Meat

I was reading a discussion forum this morning (hey, a cat's gotta keep himself busy while he's waiting for things to run) where the people were having a fairly animated discussion on how done they prefer their steaks. While it fell short of the religious fervour that creeps into discussions about politics or operating systems, there were still a lot of people who were lowering the discussion to a personal level. I was a little surprised at how much passion people seemed to feel over how thoroughly others cooked their food.

I tend to fall into the redder end of the scale, but it really depends a lot on the animal. I prefer my chicken to be well-done, partly for sanitary reasons, but also because I don't like the texture of raw chicken. Ground meat of any kind needs to be well-done for my tastes, with the notable exception of things like steak tartare, or fresh-ground sushi patties. I prefer pork to be cooked right through, but I can live with a bit of pink in the centre as long as it has been brought to safe temperatures in the middle. Fish either needs to be cooked through, or raw. By this I mean, I don't like half-cooked fish. Seared on the outside and raw through is fine, but I don't like the textural mix of cooked and raw fish together. When it comes to Lamb, I tend to favour it more toward the well-done side, but I won't turn my nose up at a rare cut of meat.

But I like my beef rare. When I am dining out, I will typically order it more rare than I would tend to cook it at home because most restaurants overcook their steaks. In my experience, ordering a "rare" steak in a family restaurant will get you something between medium, and medium-well. Usually I will order it blue rare and hope that it comes out of the kitchen on the right side of medium. Every once in awhile an establishment will surprise me, and I'll find a cut of meat that flinches when I stab it with my fork. I live for those moments (and for the stunned looks of the other people at the table when they seem me ripping into the bloody carcass on my plate).

Based on the results I saw in the forum I was reading earlier, I have a hunch I am in the minority, but I'm going to post a poll anyway to sate my curiosity.

[Poll #1579421]

Music Meme

Music initials

Instructions:

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

mwalimu gave me a U to work with.

1. Under The Bridge - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
2. Under My Wheels - Alice Cooper
3. Under My Thumb - Rolling Stones
4. Under Pressure - Queen
5. Under The Milky Way - The Church

I managed to come up with lots of songs for this, but on a whim I decided to try and keep it with a running theme.

I'm being a bit of a wet blanket and I crossed out the instructions, but if you reply and ask for one, I'll probably be a good sport and give you a letter to work with (and it might not even be "X").

Year In Pictures: 2010/06/16

Where today we feature a squirrel. This one scampered across the side walk when I was on my way to the office this morning, and then he stopped where you see him here just begging to be photographed. I managed to extricate my camera from its case and get a couple of shots before another pedestrian came bumbling along and spooked him into the bushes.