If you took a peek inside my freezer, you would see it packed from top to bottom with chicken breasts and ground turkey—the occasional pork loin or beer brats–but never red meat. It’s neither a health-conscious habit nor a social objection. It’s as simple as this: red meat is a treat. “Look Ma, I rhymed!”

When we do eat red meat in our house, I like to make it count. I like to hunt the meat counter… honing in on the perfect cut. Or, more likely, I send my husband out to buy it for me. If one of us ends up liking what we see, then the steak goes straight from the market to our butcher block–no freezer required. And, of course, there will be red wine involved.

Whether I’m skewering a kebab or searing up a New York strip (my personal favorite), you can count on the following ingredients being involved:

• Garlic
• Sea Salt
• Black Pepper, freshly ground
• Olive Oil

Honestly… you don’t need much more to make a nice cut of red meat delicious. If you don’t have a nice cut of red meat, then it’s probably not worth eating in my own (carnivorously) humble opinion.

My two favorite grilling pans are my iron skillet and my Calphalon grilling pan. This may seem like a sin to most die-hard, meat-grilling fanatics. But, there is no way to get a beautiful sear on a steak like you can in a pan.  I leave the outdoor grilling to my husband, which honestly doesn’t happen very often because he prefers my “indoor steak,” hands down.