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One of our favorite restaurants is connected to a nursing home.  Drakes is part of Country Manor in Sartell.  Last Saturday evening the special was pot roast dinner.  I chose that and I was not disappointed. It reminded me of “Ma’s” roast beef dinner.

Each family has the one or two meals that everyone looks forward to.  In our family, it was “Ma’s roast beef”.  She always put on a very special roast beef dinner.  The meat was very tasty, the mashed potatoes were perfect and the gravy was “right on”.  There was many a time that the four brothers who lived near Minneapolis would gather at Ma’s apartment for her roast beef dinners.  After she passed on, there was much discussion at the dining table about what cut of meat one should ask the butcher for.  Since Ma raised six kids as a single parent, we know that the meat had to be “affordable”.  Brother Craig always claimed that it should be “the eye of the chuck”.

I went to Byerly’s and they said that normally they would cut steaks from the “chuck eye”, but they would be willing to simply provide the cut as a roast.  The balance of the recipe, as I understand it, is to sear the meat in a roasting pan on all sides, slow roast in a covered roaster with water added and roast it for a long time.  Adding onions, potatoes and carrots is an option.  The finished product should be a roast beef that will flake at the touch of the fork and not break the “piggy bank”.  I suggested that the next time all of the brothers are on a fishing trip, Erik should cook a roast beef dinner in honor of Ma.

Live from Here this week is a live show from The Town Hall in New York City.  Special guests include Common, Gregory Alan Isakov, Aoife O’Donovan, The Fates from Hadestown, Serena Brooks and Tom Papa.  Enjoy the show on the radio, by streaming it on your MPR Radio app or by watching it live on YouTube. 

“Nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the oven.”  Betty Crocker