a steak 'n' shake waiter's prophesy + damn good lamb chops
If I close my eyes, I can picture the cracked red-leather stool at the Steak ‘n’ Shake counter where I sat once a week for most of my childhood, spinning in circles and swinging my legs as I waited, antsy, for lunch. I can see the cooks in their white paper hats, lined up behind the griddle, singing and laughing and sweating all together. I can hear the sizzle of beef as they smash it from uniform, pink discs into crispy-edged patties.
In this memory, there’s a waiter, the guy who manned the whole counter, sliding plates from here to there and plunking heavy milkshakes in front of expectant eyes. I’m sure he was there every Saturday when my dad, brother and I turned up for burgers, matchstick-thin fries and chocolate shakes. Everything about those weekend meals was routine: the same order, the same cashier, the same spot at the counter as long as we could snag it.
But one Saturday in the early ’90s sticks out from the comfortable monotony, when this kind, laughing man watched me lift the bun of my burger and dump salt, then move on to my fries. “Sweetie,” he told me, “you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.”
My dad laughed. I’m sure I said something about how old people have heart attacks, not kindergarteners. All I knew was I loved the tang of salt on my tongue, how it made the too-mild American cheese come alive. I kept on salting — but the older I got, the louder the waiter’s words echoed in the back of my mind.
Thirty years after that salty steakburger, I’ve so far proven him wrong. I’ve evolved, too. I like to think my taste buds have become discerning enough to know a griddled burger (or any burger done right), doesn’t need a blizzard of salt. Nor does a basket of corn chips at a Mexican restaurant. (I salted those, too, when my family wasn’t looking.) I still love the stuff and use it liberally when I cook, and if there’s anything that might deter me, it’s not doctors’ warnings or nutrition labels; it’s still the man at the counter in the pointy white hat whose words give me pause.
Recently, after years of using Samin Nosrat’s “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” for recipes, I started reading it cover-to-cover, and I’m gradually coming to terms with the reality that salt isn’t just a nasty habit of mine. Samin (I feel like I know her after reading the book, so to hell with it; I’m calling her by her first name) takes readers through the science behind salting and swears that even copious amounts of salt in home cooking pale in comparison to what we eat in restaurants. She also points out how essential salt is to basic human life, so maybe my salty burger was really just primitive survival.
These days, I do far less salting of already-cooked food. But I’ve stopped flinching each time I’m told to drop a heaping handful of salt in a pot of boiling water, and I’m going nuts with meat, salting it a day before I cook it — or two, or three. Which brings me to…
Molly Baz’s yogurt-crusted lamb chops with charred lemons & sesame
I’ll get the big ol’ bummer out of the way up top: In accordance with the guiding principle of my professional existence — pay for content — I’m not sharing this recipe. If that picture has your stomach rumbling, go buy “Cook This Book” at your earliest convenience. You won’t regret it. I used it more than any other cookbook in 2021, and my boyfriend has figured out that any time the bright blue book comes off the shelf, I mean business.
Anyway, I made these lamb chops right after I finished the salt portion of “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” when I was feeling particularly jazzed about sodium chloride. I picked up a hunk of lamb at the butcher, came home, sliced the chops and got to salting a full 48 hours before I was planning to cook. I was most interested in the science experiment — checking the fridge every hour to see how long it would take for the lamb to hoover up the salt — and lost focus for a bit on the fact that this whole early-salting deal is designed to make meat taste better.
But did it ever. A day after salting (the crystals were long-absorbed by that point), I marinaded the lamb with a yogurt concoction, and then, finally, two days after I first took salt to meat, I seared. Seven minutes later, dinner was served.
It was anticlimactic, easy, another formerly intimidating meat demystified. It was also the best meal I’ve made all year — and the lamb wasn’t the least bit salty, just properly seasoned and begging to be gnawed off the bone.
Salted airplane floor
I can’t send this newsletter without sharing something I witnessed on an airplane last week: The woman next to me tore open her pack of Southwest-issued pretzels and methodically rubbed the salt off of each of them, showering the floor with tiny, opaque crystals. Then, even worse, she ate the saltless pretzels. I’m not sure what’s the greater sin: treating the plane like a giant garbage receptacle or eating pretzels so devoid of flavor.
More salty reading
If you, like I do, want to read everything ever written about salt, start here:
The Single Most Important Ingredient, Samin Nosrat for The New York Times
Science: When Should You Add Salt During Cooking?, Cooks Illustrated
Also love the baby pic💗
Loved this for all of its commentary 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