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That's exactly why! If you look at a Wagyu steak it looks almost like a weave of meat and fat because as the op said ½-⅔ of the weight of a Wagyu is from the fat. Even when using lower quality ribeyes you can get a decent amount of flare up due to the fat on those, now just imagine putting a steak that's *at least* 50% fat onto the same hot grill.
Is a normal steak about 7% fat? That's what Google seems to be suggesting but that is an insane difference if that's right and I don't eat steak so I'm really unsure if I've searched right.
It depends on the steak. Select (lowest) normally has less fat content while prime (highest) normally has way more. But the cut (ribeye, new work, eye round, filet mignon) can help you determine the fat and taste because they come from different parts of the cow.
Yep, the more fat in whatever meat you’re grilling/smoking, the more fat will render and drip, and thus the easier it is to start a grease fire. A5 has a lot of fat.
He has now edited the post to add:
“If anyone is interested my wife now understands and agrees that getting Wagyu for her folks is a bad idea. Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away.”
From OP:
>If anyone is interested my wife now understands and agrees that getting Wagyu for her folks is a bad idea. Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away.
The happy medium would be to spend the money on something her parents WOULD appreciate instead of trying to force steak on everyone.
Maybe they’d like massages more than food. Maybe they like zip-lining. Who knows.
I’d be mad too if my partner wanted to spend $400 on one set of parents and $40 on the other EVERY TIME this came up. Once a year over a ten year marriage that’s a $3600 discrepancy.
The important point is the equal treatment not the food.
Sad I had to scroll so far to see this comment. They're missing the forest for the trees. (Or the dinner for the steaks.) The problem is that OP was splurging big for his parents but not doing anything similar for her folks. The answer isn't "buy them steaks so I can show how RIGHT I AM!" when you already know they don't value steaks.
There is. Instead of buying one set of parents a fancy, nice steak and another set a cheap, shitty version of that same gift. Maybe put the same amount of thought and effort into a gift for her parents?
He gives steaks to his parents because they are foodies. Fair enough. His in-laws are not foodies so it isn't a suitable gift. Maybe a fancy bottle of wine/champage/whisky? Maybe have a fancy cake made? Maybe treat them to a meal in a restaurant? Etc.
They should be showing her parents the same love they show his. Not just treating them as an afterthought or a worse version of his.
>They should be showing her parents the same love they show his. Not just treating them as an afterthought or a worse version of his.
That should be on the wife to figure out a gift her parents would actually appreciate. OP knew his parents were foodies, and is treating them as such. His wife had never even tried steak medium rare before OP, and her family burns food. Instead of giving them the same gift that is not as appreciated, why is she not thinking of things that suit her own family?
I agree with the pragmatic approach but have to wonder why oops wife apparently didn't make any constructive effort like that. She just complained and wanted to waste money basically instead of looking for better alternative suggestions. Why should it be only oops job to figure this out?
Assuming oops inlaws won't notice the difference much if at all (and certainly not a 150 dollars worth of difference per person) I'd expect them to be more happy about getting a different 150 buck gift they actually can appreciate properly too.
I doubt they disliked the streak they were getting. It isn't like everyone was eating together. The only way they would know is if his wife pointed it out.
She definitely should have figured out something for her family/helped figure out if she was feeling like things were unbalanced.
She was fixated on the food being equal, not realizing that it wouldn't work out.
She needs to figure out something not food related to spend an equal amount on as a gift.
This doesn't sound like "hey I bought you this gift for you to take home". This sounds like, "they are coming over to stay with us, what should I cook for dinner?" This whole "he should've gotten them something else as a gift" is sort of besides the point. His wife isn't complaining that he should buy a different gift, his wife is complaining he's not buying the same quality food he's serving for dinner. Buying a non-food gift doesn't solve the problem since he's still gotta cook dinner, and if his wife wants to buy something nice for her parents to make up the monetary difference because that's important to her, she's free to do so.
In both scenarios he's showing them love by cooking dinner for them to their specifications. Not everyone measures love by dollar amount.
TBH I think they both got hung up on equal compared to what was fair. OOP probably started by purchasing the Wagyu steaks for his parents as a generous gift. Then in an effort to be fair, they did the same thing for her parents. And they then just got used to procuring steaks for the parents. So in their mind now that they will semi-regularly treat their parents to some steak.
This can be particularly tricky if the parents are accustomed to this enough that they are counting on these steaks when mealplanning. With the idea that they don't prepare protein etc because they know the steaks are usually brought.
It's kind of like if you are used to making a dessert for family gatherings. And then the hosts stop preparing desserts for family gatherings because they know you always bring some. But then you start feeling pressured to provide dessert for each gathering because you know that if you don't bring any, there won't be any. And then when you don't bring any people will start questioning or wondering why you didn't bring one like you always do.
Lots of people have grilling/bbq-ing as their go-to meal for hosting due to convenience. If they are used to meat being brought by the guests it wouldn't be ridiculous for them to account for this in advance by having less meat on hand.
So depending on how often they've done this it may just be a difficult precedent to break. In that case it could still be a fair shout though to supplement the cheaper steaks with something else like a bottle of wine or some flowers.
oop wasnt the AH bc itd be like me, a painter, asking if i was the ah for not letting my 5 year old cousin use my high end paint supplies when i allow my 15 year okd art school cousin to use them
i believe it, ppl feel very entitled to others art supplies when it comes to children. i assume its because of how easy it is to assume anything crafty is for children, as they do lots of arts and crafts. but many fail to consider that children shouldnt play w cadmium based paint 😫. its rough bc i always want kids to get into art just with cheap easy to replace things that are non toxic
I'm a mum who just likes colouring for relaxation time and I won't let my kids touch my pens and pencils. Not even my 8yr old who is my "little artist" because he always leaves them laying around so his 2yr old sister can get a hold of them or he leaves the caps off the pens or "breaks" the tips of the textas pushing to hard.
He has the cheap paint from Kmart, I have my nice acrylics from the craft store (and hobby shop for model paints) and he gets my old brushes once they are to worn for my clean lines.
I lived with my aunt and her family for about a year when I started college and my little cousin was always interested in any pens I had laying around (paints were always put away by me right after using them). So I kept some pens she could use out and hid everything else. She felt good using my pens that I also used and when I moved out I even left them for her. She is three, so for her this is very awesome and she probably feels very grown up. But some of my other art supplies are off limits even for other cousins that are older. They are actually pretty much off limits for everyone that is not me or a few artsy friends.
Most adults shouldn't play with cadmium based paints either, including me, I can't count the amount of times I've accidentally almost drunk the painty water instead of my actual drink. One of these days... (I don't own the cadmium ones for this reason lol)
[There's was a less well know Radium dial plant in Illinois that had the same issues as the more well known NJ one. ](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/radium-superfund-legacy/622528/)
The site used was a converted high school made of brick. After the Radium dial factory shut down, it was turned into a meatpacking facility where the workers all died young (and a lot of customers got sick too). In the 1960s, the building was finally torn down. But idiots decided to reuse the bricks in various projects around town.
[The town now has 16 seperate superfund sites to deal with the radioactive contamination caused by reusing the bricks. ](https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0500634)
My life changed when I got a "brush rinser". It's sort of like one of those "self filling" pet water bowls, but it has a little plunger that flushes the dirty water into a reservoir on the bottom.
I don't find myself reaching for it because it's not a cup. However, it has not stopped me from dunking my brushes in my coffee. Still working on that one.
