No Frills, Just Food.

Picture a town that seems like a set out of a wild western film.  Add cars and electricity, and you have Leadville, Colorado.  Leadville is about 100 miles southwest of Denver.  I've traveled to Colorado twice to ski in the Frisco area.  Part of the ritual of skiing in Colorado has been traveling to Leadville with my Aunt, Uncle and a local friend to visit the town.  If you'd like to learn about the lead boom of the 19th century that the city got its name from, there's a small museum you can visit to learn about the rough-and-tough history of a classic wild-west town.  But the real reason why we visit this dot on a map is for one reason:  Quincy's Steaks and Spirits. 

Quincy's is a no frills restaurant.  From Sundays through Thursdays, Quincy's offers one item: filet mignon.  Friday and Saturday? Prime rib.  Along with these items, you get a baked potato, a salad, and bread.  That's it.  It is no place for a vegetarian.  The first time I ate at Quincy's I asked for barbecue sauce with my prime rib.  "No barbecue sauce here, the only thing you we have is horseradish."  I quickly discovered that even the horseradish was unnecessary, as the prime rib was juicy, tender; a meat lover's dream.

Upon reading about beefsteaks in "All You Can Eat for Five Bucks," thoughts of Quincy's instantly entered my mind.  The still pink steaks (the only way to eat a steak), liver and bacon, kidneys and beer sounded like heaven to me.  That is my kind of meal!  Like Quincy's, these beefsteaks weren't focused on the presentation of the food, they were simply focused on the food itself.  For me, that's what the perfect meal is like.  Not having to worry about getting messy, using your fingers; you know, all of the things your mother told you not to do when you were a kid.  I understand that not everyone enjoys this kind of meal.  But for me, this primal meal is the ultimate.  And that is why I was so disinterested with the articles on French cooking.

I appreciate the effort that chefs make in order to present their cooking in a beautiful way.  This isn't just a French idea either, as American cooks, British cooks, and many other cooks do the same thing.  But ultimately, it's all going to be in my stomach at the end of the meal, so why does it matter?  It seemed to me that a lot of the focus on French cooking was focused on as much of the presentation as the quality of the food.  I only have a small exposure to French cooking, but I think that it's pretty good.  But I just don't agree with some of the principles.  For example, in "Is There a Crisis in French Cooking?", the author reflects on French cooking: "whenever we make a classic sauce, everybody gathers around and argues about it.  Once, we got into a two-hour argument about whether you use chervil as well as tarragon in a true béarnaise" (78).  Don't spend two hours arguing about it, just make the damn thing! 

I know that I'm still a somewhat-naive 19 year-old who will learn to appreciate the presentation of food later in my life or the importance of long arguments about dishes, but for now, I don't care. Today I hunger for the messy meals like beefsteaks or steaks from Quincy's.