Food Friday Beef edition

I was a vegetarian for my college years. For many years I rarely if ever cooked beef.  For many years cooking beef seemed beyond my cooking skills.My kids adore eating beef. 

I have been cooking it often enough so it is no longer a terrifying operation.

 Often when I cook I hear a tape in my head of cooking advice from my parents, particularly, my father. 

It's important to slice beef thin. You need to cool the meat so you can slice it thin.

My parents owned this impressive looking meat slicer, or something that was very similar. It had suction feet that attached to our counter. It weighed a ton. The handle was really satisfying to turn.

My father used this meat slicer not for a regular Shabbat but say for the roasts made for  the High Holidays or for a fancy company meal. Eventually my parents bought good knives and the slicer rarely emerged from it's spot on a shelf in the basement. When my mother closed up the house she asked me if I wanted the slicer. 

If I lived in a house with a basement, I would have taken this great piece of 1950's industrial design. 

Instead I made do with a sharp knife and the fork that came with my mother's carving set.

 The slices are thin, but they were not achieved with the same beautiful sequence of sound that the meat slicer produced.

I missh that swoosh and thwuk  that each pass of the meat slicer produced.