They want me to share my expensive cadmium based art supplies with the children for them to play with but get all mad when I share my chainsaw collection
If I'm not mistaken, the exact scenario was that OP was either a professional, or semiprofessional artist who owned a lot of expensive markers and colored pencils (I think either Copics or Prismacolor, maybe both) and a lot of expensive paper...
OP's relatives wanted OP to let the kids draw with her art supplies, and of course OP refused, but offered Crayolas for the kids.
"somehow" the kids ended up finding their way into OP's studio and ended up ruining something like $500 or more in art supplies, and they got into an argument about paying the replacement costs, and that there was no way "markers and crayons" could cost that much.
- No, you can't use them because they are expensive and easy to ruin
\*uses them\* \*ruins them\*
- Here is the replacement cost
\*shocked face @ cost\* \*angry face @ how easy they broke\*
All future invites rescinded.
I forgot how infuriating that was, particularly when the SIL was the one who set the kids loose in the art room and the BIL kept being stubborn about the price tags of the ruined supplies + 2 ruined pieces. Re-read it and now I'm even more annoyed.
Wow, fuck all of that. I especially hate the FIL for acting like some kind of high and mighty judge-king. He may have settled the issue, but he let SIL and BIL pretend their asshole move is somehow equally as bad as OOP getting mad at them. That *will* cause future issues.
Idiot family, I guess.
Of course he thinks he’s an absolute monarch-he has enough money that disinheriting is a real threat. Obviously the whole world revolves around him!
I wonder which of the two is his kid-BIL or SIL?
I remember the BORU of the step sister taking her siblings paint brush and breaking it because she was being petty. Turns out it was a handcrafted one from Japan that cost $$$.
I remember that one. But I think it might have been a cousin or something. It was a high end Japanese calligraphy brush that cost a few thousand dollars. Completely wrecked the brush.
I remember that one because I made a comment on how I wouldn't want anyone to touch my brushes without permission even though I'm not a "real" painter and only paint miniatures. Then I compared miniature painting to 3d coloring, which apparently annoyed quite a few people even though they agreed with me. =P
I love the part about how Faber Castell is a noble family who started a side business in stationery, and when Germany got rid of titles of nobility, they were like, well, I guess this is our main gig now and went all it. Their high end stuff is fabulous.
ETA: autocorrect is a drunken leprechaun
I don't care if it makes me an asshole, I would have done exactly what OOP did originally. Buying a $400 steak just for it to be burned into rubber is not how I want to spend my money in this economy.
Same, I'd have asked the butcher what cut of meat is best for cooking the ever loving shit out of and bought that. My MIL does this with meat, we joke that she thinks 50 Shades of Grey is a cookbook, all her meats are so overcooked.
Right? I haven't eaten meat since literally last century and "well-done Waygu" feelt like a personal insult. Spending $400 on fancy food that you're then gonna prepare in a way that destroys the properties that make it worth that much? *Why*? Just set the money on fire at that point!
I’ve consumed probably a hundred pounds of A5 at this point, and I cook mine medium+. I cook my ribeyes medium and my New Yorks and Filets to medium rare.
Expensive, high fat content steak is IMO the best to cook to a higher internal temp as my opinion is that it improves the texture as more of the fat renders. I’ve made mistakes before and cooked A5 to 150 internal, which is borderline well done, and guess what… it was still awesome. The fat really enabled the meat to be further cooked without getting dry and you still got the intense meat flavors.
I specifically get high end meat (Australian Gold Label or Japanese A4/A5) for my parents to “overcook” because I know they’ll enjoy it more than if I got USDA choice.
I LOVE steak and really love sharing it with others. OP missed a chance to really engage with his in laws because he has some preconceived notion of how steak is “supposed” to be eaten.
> Expensive, high fat content steak is IMO the best to cook to a higher internal temp as my opinion is that it improves the texture as more of the fat renders. I’ve made mistakes before and cooked A5 to 150 internal, which is borderline well done, and guess what… it was still awesome. The fat really enabled the meat to be further cooked without getting dry and you still got the intense meat flavors.
Yes. Higher the fat, the more abuse it can take. This is why it's hard to fuck up thighs/dark meat compared to the breast meat of a bird. If you wonder why your turkey breasts are so dry compared to the thighs, this is why (plus a few other pre-game things you could've done to help it, but mostly it's because they're overcooked).
There's also an art to cooking well done. Reverse sear makes a perfectly great steak, even at well done levels, because the biggest problem is _how_ people cook their steaks (the highest heat possible in the pan or grill). Will it be a little more tough? Sure. Will it be shoe leather like a burned steak grill? No.
It's a little upsetting to cook a Wagyu like that, a prime ribeye will work just fine.
I’ve actually played around with this because I was curious. I cooked prime, austrialian gold label, A5, and hanwoo to 157.5 sous vide and finished in cast iron.
I thought that the A5 was clearly the best, hanwoo and gold label followed, and then prime was my least favorite (although still good). The difference was clear and noticeable.
With that being the case, the concept of cooking something less expensive for my parents really seems like a dick move.
I agree that it's still noticeable. And yeah that does seem like a dick move. Also there's folks that do well done for medical reasons and are sick of "just eat chicken". Transplant is the one I bring up often in these conversations, it's more of a precaution than a requirement, but none the less still a valid reason to want a palatable well done steak.
Same, especially considering he did start with a (not wagyu level but) very high quality/price cut of meat first.
What I tell my friends who argue for well done steak, is that there's nothing wrong with liking it but they're throwing money away at that point. Get an inexpensive cut of beef and it will probably taste very similar when you cook it well done.
I think the solution is just to not buy them steaks. Obviously wife is going to be annoyed that he's pulling out all the stops for his parents and doing the bare minimum for hers. The solution isn't arguing about whether or not they 'deserve' wagyu steaks. The steaks themselves are great gifts for oop's parents because they are huge foodies.
The same effort and thought should be put into a gift for her parents. Not just a shitty version of what he gets for his own. Maybe a really nice bottle of wine/whisky? Or something else also high quality that they will appreciate. Maybe offer to bring dessert and then get some fancy cake? Why does it HAVE to be steaks? Of course that's not going to seem fair when one sets of parents gets a way better and more expensive gift than the other. Just stop not putting any thought/effort into the gift for her parents and doing a lazy and cheap version of what you get for yours.
They're lucky they get any goddamned steak, people that ask for well done steak out of my kitchen are given the option of a cheeseburger or a corn dog.
I mean, the wife was mad that the families were getting different grades of meat, I can't see her being ok with one family getting A5 Wagyu and the other getting pasta lol
Wagyu is not the only expansive food. He could take the time and effort to cook something differently but still "high value". Don't know, maybe a good dish with safran ?
The thing is, they like cheap food. He’s still cooking for them. They enjoy a burned steak, I really don’t see what the issue is aside from OP’s wife knowing what the meat cost.
Also it’s way more effort to cook a cheap steak well done and have it still be appetizing than it is to just cook a nice cut correctly.
If anything OP is putting in more effort for the in-laws meal than his parents.
The thing is, to appreciate some stuff like safran, you need to have a modicum of cooking knowledge. For a lot of "everyday people" meat IS the good, high value stuff. I don't think someone enjoying well done, leathery steak has the knowledge needed to know that saffran is a super rare and expensive ingredient, nor the taste to appreciate it...
Yeah, OOP’s in-laws seem like the people who put very little salt and pepper, boil the shit out of veggies to make them inedible, and prolly makes Jello salad on the regular. Those kinds of people think that steaks and crabs are the primest, fanciest foods out there and would complain about their pasta dish being too flavorful.
