Saturday we had a surprise in the store. During a small lull in between customers, the girls went into our overflow freezers in the back and found not one, but two packs of ribeyes! I certainly didn’t know they were there and I’d looked through that freezer. Sometimes cuts just get buried under something else and look exactly the same.
When I walked in the store, they were excited to tell me about the steaks and sure enough, they were right. Four beautiful ribeyes hiding in the back of the freezer, ready to be sold to someone.
However the girls had other plans. They started begging like it was a new puppy.
“Please Daddy, I’ve NEVER had a ribeye before! Can’t we have it for dinner?”
Now I know that they’ve had ribeyes before, but it has been quite a while and maybe they don’t remember it. But we had four ribeyes and with SWMBO in the count, that’s five people. Plus I could sell those ribeyes in the blink of an eye. That’s badly needed revenue in the store. Luckily SWMBO happened by and said, “I’ll just eat a different steak, cook your girls a ribeye.” So we grabbed the ribeyes out of the freezer on Sunday morning, which is our normal shopping day for our family. I put them in the fridge and went about my business with Spork all day on Sunday.
Sunday evening, after checking the cows and going to grocery store, I came into the house with all the kids in tow looking to cook some ribeyes for my family. I’d also invited Dustin up so it was going to be a party. When I pulled the ribeyes out of the fridge, they were still a bit frozen in the center. SWMBO correctly said, “Why don’t you wait and do them tomorrow?” Sadly my back was really hurting at the time and I was in a grumpy mood. In those times, I tend to bull ahead and do whatever it is I’m committed to doing rather than demonstrating any patience. I figured I could extend the oven time and get them to come out right.
I had to cook in two batches. The first one cooked with Dustin’s pork chops he’d brought. The pork chops, which were perfectly thawed, came out perfect. The ribeye in the pan with them came out seared but nearly raw in the center. This one went to the Princess who loves raw meat. For the second batch, I extended my oven time because I knew SWMBO wouldn’t eat a red steak. These came out medium well, which is grey and lifeless.
The kids were super excited to eat ribeyes, the steaks they see every customer come in the door looking for. The result? Meh. Not that great. Not because the cow wasn’t raised right, or the flavor was off. But because their farmer chef father is a doofus and didn’t let them come up to room temperature like he tells EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER to do! Let this be a lesson to you, you can get this best steak in the world but if you don’t treat it right, it’s nothing special. Cooking and prep matter.
Oh well, it will only be MONTHS before we get this chance again. By then maybe they kids will have forgotten I messed up the cooking.