i should have known better

I've mentioned that I rarely buy food at Costco. I simply don't trust them. It's not that I never buy anything there, it's just that, normally, I'm super-cautious and don't expect much. Still, I almost always look.

Given my usual caution, I don't know what I was thinking today. I saw some beautiful T-bone steaks. Seriously, they were beautiful, and we are not even T-bone fans. I carefully selected an especially nice package of two steaks which weighed a little more than 3 pounds. I was thinking grand, fun-filled BBQ and leftovers. I was really kind of jazzed.

When we got home, I quickly went to the steaks to salt and refrigerate them, my usual routine. That's when I noticed the small print, explaining they had been "blade tenderized" and should be cooked to a minimum temperature of 180F for safety. Geez! 180! That's a joke, right? Even GK, who eats well-done meat, wouldn't want a steak cooked to that temperature. I, personally, am a rare meat fan. I'll tolerate medium-rare if I have to, but I don't relish the thought. 180F, no way.

Still, I do not feel bound to follow labels where safety is concerned. This label was a different situation. You can easily bring the temperature of the outside of a large piece of meat, like a steak, to a very high temperature, well over 180F without overcooking the interior. At least if a careless food industry has not poked holes all through it, you can. Blade tenderization stabs meats in mass, introducing the likelihood of bacteria being moved from the surface inward. The result is a bit like ground meat in terms of safety issues.

So now I'm sulking and trying to talk GK into taking the damn things back.