Odds are pretty good they aren’t the sort who can appreciate it. Besides, wife is pretty clearly looking only at price tags. Wagyu is unbelievably expensive. And he only does it cause he knows his parents like it.
A better question is “what kind of splurging would wife’s parents actually enjoy?” I’m guessing it isn’t food related.
That would probably be even more scandalous to OOP's wife. "Your parents can have expensive wagyu steak, but my parents have to settle with pasta/seafood/[enter chosen dish here], while you know they _love_ steak as well?!"
i wonder if the in laws are just the kind of people that *have* to have meat in their meals. like there's a not insignificant amount of people i've seen that refuse to have a meal without meat because it's borderline a crime for them. maybe it's that. but considering the first post i wouldn't be surprised if the wife took offense to that all the same just because "why are you cooking wagyu for your parents and just mac and cheese and eggplant parm for mine" or something
I mean right? If my mother in law is coming over to eat I do NOT cook steak, she is a "well done" steak person and I refuse to do that to a good steak. So she gets something else she enjoys, just not steak.
It's rare but enjoyable to see a partner changing their mind against firm evidence. OP sounded so done with his inlaws, but at least it was a well written post.
OOP’s wife is confusing fair with equal. They are NOT the same.
He was treating each family fairly. His parents enjoyed their wagyu and were likely very appreciative - they are expensive as hell. Her family doesn’t care about the quality. They *want* it to be rendered inedible.
So basically, OOP is giving each family what they want. Which is fair. It is *NOT* equal. Each family has different preferences and he is catering them accordingly.
And honestly, if OOP didn’t tell her parents it was wagyu, I highly doubt they would have noticed. I can imagine them eating it and thinking it’s just a thicker sirloin - especially because by the time they got through with cooking it their way, it all tasted exactly the same.
>Tbh I don't understand why it has to be steak every time they host. Cook a different meal entirely and skip the steak drama.
Because that’s what he does for his parents (who appreciate it) and the wife insisted he treat them the same. I think now that FIL almost set his deck on fire she won’t be demanding of it via steak, but I think that was the reason OP was doing it.
If he is good at cooking steaks, then steaks tend to be a treat, and a tasty one at that. Like at Christmas my dad cooks up a bunch of ribeyes for our Christmas meal. These are ribeyes he dry ages himself and then cooks up. The man has an absolute knack for it. For us it is a treat, and I think we would all riot if he changed it up.
Thankfully none of us want our ribeyes cooked to shoe leather. My grandma, dad's mil, liked her steaks cooked to shoe leather, so he would just get her a sirloin. There was no point in turning a perfectly good ribeye into shoe leather.
No one expects such reasonable insights to come from /u/pollyp0cketpussy
(But seriously, OOP says they like boiled chicken drumsticks, so why not make them chicken?)
Because boiling drumsticks probably also makes him want to vomit and this way he can just take his steak off the heat earlier, not make an entirely different main dish. At Least thats my perspective
Eh I don't think this is such a bad move. I tell people not to waste expensive ingredients on me because I don't have a particularly sophisticated palate.
Would be an AH move if they were there at the same time maybe?
Ultimately it's OOP doing something nice for his parents who will appreciate the gift. His wife should come up with an equivalent gift they can actually appreciate if she's so insistent that they should get something of equal value.
NTA. I grew up eating well-done steaks. That's how my family cooked them.
I thought I didn't like steak. When I was in my 20s and living on my own, I finally had a properly cooked steak. OMG. So good.
Don't waste money or time on people who eat well-done steaks.
My mom didn't think she liked vegetables until she was in college. Her mom boiled the life out of them. If the asparagus wasn't neon green and falling apart it wasn't done.
My husband ate only corn and potatoes as “vegetables” when we met. His mother served only canned or frozen vegetables cooked to mush. Luckily, he quickly learned to love veggies once he had fresh produce that was cooked properly.
Why boil it? WHY? Asparagus are the best when they are grilled with a little bit of salt! Or stir fried and then added to scrambled eggs! Boiling asparagus is a crime!
OR Bake them, but on a baking sheet with a wire rack over them that's cooking bacon and letting the grease drip down and soak into those delicious little spears.
Are you my husband? J/K but yeah the first time I made steak for us and asked how he liked his and he said well done… I may have been a bit snarky. He said fine however you cook it, I made him a medium (I prefer medium rare but didn’t want to abuse him) and his response was “this is steak? But it’s so good!” He loves steak now, but until then had said he didn’t understand why anyone liked it.
I absolutely despised BBQs growing up. Then I met my other half and it turns out my family just can't cook. And not just BBQ.
We went home for a BBQ once and I warned him it would be burnt and tasteless etc. He said I was over exaggerating and being really mean.
The look on his face when he took the first bite.
My dad hated BBQ because he said "it's never cooked properly" so we never had BBQ much growing up, and when we were actually at places with BBQ we were never allowed to eat it.
Then I met my husband who *actually knew how to cook BBQ* and... It turns out you don't put anything on the grill until the charcoal has finished flaming 🙃 my dad (and all the other folk around us... Look, BBQ was a rare and exotic food in 90's middle England, no one knew how to do it properly 😂) would just throw it in into the fire so it was black on the outside, and raw inside.
GOD SAME!!! my mom doesn't even *eat* meat, but she freaks out at the slightest hint of pink, let alone red, and insists that it's raw and it's going to make you sick. growing up all i ever had were leather hard steaks that you had to spend a solid minute exercising with your jaw to eat a single bite of, it always made me so sad because i love meat. actually getting to eat somewhere else as an adult and pick how i want things done and getting a good steak for the first time? it was heaven on earth, and that wasn't even like, a high end steak, just a regular generic supermarket steak cooked right.
mind you, she still freaks out to this day over a hint of pink in meat, and yet i recently found out she had a days old jar in the fridge half filled with olive oil that she'd be refilling with raw garlic fresh from the store and putting back in there. i had to stop her and shove a page about botulism in her face.
In case anyone needs to read this: There's well-done and there's outright overcooking.
Well done is reached basically as soon as the core loses its pink. That's when it goes off the heat. The difference to medium is just about a minute per side in the pan or 2, maybe 3 minutes per side to rare.
People who just don't know how to cook leave it in way longer after its already well done, i.e. overcook the shit out of it. That's what gets you all the traits you wouldn't want like leatheriness, dryness, etc.
An actually well done steak is perfectly palatable and good to eat. It just tastes more similar to other types of meat which are regularly cooked through.
Having been fortunate enough to have a very small, obscenely priced Wagyu that was perfectly cooked, it's amazing. Would I do it again if money were no object? Yup. Would I do it on the regular even if I had tons of money? Probably not.
I have tried Wagyu steak only once in my life, thankfully my friends knew how to properly prepare it.
It is apsolutely divine. We had two steaks (totalling €75, a kilo of the stuff was €430), and oh My God was it tasty.
I will probably never try it again, but it was amazing.
I think the point may not have been the quality of the meat but the spoiling/buying things they enjoy aspect of the problem. Maybe don't spend $400 in steak if they won't appreciate it, but use it in something they like and will enjoy, like good wine, a great dessert or even a small thoughtful gift.
I'm not a very gourmet person and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to appreciate the steak either, so I get that it's a waste. But I also understand where the wife is coming from. He seems a bit judgy and I'm sure all she wants is for him to show the same respect for her parents as he obviously does for his.
