eat more beef

I am not much of a red meat eater much to the dismay of my family. I grew up in a meat and potatoes family and didn't like either much as a kid. My meat choice is still chicken and seafood. I think when I got into cooking and starting actually cooking for Sam he wanted to go out to eat just so he could eat something other than chicken.

In fact my 5 year old nephew inherited those meat and potato genes. Ask him about his favorite food and it is meat and he doesn't mean chicken at least not the kind that doesn't come in breaded strip form. Though he asked if crab was meat and when told it was he said that was why he liked it so much.

Chicken is something that goes best with a sauce and I love sauce. I don't think I would ever eat chicken without some sort of sauce, marinade, or gravy. It is pretty much the vehicle to convey the taste to my taste buds.

For a long time I would eat steak about once a year then I discovered Chicago steak and on a business trip there I ate steak for breakfast and dinner at the same restaurant 3 days in a row. After my first bite at that restaurant I suddenly fell in love with steak and it sounded good enough to eat for 6 straight meals. Then I came back to Seattle and didn't eat much steak again. We know seafood here but steak not so much.

Unfortunately I think most restaurants don't know how to cook a good steak mainly since I want mine medium well. For some reason chefs seem to think even if I am paying they should cook the steak how they really like it and now how their patrons do. There are exceptions but these seem to be very few.

Then I discovered the meat market in Issaquah. They cut the fillets to order and they almost don't even need a sauce (though it only makes it tastier). Not only did they have steak I wanted to eat they also had apple sausage, buffalo pepperoni in both hot and mild. It was enough to make me crave a steak (finally Sam said).

This summer we had the fillets on the boat with fresh crab (lots of garlic butter), sauce for the fillets, twice baked mashed potatoes, salad, and garlic bread. I thought I had reached dining nirvana. So of course on our next trip out we had a repeat though we forgot our chief grill master, Corey, and it was taken down just a notch. Why oh why can't it be summer again on the boat - I can taste it all right now.

I had finally expanded my food horizons and then I got the bacon the guy at the meat market recommended since they know a sucker, or a red meat convert, when they see one. I am not much of a bacon person (fat is really my main issue with red meat so bacon presents a problem) but then I tried their bacon this weekend. In a word yum! In fact we had it both Saturday and Sunday for brunch.

I think I might actually be somewhat of a convert to red meat though chicken will still be our main protein source (sorry Sam). I even actually thought about cooking up the last bit of bacon this morning but then I came to my senses and realized I was already late with it being Monday and all and coming in smelling of bacon might not be my wisest choice. That really isn't a very subtle way to come into the office, though tomorrow I might make a different choice.