Reading the doleful news that eating red meat, especially bacon, caused premature death made me reflect on my cooking and eating habits, which are meat-centric. This, I am assured, will cause me to cardially infarct before my time. If one insists on eating meat, and I do, the self-appointedmeat proctors say that the size of the protein portion of the meal needs to be rigorously controlled; otherwise early, prime-rib induced mortality is one's inevitable end.
I don't see a problem with this. I would just as soon take an exciting ambulance ride to the Tunnel of Light rather than spend dreary years staring at my oxygen tank while my organs turn into pink slime. By eating animals, I am following in the footsteps of my caveman ancestors, hearty, fur-clad men and women who would have regarded a Quadruple Bypass Burger as unnecessarily encumbered with bread and lettuce. Certainly there were no professional cave dieticians back then, saying snottily "A serving of meat should be no larger than a deck of cards." My Cro-Magnon kin felt that a serving of meat should be no larger than the cave entrance through which it had to be dragged.
I've dated vegetarian women, but those relationships always ran aground as reliably as an Italian cruise ship because I would eat dead animal in front of them, earning myself that unmistakable look, the look that says You're just another icky man. My Significant Other these days is as savage a carnivore as myself. Possibly more so. Just the other day she was wondering idly if bacon-flavored cigarettes would be commercially viable. We dine together peacefully. It's cooking together we can't stand.
The barbecuing falls to me, naturally, and I already know the first secret of cooking on the grill that makes women accept your atavistic need to put meat in fire and that is this: Do NOT leave the place looking like a medium-sized insurgent force has first waded through a river of teriyaki marinade before invading your kitchen and throwing all your pats and pans into the yard for your special lady to clean up.
This does not mean I am not constantly being observed, criticized and undermined. Cuts of meat that I felt were ready to be seared are seized and marinated and tenderized behind my back. Sharp, personal questions regarding the washing of foods and hands are hurled at me when I am laying out the feast. I can only salt anything when she is distracted. She leaves me alone during the actual grilling process only because she is convinced that the odd hissing sound the grill makes is the prelude to it vaporizing into a massive Hollywood car chase-style fireball.
She cooks indoors. I leave her strictly alone, mainly because she makes it plain I am risking a deep puncture wound if I interfere. She regards my merely watching her with deep suspicion, especially if I am enjoying a malt beverage while doing so. She was adding barbecue sauce to a food processor full of ground beef for a meat loaf the other day, and as the pink mass rotated slowly in the processor, I told her the swirls of brown barbecue sauce spinning in it resembled the bands of the planet Jupiter.
She did not appreciate this effort at an astronomical aesthetic. "You can eat on frickin' Jupiter," was her curt reply.
I closed my mouth. Always the best choice. Keeps gravy from dribbling down your chin, too.
I don't see a problem with this. I would just as soon take an exciting ambulance ride to the Tunnel of Light rather than spend dreary years staring at my oxygen tank while my organs turn into pink slime. By eating animals, I am following in the footsteps of my caveman ancestors, hearty, fur-clad men and women who would have regarded a Quadruple Bypass Burger as unnecessarily encumbered with bread and lettuce. Certainly there were no professional cave dieticians back then, saying snottily "A serving of meat should be no larger than a deck of cards." My Cro-Magnon kin felt that a serving of meat should be no larger than the cave entrance through which it had to be dragged.
I've dated vegetarian women, but those relationships always ran aground as reliably as an Italian cruise ship because I would eat dead animal in front of them, earning myself that unmistakable look, the look that says You're just another icky man. My Significant Other these days is as savage a carnivore as myself. Possibly more so. Just the other day she was wondering idly if bacon-flavored cigarettes would be commercially viable. We dine together peacefully. It's cooking together we can't stand.
The barbecuing falls to me, naturally, and I already know the first secret of cooking on the grill that makes women accept your atavistic need to put meat in fire and that is this: Do NOT leave the place looking like a medium-sized insurgent force has first waded through a river of teriyaki marinade before invading your kitchen and throwing all your pats and pans into the yard for your special lady to clean up.
This does not mean I am not constantly being observed, criticized and undermined. Cuts of meat that I felt were ready to be seared are seized and marinated and tenderized behind my back. Sharp, personal questions regarding the washing of foods and hands are hurled at me when I am laying out the feast. I can only salt anything when she is distracted. She leaves me alone during the actual grilling process only because she is convinced that the odd hissing sound the grill makes is the prelude to it vaporizing into a massive Hollywood car chase-style fireball.
She cooks indoors. I leave her strictly alone, mainly because she makes it plain I am risking a deep puncture wound if I interfere. She regards my merely watching her with deep suspicion, especially if I am enjoying a malt beverage while doing so. She was adding barbecue sauce to a food processor full of ground beef for a meat loaf the other day, and as the pink mass rotated slowly in the processor, I told her the swirls of brown barbecue sauce spinning in it resembled the bands of the planet Jupiter.
She did not appreciate this effort at an astronomical aesthetic. "You can eat on frickin' Jupiter," was her curt reply.
I closed my mouth. Always the best choice. Keeps gravy from dribbling down your chin, too.
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