My butcher does dry aged beef, so I don't have to. It comes ready to cook. The carcass hangs for 10-20 days. It is the skill of the butcher to know when enough is enough. I have aged beef in my own fridge that was too "green" in flavor, and that helped to make the meat edible. I simply put it in a pan to catch the drips and left it in the butcher paper and set it on the shelf for a week. The majority of the flavor you are going to get from beef is a combination of genetics and how the beef was raised. The skill of the butcher also comes into it. None of the above is going to be purchased at the super market, where you will be getting massed produced and quick processed meat. Try looking for custom butchers and call and see if they have a meat market. You have a better chance of getting good meat there, and it will already be aged. (expect to pay more)

Christmas of 2005 I volunteered to do The Dinner for 10 extended adult family members; I planned a relatively simple meal & it should have been a breeze. Christmas morning, DH's nephew decides that his vegan girlfriend can join us after all - terrific, I'm serving tenderloin & the stores are closed so where do I get vegan food for someone I've never met. SIL saved the day by bringing trophy sized shrimp for appetizers & we saved some for her entree. First crisis averted. Then everyone (except me & SIL who are scurrying like rats to get food ready) are in the greatroom/kitchen drinking, eating shrimp & opening presents & DH cuts his finger on a new pocket knife. Blood is flying & about the same time, a bowl of vinagrette gets knocked out of the frig sending an oily mess everywhere. Finally, dinner is ready & everyone is seated. I plated & served the 1st course of oyster stew with the last 2 bowls given to an elderly lady & myself. I guess most of the pepper had settled to the bottom of the pot & we got the dregs; she choked on the pepper & had a huge coughing spell. Next, the entree was put on the table & it wasn't until later that I realized that I placed a huge platter of very rare tenderloin directly in front of the vegan! In the meantime, I went to pour red wine only to find that DH & his BIL had drunk all except 1 bottle of the good stuff, leaving the rest of us with an amount equal to communion. We decided to take a break before dessert & DH went to the basement to feed the dogs while everyone was settling in the living area. We waited, & waited, & he didn't come back. Finally, I went downstairs & found out that he had passed out on the couch & was dead to the world. That was the last time I've done Christmas Dinner for a crowd. I have no plans for future Yule festivities for this bunch, either. I just remembered: on his way out, BIL missed the step down to the public sidewalk & broke a bottle of port.

Here's a recipe which I have worked up for my dehydrator; it makes terrific jerky. Please note that it is used to dry and flavor the beef, and it is NOT cured; that is, I don't know if it will be safe to store this stuff at room temperature or not. I keep the product in the freezer anyway. I've never used an oven to dry the stuff, although I suppose you could if it came down to a low temp. At any rate, this recipe is a good starting point: Guinness Beef Jerky Marinade (This amount of marinade is sufficient for about 5 to 6 pounds of beef, which I find fill my eight dehydrator trays fairly full.) 6 lbs lean beef, sliced thinly--see Note 1 2 bottles (12-14 oz each) Guinness Stout 2 tablespoons kosher salt 2 tablespoons garlic powder 2-4 tablespoons hot stuff (see Notes 2 and 3) optional: liquid smoke, 1 to 2 tbsp In a large bowl pour stout and add salt, whisking to dissolve salt and decarbonate the stout. Add the garlic powder and hot stuff and mix well. Put the beef strips in the marinade by handfuls, swirling around to make sure all surfaces have come in contact with the marinade. Place the beef in a nonreactive container (a stainless stockpot works fine, pour the remaining marinade over the beef and refrigerate for at least an hour (more is better, mixing the beef strips every so often in the pot) Place the strips flat on the trays and dry until done. Note 1: I like to use round roast because it's very lean; eye of round is very easy to slice across the grain, and that yields a less stringy product. Don't use a fatty cut because it won't dry as thoroughly and won't have the storage properties of a leaner cut. Note 2: I have used chipotle powder with good results; 4 tablespoons in this recipe makes a quite hot product, and 2 tbsp makes a pleasantly zingy one. If you want something quite mild, use sweet paprika which would make a product not at all hot but with pleasant flavor. Note 3: The last batch I made, I used a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce instead of the tablespoons of hot stuff, blended in the blender until smooth, then I added the other ingredients and blended until mixed. Worked great, although next time I will cut back a little on the salt. I prefer to dry it fairly dry and store it in several small (1 qt) ziploc bags in the freezer, transferring one bag at a time to the fridge from which I take a piece or two at a time to snack on. None of it has ever gone bad storing it that way.

I have bashed my previous kitchens' oak cabinets but only because they were the awful pickled kind (not put in by us!). In our first kitchen, I liked everything but the finish on our cabs. The layout was nice, the size was good and even the seafoam green laminate did not bother me. I love the size and amount of the cabs. Dh liked the house instantly because of the cathedral ceilings, skylights, open layout, etc... I liked everything but the kitchen cabs and knew they were in too good of shape to justify taking them out. So, I dealt with them for 7 years and would probably still be dealing with them now 6 years later. In our current house, the pickled oak cabs were small, the surface was wearing poorly, the layout was wrong and there were no pullouts or anything functional about them. When the pickled finish starts to wear on oak, it is a sorry sight to see. Other materials develop patina and character, while pickled oak looks diseased with age. I have seen nice kitchens done with oak and may even consider one someday if we were to move (God forbid, after all the effort put in here, lol). I have also seen ones done poorly and done as the cliche of "builder's oak". I also feel that way about some of the new materials that all builders in our area are using (and I do mean "all"). Those kitchens look alike and all are brown wood with beige tumbled travertine, St Cecilia granite or similar, Tuscan type accents and a yellow/gold wall paint. In a few years, people around here will be bashing the heck out of those. Remember the laminate cabs with the oak strip on the bottom? They went from fabulous to hideous pretty quickly in popular opinion from the 80s to the 90s. See anyone using them lately? Oak just needs some time until it becomes retro enough to be cool. Most things come back in time. Just be patient, and you will be ahead of the curve again ;)