Steak, Steak, Steak, Steak....

Ugh.  I know.  It looks like a cholesterol nightmare.  Good thing I'd just been to the doctor the week before, and she gave me a clean bill of health.  I suppose this made my arteries feel a little daring?  Perhaps my cholesterol levels were feeling a bit invincible?  Truth be told, it's neither the fault of my arteries or my cholesterol.  It was utterly and completely the fault of Minetta Tavern.  Delicious bastards.

See, what had happened was, I was minding my own business one night, when a friend and I innocently sauntered up the bar at Minetta, with every intention of ordering and finishing the cote de beouf for two, along with a bottle of red wine, and the forearm-sized piece of bone marrow that came with it.  Unfortunately, we made the mistake of ordering an appetizer.  This was a stupid idea.  A very stupid idea.  No one in their right mind needs an appetizer before they eat two pounds of meat.  Unless that appetizer comes with a two for one coupon for an aortic flush.

Needless to say, we couldn't make it through the whole cote de beouf.  Tender and juicy and melt in your mouth and make you say HELLS YEAH, as it was, we were utterly defeated by it's size and prowess.  But I'm not a girl who easily accepts defeat.  I'm also not a girl who's afraid to carry around a doggie bag while she finishes up her night.

And so it was that there was cote de beouf for breakfast the next day.  That is also how I managed to have ribeye on the brain for quite some time.  So much so, that on a nasty rainy night, I thought I'd try my hand at cooking that luscious, delicious, perfectly marbled goodness myself.  I must say...I was nervous.  And this is not an emotion I'm very familiar with.

But screwing up a $30 piece of meat should make anyone feel like jerk.  Fortunately, there was a cast iron skillet on hand. And cast iron is your friend.  So, I followed all the usual rules: season it, sear it, roast it, rest it.  And my favorite rule: CUT IT....

Perfectly pink goodness.  Mmmmmm.  Is "butter it" a rule?  Because it should be.

Feeling Crabby

Like every good New Yorker, I'm an elitist about my town.  As far as I'm concerned, there is no better city...in the world.  Paris comes close.  Really, really, close.  But Parisians won't deliver me anything I want at 3am.  And they have that whole reservation system that prevents me from deciding, at the last minute, that I want to eat at the hottest restaurant in town, and showing up unannounced at 8pm to sweet talk my way into a table.

But maybe everyone's an elitist about the place they love.  This certainly holds true for a friend of mine who is undeniably in love with Maryland.  I've often wondered what was so great about such a tertiary place.  I guess they have DC.  Is it wrong that I can't think of DC with out thinking of Marion Barry.  Tee hee...damn shame...

But even I had to admit that Maryland rose a few ranks in my elitist mind, after we took a weekend trip to St. Michaels, MD.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that we did a little crab cracking that weekend.

Mmmmm...crab.

But after it took me a solid 5 minutes to crack open my first crab, I had a new appreciation for all those containers of jumbo lump crab meat that I'd previously thought were over-priced.  I'd charge $3 an ounce too if I had to do all that work.  Fortunately, as a native Marylander, my partner in crime was also a nearly professional crab cracker. 

Thankfully, this allowed me to focus my energy on dipping my pre-cracked crabmeat bites in clarified butter.  I know...it's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it.

I don't know if it was the clarified butter, or the pitcher of beer, or the sailboats floating by outside, but I think I felt my little New York heart grow three sizes that day.  Only the coldest heart wouldn't love a place with sunset sailing like this...

Proscuitto Panini

For years several friends and I have said that we'd love to see what would happen if we stuck a pillsbury biscuit in a waffle iron.  Fortunately, several things kept us from realizing this clearly ridiculous fantasy.  Cheif among them: not owning a waffle iron. 

But a friend's new move, and the target gift card burning a hole in my pocket, gave me just the excuse I needed to buy a waffle iron as a housewarming gift.  And a lazy friday afternoon gave us just the excuse we needed to spend the afternoon testing out a few tapas recipes that we'd been thinking about.

But if it's not good to grocery shop on an empty stomach, it's even worse to cook on an empty stomach.  None of the food would ever have made it to the table.  So first, a snack.  A waffle iron pressed, proscuitto filled snack. 

A little spread of mustard on fresh bread...a few slices of proscuitto and manchengo cheese...a little drizzle of olive oil...and pressssssssss......  And 3 minutes later....crispy toasty goodness.

Why we didn't buy a waffle iron years ago, I'll never know.  Actually, I do know.  It's because we'd like to continue to fit into our pants.  I guess we can always buy new pants...