Beef - It's what for Dinner, well just this one night

For those of you who actually continue to refresh this site, please know that I do, too.

And for the record, I remain overwhelmed at the concept of bring this blog back online full time. As each week passes it seems like six new bloggable events happen, and I swear each time a week does go by I feel like I'm going to sit down and slap up one giant monster post to encompass it all.. And guess what? It hasn't happened.

Seeing as that plan has consistently failed, I've decided to start smaller, with one event at a time. Like the following...

Last Friday night I took Gwen out for her birthday dinner, and the two of us decided that this would be our grand occasion to have steak. It had been over a year and a half since I had last eaten any "meat" of any kind that wasn't fish. Oh sure, I'd found a bacon bit or two in the "corn chowder" at work once (which was probably derived from chicken stock come to think of it), but on the the whole I had seriously avoided any significant chunk of non-aquatic meat of any kind for a fairly long time.

I became a "Pescatarian" for health reasons, mostly, and I'm pretty sure Gwen followed suit with the same intentions. Given my job and the amount of obesity and poor overall health I'm exposed to, I became interested in and started researching more about nutrition. I still don't know what the perfect diet is, but from research I can tell you it's mostly vegetables, fruits, and natural foods. It does not exclude meat, I think, but it does limit it, and I do think that fish is best, followed by lean meats (fowl/pork), followed lastly by dairy and beef. And the biggest thing anyone can do is to reduce refined, processed sugars. That stuff is the devil, and it's everywhere, and though I try to cut down I still eat too much, but I digress. Back to meat.

As a personality type, I'm not a great moderator. Meaning that I couldn't just give up meat partially. If I did that, I would start strong, then lapse a little, then a little more, and then finally I'd be having a flash fried buffalo off a spit every night of the week. It's not that I don't like meat, it's that I know I couldn't limit meat. So I gave it up.


And for the most part, I've been pretty happy with that decision. With the amount of fish options in Southern California, I barely even feel like a "vegetarian", which I guess I'm not. I don't miss chicken, turkey, pork, chuck, lamb or low grade meats. I don't miss any of it, actually. Except steak.

I do miss steak on occasion. Steak is tender. Steak is good. Me like steak.

And so, Gwen and I went last Friday, on a mission, to Cowboy Star, a relatively new steakhouse in downtown San Diego. The reviews on yelp were good, there was an acclaimed butcher shop attached to the restaurant, and the time had come. We sat down, spoke with the friendly wait staff, and proceeded to order steak.

We ordered a 40 oz. Porterhouse for two, and man was it good. Soft, tender, carnivor-ific. Halfway through the meal I found myself pushing the vegetables and potatoes - my new bread and butter at dinner - the hell out of the way to make more room for more meat.

I enjoyed every bite. We finished the meal stuffed, wrapped up a bottle wine, enjoyed Gwen's free birthday chocolate lava dessert, and headed home.

Until next year, steak.