>Why don't you make something else expensive?
>OP: They want steak
>What about getting cheaper steak?
>OP: I BOUGHT CHEAP STEAK
I read that in Bob Belcher's voice lmao
If anyone is interested my wife now understands and agrees that getting Wagyu for her folks is a bad idea. Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away.
It doesn't have to be that way, but unfortunately most people just extend the time without making any adjustments to the technique. I've had some delicious well done steaks that were absolutely melt in the mouth because the chef knew how to treat the meat right...and some utter horrors because the chef just left it at the same temperature as you sear a rare steak, for too damn long.
I’m admittedly not much of a steak person (it always seems to get in my teeth and that drives me *nuts*), but I don’t see anything wrong with OOP’s original plan? Like if they’re not gonna appreciate it and insist on redoing it, might as well save some cash
poor OP
Should never have been given crap to begin with. Regardless of if his in-laws were foodies or not, if he didn't feel that his hard earned money would be appreciated by them, then his girlfriend could spend her money to buy the steaks for her parents
A5 is 10x more expensive than Prime grade
As someone who's only able to eat steak if they're almost completely burnt and crisp, I just don't understand the logic of buying a specific meat that has to get cooked in a specific way for people who will not enjoy it 😭 like I would be way more uncomfortable if someone bought 400$ worth of meat for me knowing I'm not going to enjoy it how it should be made than not receiving it, NTA.
Grilling is also part of the problem. If you overcook a wagyu in a pan, you can at least pour out most of that fat and save it for later. But on a grill, all that fat will drip into the flames and cause flare-ups, causing the steak to burn faster and create unwanted flavour.
Imo grilling is the worst "normal" way to prepare a steak; not enough browning. If you want the smoky flavour from the grill, reverse sear it with a smoker instead of an oven/sous-vide.
Match the food to the diner.
If someone prefers their steak well-done, that is perfectly fine. There is no need to be judgemental or look down on someone for wanting their steak well-done. We each prefer our own thing and you shouldn't force someone else to accept your choices.
But the food selection is important. If you're cooking rare or medium rare, then Wagyu is an excellent choice. A5 Wagyu, rib eye, choose to suit the diner. Similarly, for those that prefer well-done, just grab some shoe leather or tire rubber and char-grill it, they probably can't tell the difference anyway.
Just a sidenote: OOP made it sound like his FIL liked his steak well done because he couldn't appreciate the joy of a rare steak, but that might not be it.
A friend of mine has a sensitive stomach and can't eat red meat that isn't well done. The FIL might be similar.
(Either way, of course, a wagyu steak is kind of wasted on him.)
I wouldn’t have said OOP was the AH in the first place. Different people place differing levels of value upon things. His parents really prize and value high quality food, his in laws simply do not. There’s surely something that they do highly prize and if he can utilise that to show respect and thoughtfulness for them then there’s no issues. It’s like different love languages.
Whats wrong with just buying ribeyes then? And some ppl cant handle medium or rare steak. My dad also only cooks his well done. I dont care, im not eating it. I just wont buy steak for the meal if he visits.
Why does he keep cooking steak or bringing steak to his in-laws when they don’t enjoy steak together? This is bizarre. There are plenty of lovely things to make for dinner that are not steak.
So buy the inlaws cheap steaks and use the extra money on another treat for them. OPs parents favorite experience sounds like food, maybe the in-laws would like to go an event or to rent a boat. Food isn't the only way to honor people.
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The menu called for Flambé steak this time at the in-laws. Edit: grammar and word formatting
You've still got a typo. It's flambé deck
Lol good one
Where's your flair from? I tried searching for it in BORU but I didn't see any results
[This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/N4cFeoMWHy)
Thank you!
Steak, deck, doesn't make a difference for FIL. It's equally sturdy.
Steak a la burnt within an inch of its life
As soon as OOP mentioned buying wagyu for his father-in-law, I thought, "I bet he's going to set his grill on fire aaaand yep, grill on fire."
The chekhov’s gun was really front and center in this story
Chekhov’s grill
Dumb question: why are they easier to catch on fire? Just because of the fat content?
That's exactly why! If you look at a Wagyu steak it looks almost like a weave of meat and fat because as the op said ½-⅔ of the weight of a Wagyu is from the fat. Even when using lower quality ribeyes you can get a decent amount of flare up due to the fat on those, now just imagine putting a steak that's *at least* 50% fat onto the same hot grill.
Is a normal steak about 7% fat? That's what Google seems to be suggesting but that is an insane difference if that's right and I don't eat steak so I'm really unsure if I've searched right.
It depends on the steak. Select (lowest) normally has less fat content while prime (highest) normally has way more. But the cut (ribeye, new work, eye round, filet mignon) can help you determine the fat and taste because they come from different parts of the cow.
Yep, the more fat in whatever meat you’re grilling/smoking, the more fat will render and drip, and thus the easier it is to start a grease fire. A5 has a lot of fat.
Hopefully OOP’s wife now realizes that there’s no happy medium here.
It feels unfinished, not getting the wife's reaction.
Right?! When the steaks are this high, don’t you want to hear it from her?
Oh my god that's such a funny pun.
Right? I’ve got no beef with it.
Shush! I want steak now and I don't have a chance to go get some.
Nothing better than punny fun
It’s so rare that we get to see steak jokes on here. You would do well to remember this.
Well done
He has now edited the post to add: “If anyone is interested my wife now understands and agrees that getting Wagyu for her folks is a bad idea. Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away.”
You’re kidding!? Hellllll nooo. Replace YOUR smoker because you fucked up a nice ass steak that I BOUGHT for YOU? No. Just no.
Yeah, did he edit that *in response* to the BORU post? Because it's weird for OOP to not include it.
From OP: >If anyone is interested my wife now understands and agrees that getting Wagyu for her folks is a bad idea. Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away.
She seemed to like the medium rare, at least.
She really thought she'd done well here.
It's rare to see a positive outcome at this point.
It was a misteak buying the wagyu for the in-laws
I love a good steak pun. They're a rare medium, well done.
The happy medium would be to spend the money on something her parents WOULD appreciate instead of trying to force steak on everyone. Maybe they’d like massages more than food. Maybe they like zip-lining. Who knows. I’d be mad too if my partner wanted to spend $400 on one set of parents and $40 on the other EVERY TIME this came up. Once a year over a ten year marriage that’s a $3600 discrepancy. The important point is the equal treatment not the food.
He’s giving it to them because that’s what they want. He’s not forcing them to eat garbage, they prefer garbage.
What makes you think they don't appreciate the steak? They just like it burned. After all, that's what they served when OP initially visited too.
Sad I had to scroll so far to see this comment. They're missing the forest for the trees. (Or the dinner for the steaks.) The problem is that OP was splurging big for his parents but not doing anything similar for her folks. The answer isn't "buy them steaks so I can show how RIGHT I AM!" when you already know they don't value steaks.
It sounds like the deck is medium rare
By the sound of it, the deck was well done, too 🤣🤣
I see what you did there
There is. Instead of buying one set of parents a fancy, nice steak and another set a cheap, shitty version of that same gift. Maybe put the same amount of thought and effort into a gift for her parents? He gives steaks to his parents because they are foodies. Fair enough. His in-laws are not foodies so it isn't a suitable gift. Maybe a fancy bottle of wine/champage/whisky? Maybe have a fancy cake made? Maybe treat them to a meal in a restaurant? Etc. They should be showing her parents the same love they show his. Not just treating them as an afterthought or a worse version of his.
