Day 032-2 (W, 120201) — Artisan Steak Tasting; Food Diary, Day 3

“The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.”
— Samuel Butler

Heaven?  I use the Gucci Steak tip from Jaden over at Steamy Kitchen all the time to help make my Sam’s Club top sirloin steaks taste better.  I used it just last night.  It works.  Try it.

Note:  She uses this method on just one side of the meat.  Sometimes I do one; other times I cover both sides with salt.  It depends on how much kosher salt I have in the house and how much meat I need to cover.  Either way works well but I think the dual-attack mode is a little better.  YMMV.

While poking around the Steamy Kitchen site, I found an old post about an Artisan Steak Tasting.

Ho-lee crap!  I think I’m in love.

I pay as much for a good steak as I do for a bottle of wine, so why not care about its taste, where it’s from and the quality of my beef?

Simply put, the taste of beef is influenced by:

REGION: A chardonnay from Napa Valley has a different flavor profile than a chardonnay from New Zealand. Climate, geology and soil all influence the grass and grain that are fed to the cattle.

RANCHERS: Like a winemaker, the quality of pride and skill in producing the best product matters. A small rancher who treats his cattle humanely will have better tasting beef. And like a winemaker’s art of blending and aging, a rancher’s special blend of feed and aging matters.

BREED: Doesn’t a pinot noir taste different from a cabernet? Well, a Holstein tastes different than a Black Angus.

Artisan Steaks via Steamy Kitchen

She worked with the folks at The Oliver Ranch Company to set up a tasting which included:

• Dry-Aged Charolais-Cross, Front Range Region, CO, Elliott & Ferris Family Ranches
• Dry-Aged 100% Black Angus, Russell Country, MT, N-Bar Ranch, Dave Workman
• Wet-Aged Holstein-Friesian, Imperial Valley, CA, 3 Brand Cattle Company, Bob Beechinor
• Wet-Aged Wagyu-Angus Cross, Select Kobe Beef America Ranches, directed by R.L. Freeborn

In addition to the four steaks provided by Oliver Ranch, she included one from Florida (grass-fed Brahman-Hereford crossbreed) and one from Uruguay (grass-fed Hereford).

They served rare steaks and used a tasting scale (developed by Carrie Oliver through her Artisan Beef Institute) to rate texture, personality (taste), and impression (finish).

Jaden’s conclusion?

I didn’t care for the big-super-fancy expensive Kobe-style, Wagyu beef. It was good, don’t get me wrong. I’d never turn down a Kobe-style steak. But my style is big, beefy, nice chew. Heh. Makes me a cheaper date. But guess what…these were some of the very best steaks that I had ever tasted in my life. None of them were rated Prime. They were all Choice or Select cuts. So my big revelation was that quality was not just about Prime, Choice or Select. Flavor had so much to do with region, climate, diet and care. Knowing where your beef comes from is important – wouldn’t you rather support a small artisan rancher who takes pride in their beef?

I am SO going to do this with my friends.

It will take time to set up, and I am going to have to get everyone to chip in to offset the cost, but damnit, this is an idea worth celebrating.

A quick note to any of my local (North Texas) readers:

If you would like to be a part of a gourmet steak tasting,
send me an email via my Contact Me page and we’ll hash out the details. 

I’m always up for making new friends . . . especially ones who can appreciate fine beef! =)

=====

Aside.  I found two other recipes I am going to try from Steamy Kitchen:

• German Oven Pancakes Recipe – Sunday Morning Family Tradition
• Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake

=====

Tracking Nutrition.  I’ve talked about SparkPeople.com before. It is one of my main online resources for nutritional information and, as you may have noticed from yesterday’s list of articles, helpful information about exercise.*

Sometime this week, I am going to go to their nutritional calculator** and enter all of my food from my daily diaries into it.  Then I’ll backfill some graphs of the nutrient profiles of my daily eating.

=====

Exercise for Today.

Exercise	Set 1	Set 2	Goal/Notes:
Plyo/Uneven Push-up	15	50	1 set each, 15/50
Pull Up / Chin Up	8	11	12×2
Squats Lunges	50	50	50×2
Handstand			90s
Forearm Plank			120s
Forearm Side Plank			45s

I took a 1.2 mile walk with my family today and did my push-ups and lunges on the way.  Then I did my pull-ups and chin-ups when I got home.  I skipped all my timed exercises today.

=====

Today’s Food Diary.

Start	Food	End	Notes:
0625	Trilogy kombucha	0649	On the way to work
0745	Coffee + 1 tbsp cream	0800	My normal cuppa
1230	Starbucks iced coffee, no “classic” (simple syrup), 2 servings with 1T cream and 1 Truvia each	????	I took most of the afternoon to drink this.
1607	0.25 oz sunflower seeds 500 ml water	1640	On the drive home
1800	19.6 oz low-carb chili with hot sauce, salsa, jalapenos, and 1.2 oz artisan cheddar cheese
1819	5.0 oz sauerkraut with 2.1 oz hot link
1830	half a Texas Ruby Red grapefruit

=====

Nutritional Analysis for Today.

Wednesday's Nutrition 120201

=====

Running Nutrition Total for the Week.

Day	Calories	Carbs	Fiber	Fat	Protein
Mon	1517	24	(7)	96	121
Tues	1697	79	(26)	114	77
Wed	1078	35	(10)	68	70
Thurs
Fri
Sat
Sun
Avg	1430	46	(14.3)	92.7	89

Not bad: I’m running just over 1400 calories per day and sub-50 carbs (just over 30 carbs/day if you count net carbs as minus fiber) and not feeling hungry.

I’ve fasted every day from after dinner (about 2030 or 2100) until I start my drive home (about 1600) for a total of about 19 hours of IF each day this week.

NB: I don’t count my kombucha or coffee as breaking my fast since they are relatively low in calories and I drink them over a long time period.

—–

* Not so much for diet information.  They recommend a standard low-fat, portion controlled diet which is antithetical to my approach.  If you follow that sort of plan, more power to you; I’m sure you’ll find their diet articles very helpful.
** If you don’t have an account, it will ask you to make one.  It’s quick, free, and worth it.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.