We don't eat steak much around here because we're on a budget, but the other day I found steak on sale and decided to splurge a little bit. I got two large strip steaks for under $8. Score!
Last summer I had a guy out here repairing the dryer and he smelled gas outside and cut off some doohickey and months later I found my gas grill wouldn't work. I called him up and asked him politely to come back out and hook up the gas grill, and he said he couldn't do it. The dryer fix was fast and cheap but I hate not being able to use my very nice grill.
So I had to cook the steaks in the oven. I took great care to try and get them as soft as possible because 1) Mother's remaining teeth are not great so she cannot chew tough meat and 2) I don't like tough meat. I can chew it but I don't want to. Years of cooking soft foods for Mom have left me very intolerant of chewy anything. On the plus side, I am perfectly prepared for cooking in old age right now, at 54.
I thought this Aldi meme was very funny.
It reminded me of a story my dad told me years ago.
Above, my father's oldest brother, Lewis, who served in the Pacific in World War II.
Lewis came home after the war and had some extra cash money and told Dad, then about 15 years old, they were going to eat steaks for dinner. Lewis went to a grocery store and bought steaks for the family.
Now, steaks were rarely eaten at Dad's house in the 1930's or early 1940's because money was tight.
Also, nobody grilled anything back then.
Lewis went out in the yard and dug a hole and built a fire in it. They found a grate somewhere, possibly a shelf from an old fridge, and placed it over the fire and grilled the steaks. Dad said he had never eaten anything so good. He raved about that steak decades later.
Of course, the novelty of eating a grilled steak with his older brother who had been gone a long time might have colored his opinion. Or not - I remember visiting Lewis and his family and he was excellent at grilling steaks.
Dad was not a great griller of steaks. They were often tough and sometimes tasted like gas because Dad often didn't have lighter fluid but he always had a can of gas for the lawn mower.
Dad liked to cook, but his efforts were... well let's just say he was enthusiastic but not skilled. On weekend mornings he liked to cook breakfast and his omelets that were tough as leather are legendary..
Dad was a banker and sometime when I was a kid the bank got a new customer, a company in Knoxville that supplied steaks to restaurants. They were very high quality, filet mignon deals. The owner let Dad buy steaks at wholesale prices, so we often had a box of those steaks in the fridge. We started eating steak once or twice a week. Dad got really upset one night when I complained about eating steaks. A child of the Depression, he thought I was awful to say I was tired of steaks.
My brother, who is more like Mom's side of the family, is a terrific steak cooker. He can make steaks in the oven or cooked on the grill that are perfect. Unfortunately, I take after Dad when it comes to cooking steaks.
I make excellent lasagna, pork roast, country fried steak, etc.
I told Mom that next time I will just put her steak in the blender.
me and Dad, abt 1991, in front of his grill that was made from industrial pipe
