well-done

my italian grandfather taught my irish mother to cook. she was clueless in the kitchen, coming from a mother who was mostly out whoring around at dinner time and a father who, i think, boiled steak. the lessons took well and my mother learned to enjoy it.

except for one thing: meat. no matter what it was, it was well-done. cooked through and then some. beef was grey in the center and as chewy as chaplin's shoe. when it was corned beef brisket for dinner, no prob, but filet mignon made me want to cry. when my stepfather leapt several income ladders in a single bound, we had beef more nights than not. yuk. chicken too was cooked to dust and we were not a gravy house, so abandon hope and look forward to fridays which were catholicly meat-free.

when i left home, i sort of passively decided to "give up meat". more out of overkill and dislike than anything else. besides, freshman year dorm "meat" wasn't exactly julia's bouef bourgignon. over the years, i went through various stages of being "vegetarian", getting anemic, getting "save the world" fever, and finally, well, i'll have fish.

which quickly led to trying 2 new foods. the first was oysters. in nyc on a girls' trip i ordered a dozen and was blown away by the burst of salinity, the fresh icy piece of the sea in those rough grey shells.

shortly after was sushi. a date took me, a slightly older, very wealthy man (who got weirdly instantly stalker-y on me, but not germane here, lol) and i suggested he do the ordering, but to not be afraid for me. the one bite that instantly staggered me and became me favorite food evah in the world always, was sea urchin -- uni. again, it gives that slight resist before you bite down, and it's briny minerality slides down your throat in a cold swallow of ocean velvet.

as i became more adept at cooking, entertaining and eating, i was very aware of the play of not just colors on a plate, but of texture too. if you're having pasta, put something crunchy on, like toasted pine nuts, so you don't get bored to death before you are full.

now a few weeks into my new eating habits, i've been having to tread back out to meaty waters. not long ago, i had my first hamburger in maybe decades. it was sooooooooo incredibly good. granted, from prime beef at a steak house, but still. i've had a few since, and while none were at that pinnacle of beef grade, they all were really good. how had i been denying myself all these years?

so, another food light bulb for noodle. i don't dislike meat. i hate badly cooked meat. bring me medium rare with a nice sear on the outside and a barely warm moist juicy inside. what's not to like? add crispy bacon to kill it, lol.

what kind of eater does that make me? a textural one? is that a thing?