gaaaah! Not fair! It's only half past nine in the a.m.... Lol. I guess we already talked about the taters so now it's time to take care of the steak.

1) Good ol' fashioned T-bone steak. Not just any steak you get from a supermarket, but the kind you get from buying it at a meat packer's where you pay them to hang the side of beef for an extra week longer than usual and then custom cut it to your desired thickness.

However, having said that, since moving to Japan I've developed a taste for the local cuts, which are very different. (Japanese people like steak but they cut their cows differently here so you cannot get T-bones). You can get sirloin though. It's not lean like in N. America, but marbled. (Kobe beef is a bit overrated BTW). I prefer the LOCAL local beef -- it's called ワインビーフ (wine beef). Since we live in the wine-producing region of Japan, some farms specialize in feeding the cattle the grape residues from wine production at local vineyards. Although not quite as well known as its Kobe cousin, Yamanashi Wine Beef is gaining a reputation as being very tasty all across Japan. Japanese sirloin takes some getting used to if you come from the West, as the meat is all heavily marbled.

In fact, if you do a Google image search in English for "sirloin" you get lots of images that look like this:



However if you do a Google image search in Japanese for the equivalent keyword (サーロイン) you get lots of images that look like this:



The taste is quite different. Before I moved to Japan I would never even consider buying such a fatty cut of meat, but when it's grilled properly, the steak is extremely soft and tender (you could cut it with a fork) even without any sort of marinade, and it tastes very buttery. It takes some getting used to and many of my N. American friends aren't fond of it at all.

2. Personally, I DO marinade (only lean cuts of steak -- I do not marinade Japanese sirloin, for instance). I don't have one particular recipe I'm fond of -- I've marinaded in beer, in wine, in other sauces and spices...

3. I LOVE me some homemade BBQ sauce that I brew up using good Kentucky bourbon, mesquite, steak spices, garlic, and Heinz ketchup.

4. Corn on the cob with butter, baked beans with molasses, Russet baked potato with EVERYTHING on it: butter, sour cream, chives, bacon bits, cheese.