How to Cook a Steak in the Oven

I'm that juicy hunk of rib eye your landlord (the one who wears too much perfume and dresses like a parrot) won't allow you to grill over an open flame on your patio because of last year's "incident." You can't eat a steak that's as cold as your cats' love for you, but you can't bring yourself to fire me up in the oven . . . or can you?

As President Obama said, "Yes. You. Can!"

Rearrange your oven racks. You want your broiler tray near the top. Preheat on broil for 10 minutes, just enough time to jump online and stalk your ex, who rejected you because things got "too real."

After you poke your ex on Facebook, drain the blood from me and pat me dry. Grab that knife Mom threatened you with when you quit college. Trim away any fat from my perimeter.

Get a bowl from your cabinet. Pour two tablespoons of oil into it. Vegetable oil works best. Motor oil's just stupid.

Add a teaspoon of black pepper to the bowl.

Grab a clean paintbrush from that art room you never use. It's next to that workout station covered in cobwebs and dust (you don't keep your New Years resolutions, do you?). Dip the brush into the bowl and paint a nice coat over me. Get all the sides.

Activate a burner on your stove, full heat. Put a skillet on it. Let it get hot while you obsess about that tasteless joke you made at your last office party, and how no one in accounting made eye contact with you since.

Toss me into the skillet for a minute. Flip me. Another minute. Get me out of there. The idea is to flash-cook my sides, create a shell that will lock in the flavorful juices hidden inside me like the incurable loneliness hidden inside you.

Put me in your broiler tray and your broiler tray in your oven. You want me to sunbathe about seven inches from the broiler element.

Cook until you achieve the desired level of doneness (Bloody. You want to eat me while I'm bloody and beautiful). Remember to turn me over after you triple check to see if your ex responded to your Facebook poke (she didn't).

Now open up a bottle of dry, red wine and take a walk to the nearest cow pasture. Eat me in front of my parents. Make eye contact with them.

Author’s note: the release dates for my blogs, as you might’ve noticed, turned all topsy-turvy this week.

I spent last weekend at an Army Reserve base in Cape Coral, Florida, and that pretty much smashed my schedule against the wall. This comes as something of an embarrassment, given my recent advice at Darkwana.blogspot.com, where I stressed the importance of a strict schedule for your blogs.

Expect my blogs to suffer, for the remainder of this week, a shuffling of release dates.

“Between a Grizzly and Her Cub” will continue. Promise. We have only another three chapters to go.

Thanks for reading! (Oh, and Google +? Fix my damn account, already. I can't post jack.)