My week in meat

by Josh Ozersky, Posted Mar 24th 2006 @ 7:57PM

Your old pal Mr. Cutlets, New York’s most corpulent carnivore, has been on quite a tear lately, writing at a white-hot frenzy. Thanks to a daily cocktail of bacon, pork roll, and methamphetimines, I’ve been able to write restaurant reviews, book reviews, travel guides, blog posts, a visit to a pudding factory, media criticism, a love letter to my cast iron pan, a huge feature on specialty meats for the NY Law Journal, and a book on the history of hamburgers, in addition to a big mutlimedia project that is still "in development." But even Mr. Cutlets can’t be on the job all the time. So here’s a quick roundup of recent adventures.

Dinner with a Rival. It pains me to think that I don’t have the meat-writing racket all sewn up. But my friend Paul Lukas (pictured), in addition to making a fortune via his Uni Watch empire, is a colleague – and rival – with exactly the same research interests as myself. Paul recently got back from a trip to the Allen Brothers meat palace in Chicago, Illinois. They sent along some samples, dry-aged and a good inch and a half thick, and Paul made these up for Mr. Cutlets and his number-one dime. It was a night to remember, if you can remember things.

Fervor de Buenos Aires. I love Argentine steakhouses, if only because the best of them, like La Portena or Azul, make truly first-class skirt steaks and cook them on the money every time. I had heard that a new one opened in the East Village, and hastened there as fast as I could, arriving when it had been open a week. As Argentine steakhouses go, it’s pretty good, but only the skirt steak is worth eating. The place is using Uruguayan grass-fed beef, a lean, mean, nasty animal that is to our corpulent cows what a single Gaucho guitar line is to a lush nashville orchestration. Why the Argentines never braise short ribs, or render veal breast, is a mystery I’m still waiting to solve. But skirt steak is so rich and so tender that the concentrated flavor of grass-fed meat sings out of it. I’m beginning to think that skirt steak is the best way to experience any beef. It might replace ribeye as my control cut in making meat comparisons.

A Meaty Mystery. Here is a riddle for you to figure out. It involves a restaurant to be found somewhere in the triangle between Long Island City, Long Island, and Kennedy Airport.

I met a meat who turned away
And never mooed and never bayed
Who never flew, and came from Yemen
But that was so good it left me screamin’

What was it?

Hamburger History Quote of the Day. From Elizabeth Rozin, a gorgeously lyrical and precise tribute to the great American sandwich: "The meaning of the burger is as a kind of common denominator of the beef experience, with all the flavor, aroma, tenderness, and juiciness in a cheap and accessible form. The meatiness, the beefiness, the succulence of the fat are all there in that unassuming patty. For perhaps the first time ever, the hunger for all that beef represents, [could] easily be satisfied, available to almost anyone."

from The Primal Cheeseburger (New York: Penguin, 1994)

Chew on This

Royal Wedding Cake Details Revealed! - YumSugar

Make Your Own Pop Tarts - CHOW
Denny's Introduces a Maple Bacon Sundae - Eater
Whole Foods Opening Bars in Stores - USA Today
Rules Of Bar Etiquette -- For The Bartender - HuffPost Food

Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-04-2006 @12:08PM Angela said... Josh,
I wanted to tell you that my kids were just dancing around and singing "Mr. Cutlets."
By the way...are you also Scrappleface?
Just wonderin'......
--Angela
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4-04-2006 @3:56PM Crazy Legs Conti said... Mr. Cutlets,
Your wonderful meat aroma precedes you. As April turned, like the Irish Back Bacon I left too long in the fridge, my stomach rumbled indicating literary hunger. A voracious eater and reader, I look forward to your history of the hamburger book. I plan on celebrating it with a stain from The Corner Bistro. The NY Burger Club President once scolded me of my Bistro Burger love, "You must have been drunk if you think that's the best NYC burger". Of course I was drunk, but it's still the best burger. I stand by my stomach.

I will save you some mini-hot dogs from the Coney Island fundraiser at Crobar this Friday http://www.coneyislandusa.com. I know a mini weenie is hard for you to relate to, but it is for a noble cause.

Eat All You Can,

Crazy Legs Conti

Hurricane Katrina has wiped out the Nola ACME oyster contest this year, so this Baron of the Bivalve will probably read the oyster book you reviewed as well. The Mollusk King rests.

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