Originally Posted by CarolynUK

I can cook steaks (and lamb,and burgers) so they are just cooked all the way through (no trace of pink left). Brown and juicy in the middle and crisp on the outside. That is what I call a well done steak.

If I can do it as a mere housewife - why can a so- called professional chef not manage something as simple as that?? There is no need whatsoever to cook a steak so far that is is dry in the middle apart from total incompetence in the kitchen department.

I love meat but I like it cooked through with no hint of pink and definitely not red and bloody. There is no need at all to cremate it to the staus of boot leather to make it well done !

I dislike the texture of not so well cooked meat, and as stated hate the blood mixing with my sauce and vegetables/ salad - in fact so much so that it provokes a gag reflex that makes me throw up if I am faced with it on my plate.

If restaurants and their chefs offer meats cooked to order - that is exactly what they should do - after all - the customer is paying so they should be able to have their food the way they like it - not the way the chef (or the food fascists) tells them they should like it!

Here in the UK we once had a very temperamental celebrity chef (Nico Ladenis - whatever happened to him?) who used to come out of the kitchen and throw paddies at paying customers who dared to ask for condiments, or for well done meats or challenged the menu in any way at all. We saw him being cut down to size by one customer who quietly told him that he was paying and he wanted his food cooked the way HE wanted it - and he didn't appreciate being shown up by a spoilt brat in the middle of a busy restaurant. Unfortunately for Mr Ladenis - the man was a journalist with one of the brasher UK tabloids and the story was splashed all over the papers a couple of days later.
Maybe I just answered my own question....