Every Sunday was "steak day" after church. I use the word steak loosely, as it started out that way at the store but by the time the meat survived the grill (or broiler in winter) it was beef jerky. Mom and dad both dislike any pink in their steak and mom's solution was to just cook it to death. The stuff was always so chewy that I'm pretty sure I wore out my jaw muscles trying to get it down.

For years growing up, I couldn't understand why people spoke of "steak dinner" as something desirable or why a whole restaurant would be dedicated as a "steakhouse". I thought steak was a terrible, horrible, cheap piece of meat that people ate because they couldn't afford better. Around age 12 I saw something on a cooking show about cooking steak to levels of done. I was intrigued! We ate at a restaurant not long after that and I asked for a steak cooked "medium-rare". Wow! It was actually juicy and delicious! What an epiphany!

From then on I insisted on monitoring my own piece of steak to make sure it was cooked properly.

Otherwise mom is a good cook...to this day she and dad still insist on over-well-done steak, though.