It was Sunday night, and I was still hung over from the previous night’s drinking. I wanted to do something to lift my mood and energize my spirit, so I decided to cook dinner. I had it in my mind that I would make a steak, because it seemed decadent and indulgent, which is exactly what my aching body needed. I hit the local supermarket and checked out the meat section. Porterhouse steaks were on sale, and I do like a porterhouse. But shell steaks were also on sale, and something about shell steaks actually feels more like a real steak to me than an elevated premium porterhouse.
In point of fact, I’m actually a recent convert to the whole steak world. Most of my life was spent working out, eating healthy, and sticking to chicken and fish, with a little pork, the other white meat, thrown in for good measure. But beef had been pretty off limits. I viewed it as a dangerous holdover from the bad old unhealthy days, as well as a sure path to obesity.
But times change, and so does one’s food worldview. About two months ago I decided to give steak another shot, and I cooked up a porterhouse on my cast iron grill pan. It was so incredible, and the experience was so transformative, that I decided right then and there I would add steak to my diet and have it on a regular basis, healthy food profile be damned.
So on this Sunday night I picked up two shell steaks, because they were on sale at 2 for 1 prices. I decided to try something new for the veg too, because I was tired of making the same spinach, squash, mushrooms and peppers saute over and over again. I noticed another shopper had green beans in their basket, and I instantly decided that I too would have green beans. I didn’t think I’d ever made green beans, so this would be an adventure. Do you boil them? Saute them? Who the hell knows. Just buy them and give it a shot, I told myself.
I returned home and got to cooking. I found a recipe for buttery, garlicky green beans that called for several steps, from boiling to sauteing, with butter and garlic added to the beans. The kicker, though, and this was a bitch, was that I had to trim and halve each and every freaking bean. There were over a pound of beans, so this was a lot more work than I bargained for.
But I toughed it out. You fall into a kind of Zen-like state when you’re chopping beans, and the labor just lulls you into a hypnotic zone. It wasn’t so bad, after all, and I got all the beans done in about 10 minutes.
Now it was time to get the steaks going. I added about 3 tablespoons of butter to my cast iron grill pan and let that melt. Once the butter was close to liquid, I threw those two bad boys up onto the pan. I’ve made shell steak a couple of times, so I was just winging it now, I didn’t need a recipe. Two minutes on one side, rotate 90 degrees, flip, repeat the process on the other side.
The steak was popping now, and the entire kitchen smelled incredible. It was smoking a lot, but I wasn’t worried about that. I cooked the beans through each stage of the process, and in ten minutes they were ready. At precisely the moment when I flipped the steaks, the smoke detector in my living room went off. Baa! Baa! Baa! Etc. This stressed the shit out of me, so I ran to the living room, ripped it off the wall, and threw it into the bedroom, where the air was clear.
It was time to make the next decision. Throughout my life, during the few times I did eat steak, I always had it medium or even medium well. But for the last steak I made I tried it medium rare, and it was blissful. So I decided to cook up these shell steak mofos medium rare.
Which meant that in another two minutes they were done. I removed them from the grill pan and placed them on a plate with a paper towel underneath. I chose the more handsome looking steak and placed it on my plate, and ladled a handful of beans next to it. It was time to eat.
I dove right into the steak and cut a large triangle. I popped it in my mouth, chewed and swallowed. OMFG! This thing was incredible. It was meaty, it was bloody, it was salty, it was metallic, and I felt like I was having a carnal experience with something that had recently been alive. It doesn’t matter when the cow that produced this steak actually died; the feeling was that I was hunting, killing, and immediately eating the flesh of animal. It was primal, it was raw, and it was powerful. I actually felt vaguely sexually aroused.
I tried the beans next, and bang! They were great too. The garlic and butter melded seamlessly with the green beans, resulting in a salty, chewy, rich vegetable concoction. This is the kind of dish that steak houses serve to accompany their steaks, and I was proud of myself for recreating a dish that was restaurant quality. I felt good.
I went back to the steak again for bites two, three, four, and more. Each bite was like a mini-orgasm of flavor in my mouth, complete with blood, flesh, metal, salt, and butter. Every time I took another bite, my spirit was renewed and my mood lifted. When I shifted to the beans I was pleased, but it was an earthbound experience. But each return to the steak produced another hunter gatherer moment of communion with nature, and a feeling of being completely and totally alive.
I was eating pretty quickly, but I couldn’t help myself, the steak was so freaking good. Towards the end there was a lot of fat, which I mostly avoided, because, really, who wants to eat a big ol strip of fat? Not me, even with my recent conversion to steak eater.
I polished off the last bits of steak, finished the beans, pushed my chair away from the kitchen table, and exhaled. What a meal. I was in a state of post-dinner bliss. The food had been so incredibly good that it just lifted me up and made my spirit soar. I stared off into space for a good fifteen minutes, quietly contemplating the vitality of the meal and the raw natural experience I’d just had.
Finally my thoughts turned to what came next. I would do the dishes, and maybe later I’d watch the Yankees playoff game. But Holy Christ, I would not forget this meal. Not now, and not ever. It really made my weekend, and it took me to places that only a good home cooked meal can.
Steak is a part of my world now, and it will be forever. And I have a new green bean dish I can make to accompany it. So everything is ok, really it is, and all is right in the world. Cooking can transport us to new worlds of creation and pleasure, and I feel lucky to have rediscovered it later in life. Here’s to cooking, and to steak and green beans. Thanks for making my weekend.
