"Would You Like A Menu . . . .

. . . . or have you eaten here before?”

Peter Luger’s has the best tasting steak in the world. I know it. Most New Yorkers know it. There are people all over the world who do too. I have been to Kansas City, Dallas, Chicago throughout the Midwest – eaten steaks there and in fact have had steak all over country and although I am not claiming to be expert I sure as hell know what I like. Of that I am certainly supremely qualified to rate publicly.

Holy Odin! I even had a pretty damned good piece of beef in Scandinavia – I think it was the year before last - when Myers R from Dallas – and I went to do some Big Book workshops in Denmark. I didn’t even know that Scandinavians knew how to serve charred cow that well.

God bless those Vikings!

Ruth’s Chris – in KC or Manhattan – Smith & Wollesnkys, The Palm, Jesse & Jims or where ever — I have eaten at the best restaurants in the world – beef - prepared by some of the finest chefs on earth - just ask them - and Peter Luger has mastered The Steak and is the best. The flavor cannot be reproduced anywhere else not even by Peter Luger staff themselves. You can use the same exact meat and same prep and cooking methods – you can even be the same chef – and if you try to make a steak anywhere else other than at Peter Luger’s – in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, you will not get the same result. You might geta nice piece of meat – you will not get a Peter Luger’s Porterhouse.

There is a reason for this and I know what it is.

The Peter Luger people know what it is too and I imagine that there are some food critics in the city who also know. Oh and by the way – it has nothing to do with how long it is aged — wet or dry aging — in plastic, not in plastic and all the rest of that fun but in this case irrelevant steak-house lore. Read this entire article and maybe I will let you in on the secret. Just maybe. I am bad – I know. Very bad.

So bad in fact that I am going to say some not so nice things about some people. This is not mere name calling. It is identifying traits of folks and I have no malicious though behind it – it is just that I cannot find better words to describe these folks. So please bear with me. You know, a slut is a slut is a slut and someone who is is stupid is stupid is stupid. AA is not a religion and all but a few disgruntled ex-members who probably never should have attempted to ever belong to the fellowship well know that.

They know it because AA has informed them that AA is not a religion – and has requested that it not be considered one.

Most people have the decency and respect to abide by AAs wishes. They know it because they are aware that AA encourages its members to go out and to discover their own religious denomination to which they can subscribe and belong – no religion can do that and still be religion itself. They know it because it is plain that if they were to call themselves ‘a religion’ and then folks came to AA looking for one, there would be mass disappointment with what they found there. There would be a million times the number of pissed off people looking for religions and couldn’t find one then there are those who never wanted one and who claims they ran into it in AA.

Man if you go to AA looking for a religious experience you are in for one great disappointment.

There are folk however who do not have the brain capacity to see beyond top layers of information around them – they have just enough natural curiosity to lift up the top layers of things – just enough to get their “Inspector Gadget” button but not smart enough to go any deeper than that.

These are the conspiracy theory types who are more impressed with themselves and by their own natural God given inquisitiveness than they are by the complete truth that they fall for the trap set by the spirit that holds their strings and who lives just out of sight – behind their own ignorance and ego.

They manage to squeeze a peek just under the surface and as the begin to climb in get stuck with one foot still planted on the outside – unable to ever get beyond that – they live somewhere in a limbo of ignorance and self absorbed non-intelligent intelligence. UFO people are like that. People who think that President Bush ordered two Boeings to suicide bomb themselves into the Twin Towers taking thousands of men, women and children with them – are like that.

The “AA-is-a-religion” people are like that too. They see only bogeymen in church basements. They ignore logical expression of intent and purpose and see things where those thinks do not exist. They see a column of smoke and assume that someone must have exploded a bomb. They smell beef cooking and assume someone is making hamburgers. They hear someone praying and assume that person must be a religious zealot. They see water and figure it must be raining.

All the while all that it was was simply the sous chef in the kitchen praying that he not get terminated from his job for burning the fillet Mignon and setting off the sprinkler system.

Their entire view of the world is so twisted and distorted – the are so impressed with their own inquisitiveness that that they cannot see far enough past the slightly obscured to make decisions in that world for themselves or for others that keep them even within “normal operating parameters, Captain”, Data on Star Trek might say.

They are as likely to go to Benihana for a steak as they are to the Airport Diner for Kushikatsu. They wouldn’t know where to get a good steak or even know that there is steak of a quality beyond their experience. If they were ever to obtain the presence of mind to sit down with a knife an fork, fold a napkin over a leg and slice a bite to chew they would be shocked. Their world is fantasy. Steak is real. Peter Luger’s is real.

While they worship Dr. Drew, the Minnesota Model, doctors and those who “The Board” that ‘certifies’ – those minions of so called professional “Addictions Counselors” who are the new priests in the cult of The First Church of Applied Recoverology - as they point and chant “Cult, Cult” at Practitioners of The Twelve Steps. Of course AA is a cult! But who gives a flying fig? So are the Boy Scouts of America, NASCAR fans and Don Imus listener. Give me a fucking break!

The difference between the self appointed, “Board Certified” amateurs and the Fellowship of the Spirit is that the Fellowship IS real deal. It ain’t no Sizzler or Tads.

As for Middle-of-Road solutionsists, well their mommas are so fat that . . . . uh, wait . . . . Uh Oh. . . . I just thought of something. Not only was I drunk the last time ate at Luger’s but I have never once been there sober – and n ow I remember what happened. I went there for diner.It was after work and instead of going home afterward I had my limo driver head back over the Brooklyn Bridge and into the city. I didn’t come home till the next day.

Never mind. Forget that you read this.

Sorry. Merry Christmas.

Peace,

Danny S