Several weeks ago, I had the good fortune of being invited to a tasting for Montana Legend, a direct-to-consumer rancher (kind of like Omaha Steaks) of premium Angus beef -- no growth hormones nor antibiotics, and grass-fed. "We're doing a steak tasting. Are you inte..?" and before the question was complete, Montana Legend was on my calendar. I mean come on, people. Beef.

This past weekend. They were going to be grilling different cuts aged in a variety of ways, and would also be serving other foods, so I donned my best waist-less pants and headed over to the tasting.The person in charge started with the dry-aged steaks. NY Strip and ribeye steaks were seasoned only with salt, pepper, and little bit of rosemary. To be quite honest, I could have done without the rosemary because really now, the flavor of a superb steak should not be masked by anything, especially something as strong as rosemary.

Unfortunately, because there was also some video filming going on during the tasting, the dry aged steaks were slightly overcooked, left on the grill about 45-60 seconds too long. They were cooked to medium, which is, as you know, basically shoe-leather to someone who eats her steaks bloody rare every time. However, I will hand it to Montana Legend. The meat has to be pretty effin' good if there wasn't a tinge of pink anywhere on the meat and it was still tender enough to cut with a butter knife. When the steaks were cut open, there was moderate, but very even marbling, which is probably the savior to overzealous grilling.

Now, the consensus around the table was that the regular aged steaks were better than the dry-aged, but I don't think it was actually a fair comparison because they were cooked differently. Obviously steaks that are grilled to a tender medium-rare are going to taste better! However, I will say that tasting the regular aged steaks done to medium-rare definitely made me sit up a little taller in my seat. Even though the steaks had been seasoned with rosemary, there was definitely a more pronounced beef flavor. I kind of wanted to stick the entire slab of meat on my plate but you know, there's this silly thing called "manners" my Mom told me about.

Overall, the steaks were all good, and to a cowgirl like myself, I doubt I would have been able to taste the difference between the cuts that were just "aged" and the cuts that were "dry-aged" if it weren't for the difference in how they were cooked.

Now I just have to figure out how to afford the $29 pricetag on a 14 oz. NY Strip!