Steak Tartare… I am very sorry!
Not a Steak Tartare recipe! We’re not doing that…
Alright, every now and then something happens. Not just something like… putting your coat on in the morning, I refer rather to something like going out, buying a tartar steak, getting home, opening the box with the steak and thinking that what you ordered was not really what you wanted to order. 
So, it started with Ana getting sick. Just a cold, nothing extraordinary. Well, it may be extraordinary for her because, as she puts it, she never caught a cold in Portugal (as compared to getting a cold three or four times a year in Italy). In the Czech Republic it might be the first time she caught a cold so far. And, since Christmas is near, we don’t yet have a Christmas tree (again, yet), and she is a bit sick, she said she longed for a good beef steak. Remember this, because it contains all my later drive.
Some days after, while returning from work I had an idea. Men have all sorts of funny ideas. Some times they are good, other times they should just remain ideas, you know, like in “unfulfilled”. My idea was to get my lady a nice, ‘juicy’ beef steak.
So, after getting back from work I rushed to a restaurant which we sometimes go to and asked for the menu after telling the hostess I wanted to get a take-away. Then, I was left alone with the menu, which again, was a very imprudent thing on my behalf, to hog the menu all to myself and not ask for directions. Again, I am a man, so I don’t have to explain much that we have a peculiar way of learning. If it’s not trial and error, you’re cheating, and men don’t cope well with cheating. See Casino for a better understanding of things. So, I had the menu, but the offer of beef steak was not incredible. Out of the two possible beef related steaks, I got the one without peppers (capsicum): steak tartare. Little did I know, or rather ‘little did I remember’ that this – well, technically it doesn’t even count as a steak now, does it?? - steak was featured in some Mr. Bean show. So, I waited 15 minutes to have the steak, probably for the side dish to be ready: grilled vegetables – very, very nice… I had said I didn’t get the other type of steak because it had peppers. Of course, I didn’t bother to ask if the grilled vegetables included peppers or not. As I was about to find out, once back home, they did.
I always had my doubts, probably always will, regarding eating raw meat. But opening the box and revealing the raw egg on top of the… yes, you guessed it, minced, raw beef… was appalling. Of course, Ana wanted to have it cooked. So it became a sort of burger which she eventually ate.
Reiteration (in steps):
1. Ana says she would like a nice, juicy steak.
2. Dan thinks about getting Ana her desired nice, juicy steak.
3. Dan goes to a restaurant and checks the menu.
4. Dan orders something which looks like the perfect steak for Ana.
5. Dan gets home victorious (he starts to be slightly afraid… something in the boxes smells of peppers).
6. Moment of truth. The boxes are opened: Dan returned home with a handful of minced raw meat with a raw egg on top of it that obviously Ana hates and a side dish that Ana hates as well.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
