Trina Machacek: Prime rib

When I graduated high school my parents took me out to dinner. Just the two of them and me. It apparently, as I look back at it now, was supposed to be something special. To them it probably was, to me it was just weird. I mean I have a brother and a sister and this dinner was without them as they had moved on with their lives somewhat. So a graduation celebration of dinner out was just three instead of five and it was weird.

Not just because of the number around the table but it was at what was considered THE dinner place in our small town at that time and the specialty was prime rib. I had never had prime rib since my usual out to dinner was usually with my friends at the local drive-in having a momma cheese with mustard and ketchup and a medium milk so no, prime rib was not a known commodity familiar to my 17-year-old taste buds. So mom did the ordering for me or I would have had the hamburger and fries.

Two things I learned from this dinner so long ago. First I do not like prime rib. I mean, come on, it is served wallowing a juice that even though the lights were low in the dining room I could see it was red and it was a mess to eat and the meat was rare and it was like chewing gum that I had to swallow. Second, my parents loved me. So that second thing took precedence over the fact that the meal in itself wasn’t wonderful to me. My dad, I’m very sure liked it because there was a bar.

I don’t know too much about other states and the “specials” offered at restaurants but in Nevada prime rib dinners are a common highly desired dinner. You can get a casino special for anywhere from $9.99 to 150 bucks and up. Depending on the ambiance you are trying to achieve. And for that I can’t thank all the gamblers out there enough because my taxes reflect that fun and frolic of all the visitors coming to our wonderful Nevada for the prime rib specials and the gambling. I return the same to you when I travel to your state. Tit for tat you know.

Since that first try at eating prime rib I’ve even learned to cook one encased in salt. About seasoning and times and temperatures and cool stuff from a chef from the Nugget in Sparks. That meeting was a fluke and because of it the prime ribs I cook always come out perfectly and my guests love it. From that I learned this. I still do not like it, But! Yes a prime cut of a “but.” HAHA. But I do like the end cut enough to be hospitable and the best thing for me are the rib bones!

All that aside here is where I really want to go. Why oh why do people like horseradish. Plain or mixed in with sour cream to make a “sauce.” I do not understand what the pull is to eat something that has the distinct possibility to smack you in the back of the head until your eyeballs spin like the reels of a quarter slot machine. Not to mention that the taste is not as wonderful as say pineapple upside down cheese cake. I am in the minority here. Like my DNA says when I taste cilantro, it tastes like soap to me. Must be something like that about horseradish too. No I don’t have any science to back that one up, but for the cilantro there is research. Why? Who on earth knows?

There are and will always be things we will not agree on and taste is a big one. It took a few years for my other half to get me to try sour cream. I dug in my heals of the thought of eating it because of the name, “sour cream.” Yuck. He finally put a little dollop on a potato and I smooched my face up. Well now I put the silly stuff on tons of things. The name of stuff also has a lot to do with choice. Like calamari. I would not have tried calamari if the menu touted a basket of fried squid served with a spiced Chipotle sauce. But since it was listed as calamari and I like seafood and didn’t know exactly what it was and it was listed next to the basket-o-shrimp I thought, “OK, must be good!” And it was delicious. But as squid? No way!

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram or at itybytrina@yahoo.com