The Oatmeal vs. SOPA

Raunchy? Yes.
Of questionable taste? Of course.
Attention-grabbing? Absolutely.

It's The Oatmeal, after all.
It's also Very Important.
Tell everyone.

( Animated GIF of cute furry animals... which is not child-safe. )

For the carnivores: Kenji does it again

I am, at this moment, cooking a steak for my lunch.

The stove is not on, nor is the oven. The grill is cold. No microwave is involved. Yet I am assured of delicious, tender steak before the end of the next half-hour.

The secret is sous-vide. And Kenji, bless his foodie heart, figured out how to easily (and cheaply!) perform sous-vide in an ice chest.

No, I'm not kidding. I pulled out the standard-size ice chest, filled it with a combination of hot tap water and boiling water, and put two gallon ziplocs full of a chuck cross-rib roast (sliced into one-inch-thick steaks) into it, along with the attendant garlic, pepper, thyme, and rosemary. With the probe telling me the water was a comfortable 136F, I put the lid on, and it's been sitting there for about a half-hour. It can continue to sit all afternoon if I need it to.

I've done this before a year or so ago, with a standard chuck steak. The cheaper and tougher the meat, the better it turns out. And boy, is it worth it, to have melt-in-your-mouth seasoned steak for $2.99/pound. I'll freeze what I don't eat today, as it's easy to thaw and sear it later.

There's just something so delightfully wrong about getting excellent steak by putting a very cheap cut in warm water and ignoring it. The only reason I don't do it more often is the hassle of pulling out and filling the ice chest... which is really not much of an obstacle. Hmm.