Steak, My Deer.

I've been reading the book Steak:  One Man's Search for the World's Tastiest Piece of Beef by Mark Schatzker.  So far it has exceeded expectations, what seemed at first as simply the account of some guy traveling the world to compare steak (nice work if you can get it) has turned into a quite informative and at times very reflective work.  However, after a couple hundred pages of reading about steak, I just had to have one!  And why waste money on beefsteak when I've good backstrap in the freezer?

Not a whole lot to this recipe, in fact all I did was salt and pepper a nice piece of backstrap after I lightly coated it with olive oil and grill it over natural charcoal, essentially as I've described before, and served it with a baked potato and side salad (from my garden).  But I was really ready for some red meat! 

Charcoal charging up

Ahhhhhh jus, that's right.

Can you tell I like sour cream?

This is actually the first piece of backstrap we've eaten from Queen Mother, and the taste was perfect, dark and meaty, with just enough of a something to let you know that it was wild.  Which brings up a point addressed at length by Mr. Schatzker in his book:  The USDA grading system places great emphasis on youth and fat (when it comes to beef carcasses, I mean, not Americans in general, but sometimes you can't tell that).  If this deer was beef, it would have received very low rating marks, as it was lean and from an older animal.  Just goes to show, marbling ain't everything.

Even though technically we have another seven days of deer hunting here locally, I'm not sure I'll be doing any as my hunting buddy just had a baby and I have life matters of my own to attend to.  Hopefully it will pan out that we can go symbolically for a couple hours on the last day.

I'm already thinking about local hunting next year, I have a great offer to go on 120 acres just to the east of town.  The property owners there sincerely want the deer population down, as tick numbers were incredibly high last summer and a few cases of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever were reported from the general area.  There are basically two schools of thought around here on tick protection, those who cover every inch with clothing in hopes of keeping the ticks off and those who wear as little as practical, expecting to see and feel the ticks before they can attach.  I'm of the later school, and it works for me but it does require constant vigilance.  Hopefully being in a tree stand might help.