Year of the Cow (31 page)

“Thanks for letting me buy a whole damn cow,” I reply. Summer looks up at me, and her hair frames her face exactly as it did when we first met, on a rainy night in Kansas, when she was a promising young pianist and I was a shaggy underachiever. I don't think many people would let their spouse run off and buy a quarter ton of beef just to appease his curiosity or prove a point. It was an insane proposal, at least for us, and she didn't even hesitate. She just asked when and how much. She faced the latest in a string of ludicrous adventures, and once more, she said yes.

At that moment, wreathed in the light of late night candles, I remember very vividly one of the billion and one reasons I love this woman.

“You're welcome,” she says.

 

Steak au Poivre

Time: About 30 minutes

Serves 2

Perfect for a special occasion. Like a Wednesday.

2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns

2 filets mignons, at room temperature

Kosher salt

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

¹
/
₃
cup plus a dash of brandy

1 cup heavy cream

  
1.
With a mortar and pestle, crush the peppercorns until they're cracked but still gravelly. You're looking for rustic charm, not black dust.

  
2.
Spread the peppercorns on a plate. Sprinkle the steaks with salt, then press the filets firmly into the peppercorns so that they stick to the meat. Flip the steaks to coat the other side.

Ever go barefoot at the beach? The peppercorns should stick to the meat like sand to your bare feet.

  
3.
Place a stainless-steel skillet over medium heat and melt the butter with the oil until the mixture just begins to brown.

  
4.
Add the steaks (carefully!) and cook for 3½ to 4 minutes, until the bottom is nicely seared. Flip and sear the other side for another 3½ to 4 minutes.

  
5.
Turn off the heat, but leave the pan on the burner. This is important. If you pull the pan off the burner, it'll cool faster. Cool pan means no flambé.

  
6.
Remove the steaks to a plate and loosely tent with aluminum foil.

  
7.
Quickly pour off the excess fat from the pan. Add the
¹
/
₃
cup brandy—it should heat instantly from the still-hot pan. Ignite the brandy with a long match and wait until the flames die.

  
8.
Kick the burner back up to medium. Add the cream and bring it to a boil, whisking furiously, and cook until the liquid thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, 5 to 10 minutes. Add another small dash of brandy and salt to taste.

If your steaks are being held together with a string, remove it now. String is not delicious.

  
9.
Return the steaks to the pan, spoon the sauce over them, and gently warm through.

10.
Place a steak in the center of each of two plates and spoon sauce over them. Serve.

 

11

I Am an Animal

A few months after Nora's birth, I learn of a new position opening up at a studio I've done some work for. The people in the department seem like good people, and the work seems challenging and fun. I make a few phone calls, throw my name in the hat, and—after a rather exhaustive interview process during which I apparently didn't sound like an ass nearly as much as I thought I did—I get the job. I'm now present in those meetings that used to decide the fate of my day. Having been on the other side of the equation, I resolve to do it better. I want to be the client I wish I'd had. I want to do the best work I can in the best way I know how.

Hard as it may be to believe, I'm now the weird guy at the new office. I skip the pasta salad at lunch meetings because I don't eat wheat. I decline the cupcakes at company birthday parties because I don't eat refined sugar. But I put heavy cream in my coffee, and I make my own butter. I can speak knowledgeably about the best way to strip taste buds off a beef tongue and trim fat from a heart without shredding the ventricle wall.

At the same time, I feel fantastic. My energy level is insane. I don't get hypoglycemic and grumbly when I miss a meal anymore because my metabolism isn't anticipating a periodic sugar/starch boost. I run barefoot in the mornings and whenever the mood strikes me. I also walk more than anyone I know.

I've had this beef in my freezer for a little over two years now. It hasn't gone bad, and God and the power company willing, it never will. When meat freezes, ice crystals form inside the muscle cells. If meat is frozen slowly, those ice crystals become huge and shred the cell membranes, ruining the steak once it's defrosted. If meat is frozen quickly, the ice crystals are tiny.

