curve of an apple is the curve of an apple is the curve of an apple. And no one is going to ask me if I like apples. If I like fruit.
I take a deep breath and preheat the oven, reading through the instructions several times, wondering if I’m starting the steak too early, if it will really taste as good as the cookbook promises if I serve it room temperature over the salad. I preheat some oil in a pan and salt the steak, having deep regrets at attempting meat. I should have stuck with just making the tomato sauce. The vinaigrette would have been a Martha Stewart-y enough touch to the meal.
I decide to make a really easy pasta dish for the dinner party—keep it simple. I buy bread from the faux French bakery down the street and dessert from Magnolia’s, the West Village shop that kicked off the whole cupcake craze. I don’t need to make the whole meal, I decide. It counts as “homemade” if you make the main dish. Plus, I decorate the vanilla cupcakes with chopped up strawberries for color. I’ll throw together a salad with great butter leaf lettuce I found at Whole Foods and the extra tomato I bought earlier in the week. I’ll make my own vinaigrette. And then stupidly, at last moment, I throw some steaks into my basket at the store, and now I am back home and staring down the meat with dread. The cookbook is talking about searing and finishing. About making my own garlic butter.
I drop the steaks into the pan and then step back, promising the cookbook author that I will not touch the steaks, will not fuss with them and touch them and move them around until the timer goes off marking three minutes. I watch the color crawl up the side of the meat, the top still freshly pink, the bottom half a caramelized brown. When the buzzer goes off, I smear on the garlic butter I mashed together while I waited, flip the steak, and send the whole pan to the oven. Done. Door closed. I breathe a huge sigh and pour myself a glass of water. My hands are shaking from steak anxiety.
As the steaks finish in the oven, I start on my tomato sauce, a bit more confident now that the hardest piece of the meal is out of the way. I chop my garlic, lovingly bringing the knife over it like I’ve seen the Food Network chefs do on television, taking special care not to slice open my fingers, because I’m not a Food Network chef. I mix it with a small amount of water in a cup to mellow the bite of the garlic once it hits the oil. As the garlic browns, I open a can of crushed tomatoes to get ready. I hum to myself, picturing my mother rolling her eyes at the way I am spending my afternoon.
The buzzer goes off again, and I pause for a moment, grabbing some newly-purchased oven mitts. The steak comes sizzling out of the oven, and I let it rest for a few minutes on a plate. It looks gorgeous, and I have an urge to cut it immediately despite directions to the contrary in the cookbook.
I proudly slice open the first steak and am greeted by the red fleshiness of undercooked meat. I panic, fanning back to the steak salad page in the cookbook. Can I put it back in the oven? Serve it semi-raw? Dump it and cry over the wasted money?
The chef gives no directions for this possibility, as if it could never happen if the original instructions are followed precisely. I wonder if my steak is too thick; if I skipped a step. With a deep breath, I drop the steaks back in the butter-laden pan and return them to the oven, biting my lip over this decision as if it holds the same importance as choosing which college to attend or which person to marry. Did I make the right choice?
When the meat comes back out of the oven a few minutes later, the center is a creamy pink, like the photographs. I almost cry, so incredibly proud of the steaks—my babies—and how they have browned in their own juices. I set them aside again, this time with real confidence. I am like a kitchen ninja from an Alton Brown skit, striking out on my own to stave off meat catastrophes.
I
I take a deep breath and preheat the oven, reading through the instructions several times, wondering if I’m starting the steak too early, if it will really taste as good as the cookbook promises if I serve it room temperature over the salad. I preheat some oil in a pan and salt the steak, having deep regrets at attempting meat. I should have stuck with just making the tomato sauce. The vinaigrette would have been a Martha Stewart-y enough touch to the meal.
I decide to make a really easy pasta dish for the dinner party—keep it simple. I buy bread from the faux French bakery down the street and dessert from Magnolia’s, the West Village shop that kicked off the whole cupcake craze. I don’t need to make the whole meal, I decide. It counts as “homemade” if you make the main dish. Plus, I decorate the vanilla cupcakes with chopped up strawberries for color. I’ll throw together a salad with great butter leaf lettuce I found at Whole Foods and the extra tomato I bought earlier in the week. I’ll make my own vinaigrette. And then stupidly, at last moment, I throw some steaks into my basket at the store, and now I am back home and staring down the meat with dread. The cookbook is talking about searing and finishing. About making my own garlic butter.
I drop the steaks into the pan and then step back, promising the cookbook author that I will not touch the steaks, will not fuss with them and touch them and move them around until the timer goes off marking three minutes. I watch the color crawl up the side of the meat, the top still freshly pink, the bottom half a caramelized brown. When the buzzer goes off, I smear on the garlic butter I mashed together while I waited, flip the steak, and send the whole pan to the oven. Done. Door closed. I breathe a huge sigh and pour myself a glass of water. My hands are shaking from steak anxiety.
As the steaks finish in the oven, I start on my tomato sauce, a bit more confident now that the hardest piece of the meal is out of the way. I chop my garlic, lovingly bringing the knife over it like I’ve seen the Food Network chefs do on television, taking special care not to slice open my fingers, because I’m not a Food Network chef. I mix it with a small amount of water in a cup to mellow the bite of the garlic once it hits the oil. As the garlic browns, I open a can of crushed tomatoes to get ready. I hum to myself, picturing my mother rolling her eyes at the way I am spending my afternoon.
The buzzer goes off again, and I pause for a moment, grabbing some newly-purchased oven mitts. The steak comes sizzling out of the oven, and I let it rest for a few minutes on a plate. It looks gorgeous, and I have an urge to cut it immediately despite directions to the contrary in the cookbook.
I proudly slice open the first steak and am greeted by the red fleshiness of undercooked meat. I panic, fanning back to the steak salad page in the cookbook. Can I put it back in the oven? Serve it semi-raw? Dump it and cry over the wasted money?
The chef gives no directions for this possibility, as if it could never happen if the original instructions are followed precisely. I wonder if my steak is too thick; if I skipped a step. With a deep breath, I drop the steaks back in the butter-laden pan and return them to the oven, biting my lip over this decision as if it holds the same importance as choosing which college to attend or which person to marry. Did I make the right choice?
When the meat comes back out of the oven a few minutes later, the center is a creamy pink, like the photographs. I almost cry, so incredibly proud of the steaks—my babies—and how they have browned in their own juices. I set them aside again, this time with real confidence. I am like a kitchen ninja from an Alton Brown skit, striking out on my own to stave off meat catastrophes.
I
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