I didn't understand at the time that he instead showed his support by his actions rather than his words, which has probably shaped my expectations in my current relationships!

Many of the running jokes in our family revolve around my dad's (and later, my dad and I's) culinary adventures. When he worked for Hart Plaza in Detroit, he would bring home rescued crates of leftover ethnic festival foods that us lower-middle-class Midwestern folk would never have been exposed to otherwise in the early 80s... Along with that came Eastern Market trips, leading to the infamous vat of green, lumpy brussels sprout soup, which was mildly traumatizing for 4-year old me! And to this day, I get a little queasy at the thought of yellow curry powder because of curried eggs I remember mysteriously eating behind the door of our front porch. As unsure as I was of those meals as a kid, I am forever grateful for his ingenuity.

One morning after I had a friend sleep over, he decided to make us breakfast. We had a new food processor and he thought he'd make us hash browns, but due to some unexpected oxidation, they turned the strangest shade of purpley-grey. I thought they tasted fine, but my picky, Taco Bell-preferring friend flipped out and he took us to a smokey Coney Island instead.

Another Eastern Market expedition resulted in a five pound box of quickly wilting basil. Two days (and two blenders) later, we had dozens of jars of pesto and a house that reeked of yummy garlic. During school that year, I faced much ridicule for my green pizzas, but my Dorito and bologna sandwich-eating lunch buddies didn't know what they were missing.

Around that time, I visited my grandparents with my my aunt, uncle, and cousins and Dad had a request... He handed me a large tin to carry with me; it was to be my contribution to the group. I passed it along to my (very vocal) aunt who eagerly cracked it open, as my family usually brought giant bags of pistachios or Mom's gingersnaps to family gatherings. Much to her (and my) surprise, he had sent me with the stinkiest hunk of cheese she'd ever smelled! The lid went back on, the tin tucked away on top of the refrigerator, and back home it came with me a few days later.

When I was a little older, I took up more of an interest in his kitchen experiments. Together, we came up with amazing concoctions... Some of which are just simple and tasty, like our special orzo salad (which can be made with rice! so I can still eat it!), lavash roll-ups (these always included lots of meat and cheese samplings at the deli counter), the genius combination of salami and peanut butter, and the ultimate classic-- corn dog bread.

Cheers to my cool, supportive dad. Thanks for the phone call from New Orleans last week to tell me about alligator gumbo and the carnivorous joys of all-you-can-eat buffets. I'll visit again soon. We'll have pork chops and martinis.