Sunday, June 12, 2011.
Another Steak, As Fine As A Restaurant Could Do.
We will eat at home today, sez Mary Ann. I hear and obey. Yesterday she bought a sirloin strip for me from Fresh Market, instead of the sea scallops I asked for. She knew in her heart that what I really wanted was a steak, even though I had a steak yesterday. But it's controls like this that have me losing weight.
I cooked the steak the way I'm always telling people to do it. I heated a little butter in a heavy pan, then seared the steak on each side in it. It was thick enough that it was still red around the middle. The rest of the cooking occurred in a preheated 400-degree oven. In the meantime, I poured two ounces of Bourbon into the pan, which came to a very rapid boil. More than I wanted, really, so I added a shot of water. Whisked the pan until everything dissolved. Then about five ounces of whipping cream (a little too much) and a heaping tablespoon of coarse-ground black pepper (because I found myself out of peppercorns to crack.)
Reduced that down to sauce consistency. Took the steak out, poured the sauce on the plate, took a picture of it. Mary Leigh was suspicious of the sauce, but liked the look of the steak. So did I. It was a shade overcooked (on purpose, for ML's taste), but the sauce was restaurant quality, if I say so myself. A salad, asparagus. . . that was dinner. It was a big, filling steak, but no carbs, so I think I can get away with this. Besides, my left leg's muscles need to build themselves back up. Oh, the rationalizations we can make when overindulging!
Back to the Lost Restaurants proofreading. The more I work on this, the less I like the typography. I revised the letter I wrote about this two days ago and sent it to the publisher. "Palatino?" I asked. "Too corporate. How about Caslon instead?"
Sometimes I have dreams about typefaces, which I have been studying and working with for my entire adult life. No wonder my love life is caught in the catch basin.
It has been over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
