Opinion

In Defense of the Well-Done Steak, Part II: I Was Right and Jean-Pierre Knows It

Simone Delacroix returns to the plate because the letters page made restraint impossible.

When I wrote that the well-done steak was a class argument wearing grill marks, I expected disagreement. I did not expect Jean-Pierre to send four pages, single-spaced, before breakfast.

His objection was elegant, wounded, and wrong. He said tenderness matters. Of course tenderness matters. But the question was never tenderness. The question was permission.

"You all keep treating this as a bit. It is not a bit." Simone Delacroix

In Miami in 1997, I watched a room decide a man was unserious because he ordered the wrong thing with confidence. The room was wrong then. It is wrong now. Confidence does not tenderize a steak, but it does reveal who thinks tenderness is a credential.

Jean-Pierre knows this. His letter is not a rebuttal. It is a confession with better stationery.