The Greek God(zilla) is quite competitive.
He likes to win in every sense of the word. For example, if I am reading a book, the book he is reading will be better. If I buy a new jacket, he will have bought a better one (only in his own opinion, of course). If I receive 5 cuddles from Zachy, the Greek God(zilla) will push for 10.
And, you must all remember when he was ‘run out’ during a friendly cricket match, threw his bat to the ground in fury and earned the name Pangry. Maybe it brought back painful memories of the mother/son cricket match at his school sports day when he was bowled out early… by his mum (go YiaYia!).
Anyway, get him in a room with his two sisters and the level of one-upmanship goes through the roof. I don’t think they will mind me saying this, but they are all just as competitive as each other.
They are constantly trying to score points over who is the best sportsperson (BB), who has brought the nicest wine to lunch (Papou), who is the best cook (YiaYia, natch) who is the most popular with the neighbours/postman/local cats (Eva), even who suntans the best/fastest (Eva, again). It is all quite lighthearted and in good spirits though. It is also most hilarious and I love it when they all get going. Sometimes I will try to stir it up a bit and openly support one over another, but most of the time it is best to just sit back with Papou, drink wine and watch on.
It was no surprise then, when we invited BB and Rob over for a steak and sjoelen night, that they quickly got into a debate over who can cook the best steak. Now, the Greek God(zilla) cooks a damn fine steak but BB was insistent that hers was better. So, to settle the argument once and for all, a STEAK/OFF was declared.
The prize being the right to lord it up over the loser forever more. So there was quite a lot at steak (haha, see what I did there).
After we got over the initial disappointment of not having the 1969 Barolo* to accompany the steaks, the siblings got their Masterchef on in the kitchen.
*Don’t feel too sorry for us, we cracked open a couple bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape instead, so were hardly slumming it on the wine front.
Earlier in the day, they decided on their cuts of beef and it was agreed that BB would work with the sirloin and the Greek God(zilla) would take the rump.
They both had secret ingredients that would make their steak stand out from the other. BB’s was tabasco and the Greek God(zilla) had prepared a béarnaise sauce.
The steaks were cooked to order and the four official judges were served at the table.
First up was the rump steak, which just fell off the fork and melted in the mouth. But then, the sirloin was oozing with flavour and had quite a kick from the tabasco.
It was a tough call.
One by one, we went round the table and each of us had to announce which steak we enjoyed the most. We were not allowed to confer.
The result was unanimous and we all agreed that although both steaks were cooked to perfection and were delicious in their own right, at the end it came down to the cut of meat that most people preferred.
The Greek God(zilla) rump steak won hands down.
The meal was finished off with my Nigella Express cheesecake, which always goes down well. If I was the competitive type, I might even say that it stole the show… but I’m not like that… really 😉
A ‘friendly’ game of Sjoelen followed. I did well in the first round, but lost focus in the second when the ipod speakers broke. Eva was a complete natural though and scored well for her first attempt; BB and Keri were so-so but in the end, Rob was the overall winner. His score will be pinned to our fridge until the rematch.
I’m sure he must have cheated.
How competitive are you?
What a fun evening! And from someone equally as competitive … mine would have won hands down! Although I’m very partial to cheesecake .. anyone’s really, doesn’t have to be Nigella’s!
Author
Me too! Our wedding cake was a strawberry cheesecake… although mine is not as good as that. The cake company sent us a sample before we ordered and we polished the entire thing off in one weekend x
Actually Daddy drives me mad with always wanting to be better than everyone else including the kids! Personally I would be happy to concede defeat if I could sit at you table with my wine and wait to be served steak like that!
Author
Haha, you say that now… 😉
This sounds amazing. I would love to be in a steak off! But I’m a student so we have competitions such as: “who can make the best cheese toastie”. It’s a fine art… really…