Loves Me The Cow

I’m pretty open about the fact that I love cow. Give me a good steak and I’m happy. I don’t even need anything to go with it. Though, mushrooms are always a nice touch.

The most consistently great beef that I’ve had is in Calgary. It’s become a long standing joke when I go up there as to which beef item I’m going to order off the menu for both lunch and dinner. It’s also pretty much known that I’m going to prefer a steakhouse over any other restaurant, too. You should have seen how I tried to poker face the Thai food suggestion on one of my visits. Oh, and sushi, too. Ick.

How well known is my love? Well, one of my Canadian workmates gave me this bumper sticker and it’s proudly hanging in my cube. (On the other side of the monitor from my stuffed cow because I think it would be in poor taste to put those two together.)


There are two reasons why I enjoy the beef so much up there. The first is that they grass finish the cattle. That means they switch the diet from corn (which the US cattle industry mostly uses for the life of the animal) to grass for the last few weeks before slaughter. You can go google the studies, but it makes the beef both taste better and be healthier for you. You can literally taste the difference from US raised beef.

The second reason is that they know what I mean when I order my steak “blue rare”. From Wikipedia: Seared, Blue rare or very rare — Cooked very quickly; the outside is seared, but the inside is usually cool and barely cooked. The steak will be red on the inside and barely warmed. Sometimes asked for as "blood rare" or "bloody as hell". In the United States, this is also sometimes referred to as 'Black and Blue' or 'Pittsburgh Rare'. It is common for chefs to place the steak in an oven to warm the inside of the steak.

Not only do they know what I mean, they're thrilled. Seriously, every server I’ve had up there lights up and tells me that’s exactly the way to order and/or that the chef will be so excited to prepare it that way.

I’ve never understood why people would take a nice piece of meat and kill all of the flavor by ordering it well done. It makes it tougher, too. Blue rare is oh so tasty and tender! I admit it sometimes grosses out my companions to see the blue/purple color and know that it’s cold but they should really try it just once. I’m sure they’ll love it. :-)

Something I find funny is that, while I can get a steak blue rare, I can't get a rare hamburger up there. They just won't do it for fear of Mad Cow Disease. The mere thought of a rare burger makes them shudder. I took my bumper sticker friend to Four Peaks when he was visiting and he decided to follow my lead and get his burger as rare as they would do it. He said it was great but the look of horror on the faces of our other Canadian friends when they heard about it was classic. You would have thought he'd confessed to eating monkey or dog.

I can't wait for my next trip up there. It's "almost" worth the cold weather just for the dining.

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