"SHE GOT OVER THAT"

Pride (and $50) at Steak: Woman Takes a Stab at a 72-Ounce Slab of Sirloin (Lee Hockstader, 6/21/03, Washington Post)

If you've never seen a young woman in a staring contest with a 4 1/2-pound slab of red meat, it's a thing to behold.

Her nostrils flare. Her eyebrows twitch. She blinks. She exhales lightly though pursed lips. Then she picks up her serrated knife to begin sawing at her butterflied top sirloin, all 5,200-odd calories of it, cooked medium and sprawled on her dish like a catcher's mitt on home plate.

For its part, the steak is impassive.

Girl vs. Steak. That's a twist on the usual story line at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, fabled home of "The Free 72-ounce Steak." (That's "free" with an asterisk: It's only free if you finish it, plus the sides -- baked potato, salad, baby shrimp cocktail and dinner roll, in less than one hour.) [...]

Angela, who lives in Tulsa, does have a history you might call impulsive. She dropped out of high school and left home when she was 15. For a while she had blue hair. The name "Ned" is tattooed beneath her right knee. She married her husband Dennis, a co-worker in sales at the phone company, after dating him for two weeks.

And for four years, from ages 12 to 16, she was a vegetarian.

She got over that. Not long ago she polished off a 48-ounce steak without great difficulty -- a T-bone, but still.

Right now she is pumped. She's known about the Big Texan forever, and for years she's wanted to try the 72-ouncer. Today, as she and Dennis were headed to California on a motorcycle, she began seeing the billboards on the highway and bells went off. She'd do it today! Right now! And Dennis couldn't talk her out of it.

God, I love this country. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 21, 2003 6:59 PM