Yesterday, Groundhog’s Day, was our 11th Anniversary – my 2nd wife, her 2nd husband. Due to our respective day-job changes, though the first year of the Pandemic brought a lot of change, those changes were affecting everybody, and this past year’s changes affected mostly us. So although 11 years is not the same sort of milestone as 10 or 20 would be, it feels to us like a milestone just because of how different this past year has been. (Plus, my wife retires next week.)
For the 1st 8 years of our marriage, it would be typical and traditional for us to go to a nice restaurant for our Anniversary and have an expensive dinner. At least one (often both) of us would have steak… and potatoes. But not since Covid19.
I’d never been confident at cooking steak. More of a slow-BBQ guy. But I recently spent some time studying at YouTube University, and thought I could pull it off. Especially with the help of a combustion.inc remote meat probe (this thing is truly amazing). Aside: holy cats, it had been a long time since I’d bought steak from the grocery store, OR from a restaurant, and I was surprised that the prices for those two steaks was at least as much as the menu prices last time we went out for our Anniversary. At least I didn’t have to also tip. Oh, wait. The groceries were delivered, so I DID tip. Dammit. Well anyway, cooked a very nice dinner at home, and it cost pretty close to $100. (Wife and I agree – it was easily as great as a restaurant steak dinner. We were both SO pleased.)
Back to my point, begrudgingly… there are regular habits, like what one tends to eat on an average week. And there are traditions, which are very much like habits, but less frequent. When your week-in week-out habit is a lot of beef, then a special occasion steak is not a big shock to one’s system. But after 2-3 years of consistently trying to eat smaller meals, less beef, some days only 2 meals, etc., one’s body adjusts its chemistry & whatnot to be tuned to what’s coming through on the regular. Then hit it with almost a pound of medium rare ribeye, plus potatoes & salad & wine… uff-da. I was ultra-sated, but also slayed.
I’d heard the joking term “meat sweats” many times over the decades. But friend, I’m hear to tell you, the meat sweats are a real thing. As I was taking off my sleep shirt this morning, I swear that thing smelled like gravy, and I tossed it in the laundry pile with conviction.
Another tradition has been to finish all but maybe 4-6 oz of steak the night of, and have a little steak to have with eggs for breakfast the next morning. No sir, that ain’t gonna happen. I’m having Cheerios or oatmeal.
