Beef Heaven

       Well, Bryce and I had a grubbin' good meal this evening.  There was a lovely salad that was a riff on a salad that Katie and I saw today at Cafe Presse:  greens, hazelnuts and a creamy hazelnut vinaigrette.  I added a bit of feta and found that to be an excellent addition as well.  Then there was the Israeli couscous studded with minced onion, carrot and parsley.  But the coup de grace, the highlight, the reason the meal stands out so strongly has to do with the protein.
     It all started last October, when I got a wild hair to pursue another locavore idea of mine and buy a portion of beef.  I polled my friends and found 5 like-minded souls.  We did some research:  there are quite a few places here in Western Washington that provide what we were in search of, that being a 100% grass-fed, organic locally sourced beef option.  And when you buy a portion, it makes the price very fine indeed.  We finally settled on Lisa and Chris Wilcox (NWlocalgrassfedbeef.com) and started a long series of e-mail exchanges to wit:  We purchased 1/2 beef, which was aged 21 days and was placed in our hands yesterday.
     That in and of itself was an adventure.  Mark and I took off after work yesterday into rain and truly some heinous traffic to Puyallup.  It was only tolerable as we were able to do the HOV lanes, but I am amazed at the misery of the traffic and here it was only a boring Thursday.  You would have thought it was the opening of the Western Washington Fair or something.  Meet the Wilcoxes, load up the car with our frozen portions, and back to Maia's house we went.
     The divvying-up was a flurry of counting out how many packages of ribs, burger and flank steak we had, and making a fair distribution of it all.  That was quite the cathartic event to it all.
     And today, today, the decision was not whether to have beef for dinner.  Oh no.  It was what cut to have first.  I considered using a 'lesser' cut, such as the stew meat, or burger.  At last I decided that I was essentially testing the waters here, and would want to be impressed, right?  Would bottom round be the most impressive option?  NO!  So Bryce and I had a T-bone steak.  Simple preparation, just salt and pepper, oven grilled as I didn't feel like dealing with darkness.  But my oh my.  It was excellent.  We have not gone wrong here.  The beef was well marbled, the fat on the edges was creamy yellow, the flavor was just what I had imagined.  That was the first T-bone steak I have ever had, my friends, and I was not disappointed.  I look forward to many other terrific meals.

Divvying-up the spoils