"Everyone" Loves Dorian -- September 1, 2019

Updates

Later, 4:50 p.m. CT:  "monster of a beast" has hit the Bahamas. Problem for The Weather Channel: no video. The Weather Channel is now talking about the hurricane starting to weaken after it exits the Bahamas tomorrow. By Tuesday, hurricane fatigue and it still won't be the Carolinas.Watching The Weather Channel right now is like watching paint dry.

Original Post

 
10:02 a.m. CT.

I quickly checked in on The Weather Channel. Their ratings for the weekend must have plummeted:

• there is now "no" chance that Hurricane Dorian will hit the Florida coast Labor Day as originally forecast a couple of days ago

So, we move quickly over to TCM. And I kid you not: the 1945 movie, "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

I've never seen the movie. In fact, I don't recall if I ever even knew there was a movie. But now I will watch the ending.

[Later: perhaps most enjoyable -- seeing the various types of horse-drawn carriages. I remember first learning about English  carriages when I read Black Beauty to Arianna many, many years ago. I am now reading that book to Sophia.]

I never read Oscar Wilde's novel until just a few years ago, not more than three years ago. I see it was on my nightstand -- which means I was reading it -- on April 16, 2017. I finished it; a great read. I see that it is now packed away. Ready to be donated.

[Later: it only gets better. On "Hurricane Dorian" weekend, TCM started out with "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and will now follow it with "Lifeboat." The latter is a Hitchcock classic. I've seen the movie; can't recall if I've read the book. Probably not.]

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The Grilling Page

The flank steak grilled directly on charcoal turned out incredibly well yesterday. Again: 90 seconds directly on the charcoal, then wrapped tightly in heavy aluminum foil for fifteen minutes. My wife found it hard to believe that the almost one-inch thick steak was on the charcoal for only 90 seconds. I forgot to take photographs. Both my wife and I agreed that the flank steak was less flavorful than skirt steak, but it was still incredibly good. I had used a pecan rub on the flank steak; no rub on the skirt steak, only Australian flake sea salt. The flank steak being about twice as thick as the skirt steak seemed better suited for grilling.

I went back to the WSJ essay on summer grilling by Kathleen Squires, July 6 - 7, 2019, "Off Duty," front page. Link here. Archived.

From reading / watching, most important tip: do not salt too far in advance of cooking. One wants to salt before grilling (for the flavor, as well as to draw juices to the surface) but if done too far in advance it will tend to pull too much moisture out of the steak. So I add salt to the steak about one hour before grilling. I salt the steak when I take it out of the refrigerator to bring the steak to room temperature before grilling.

Newport: bottom of the butt of the cow; tri-tip;

The Denver steak:

Denver steaks are one of the increasingly popular cuts of meat that come from the beef chuck primal cut, which is known for rich roasts but also produces some lesser well-known steaks.

Denver steaks are relatively tender, with nice beefy flavor, and they usually feature a good amount of marbling.

As long as they're trimmed and sliced properly, Denver steaks are great for cooking on the grill.

What Is Denver Steak? Denver steaks are made from the serratus ventralis muscle, which comes from the under blade portion of the chuck roll. The beef chuck is the shoulder of the animal and it gets a lot of exercise. That means most of the muscles in the beef chuck are pretty tough.

The serratis ventralis, however, is one of the exceptions; it's situated directly underneath the shoulder blade bone and doesn't get used much. This makes it one of the more tender muscles in the beef chuck.

Serratus ventralis also happens to be one of the major muscles in the classic 7-bone chuck roast. The only difference is, in a chuck roast, you're getting a cross section of the muscle; historically, an entire beef chuck primal would be cut into slabs on the meat saw and sold as pot roast.

To produce a Denver steak, the serratus ventralis is extracted all in one piece, which, to a skilled butcher, is more like surgery than carpentry. This technique came about to see if butchers could produce a higher value product from a low value cut of meat. The name "Denver" has no real significance and was chosen for marketing purposes only.