Family Dinner: Steakhouse

The Spread

My wife and I have a New Years Eve tradition of beginning our evening and ending our year at the charming and extremely old school Five O'Clock Steakhouse here in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  The first year we went, my wife and I were having a conversation where my last name came up.  The bartender heard my last name and turned on a dime. "Ciaccio, are you a... you are a Ciaccio!" Suffice to say, my dad's genetics run pretty strong. Almost as if he was transported back in time, the jovial bartender sized me up immediately recalled the young lobster killer under the employ of the steakhouse way back in the mid-eighties. That was my dad, and almost three decades later I was eating at the restaurant which probably hasn't changed a stitch since the days when my father cooked in it.

The charm was undeniable. I wanted to put it in a bubble and bring it home and walk in to it every time I felt like ravaging my body with red meat and stiff drinks.  This past Sunday we did the next best thing.  We opened up the month of March with a mock steakhouse.  I got home half-drunk from the Rockabilly Chili Contest (by way of designated driver because i'm responsible like that) and busted out a pretty damn good caesar salad while listening to generic big band music to put me in the mood. My wife picked out some big fat white anchovies on sale so we used those instead of the delicious but dubious looking filets traditionally used. What initially looked like an immersion blender resistant disaster ended up being a rich and appropriately indulgent dressing.

Joining my salad in the not-at-all-healthy arterial onslaught was a selection of other steakhouse classics. My sister quick pickled some asparagus, onions and beets. Asparagus and mushrooms (stuffed and sautéed) joined a bowl of bacon and brussels sprouts on the table to complete the vegetables who's nutritional value had been destroyed but who's taste had been substantially enhanced. There was also an uncharacteristic bowl of potato salad that actually rounded out the meal quite well, but categorizing potato salad as vegetable is as insane as categorizing pizza as a vegetable. These family dinners are usually exclusively a potluck affair but since it isn't fair to ask someone to be the guy who brings fifteen rib eyes, everyone brought their own steak.

After a few hours of typically debauched and immature conversation the night came to it's close. The smaller than usual crowd filed out and left me to my house. My sinuses were packed with chili and my brain was floating on cheap wine, so my once noble intention of doing the requisite two and a half hours of dishes that come with hosting any dinner party decided to wait for Monday morning. The one downside of the evening is, for whatever reason, my bedroom captured basically every single molecule of meat smoke that filled the ear when the steak was getting cooked so I basically felt like I was going to sleep inside one of those masculine scented Yankee Candles. This might sound like a good thing at first, but ask yourself if "cooked beef" is really a scent you would categorize as "soothing".  At least my dogs slept well.