Meat frozen at home takes forever to freeze. My steer was frozen in a matter of seconds. As long as I never let it thaw and refreeze, it will functionally last forever.

Freezer burn is the other main concern for meat stored for a long time. It's usually a result of poorly wrapped food—if there's air in the packaging, water at the surface of the food can sublimate from solid to gas, dehydrating the meat and causing tissue damage. My packages all remain tightly wrapped, and my freezer dial is set to Arctic Midnight (another cool band name, by the way—or perhaps a scintillating color option for a new Buick). Knock on wood, but I haven't had any problem with freezer burn, either.

I cook beef once a week or so. Not as much as I could, but I'm constantly trying to push myself harder, to do more with each beef cut. To use each steak and roast and organ in a way I haven't before. If I'm going to cook beef, I'm going to do it right.

In a week, the guys and I will attempt to summit Mount Whitney again. Like last time, I will be making jerky out of top round for protein on the mountain. Unlike last time, I will be actually smoking the meat, rather than strapping it to a box fan for twelve hours. This is partly because I simply want to try something different and partly because drying meat with a box fan, I've learned, makes my entire house, yard, garage, attic, or outhouse smell like a meat locker. To wit, if I happen to be in any of those places, it makes me smell like a meat locker. I don't mind it so much, but Summer told me I will be sleeping in the yard if I wind up smelling like a Slim Jim again.

This change in my jerky prep is an easy one—since I'll be smoking the meat instead, I drop the liquid smoke from the marinade I make late on Friday night, resulting in an aromatic witches' brew of only Worcestershire, soy sauce, black pepper, onion, garlic, red pepper, and honey. I add my thinly sliced round steak to the liquid and stash it overnight in my fridge.

The next morning—after closer to eight hours in the marinade rather than the six of the last time I made it—I drain the meat and pick up some hickory wood chunks from the friendly neighborhood grill shop. I'm going to be using a gas grill for precision—I need the heat to be as low as possible because I'm trying to dry the meat, not cook it. As grillheads everywhere know, gas grills are generally less finicky than their charcoal cousins. They have a temperature control dial, for Pete's sake. I set my grill for indirect heat, turn just one of the three burners to low, and prop the lid open slightly with a wadded-up piece of aluminum foil just to make sure the temperature doesn't inadvertently creep upward. I drop a foil packet with a half dozen chunks of hickory on the active burner and hang my jerky strips everywhere but directly above it. The smoke swirls out toward the cracked lid, inculcating the meat with savory goodness, and a strategically placed oven thermometer tells me that the thermal environs are just north of 120 degrees. That's not cooking—that's hanging out in a hot room. Perfect.

Two hours later, instead of twelve—as with my previous attempt—I text Zac to let him know that I have 13.5 ounces of hickory-smoked jerky waiting for him. And then I text him again that no, that is not a weird metaphor for something untoward.

I try the jerky. As before, it's smoky and savory. It's perhaps a bit more brittle than my last endeavor, probably from the added time in the marinade. The smoke is noticeably more pronounced—in a good way. Real wood smoke is a glorious thing. It's not better than my last jerky attempt, just different. It's still a flavor that will pair well with the scent of pines and high country.

While removing the meat, I hear a tiny voice. “Daddy, are you cooking?”

I glance down. Declan's wandered out to the backyard to see what I'm doing. “Yeah, buddy. I'm making jerky.”

“Oh,” he says, not really understanding what that is. “Daddy, is the mountain you're going to climb the tallest in the whole world?”

“No,” I answer. “It's pretty tall, but not that tall.”

“Oh,” he says again. “What's up there? Is it just, like, you're in the sky and stuff?”

I sit on the ground beside him. “Well, there's a book up there. And when you get there, you write your name in the book as proof that you made it all the way to the top.”

“Can I see it?” he asks.