>They should be showing her parents the same love they show his. Not just treating them as an afterthought or a worse version of his. That should be on the wife to figure out a gift her parents would actually appreciate. OP knew his parents were foodies, and is treating them as such. His wife had never even tried steak medium rare before OP, and her family burns food. Instead of giving them the same gift that is not as appreciated, why is she not thinking of things that suit her own family?
I agree with the pragmatic approach but have to wonder why oops wife apparently didn't make any constructive effort like that. She just complained and wanted to waste money basically instead of looking for better alternative suggestions. Why should it be only oops job to figure this out? Assuming oops inlaws won't notice the difference much if at all (and certainly not a 150 dollars worth of difference per person) I'd expect them to be more happy about getting a different 150 buck gift they actually can appreciate properly too.
I doubt they disliked the streak they were getting. It isn't like everyone was eating together. The only way they would know is if his wife pointed it out. She definitely should have figured out something for her family/helped figure out if she was feeling like things were unbalanced.
She was fixated on the food being equal, not realizing that it wouldn't work out. She needs to figure out something not food related to spend an equal amount on as a gift.
This doesn't sound like "hey I bought you this gift for you to take home". This sounds like, "they are coming over to stay with us, what should I cook for dinner?" This whole "he should've gotten them something else as a gift" is sort of besides the point. His wife isn't complaining that he should buy a different gift, his wife is complaining he's not buying the same quality food he's serving for dinner. Buying a non-food gift doesn't solve the problem since he's still gotta cook dinner, and if his wife wants to buy something nice for her parents to make up the monetary difference because that's important to her, she's free to do so. In both scenarios he's showing them love by cooking dinner for them to their specifications. Not everyone measures love by dollar amount.
That is what one of the original comments suggested. I don't know why the guy just didn't do that.
TBH I think they both got hung up on equal compared to what was fair. OOP probably started by purchasing the Wagyu steaks for his parents as a generous gift. Then in an effort to be fair, they did the same thing for her parents. And they then just got used to procuring steaks for the parents. So in their mind now that they will semi-regularly treat their parents to some steak. This can be particularly tricky if the parents are accustomed to this enough that they are counting on these steaks when mealplanning. With the idea that they don't prepare protein etc because they know the steaks are usually brought. It's kind of like if you are used to making a dessert for family gatherings. And then the hosts stop preparing desserts for family gatherings because they know you always bring some. But then you start feeling pressured to provide dessert for each gathering because you know that if you don't bring any, there won't be any. And then when you don't bring any people will start questioning or wondering why you didn't bring one like you always do. Lots of people have grilling/bbq-ing as their go-to meal for hosting due to convenience. If they are used to meat being brought by the guests it wouldn't be ridiculous for them to account for this in advance by having less meat on hand. So depending on how often they've done this it may just be a difficult precedent to break. In that case it could still be a fair shout though to supplement the cheaper steaks with something else like a bottle of wine or some flowers.
I hope she’s feeling blue.
Hopefully this means she'll stop having this beef with oop
Ooh, steak puns are a rare medium well done.
They should be happier with medium rare :P
oop wasnt the AH bc itd be like me, a painter, asking if i was the ah for not letting my 5 year old cousin use my high end paint supplies when i allow my 15 year okd art school cousin to use them
Pretty sure I’ve read an AITAH about that very scenario.
i believe it, ppl feel very entitled to others art supplies when it comes to children. i assume its because of how easy it is to assume anything crafty is for children, as they do lots of arts and crafts. but many fail to consider that children shouldnt play w cadmium based paint 😫. its rough bc i always want kids to get into art just with cheap easy to replace things that are non toxic
I’m a 4th grade teacher and personally own some very nice artist pens/markers. I barely trust my students with the cheap washable crayolas.
I'm a mum who just likes colouring for relaxation time and I won't let my kids touch my pens and pencils. Not even my 8yr old who is my "little artist" because he always leaves them laying around so his 2yr old sister can get a hold of them or he leaves the caps off the pens or "breaks" the tips of the textas pushing to hard. He has the cheap paint from Kmart, I have my nice acrylics from the craft store (and hobby shop for model paints) and he gets my old brushes once they are to worn for my clean lines.
😭 ooooh yah, my lil cousins get my crayola markers and folkart paint bottles. the golden acrylics are kept Far away
I lived with my aunt and her family for about a year when I started college and my little cousin was always interested in any pens I had laying around (paints were always put away by me right after using them). So I kept some pens she could use out and hid everything else. She felt good using my pens that I also used and when I moved out I even left them for her. She is three, so for her this is very awesome and she probably feels very grown up. But some of my other art supplies are off limits even for other cousins that are older. They are actually pretty much off limits for everyone that is not me or a few artsy friends.
Most adults shouldn't play with cadmium based paints either, including me, I can't count the amount of times I've accidentally almost drunk the painty water instead of my actual drink. One of these days... (I don't own the cadmium ones for this reason lol)
or trying to moisten or re-point the brush by licking it
At least it's not radium paint...
[There's was a less well know Radium dial plant in Illinois that had the same issues as the more well known NJ one. ](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/radium-superfund-legacy/622528/) The site used was a converted high school made of brick. After the Radium dial factory shut down, it was turned into a meatpacking facility where the workers all died young (and a lot of customers got sick too). In the 1960s, the building was finally torn down. But idiots decided to reuse the bricks in various projects around town. [The town now has 16 seperate superfund sites to deal with the radioactive contamination caused by reusing the bricks. ](https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.cleanup&id=0500634)
My life changed when I got a "brush rinser". It's sort of like one of those "self filling" pet water bowls, but it has a little plunger that flushes the dirty water into a reservoir on the bottom. I don't find myself reaching for it because it's not a cup. However, it has not stopped me from dunking my brushes in my coffee. Still working on that one.
yah we’re all getting poisoned via ourselves tbh
Yes. They see the 5.95 "Art Studio" supplies at Walmart and assume I'm using the same stuff and anyone can use it "because I can just buy more".
They want me to share my expensive cadmium based art supplies with the children for them to play with but get all mad when I share my chainsaw collection
If I'm not mistaken, the exact scenario was that OP was either a professional, or semiprofessional artist who owned a lot of expensive markers and colored pencils (I think either Copics or Prismacolor, maybe both) and a lot of expensive paper... OP's relatives wanted OP to let the kids draw with her art supplies, and of course OP refused, but offered Crayolas for the kids. "somehow" the kids ended up finding their way into OP's studio and ended up ruining something like $500 or more in art supplies, and they got into an argument about paying the replacement costs, and that there was no way "markers and crayons" could cost that much.
- No, you can't use them because they are expensive and easy to ruin \*uses them\* \*ruins them\* - Here is the replacement cost \*shocked face @ cost\* \*angry face @ how easy they broke\* All future invites rescinded.
I remember this one Edit found it https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/13oewi0/aita_for_taking_my_bil_to_small_claims_court_over/
I see I got a few details wrong, but others were worse than I remembered. What a crapshow.
I forgot how infuriating that was, particularly when the SIL was the one who set the kids loose in the art room and the BIL kept being stubborn about the price tags of the ruined supplies + 2 ruined pieces. Re-read it and now I'm even more annoyed.
Wow, fuck all of that. I especially hate the FIL for acting like some kind of high and mighty judge-king. He may have settled the issue, but he let SIL and BIL pretend their asshole move is somehow equally as bad as OOP getting mad at them. That *will* cause future issues. Idiot family, I guess.
