New York steak, seared vegetables

The vegetables are cut so they lay flatly in the pan. The heat is high, the pan is hot, a pat of butter sizzles immediately. A lid is slapped on. The pan is tilted to distribute the butter that is 20% water and you can hear it pop and sizzle and fry in oil and steam. The pan is not shaken, the contents are not stirred. They just sit there and burn and steam. A char is put on one side of the vegetables and they are fantastic. And you must trust. You cannot see any of this. 

Tomatoes are raw. 

The steak is cooked as chefs do in restaurants.

How is that?

It's brutal. A poor innocent cow is cut up into pieces macabrely and expertly and its meat chunks are seared on high heat, branded again even more cruelly this time, fast and hot on both sides, then taken off, and the whole thing is still smoking dramatically, covered and allowed to rest and suffer its pain in quiet while the heat of the insanely cruel second and third branding creeps to the center of the meat without denaturing it further nor discoloring its red.

And your guests are going, "Bloody hell, how'd he do that?" And you have nothing to add beyond demonstration, "Eh, I don't know, it's a knack." This is New York steak because the cows grew up in New York. They even moo with a New York accent. Sounds like this, "Moo, get outta here."

"Where should I go?"

"Moo,  I don't know. 

Boston.

Bosnia

Bossier City

Bossley Park

Boscabel

Boswell Bay

Bosbury

Bos Creek, seems a lot of possibilities, just moo-oove." 

NY steak dinner, baked potato, salad

 

Red bell pepper arranged in a pan so that each piece touches the hot surface, oiled and salted and left to singe on one side, actually burn in an area. 

Apple slices and avocado rolled in dressing to prevent them from oxidizing. 

Grapes and cucumber as shown.

Dressing: olive oil, rice vinegar, mustard powder, honey, salt + pepper, small grated garlic clove, grated ginger. Outstanding. You cannot buy dressing like this. It is made for the meal. Each time you prepare the same or similar thing it comes out a little bit differently due to the insouciant unmeasured manner of putting things together. Once you accept that, you are free. Added by the tablespoon and mixed through at the table. 

A dessert was prepared of peaches and strawberries with whipped cream but my guest was too full. Boo hoo too bad for you.

Shaved NY steak, white beans, homemade tortillas

This is the N.Y. portion of the T-bone steak from yesterday. 

I was not into this as a steak. Put it off all day. All day. Nothing to eat all day a result of the gigantic meal yesterday, I suppose, of which I could only eat the tenderloin portion and half the potato. Kept putting off eating, putting off eating, putting off eating and then it was already past midnight and the day was gone.

The grizzle bits are cut out and the cooked steak sliced thinly as possible. It is cooked in water with a few favorite flavor agents, under pressure to tenderize the meat beyond its inherent steak tenderness and change its texture and flavor to something else slightly. If this were a Philadelphia sandwich this would be chopped finer while it cooks on the grill, basically, pre-masticating the meat or at least pre-chewing it, but here the meat is tenderized further by pressure instead.

It's not hot.

A friend was so proud of his mother's tortillas he declared them best in the land and all the while I imagined tortillas can only be so good. We invited his mother and his sister to my house to show us, he never studied before, never watched her, just marveled how good her tortillas always are so much better than anywhere else. She showed us its utter simplicity, think campesino, not even a rolling pin, just patting them back and forth, and it is because of her I am so ace at making my own tortillas confidently and expertly and have fresh ones whenever I want and without any extra half dozen laying around getting stale or being frozen and me fretting about waste.