“There is only one right way to eat a steak - with greed in your heart and a smile on your face.”
― Soumeet Lanka

Sometimes you just gotta have a steak. A thick, juicy, seared on the outside, blood running on the inside, slab of animal flesh. Mmmm.

Sometimes you’ve got a hunger that can’t be sated by something starchy or leafy. Maybe because I’m an animal. A carnivorous animal. I want to run and grunt across a grassy field chasing my prey, stab it with my pointy stick, then char and devour it.

Strike that, eat it raw while it’s still warm. And no pointy stick, an axe. While wearing flannel.

In a pinch, I’d settle for a nice dry aged steak. That’s when they hang a piece of beef up to dry allowing the meat to break down and intensify in flavor as it loses some moisture. They got the wet aged process also where they keep the meat in plastic baggies so that it retains its moisture more. This way they can sell a 16 oz steak as a 16 oz steak, not as a 12 oz. Wet aged is acceptable.

It makes you wonder if dry aging was invented by finding old leftover meat, cutting off the moldy decayed parts, then eating it. Delicious! Of course it’s going to taste good if you’re hungry enough to eat meat you left lying around for a month.

Just add a generous amount of salt, then the only sauce I need before I dig in is the juices flowing freely as I slice into it. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t turn my nose up at someone who prefers more seasoning than salt. By all means, run your meat through the gauntlet of overpowered condiments. Slather on the A1 steak sauce, Peppercorn sauce, Heinz 57, Worcestershire, Bearnaise, or maple syrup to suit your tastes. It’s your steak. Enjoy it your way. So if the waiter at Mastro’s Beverly Hills scoffs at you when you ask for the ketchup, then tell him you’d like another Ballantine’s neat and that you’ll be tipping the chef personally at the end of your meal.