Lilli is getting pretty spooked about the prospect of
leaving the house (she spends vast amounts of time
watching the TV with all the brain rot that implies),
and as the fridge was going on bare, I had to plead
with her to take me to Stater's so we could get
something for me to cook for supper.

It was semicrowded inside, not like the olden days at
holiday time, but enough that as I went in some
wild-eyed guy leaving greeted me with "have fun" and
a shudder. Sale! signs all over the place but without
obvious prices, which in the fine print turned out to
be the same as or higher than last week. Also the true
but misleading "LOWEST PRICE OF THE YEAR," which is
pretty necessarily the case for like the fourth of
January. Oranges, for example, were the highest in two
years, and grapes, lousy-looking, were under a big sale
banner but the highest since last fall. I ended up not
getting anything in the produce department, but they
had the big bags of frozen corn ($1.50/lb as opposed to
$2/lb for the little bags) for a change, so that was
good. Lilli had wanted her Rocky Road fix, but it was
up 50c from last week, so that negated that savings.

Sheepherder's bread, which is crap but better than
what we can make ourselves, and she loves her bread.

Lone Star cinnamon rolls were on the list, so I got a
pack of those (as noted, she loves her bread, and as
these are mediocre but fairly cheap, who cares). So
for myself as consolation I picked up a 10-oz pack of
Reese's cups, which I find unaccountably delicious.

They were advertising Choice bone-in strips for $4.99,
but what was out was Select, and not that great Select
at that, for that price. There were a couple apparent
bargains, though - pork shoulders for .89/lb, but these
turned out to be cut so as to be as much bone as meat,
and Choice cross-rib roasts for 2.99, which on
inspection turned out to be actual Choice, gristly but
boneless chuck arms cut in the raggediest possible
manner. The chain advertises that its butchers had to
go to school for two years to learn to cut meat, and it
looks like these were practice for first-years, with
the graduates turning out those deceptive pork shoulders
for maximum revenue. The neater slightly more trimmed
chuck roasts were $5/lb, essentially the same meat.

I took a 4 1/2 lb cross-rib home and rebutchered it to
make 4 feather blade steaks of about 8 oz each, an
equal amount of stewing beef to make burgers and stew
with, and about half a pound of gristle for chili. The
blade is surrounded by a protection of cartilage, and
my freshly-sharpened butcher knife wouldn't deal with
it properly, so I had to borrow Lilli's dull as civics
class santoku that would glide along the connective
tissue without breaking it.

As you know, the feather blade can be separated into
top and bottom blade, the top being sold as such and
the bottom when separated out as "poorman's filet" or
the like. I sauteed up these nice and rare with an
oniony demiglaze (with cheese for her), giving her the
bottom, which is tastier than a real filet and about as
tender, and myself the gristlier top, which is blander
but has the advantage of a thin rim of fat.

The usual microwaved potato for her, nothing on the
side for me.

I may or may not have written about the Bonny Doon A
Proper Claret 15, an obnoxious wine with an obnoxious
label; well, it's quite improper, though not actually
bad-tasting, and its still decent acidity (Wine
Enthusiast gave it 91) went pretty nicely with meat,
though I'd have preferred it paired with a fattier
cut. I'd have guessed 7 or 8 bucks; it really cost
us 10, with an MSRP of 16.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5