Things wot I Made Then Ate

tuna salad, sandwich

I want onion but I don't want all those onion-y sulfur compounds to permeate during storage, so it is salted to disable it and cause it to weep.

This is a large tin.

I'm showing the liquid the onions exuded. The onions were rinsed and dried. Now they are harmless.

My bread is a bit dry and the salad sat on top of it as a separate entity unwilling to become acquainted. It was wrapped tightly and chilled. A forced marriage, as it were. The bread softened.

If you think about it, open face sandwich is an oxymoron because nothing is sandwiched between two things.

The liquid tasted fantastic before fermentation, had I infused that with CO2 through the Soda Stream, I'd be set, but instead I added a tiny amount of brewer's yeast and that ruined it. The yeast multiplied, ate all the sugar, and then it tasted horrible.

Bad as that, the liquid was fizzing as I burped the jars each day but after chilling they were all completely flat.

I'll try again. A different way.

thinly sliced tenderloin, peach, strawberries

I'm going through the tenderloin section slice by slice as my own personal deli case.

Paper-thin slices.

If your paper was card stock. And a stack of fifty sheets. That thin. Very thin.

Thin enough to read a newspaper through.

If you had x-ray vision.

That thin.

So it will take several days to get through.

WHAT?

The same thing day after day?

Yes.

Because it's perfect. Because it keeps well in the refrigerator. Because it's summer. Because peaches are perfect right now. And I mean perfect. Tomatoes too. They don't get any better than this. Because I don't have to cook, don't have to do dishes. Clean up is minimal. And because it never gets tiresome. It's not like leftovers. It's more like a personal hoard.

Here's another previous plate.

beef tenderloin, Colorado peach, berries

The case shows tenderloin steaks but I wanted the whole section. The butcher says they can do that. I'm given the choice of grass-fed or regular. I didn't specify. I have no idea which one this is. Then he disappears and I realize he's inside another room next to the counter with a window to the public. He's trimming the h-e-double shank bones off this tenderloin section. He's deft with his small knife, slicing off scraggly edges, trimming fat, slipping under silver skin and removing the lengths, trim, trim, trim, trim, trim, trim, he goes on and on trimming, he trims the ends off, he trims off more loose bits. He trims the bits off of pieces, he trims off good meat. He wastes what appears to be quite a lot. He trims more than I would trim. Then he ties it.

Young. Tall. Thin, bearded hipster. They're all hipsters over there. Friendly, outgoing, engaging hipsters. Contrary to what you might have heard or read. Professional. Hardworking. Motivated. Ambitious.

I told him that just a few days ago I showed a YouTube video of a butcher reducing a side of beef to steaks on a website and the readers were resistant to watching it. Many refused.

"Oh? Which one?"

A Japanese-American guy. His body is kind of small and he uses the edge of the table for leverage.

"He's good. I saw that. I watch a lot of butcher videos. You ought to watch the Australian guys and the New Zealand guys butchering sheep."

I was guessing the cost. Estimating what I would consider outrageous. This exceeded that by 20%. But I don't care. It's worth every cent. Plus I've paid more single dinners. But that was with everything that comes with a great dinner, and I didn't have to cook it or do the dishes. It's moments like this that I flashback to Maui where the cost of food is phenomenal. And I think I can do better at Oliver's. And I will. This is too good to not have. I've really REALLY REALLY enjoyed the beef tenderloin cooked on the Big Green Egg, and the pork tenderloin cooked here at home. Thin slices with fruit or something equally light is a fantastic summer meal. Just nibbling all through the summer, but nibbling on the most excellent meat. I've actually lost weight and it feels great. I want to keep doing this. Small plates of thinly sliced meat and fruit, day after day.