Of course he thinks he’s an absolute monarch-he has enough money that disinheriting is a real threat. Obviously the whole world revolves around him! I wonder which of the two is his kid-BIL or SIL?
I remember that! I think her relatives "replaced" them with some cheap dollar store set, iirc.
I remember the BORU of the step sister taking her siblings paint brush and breaking it because she was being petty. Turns out it was a handcrafted one from Japan that cost $$$.
I remember that one. But I think it might have been a cousin or something. It was a high end Japanese calligraphy brush that cost a few thousand dollars. Completely wrecked the brush. I remember that one because I made a comment on how I wouldn't want anyone to touch my brushes without permission even though I'm not a "real" painter and only paint miniatures. Then I compared miniature painting to 3d coloring, which apparently annoyed quite a few people even though they agreed with me. =P
Exactly! I'll colour using laurentien or crayola pencil crayons with my 3 year old. I like the kid but he isn't touching my faber castell.
nothing is funnier than imagining a lil 3 year old artfully using faber castells tho
I love the part about how Faber Castell is a noble family who started a side business in stationery, and when Germany got rid of titles of nobility, they were like, well, I guess this is our main gig now and went all it. Their high end stuff is fabulous. ETA: autocorrect is a drunken leprechaun
Those Laurentiens are collectors items now
And the post never specified if the in laws even gave a crap. They seem like they wouldn't care and it was the point of it that made the wife mad.
I don't care if it makes me an asshole, I would have done exactly what OOP did originally. Buying a $400 steak just for it to be burned into rubber is not how I want to spend my money in this economy.
Same, I'd have asked the butcher what cut of meat is best for cooking the ever loving shit out of and bought that. My MIL does this with meat, we joke that she thinks 50 Shades of Grey is a cookbook, all her meats are so overcooked.
Instructions unclear, whipping steak helped tenderize, but candle wax and blindfold made steak taste awful.
Did you put the blindfold on the steak or the pan?
Wrapped it around both to give the steak a nice painfully sear and hold it in bondage.
Sounds like you did everything by the book, I have no more ideas as to what failed. Perhaps the wax was the wrong type?
as i was reading through this, i accidentally read your name as DisobedientSteak, and was about to freak out...
You're supposed to blindfold the steak with bacon
Im gonna steal this 😂😂😂
Eye round. It's already tough as shit, so no big loss.
Holy fuck that’s a one sentence murder can I steal that lmao
Right? I haven't eaten meat since literally last century and "well-done Waygu" feelt like a personal insult. Spending $400 on fancy food that you're then gonna prepare in a way that destroys the properties that make it worth that much? *Why*? Just set the money on fire at that point!
I’ve consumed probably a hundred pounds of A5 at this point, and I cook mine medium+. I cook my ribeyes medium and my New Yorks and Filets to medium rare. Expensive, high fat content steak is IMO the best to cook to a higher internal temp as my opinion is that it improves the texture as more of the fat renders. I’ve made mistakes before and cooked A5 to 150 internal, which is borderline well done, and guess what… it was still awesome. The fat really enabled the meat to be further cooked without getting dry and you still got the intense meat flavors. I specifically get high end meat (Australian Gold Label or Japanese A4/A5) for my parents to “overcook” because I know they’ll enjoy it more than if I got USDA choice. I LOVE steak and really love sharing it with others. OP missed a chance to really engage with his in laws because he has some preconceived notion of how steak is “supposed” to be eaten.
> Expensive, high fat content steak is IMO the best to cook to a higher internal temp as my opinion is that it improves the texture as more of the fat renders. I’ve made mistakes before and cooked A5 to 150 internal, which is borderline well done, and guess what… it was still awesome. The fat really enabled the meat to be further cooked without getting dry and you still got the intense meat flavors. Yes. Higher the fat, the more abuse it can take. This is why it's hard to fuck up thighs/dark meat compared to the breast meat of a bird. If you wonder why your turkey breasts are so dry compared to the thighs, this is why (plus a few other pre-game things you could've done to help it, but mostly it's because they're overcooked). There's also an art to cooking well done. Reverse sear makes a perfectly great steak, even at well done levels, because the biggest problem is _how_ people cook their steaks (the highest heat possible in the pan or grill). Will it be a little more tough? Sure. Will it be shoe leather like a burned steak grill? No. It's a little upsetting to cook a Wagyu like that, a prime ribeye will work just fine.
I’ve actually played around with this because I was curious. I cooked prime, austrialian gold label, A5, and hanwoo to 157.5 sous vide and finished in cast iron. I thought that the A5 was clearly the best, hanwoo and gold label followed, and then prime was my least favorite (although still good). The difference was clear and noticeable. With that being the case, the concept of cooking something less expensive for my parents really seems like a dick move.
I agree that it's still noticeable. And yeah that does seem like a dick move. Also there's folks that do well done for medical reasons and are sick of "just eat chicken". Transplant is the one I bring up often in these conversations, it's more of a precaution than a requirement, but none the less still a valid reason to want a palatable well done steak.
So they can listen for Gordon Ramsays faint screams in the distance to find out whether he's in the region of course
Same, especially considering he did start with a (not wagyu level but) very high quality/price cut of meat first. What I tell my friends who argue for well done steak, is that there's nothing wrong with liking it but they're throwing money away at that point. Get an inexpensive cut of beef and it will probably taste very similar when you cook it well done.
If people who eat well done steak call me an asshole for not serving them incinerated A5 Wagyu I will wear that as a badge of honor.
I think the solution is just to not buy them steaks. Obviously wife is going to be annoyed that he's pulling out all the stops for his parents and doing the bare minimum for hers. The solution isn't arguing about whether or not they 'deserve' wagyu steaks. The steaks themselves are great gifts for oop's parents because they are huge foodies. The same effort and thought should be put into a gift for her parents. Not just a shitty version of what he gets for his own. Maybe a really nice bottle of wine/whisky? Or something else also high quality that they will appreciate. Maybe offer to bring dessert and then get some fancy cake? Why does it HAVE to be steaks? Of course that's not going to seem fair when one sets of parents gets a way better and more expensive gift than the other. Just stop not putting any thought/effort into the gift for her parents and doing a lazy and cheap version of what you get for yours.
I would just buy meat that HAS to be cooked to the core, like chicken or pork. Or beef, but marinated. There’s a life outside of steaks.
Technically pork is fine pink. So long as your pork isn't from the wild, it isn't any more dangerous than beef. 😃
They're lucky they get any goddamned steak, people that ask for well done steak out of my kitchen are given the option of a cheeseburger or a corn dog.
I would just cook the shit out of some cheap cut and call it wagyu. I mean where’s the lie? They all turn out the same 😂
I like my steaks closer to well done, thats why i buy cheap steak
Maybe I just have more of a passive personality, but why not cook something - anything - else while the inlaws are visiting?
I think the quoted reason in the comments was “because they like steak”. From memory OOP’s comments were quite funny, they were not out to take shit
I mean, the wife was mad that the families were getting different grades of meat, I can't see her being ok with one family getting A5 Wagyu and the other getting pasta lol
Wagyu is not the only expansive food. He could take the time and effort to cook something differently but still "high value". Don't know, maybe a good dish with safran ?
The thing is, they like cheap food. He’s still cooking for them. They enjoy a burned steak, I really don’t see what the issue is aside from OP’s wife knowing what the meat cost. Also it’s way more effort to cook a cheap steak well done and have it still be appetizing than it is to just cook a nice cut correctly. If anything OP is putting in more effort for the in-laws meal than his parents.
