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Food Thread: Steak: Maybe The Government Won't Screw It Up!

I rant and rave quite often about the variability of beef grading. One inspector's "prime" is another inspector's "choice!" The USDA has recently started a pilot program of remote grading, which will streamline the process for smaller producers. But it also shows what the inspectors are looking at, which is simply the amount of marbling. Nothing more.

And that isn't a bad thing. Keeping government decision making to a simple data set minimizes the possibility of error. If the grading is consistent, then I guess that's good...right?

Except, the steak in the photo was graded "choice" by the USDA. Maybe it's because it was cut from closer to the sirloin and has that strip of connective tissue, but damn...that is prime marbling. And it was delicious! Grilled rare, and because it was very thick I started it on edge, with the bone toward the heat. Total time of 10 minutes on a hot grill, a 10 minute rest, and all was wonderful and happy at Chez Dildo!

As much as I want consistency from the idiots in government, the better they get at grading beef, the fewer opportunities for me to buy a gorgeous steak for not very much money, and because I am a cheap bast*rd at heart, I am torn!

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I'll cut to the chase. Boycott Penzey's Spices. They have about 50 stores across 23 states. Tell all of your friends who live near a store or purchase on-line to stop buying from them. Hell...stop strangers on the street and ask them to buy their spices elsewhere.

About Republicans

The truth of our time is we’ve arrived at the point where there’s no way to respect the nonsense the Republican Party is promoting and have any hope of overcoming the problems we as a nation and we as a planet face. Given the choice between saving America and planet Earth or saving the feelings of Republican voters, we are choosing to side with saving our country and our world. I’m sorry it’s come to this.

And no, there is no HATE!!! in any of this. There is a whole lot of propaganda at the heart of much of how Republican voters have been steered away from conservative values to what they now seem all too happy to vote for. The thing to remember about propaganda is that it doesn’t just misinform, it also works to make people immune from the truth by convincing them any facts that counter their propaganda are nothing more than HATE!!! But we really have no hate for Republican voters. None at all.

Bill Penzey is a liar. Remember in January 2022, he sent out an email renaming their MLK Jr. weekend sale to "Republicans are racist weekend." That sounds like hate to me!

His smug virtue signalling that his motives are as pure as the driven snow, and it's only the evil Republicans who are doing bad things, is a bit much. I wonder whether the contraction of his business during Covid was a result of a difficult business climate, or his store policies that I would bet included all of the insanity of masking and 6 foot separation and one-way aisles and mandatory rectal swabbing...

Besides, most Americans cooked at home a lot more during the Covid lunacy. I would have guessed that a spice store would have done well!

But it doesn't matter. In spite of his childish protestations that there is no hate...there is plenty of hate, and we should respond accordingly. Buy your spices at the local Indian convenience store, The Spice House, or any of hundreds of places that don't hate you.

[Hat Tip: dhmosquito]

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Damned if I know what is going on! I make clear ice cubes for cocktails, because it is A) easy, 2) fun, and III aesthetically pleasing! There is nothing like a clear cube in a cocktail. Does it taste better? Maybe. I guess some of the crap in tap water gets pushed out by the freezing. But the cubes definitely last longer, which is always a good thing.

But whatever is going on with those cubes being pushed up several inches is beyond my understanding of...uh...everything.

Anyone here a consulting hydrologist?

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Here is an interesting example of a dish that tastes very good, but the texture is a bit odd because of the radically different sizes of the ingredients. Baby spinach is tasty...peas are tasty...pesto as a dressing really works!

Pesto Pea Salad

But the spinach doesn't capture the peas, so there are two discrete foods on one's fork unless one is very, very diligent with fork technique.

It's still scrumptious (is this the first use of that word on AoSHQ?), but it needs a bit of work.

Oh...pinenuts are stupidly expensive and are often sourced from China, so I used pistachios in both the pesto and as the garnish for the salad. Cashews also work great in pesto.

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It's orange. That's just ugly.

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How to eat a steak.

[Hat Tip: Kindletot]

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Good butter, and Flap Meat...whatever the hell that is...just send it, Broccolini that isn't $6/bunch, garlic...lots of garlic!, well-marbled hanger steaks and elk chops to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Who are those poor deluded souls who shake their Manhattans? These are the same people who drink fine bourbon with coke, and probably shake red wine with ice too.

My and the world's patience has run out. Shaken Manhattans henceforth will be banished to the land of Long Island Ice Teas and Frozen Strawberry Margaritas.

And yes, I used to demand fancy bourbon, but let's face it, $1,200 for a bottle of bourbon is just stupid, insulting, and a ghastly affront to most people's palates and wallets. I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.