Steak Dinner

Today was to have been the day we visited the new American Wing of the Museum of Fine Arts, but it’s snowing.  These days when plans are apt to be interrupted, we take comfort in smaller events.  We bought a rib eye steak for $15.  It’s a budget buster, and yesterday I fired up my Webber Smoky Joe grill. 

On long summer evenings I grill in daylight or at least twilight, but last night the charcoal blazed brightly in the darkness outside the kitchen.  With my coat on, I hovered on the warm side of the storm door and popped out to turn the steak and test for doneness before I took it off. 

Annette and I shared the steak at the kitchen table along with mushroom crostini, Brussels sprouts, and a salad of Napa cabbage and cilantro.  We drank Beaujolais Nouveau.  Afterward we watched an episode of “Masterpiece Theater” I had recorded. We finished the wine with some Fourme D’Amert, a French blue cheese I got at French Memories in Duxbury – another splurge. It was not what young folks would think of as wild living, but it made  a pleasant evening for a couple of fogies in January.

The third luxury is a vase of cut tulips the color of rosy peaches. I counted out the money for them at a garden center.  They’re not mere decorations; they are a promise of spring.  We know, of course, it will be long cold weeks before tulips nod in the gardens of town, but these flowers are a strong symbol.  We don’t notice them casually; we gaze at them, averting our eyes from the reality of the falling snow. 

Of course we can’t live this way all the time, and to make up for the expenditures we are defrosting on the kitchen counter a boneless pork chop purchased in a forgotten supermarket sale.  Annette plans to serve mashed potatoes and gravy made with the leftover mushrooms, and we’ll watch an episode of “The Rockford Files.” I recorded it from RTV – the Retro Television Network. Look for it on channel WMFP in Boston.   It’s definitely fogy television; should we choose, I can watch Buck Rogers, and Annette can enjoy her favorite western hero the Cisco Kid.  These delights will hold us until we can marvel at the new American Wing.