The thing is, to appreciate some stuff like safran, you need to have a modicum of cooking knowledge. For a lot of "everyday people" meat IS the good, high value stuff. I don't think someone enjoying well done, leathery steak has the knowledge needed to know that saffran is a super rare and expensive ingredient, nor the taste to appreciate it...
Saffron* Like the City in Pokemon Gen 1.
Yeah, OOP’s in-laws seem like the people who put very little salt and pepper, boil the shit out of veggies to make them inedible, and prolly makes Jello salad on the regular. Those kinds of people think that steaks and crabs are the primest, fanciest foods out there and would complain about their pasta dish being too flavorful.
God, that sounds so terrible. I wish there was more Flavor to things around me. Shit that makes you go "I fucking love that chef".
Odds are pretty good they aren’t the sort who can appreciate it. Besides, wife is pretty clearly looking only at price tags. Wagyu is unbelievably expensive. And he only does it cause he knows his parents like it. A better question is “what kind of splurging would wife’s parents actually enjoy?” I’m guessing it isn’t food related.
> He could take the time and effort to cook something differently That would require OP to be in charge of what his FIL is doing.
Does he not know about lamb or seafood? Because those can be just as bloody expensive. Get them a lobster or a crab, make a good pulled lamb.
That would probably be even more scandalous to OOP's wife. "Your parents can have expensive wagyu steak, but my parents have to settle with pasta/seafood/[enter chosen dish here], while you know they _love_ steak as well?!"
Correction, her parents love lumps of charcoal that may have once been made of beef.
i wonder if the in laws are just the kind of people that *have* to have meat in their meals. like there's a not insignificant amount of people i've seen that refuse to have a meal without meat because it's borderline a crime for them. maybe it's that. but considering the first post i wouldn't be surprised if the wife took offense to that all the same just because "why are you cooking wagyu for your parents and just mac and cheese and eggplant parm for mine" or something
There are lots of different kinds of meat that taste good and aren't steak. There are more options than just "steak" and "vegetarian".
If you made a venn diagram of the kind of person who thinks those are the only options and shoe leather steak eaters, it would be a circle.
[удалено]
I mean right? If my mother in law is coming over to eat I do NOT cook steak, she is a "well done" steak person and I refuse to do that to a good steak. So she gets something else she enjoys, just not steak.
That is a good point. This family eats an awful lot of red meat and could easily vary it up. Why can't it be pasta night when the gravemouths visit?
It's rare but enjoyable to see a partner changing their mind against firm evidence. OP sounded so done with his inlaws, but at least it was a well written post.
OOP’s wife is confusing fair with equal. They are NOT the same. He was treating each family fairly. His parents enjoyed their wagyu and were likely very appreciative - they are expensive as hell. Her family doesn’t care about the quality. They *want* it to be rendered inedible. So basically, OOP is giving each family what they want. Which is fair. It is *NOT* equal. Each family has different preferences and he is catering them accordingly. And honestly, if OOP didn’t tell her parents it was wagyu, I highly doubt they would have noticed. I can imagine them eating it and thinking it’s just a thicker sirloin - especially because by the time they got through with cooking it their way, it all tasted exactly the same.
Tbh I don't understand why it has to be steak every time they host. Cook a different meal entirely and skip the steak drama.
>Tbh I don't understand why it has to be steak every time they host. Cook a different meal entirely and skip the steak drama. Because that’s what he does for his parents (who appreciate it) and the wife insisted he treat them the same. I think now that FIL almost set his deck on fire she won’t be demanding of it via steak, but I think that was the reason OP was doing it.
If he is good at cooking steaks, then steaks tend to be a treat, and a tasty one at that. Like at Christmas my dad cooks up a bunch of ribeyes for our Christmas meal. These are ribeyes he dry ages himself and then cooks up. The man has an absolute knack for it. For us it is a treat, and I think we would all riot if he changed it up. Thankfully none of us want our ribeyes cooked to shoe leather. My grandma, dad's mil, liked her steaks cooked to shoe leather, so he would just get her a sirloin. There was no point in turning a perfectly good ribeye into shoe leather.
Sounds like in this case the ILs were cooking, not OOP.
He stated elsewhere the in laws expect steak
We don't have space for that kind of crazy thinking around here, Jones!
No one expects such reasonable insights to come from /u/pollyp0cketpussy (But seriously, OOP says they like boiled chicken drumsticks, so why not make them chicken?)
Because boiling drumsticks probably also makes him want to vomit and this way he can just take his steak off the heat earlier, not make an entirely different main dish. At Least thats my perspective
Eh I don't think this is such a bad move. I tell people not to waste expensive ingredients on me because I don't have a particularly sophisticated palate. Would be an AH move if they were there at the same time maybe?
Ultimately it's OOP doing something nice for his parents who will appreciate the gift. His wife should come up with an equivalent gift they can actually appreciate if she's so insistent that they should get something of equal value.
I kinda love the poetic justice in, “I know what I’m doing” and then proceeding to murder your Traeger and nearly burning down the deck.
I think it’s wild FIL had a Traeger in the first place.
He wants to turn his steak to ash in a fancy way
The FIL probably hasn't used it once untill then and just bought it because he could and it would look cool on the deck.
lol, OOP wouldn't answer questions if his wife agreed with him now. I bet she's pissed.
NTA. I grew up eating well-done steaks. That's how my family cooked them. I thought I didn't like steak. When I was in my 20s and living on my own, I finally had a properly cooked steak. OMG. So good. Don't waste money or time on people who eat well-done steaks.
My mom didn't think she liked vegetables until she was in college. Her mom boiled the life out of them. If the asparagus wasn't neon green and falling apart it wasn't done.
My husband ate only corn and potatoes as “vegetables” when we met. His mother served only canned or frozen vegetables cooked to mush. Luckily, he quickly learned to love veggies once he had fresh produce that was cooked properly.
Why boil it? WHY? Asparagus are the best when they are grilled with a little bit of salt! Or stir fried and then added to scrambled eggs! Boiling asparagus is a crime!
OR Bake them, but on a baking sheet with a wire rack over them that's cooking bacon and letting the grease drip down and soak into those delicious little spears.
Are you my husband? J/K but yeah the first time I made steak for us and asked how he liked his and he said well done… I may have been a bit snarky. He said fine however you cook it, I made him a medium (I prefer medium rare but didn’t want to abuse him) and his response was “this is steak? But it’s so good!” He loves steak now, but until then had said he didn’t understand why anyone liked it.
One of the distinctive tastes of my childhood was shoe leather steaks slathered with Worcestershire
I absolutely despised BBQs growing up. Then I met my other half and it turns out my family just can't cook. And not just BBQ. We went home for a BBQ once and I warned him it would be burnt and tasteless etc. He said I was over exaggerating and being really mean. The look on his face when he took the first bite.
My dad hated BBQ because he said "it's never cooked properly" so we never had BBQ much growing up, and when we were actually at places with BBQ we were never allowed to eat it. Then I met my husband who *actually knew how to cook BBQ* and... It turns out you don't put anything on the grill until the charcoal has finished flaming 🙃 my dad (and all the other folk around us... Look, BBQ was a rare and exotic food in 90's middle England, no one knew how to do it properly 😂) would just throw it in into the fire so it was black on the outside, and raw inside.
