del frisco's (lyn)

Growing up, my mom used to make steak regularly.  This was all before too much red meat was deemed unhealthy.  It seemed like we had a lot of it.  The meat was probably sirloin (I didn't know that different cuts even existed), picked up at the neighborhood BPM (short for Brockton Public Market).  I don’t remember it being anything special.

I would never order steak when I went out.  I used to think, “Why order steak in a restaurant when it’s so easy to make one at home?”  I guess I imagined all steaks coming from the BPM and tasting, well, just okay.  At some point that changed.  I’m guessing my love affair with steak began after eating at a Peter Luger’s for the first time, but I can’t be sure.

I meet Gail around 7, for dinner at Del Frisco’s, one of New York’s premier steakhouses.  She looks radiant. She arrives at the restaurant a few minutes before I do and already she is best friends with the maître d.  You can’t help but be attracted to Gail’s very large and welcoming personality.

Gail notices and comments on the plain white top I’m wearing.  “Is that Wolford?” she asks.  Coincidentally, both of us are dressed almost all in Wolford...me in a white long sleeve top and a black wool skirt, she in a black long sleeved bodysuit and black pants.   I like getting dressed up, as I do it so rarely.

We both order one glass of red wine (enough that we feel it by the end of the meal) and split an excellent tuna tartare appetizer.  But the real standout is the steak we each get, with a side of some of the best creamed spinach I’ve ever eaten.  I want to savor every bite of my perfectly cooked medium rare 16-ounce prime strip steak (I take home only a third, if that).  The difference between a very good steak (like the kind I can make at home) and a great one is so vast, it barely tastes like eating from the same food group.  We end up sharing a 7-layer lemon cake, which Gail hardly eats and I almost totally consume. 

It’s a warm spring-like night.  After dinner, we walk over to Rockefeller Center and watch the ice-skaters.  Between the food and the company, if Gail were a guy, I might just have fallen in love tonight.