Editor’s Note: Now that the Mac Showers book is out, I have been turning my attention to my Attache cookbook, a compilation of never-fail recipes that have served military/diplomatic remerging culinary needs when the spouse announces the Poles or the Ukrainians are stopping by for cocktails. Point Loma hits on something important here about an entirely new trend in gastronomy: delivery grub. Interesting times.Wagyu is for real.
– Vic

Wagyu

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Who Doesn’t Like a Good Hunk of Beef?

In keeping with the many themes Vic has established here, I’m going to choose one of them I haven’t really tried my writing hand at before – and that is extolling the virtues of food.

I like good grub, and this is the fucking best. A lot of people out there, mostly lib-tard vegans, enjoy scolding you about eating meat – it is bad for you. And even worse, it contributes to climate change and is killing the planet – smug self-satisfied bastards they are. Well, if I’m going to go out, then I want it to be after a romantic evening after I’ve shared a great meal featuring Wagyu beef, washed down with a good bottle of cheap red vino while listening to Frank Sinatra croon, and a pleasurable night-time encounter with my better half. IMHO, we don’t need more cow bell as much as we need more cow farts.

Wagyu, aka Kobe beef, is special. Here’s a good definition of it from a Google search on Wikipedia. Since I can’t write it any better, this is a direct lift:

“Kobe beef is Wagyu beef from the Tajima strain of Japanese Black cattle, raised in Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture according to rules set out by the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association. The meat is a delicacy, valued for its flavor, tenderness, and fatty, well-marbled texture. Kobe beef can be prepared as steak, sukiyaki, shabu-shabu, sashimi, and teppanyaki. Kobe beef is generally considered one of the three top brands, along with Matsusaka beef and Ōmi beef or Yonezawa beef.”

Legend has it that these bovine delicacies are raised in comfortable harnesses, fed beer, and hand massaged every day. It must be a great life to be a Kobe beef steer, up until the point that they kill you. Oh, the Umami.
I first encountered Kobe beef during my first liberty call in Japan in 1983. Knightrider squadron mates Harry O, Moff, and I conducted a 400-mile bullet-train Alpha Strike from Sasebo into the heartland of Honshu to Kyoto, and then travelled from there down to Kobe and Osaka. We were on a quest for Kobe beef, and asked a friendly English-speaking Japanese cab driver at our hotel to drive us to the best Kobe beef place. He took us on a winding journey up one of the mountainous hills overlooking the Inland Sea, ironically the location from which the Kido Butai staged its raids on Pearl Harbor and Midway.

We were treated as honored gaijins for even finding the place, and enjoyed a sumptuous Kobe beef rib eye dinner with all of the fixings. I can’t remember what it cost; a butt load – but it was worth it. Funny thing is that it was a long time after that before I enjoyed noshing on Kobe or Wagyu beef again until it started to become mainstreamed by American cattle growers just a few years ago. Now, it is starting to become available in some places – but still hideously expensive if you are counting your pennies. Not a lib-tard treat, or at least one they will admit to.

Outside of some restaurants, the only places I have found Wagyu beef here is in the form of Bubba Burgers carried by our local commissary in Annapolis, or on-line. I was introduced to Bubba Burgers by my former JO Garth back in Key West 15 years ago, and they have continued to expand their varieties and now this. It’s a great way to experience the Wagyu beef experience at relatively low cost – I keep them stocked in the freezer:

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Wagyu Bubba Burgers

Other ways of obtaining the Wagyu taste sensation is to find a good butcher shop, or go on-line. Both are costly, if you have the stomach to pay for it. I haven’t gone the butcher shop route yet, but I have found a fine on-line supplier. Several months ago, there was a piece on Yahoo Finance that went viral about hotdogs that tasted like steak. Intrigued, I followed up on it and found the KC Cattle Company, at URL:
www.kccattlecompany.com.

I immediately placed an order for a couple of packs of their Wagyu beef dogs and two days later, received an apologetic e-mail from good guy owner and Army vet Patrick, who said they had been overwhelmed by the volume of interest and demand, and that the order would be delayed – in my case up to six weeks; well worth the wait.
KC Cattle is a SDVOSB, and of course only employs service-disabled vets. Now faced with an insatiable clientele, Patrick had to hire more people, find more Wagyu beef suppliers, and has stepped up to the plate with his product now being a sought-after commodity. I followed up that initial hot dog order with one for steaks – all good stuff. I like the idea of supporting a SDVOSB while indulging my now strongly addictive vice.

Normally, I try to unveil a stirring, gut-punch tag line at the end of these pieces. I don’t think I really have one here, except maybe it’s about choices, good and bad. When you are starting out in your career in the military or as a civilian and still single, then the world is your oyster – anything is possible. Unless you are independently wealthy and can buy your way out of adverse life situations and otherwise write-off bad decisions, then reality and the undeniable, inevitability of time starts to close in on you – especially after you get married. While that’s okay for a while, life is never ever the same after you have kids – your choices become extremely limited. I’ve managed to survive all of that, and now that I have achieved a small modicum of retirement income stability and Social Security eligibility, I find I can afford a few of the finer gastronomic things of life. So, I choose Wagyu, because I can.

I remain your faithful servant.

Copyright 2019 Point Loma
www.vicsocotra.com