Smile and Say Medium Rare

My brother the Chef called me the other day to chit chat about fatherhood and about taking a seven year old out for a birthday dinner. Knowing nothing about child-rearing, I asked him where the all the hip seven year olds go for dinner these days.

“To a steakhouse,” he said.
“No kidding?”
“It’s all about the food now.”
“I liked steak when I was her age,” I said wistfully.
“Yeah, well we all did. But….”
“Don’t say it.”

The fact that my niece is a steak eater comes as no surprise. When I was her age, I watched jealously whenever my father ate a t-bone steak and my brothers and I got to dig into a pile of … MEATLOAF! At least we had A1 Steak Sauce to mitigate the blandness of the blah.

“You know, mom still thinks she makes a mean meatloaf,” he said. “It’s making a comeback.”

I’ve heard all the waxing nostalgic about comfort food and meatloaf and frozen peas and carrots, but let’s all just stop painting our pasts with rose-colored sharpies and admit that meatloaf is a dish that should never appear on a modern table. Period. There are a thousand tastier, healthier things one can do with ground beef. I know that it can be fun once in a while to watch the Brady Bunch on TV Land while eating a frozen TV dinner, but we have to remember why we are doing it – so that we won’t. Oh, the conundrum. It’s like that scene in “Coffee and Cigarettes”. Once you quit smoking, it’s okay to smoke, since you no longer really need to smoke. Or, the Captain is only in when he’s out. Or, the heads of some important government departments … only know what to do when there’s nothing to do.

“So, you’re taking her out for steak – at a steakhouse,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “She knows what she wants.”

Man! To be seven years old and know what you want – now that is something. But my brothers and I come from that time when everyone told us what we wanted: />“Here’s that Fish Stick you wanted”, followed by Peter Pan, Captain Crunch, Snickers, Twinkies, Pixie Stix and Oscar Meyer. I don’t think anyone ever asked us what we wanted, and certainly would not have entertained the answer “a t-bone steak medium rare”.

What a great dad my brother is! Right on!

“Cool,” I said. “What cut does she like?”
“Rib eye, or filet mignon.”
“How does she like it cooked?"
“Medium rare. And she means it. She’ll send it back if it’s overcooked.”

I try to imagine the look on a server’s face as my seven year old niece says, “This isn’t what I ordered. I asked for medium rare.” And I can imagine the server thinking, “why the hell did her parents let her order a steak? Why can’t she order the meatloaf from the kids menu?” And then I imagine her smiling, and saying, "I asked for medium rare".

Tags:   comfort food, meatloaf, medium rare, steak

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Posted on 9/23/2005 ( Permanent Link )
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