Thursday, April 1, 2010

Unholy Beef

Growing up in a Catholic household, there were tons of "rules" that I didn't get. I questioned them, but the answers were normally pretty vagued or dismissed.

I was trying to figure out what I would be making for dinner last night when I saw my dad grilling large chunks of rib-eye. "Ooo, delicous", I thought to myself. But then I realized I had a piece of leftover chicken breast in the fridge and I didn't want that to go to waste so I asked my dad if he could save the leftover beef he didn't cook for me to make for tomorrow, Thursday. Well, my mama was not too pleased with this request because she informed me how it would be Thursday of Holy Week and I shouldn't eat beef. Ok, long story short, my mother did not have the best response when I questioned why it would be "unholy" of me to not eat meat Wed night but eat it Thurs night, versus eating the beef Wed night and being "holy" and not eat beef Thurs night.

Bare with me, here's my father's response in clarifying my mother's answer to me:
"The Papacy years ago said that during the lenten season, as a form of sacrifice, we should refrain from eating meat on Fridays. Then it was added to not eat meat during Holy Week as well. Since I can't fulfill the request to not eat meat during all of Holy Week, I'm doing the best I can by not eating meat the remaining days of the week, Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Easter. Therefore, I am eating the beef today instead. And so you should do the same and have beef today instead of tomorrow."

Do you think my question was answered? *Shrug* Sure, right? Apologies for the long explanation while I prefaced I was gonna give the short version. Trust me, if you know my dad, this was definitely the short version.

So I ate the beef last night:


















I wanted to show you all that I slathered this with crushed garlic. Isn't that a beautiful cut of meat? Gorgeous! Oh yeah, it also had salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and paprika.I paired it with a grilled corn, my mashed up delicata and kamote, some more garlic with a hint of fresh basil, and a giant salad of romaine lettuce, English cucumber and tomato. The red was used strictly for color purposes.



















Beef grilled to medium/medium rare is next to my corn to show you it's not a very larege piece of meat. Portion control yo! Here's another photo for your pleasure...





















Loved my meat, corn was ok, salad was phabulous and the mashed up goodness didn't need so much garlic, or basil. My sides weren't stellar, but justice was done to that unholy beef. Mmm.

1 comment:

  1. Questioning the Catholic/Filipino traditions always leaves me more baffled. Remember the day we had recite the Hail Mary 10,000 times for my dad? When I asked why we had to do this, the answer I was given was "it's uso ngyaon." I still can't believe we all said 10,000 hail marys because it's the new style. But, really, we do it to appease our parents.

    Love that you decided on the unholy beef for dinner. I think Rib eye is one of my favorite cuts.

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