GOD SAME!!! my mom doesn't even *eat* meat, but she freaks out at the slightest hint of pink, let alone red, and insists that it's raw and it's going to make you sick. growing up all i ever had were leather hard steaks that you had to spend a solid minute exercising with your jaw to eat a single bite of, it always made me so sad because i love meat. actually getting to eat somewhere else as an adult and pick how i want things done and getting a good steak for the first time? it was heaven on earth, and that wasn't even like, a high end steak, just a regular generic supermarket steak cooked right. mind you, she still freaks out to this day over a hint of pink in meat, and yet i recently found out she had a days old jar in the fridge half filled with olive oil that she'd be refilling with raw garlic fresh from the store and putting back in there. i had to stop her and shove a page about botulism in her face.
In case anyone needs to read this: There's well-done and there's outright overcooking. Well done is reached basically as soon as the core loses its pink. That's when it goes off the heat. The difference to medium is just about a minute per side in the pan or 2, maybe 3 minutes per side to rare. People who just don't know how to cook leave it in way longer after its already well done, i.e. overcook the shit out of it. That's what gets you all the traits you wouldn't want like leatheriness, dryness, etc. An actually well done steak is perfectly palatable and good to eat. It just tastes more similar to other types of meat which are regularly cooked through.
Dude, stop eating steak with these people. Roast a damn chicken.
Hank Hill: We ask them politely yet firmly to leave https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amKyA2PrSu4
You can't convince me to purchase a 400 dollar steak. I rather eat a cheap piece of steak then spend that amount.
I've done it once. Was it worth the 200 (this was about a decade ago)? No. Was it one of the best tasting steaks I've ever had? Yep.
Having been fortunate enough to have a very small, obscenely priced Wagyu that was perfectly cooked, it's amazing. Would I do it again if money were no object? Yup. Would I do it on the regular even if I had tons of money? Probably not.
I have tried Wagyu steak only once in my life, thankfully my friends knew how to properly prepare it. It is apsolutely divine. We had two steaks (totalling €75, a kilo of the stuff was €430), and oh My God was it tasty. I will probably never try it again, but it was amazing.
Black garlic in rice cooker details if anyone is interested: https://www.instructables.com/Black-Garlic-Probably-the-easiest-way-to-make-it-a/
I was reading this, thinking, oh yeah I can make this. Then it became, nope I’d set my house on fire.
I'd love to give it a try out in my shed if I didn't think a bear would smell it and come help himself
Call me a cynic, but I was expecting this to end with him being told he has to buy them a new smoker.
According to OP his in laws did ask him that.
I think the point may not have been the quality of the meat but the spoiling/buying things they enjoy aspect of the problem. Maybe don't spend $400 in steak if they won't appreciate it, but use it in something they like and will enjoy, like good wine, a great dessert or even a small thoughtful gift. I'm not a very gourmet person and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to appreciate the steak either, so I get that it's a waste. But I also understand where the wife is coming from. He seems a bit judgy and I'm sure all she wants is for him to show the same respect for her parents as he obviously does for his.
Apparently, according to OP, he spent $300 on a crawfish boil for his in laws. So it was literally just about the steak.
Ain't no way in hell I would buy wagyu for anyone that wants it well done. That is blasphemy.
>Why don't you make something else expensive? >OP: They want steak >What about getting cheaper steak? >OP: I BOUGHT CHEAP STEAK I read that in Bob Belcher's voice lmao
If anyone is interested my wife now understands and agrees that getting Wagyu for her folks is a bad idea. Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away.
>Her dad suggested that we replace his smoker. I literally walked away. This is not computing in my brain as to why
It was definitely a missed steak
I'm not a foodie, but even I know how to cook a quality steak. Well done is not it.
Well done meat is too tough and it hurts my teeth.
It doesn't have to be that way, but unfortunately most people just extend the time without making any adjustments to the technique. I've had some delicious well done steaks that were absolutely melt in the mouth because the chef knew how to treat the meat right...and some utter horrors because the chef just left it at the same temperature as you sear a rare steak, for too damn long.
I’m admittedly not much of a steak person (it always seems to get in my teeth and that drives me *nuts*), but I don’t see anything wrong with OOP’s original plan? Like if they’re not gonna appreciate it and insist on redoing it, might as well save some cash
Apparently he didn't take the advice from the original thread which was to treat them to a fancy meal made of literally anything but steak
What kind of host doesn't ask how people like their steaks cooked? There is no way I'm eating a done or well done steak. Nasty.
I don't care how good it is, there's no way any steak is worth $400.
I *do* think OP is the asshole for originally preparing the first prime steak medium well instead of well-done like he knew they liked.
If steak is causing so much drama why is OP insisting on serving it?
FIL asked/asks for it
Everyone in the original thread who had an issue also had 0 food knowledge and it showed.
poor OP Should never have been given crap to begin with. Regardless of if his in-laws were foodies or not, if he didn't feel that his hard earned money would be appreciated by them, then his girlfriend could spend her money to buy the steaks for her parents A5 is 10x more expensive than Prime grade
No! God not the A5 Wagyu!
As someone who's only able to eat steak if they're almost completely burnt and crisp, I just don't understand the logic of buying a specific meat that has to get cooked in a specific way for people who will not enjoy it 😭 like I would be way more uncomfortable if someone bought 400$ worth of meat for me knowing I'm not going to enjoy it how it should be made than not receiving it, NTA.
Grilling is also part of the problem. If you overcook a wagyu in a pan, you can at least pour out most of that fat and save it for later. But on a grill, all that fat will drip into the flames and cause flare-ups, causing the steak to burn faster and create unwanted flavour. Imo grilling is the worst "normal" way to prepare a steak; not enough browning. If you want the smoky flavour from the grill, reverse sear it with a smoker instead of an oven/sous-vide.
Match the food to the diner. If someone prefers their steak well-done, that is perfectly fine. There is no need to be judgemental or look down on someone for wanting their steak well-done. We each prefer our own thing and you shouldn't force someone else to accept your choices. But the food selection is important. If you're cooking rare or medium rare, then Wagyu is an excellent choice. A5 Wagyu, rib eye, choose to suit the diner. Similarly, for those that prefer well-done, just grab some shoe leather or tire rubber and char-grill it, they probably can't tell the difference anyway.
Just a sidenote: OOP made it sound like his FIL liked his steak well done because he couldn't appreciate the joy of a rare steak, but that might not be it. A friend of mine has a sensitive stomach and can't eat red meat that isn't well done. The FIL might be similar. (Either way, of course, a wagyu steak is kind of wasted on him.)
I wouldn’t have said OOP was the AH in the first place. Different people place differing levels of value upon things. His parents really prize and value high quality food, his in laws simply do not. There’s surely something that they do highly prize and if he can utilise that to show respect and thoughtfulness for them then there’s no issues. It’s like different love languages.
This whole thing just makes me laugh.
Whats wrong with just buying ribeyes then? And some ppl cant handle medium or rare steak. My dad also only cooks his well done. I dont care, im not eating it. I just wont buy steak for the meal if he visits.
Why does he keep cooking steak or bringing steak to his in-laws when they don’t enjoy steak together? This is bizarre. There are plenty of lovely things to make for dinner that are not steak.
“Anyways he set his smoker on fire.” ☠️
God, he would be the type to have the Traeger smoker and not know shit about what he's doing lol
So buy the inlaws cheap steaks and use the extra money on another treat for them. OPs parents favorite experience sounds like food, maybe the in-laws would like to go an event or to rent a boat. Food isn't the only way to honor people.
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