Recently–and I know you’re not going to believe this–I had a bad customer service experience with the phone company. During the course of this, I had to wait on hold to speak to: The Loyalty Department. This is really what it was called.

I did get the problem resolved, but it made me realize that to your basic big company today, the word “loyalty” has come to mean “trying to force customers to stick with our product or store.”

That’s the idea behind supermarket loyalty cards: you flash your card every time, and you not only get the sale prices, but they tally all your spending at that store for special discounts down the line.

The usual critique of this practice is the privacy angle. As the sort of person who posts his family’s dinners on the web, I can’t say I honestly care who is tracking my supermarket spending. But I still hate loyalty cards, because they complicate what was a simple process. First, you have to make room for them in your wallet, and who among us can say that he has *extra* wallet space? Second, you have to fish around for the card, just to get the same sale price you used to get just because the universe loves you and wants you to save a dollar on milk. I’m ready to proceed to the part where they implant the loyalty chip in my head and scan it automatically as I approach the checkout.

So I was delighted to learn about a little tip that has made my shopping life easier. A couple weeks ago, I lost my QFC Advantage card, and around the same time I read somewhere (sadly, I forget where) that at the self-checkout lanes, you can use Safeway and QFC cards interchangeably. Sure enough–I haven’t bothered getting a new QFC card, because my Safeway card works fine. Presumably, every time I use it, it takes a photo of me, pastes “DISLOYAL” over it, and emails it to Kroger HQ.

This is no help at the regular checkout lanes–the swipe machine doesn’t accept the other store’s card. But you can punch in your phone number, or the made-up phone number you used when you got the card.

My wallet has never looked svelter.

It’s not like I have a free 16-ounce rib-eye steak for lunch every day, but today I made an exception.

It started when I wrote an article about buying meat at the farmers market. In it, I had a lot of nice things to say about the pork and not a lot of good to say about the beef, which overall I found lamby and dry:

> If you like corn-fed beef, you will taste grass-fed beef and wonder who stole your meat. Grass-fed beef is leaner, easier to overcook and more likely to taste livery.

Then, on Saturday, I was at the U District market. As I passed by the Skagit River Ranch stand, I saw that they’d posted a more recent article I’d written, one about lard. Then a guy bought some lard, right in front of me. I couldn’t resist. I asked him what he was going to do with the lard. (“I’m going to put it in the freezer next to my schmalz.”) Then I admitted that I wrote the article.

Eiko Vojkovich, who owns Skagit River Ranch and runs the stand on Saturdays, overheard me. “You’re Matthew? I need to talk to you.” Uh-oh. “You didn’t try my steak, did you?”

“No,” I admitted. I didn’t try her steak because I hardly ever eat steak, and for the meat article I wanted to stick to my usual cuts as much as possible. (I had tried Skagit’s chuck roast, and it was good, although the burger I made with it did taste like lamb.)

Vojkovich went on to explain that the meat from the other stand at the market is from dairy cows, and she wanted me to understand that good steaks come from good genes, and I was not going to be disappointed with a steak from one of her beef cattle. Then she reached into the cooler, pulled out a one-pound rib steak and handed to to me. “Here. On the house,” she said.

I am not supposed to accept freebies, and I made noises to that effect. But I could see in Eiko Vojkovich’s eyes that there was no *way* I was going to win this, and that if I tried to pay for the steak, I would risk being chased down the concourse and having my money thrown at me. Not that I put up much of a fight, admittedly. I don’t know how much they charge for rib steaks at Skagit, but it’s not far under $20 a pound.

Today I made the steak for lunch. I put on a lot of salt and pepper and seared it five minutes per side in a hot skillet. While the steak rested, I made a pan sauce with red wine, shallots, and some of the veal stock from Sea Breeze Farm, which turned out to be rich, gelatinous, and perfect. A pat of butter to mount the sauce, and it was lunchtime.

Really, I didn’t intend to eat the whole steak when I sat down, but suddenly it was gone. Vojkovich was right, of course. This is a no-compromise steak: grass-fed, with all of the environmental, nutritional, and humane goodness that implies, and with great texture and flavor. It helped that I cooked it perfectly medium-rare; usually I screw this up. There was a gaminess to the fattier portions that was much more pronounced than in a corn-fed steak, but I assume most people do as I do and leave the fattiest parts on the plate. (And I assume those who don’t are after a real animal experience anyway.) The only thing you don’t get in a steak like this is a low price–and good steaks are never cheap.

Sorry I didn’t try your steak earlier, Eiko.

Skagit River Ranch

Iris never gets so excited about any food as when I ask her to help me put it on pizza. This is because she knows I’ll let her get away with stuffing as much into her mouth as ends up on the pizza. (“I’m just tasting some,” is her standard line.)

My homemade Italian sausage is good, but I don’t know if it’s this good.

When it comes to growing plants, I’m worse than a black thumb. I think I have no thumb. This summer we seemed to be doing well. We had a vigorous pot of cilantro, grown from seed. Then I bragged about the great salsa I made with it, and of course it immediately died.

We have a sunflower that grew about six feet tall. We watched the head grow every day, and just when it seemed ready to open, the plant fell over and the incipient inflorescence broke off. I reattached it with duct tape, which Iris found very entertaining. It sort of opened, as it dried up.

All of this is kind of painful to watch. Even though I know full well that plants don’t have brains, it is hard to watch an organism try to carry out its genetic program but be thwarted at every turn by me.

Then there’s the bean plant. Iris planted this ornamental bean plant, and it grew a vine over the railing of our balcony. Like most everything we plant, it grew well for a while and then died, but before it did, it produced exactly one bean pod. I forgot about it until yesterday, when Iris and I were out blowing bubbles and I noticed it was still there, although the pod was now brown and paper-thin. “Let’s open it,” I said. Check this out, and be sure to click and zoom in for the large size:

I’m going to cook it in a tablespoon of chicken stock, with 1g of bacon for flavor.