No matter what happens, they won't be able to stop you from grilling with your loved ones in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
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I can't stop eating filet.
My father shared with me that my great-uncle Sam loved this cut. Every week, he would buy a generous cut of beef and roast it over hot coals in the Blue Ridge of old Virginia, where Robert E. Lee and others had once been. If only Sam could see me now. Set next to a charcoal smoker, in the tall grass behind the brick house where I grew up, the sirloin steak became my weekly ritual.
I like to eat it twice a week if I can find the time to drive 30 minutes to the nearest grocery store. Once on the weekend, like my great uncle did, and then again during the week, cooked on stainless steel. It always turns out better on the grill. My approach is simple: I look for the fattiest cut I can find at the store and buy that. I like to marinate it and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours, then take it out an hour before grilling to let it come to room temperature.
My marinade is pretty simple: Worcestershire sauce, A1, salt, pepper, and Dijon mustard to bind everything together. I’ve been listening to a lot of Jason Molina lately. The Ohio rocker, who drank himself to death at age 39, makes the perfect musical backdrop for moments like these. Magnolia Electric Co., his seventh and latest studio album, sounds as powerful as Pall Mall cigarettes in the background as I stand at the grill.
I spent time with my dad on Saturday. We’re landscaping — building fences, taking down bricks, and creating a wooden bridge across the ravine that runs through the property. I grew up a stone’s throw from Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown and have always felt a connection to the land, but it’s only now, as I approach 40, that I’ve begun to truly appreciate this area. My friends keep sharing stories about their therapists. The only therapy anyone needs here is sun, grass, and work. Lots of work.
I can’t stop thinking about racing. Thoroughbreds, saddlebreds, racehorses, you name it. On the way to Tractor Supply, my dad tells me a story about Secretariat. I know it by heart, but I still ask him to fill me in on the details. Born in the meadows of Caroline County, Virginia, Secretariat was everything you could want in a champion: a relentless drive, a powerful motor, and a truly poetic presence on the dirt track. When Big Red passed away at 19, he left behind nearly 250 horses, but none of them could match his greatness. How could they?
Secretariat’s death was linked to laminitis, a painful and debilitating disease of the hooves. When Dr. Thomas Swerczek, chief pathologist at the University of Kentucky, performed the autopsy, he was stunned by what he found. “We just stood there in shocked silence,” Swerczek recalled. “We couldn’t believe it. The heart was perfect. There was nothing wrong with it. It was just a huge engine.” Although Secretariat’s heart was never formally measured, it has become legendary for what horse industry experts call the “X-factor” — the extraordinary quality that distinguishes champions. The stuff of giants. The stuff that inspires movies. (Well, the good ones, anyway.) Secretariat was buried whole. You don’t do that for horses. But Secretariat wasn’t just a horse.
Sourse: theamericanconservative.com
