Chirp... chirp... + a capsule review of Steak by Mark Schatzker

Not much going on. I'm afraid I haven't cooked anything novel in a while as I was caught up in the end of the semester and various other things.

I did read Mark Schatzker's Steak: One Man's Search for the World's Tastiest Piece of Beef. It was an interesting read and worth if if you like steak, but kind of frustrating at points as he circles around things a lot, probably because there is no real answer. I suspect, as the author points out, talking about steak is about as informative as talking about wine. The writing is solid and he's got a decent steak recipe in the back of the book (it is more or less the conventional wisdom, when you come right down to it, i.e., raise to room temperature, hot pan or grill, a bit of salt and oil, etc.). He does point out that feedlot beef is prized because it grows quickly (thus cheap) and is very uniform (thus easily commodified), but of course, it's also not very good (goes along with the previous two), kind of the Model T of the beef world. Grass-fed beef is great when the grass is good, but can be downright awful when the grass is bad. There's also some nice history of cattle breeds, including some information about the aurochs. It's definitely worth a library read at least.