“Well, no. It's on top of the mountain,” I explain. “You have to go up there to see it.”

“Oh,” he says, a bit crestfallen.

“Tell you what … when you're bigger, you can come with me. Would you like that?”

He brightens. “Yeah.” He thinks a minute. “If I climbed the mountain, would I have to carry my tent and sleeping bag and stuff?”

“Yes, you would. That's part of the deal.”

He considers, then nods. “That's okay. I can build a robot to do that for me.”

I laugh. “Perfect. I can't wait to see it.”

He runs off, and I return to mountain prep. Jerky is my lean protein source for the trip, but I also need a source of good old saturated fat. Fat is one hell of an energy source and doesn't cause blood sugar fluctuations like sugary granola or glucose gels—the very materials that powered my first attempt up the Old Man. Sausage would be an ideal source of both protein and fat, but my grass-fed beef isn't ideal sausage stuff. To supplement my jerky, I'm adding organic, hormone-free cured salami to my pack. No need for refrigeration—and a decent source of protein in and of itself. Other than that, I'm taking some toasted sweet-potato chips that I made for a nearly weightless carbohydrate and some single-serving packages of honey and almond butter, just in case I need them for quick energy. Zac, the logistical genius of our previous Whitney ascent, will provide a hot meal for each night on the hill. He's made the same dietary changes that I have, so he'll put together something amenable to our new habits.

We're going up the Mountaineer's Route again. Same trip, same crew (minus Natalie, who has to sit this one out due to a knee injury), but hopefully a very different result. I haven't trained as much, but I'm in much better shape. We're leaner; I've dropped fifteen pounds and now perform random physical challenges for giggles. (Zac has dropped ten pounds or so but has always been military-fit.) We're keener; I know more about mountaineering than I did previously and have considerably more backcountry skill than I did the first time out. And we know what kept us off the summit the first time—weather; bad planning; and delicious, delicious breakfast foods. We're determined to not let it happen again.

The morning I'm to leave, Declan runs up to me with a sheet of paper. On it, he's drawn a large humanoid figure composed primarily of squares. “This is the robot I'm going to make when I climb the mountain,” he explains.

“Perfect. He looks very tough.”

“He is,” Dec explains matter-of-factly. “He can carry anything.”

I kiss Dec on the head, then do likewise with Nora. My daughter's getting so big already, the line between baby and little girl already blurring. Her blond hair is starting to curl up in back, though her eyes are as blue as the day she was born. “See you soon, honey.” Silently, she waves bye-bye.

I turn to Summer. “I'll miss you.”

“I know,” she says with a sparkle in her eye. “See you when you get back.”

*   *   *

By the time the guys and I are breathing the pine-scented air at Whitney Portal, a sense of adventure is almost palpable. The scene is familiar from our last attempt, here in this place where the road ends and the trail begins. Granite cliffs and pine trees tower hundreds of feet above us. For now, we have the small, rustic backpacker's campground all to ourselves. It feels like a different world from the landscape I inhabit at sea level. Grander. More epic—a place plucked straight from the tale America tells of itself.

We can't wait to get moving. But that's for tomorrow. Today, we should relax, take stock of our gear, and try to move slowly. We've just driven from sea level to elevation 8,500 feet—it's easy to get winded. But fairly typical for me now, I am a ball of energy. I try to rest, but I keep trying to rest
aggressively,
as if that were possible. Finally, I give up and decide to put that excess energy to use. I prep my pack, disassemble it, and prep it again. I manage to get its weight down to just over thirty-three pounds, which is good for me. I don't want to carry anything I don't need, and I don't need much. I do, however, sacrifice precious ounces for my beat-up Vibram FiveFingers—“shoes” I picked up to protect my feet while running essentially barefoot. They're more like minimalist foot gloves. Hard rubber, very thin, and precisely foot-shaped. Like a Batman suit for feet. They don't weigh much, and they could come in handy at elevation.