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Summers here, and summer is vacation time. So if you’re not traveling this summer, take a vacation anyway”a food vacation. You’ve been careful all year to eat less meat and more legumes. Now that summer is here, get out the grill and enjoy your steaks. The news media are advising us to take a stay-cation. Well, turn your stay-cation into a steak-cation! And who is the king of the steaks? King! Porterhouse.

This cut of steak has lots of marbled fat so that it is juicy and flavorful and, most important, tender. Porterhouse is probably the tenderest cuts of beef. Imagine a fresh-cut porterhouse steak. Its that perfect, thick triangular steak divided by a bone. The bone divides the steak into two neat sections. The larger one is classic, wonderful porterhouse, a treat to eat. But the smaller portion is the prize. It is even more juicy and flavorful. If someone divides the steak and gives you the choice of pieces, follow your mothers etiquette instructions and take the smaller piece. And that leaves the bone. butchers these days always want to take out the bones. Supermarket meat departments dont give us half the bones that our parents could buy. But you know where the flavor is. Next to the bone. You know not to gnaw on the bone in a restaurant (Moms etiquette again), but if you are in your backyard, anything goes! Chew! Gnaw! Lick! Slurp! Savor every fiber of flavor on that porterhouse bone.

There are two schools of thoughtconcerning cooking steaks. The first is charcoal grill versus gas grill. The second is marinated versus unadulterated.

This is just what I think, but, if you’re going to use a gas grill, you might as well broil your steak in the kitchen. You wont have to fight the flies, mosquitoes, and yellow jackets, and the steak will taste just about the same. Its true, you use the lava rocks in the bottom of the grill. Supposedly, the fat drips from the steak, sizzles on the rocks, and gives the steak a grilled flavor. But, in my opinion, it doesn’t work. A charcoal fire is a lot more bother, but it is worth every bit of the extra labor. You must absolutely be sure to take the time for the fire to die down to ash-covered embers, and you need to keep a spray bottle of water handy to put out the licking flames, but the result is an aroma that will call hungry carnivores from long distances away and a flavor like no other.

The second question is to marinate or not to marinate. In my opinion, the natural flavor of the charcoal-grilled steak is so satisfying that adding other flavor via a marinade reduces the perfection of the pure steak flavor. So, sprinkle on a little salt (go on, salt it”its vacation, remember?) and maybe a little pepper, but the perfect porterhouse needs nothing more.