Get your game on... the grill

I get lots of requests from hunters for game recipes. So this is the first installment this winter of for game. In this case, deer back strap (tenderloin to you non hunters.)

It's a pretty simple recipe, but the results were outstanding. So much so, that my sister who wrinkles her nose and scoffs at anything venison related, sampled a bite she thought was beef. She raved about it, then I told her it was deer. She had that moment of indecision. That second where she thought about going off on her little brother for the trick (which would've made her a hypocrite since she raved about the taste), but in the end, she shrugged and said, "Whatever it is, it's great."

Here is the full write up with step by step instructions including how to remove the dreaded gaminess, and here are the pictures that hopefully make you hungry:








Warning, if you like your steak prepared beyond medium, don't scroll down any farther. The rest of you, feast your eyes on my perfect steak:

I don't mind a little gamey flavor. But I'm appealing to a wider audience and I think quite a lot of people want it to taste like something fromt he local butcher. If anyone wants the gaminess, they can certainly leave the milk step out...

Well, honestly, I was kicking myself for not bringing some fresh rosemary with me. I grow that year round and basil in the summer time. But I was doing this at my folks and totally forgot to bring some.

As for the garlic, simply put, convenience. Sometimes I buy whole cloves. Sometimes I use the prepared stuff. I have two little kids, a wife, a full time job and this among a couple other major projects (just finished my second novel).

And the sauce, that got mocked, as usual the mocker makes a negative comment about something he knows nothing about. The stuff is amazing. Had he tried it, he probably wouldn't be piling on, but then he wouldn't have anything to say.

I'm not at all trying to move on to anything on food tv or anywhere else. The magazine cover fell into my lap. Someone approached me to do that. Same person approached me about being on TV. Another major publication in St. Louis has approached me about doing the cover of their magazine in the near future. Someone approached me about doing the radio show in Houston. The food editor of the local paper emailed me and asked to do a two page story on me and the site. Char-Broil contacted me about being one of their Grill All Stars and contribute to their site and asked if I would review their products before they went onto the market. I've never once sought any of these people out. Every single one of them has come to me. I have no experience in the food industry. I never flipped burgers or waited tables, but it seems the local media, not so local media, and a major company in the grilling industry is rather fond of what I do. Premade sauces and all.

Part of our shtick is that we are regular guys doing amazing things on the grill and explaining the process as simply as possible so others can replicate our successes while not repeating our failures. That seems to be resonating. Hell, Rachel Ray has built an empire based on replicating simplicity. Takes 30 seconds to dice a clove of garlic? Takes 2 second to put a spoonful of the premade stuff into a dish. Oh, but that's too low brow. Maybe for you. But I'm appealing to a much broader audience than the thread shitter extraordinaire. 90% of the population can't taste the difference between the fresh and non fresh garlic. How many billion has McDonald's served? It may be low brow, but it's good marketing. Someone's buying all those jars of pre minced garlic, right?

Where am I going with this glorified blog of mine? :shrug: Who knows. It will be profitable for the year tomorrow when I pick up a check from one of our sponsors. My traffic and web presence has grown exponentially. In the first month of our third year, we are profitable for the entire year. By the end of the year I very well may be heading to the Caribbean on what the site makes. Or maybe spending that money on a mobile phone app. If all it does is pay for itself and allow for me to donate some money to charity (10% of whatever the site makes goes straight to Wounded Warrior and Susan G Kohman), then I'm ecstatic.

BTW, you may have a lot of food industry experience, but it doesn't seem like you know all that much about marketing, on the food network or otherwise. Do you think those TV chefs have a certain brand of worcestershire or olive oil or whatever visible on the screen by accident? Do you think if they show the brand of flour they use to make pasta it's because someone forgot to put the bag below the counter? The sauce I used in that recipe is the sauce of one of my major sponsors. The difference between me and the guys on the food network in terms of specific product usage is that I only use what I believe to be a great product. If Kraft BBQ sauce came to me and said, "here's a big fat check, so use our sauce," I would decline. Couldn't pass that off to the people that go to my site. If Miller Light (or just about any mass produced beer like that) asked me to endorse them, I would decline. Now if O'Fallon Brewery (local microbrew) paid for an endorsement, I would be all over it. Maybe one day Kraft or Miller Brewing will write a big enough check to endorse their stuff and sell my integrity, but that's not happening right now. Until it does, I'll hold onto it.

As for my rosemary, I grow it in a pot by the window. I put the pot outside in the summer. That little sucker survived the first freeze as I forgot to bring it in late in the Fall. Tough little bastard.