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It's summer, and summer is vacation time. So if you're staying home this summer, take a vacation anyway-a food vacation. You've been careful all year to eat less meat and more legumes. Now is the time to get out the grill and enjoy your steaks. The news media are telling us to take a "stay-cation." Well, turn your "stay-cation" into a "steak-cation!" And who is the king of the steaks? King Porterhouse! This cut of steak has plenty of marbled fat to make it juicy and flavorful and, most important, tender. Porterhouse is one of the most tender cuts of beef. Picture the porterhouse steak in your head. It's that nice, thick triangular steak with the bone down the middle. The bone divides the steak into two neat sections.

The larger one is classic, wonderful porterhouse, a treat to eat. But the smaller one is the treasure. It is even more flavorful and juicy. If someone divides the steak and gives you the choice of pieces, follow your mother's etiquette instructions and take the smaller piece. And that leaves the bone. Meat processors these days always want to remove the bones. Supermarket meat departments don't give us half the bones that our parents could buy. But where's the flavor? Next to the bone. You know not to gnaw on the bone in a restaurant (Mom's etiquette again), but if you are in your backyard, anything goes! Chew! Gnaw! Lick! Slurp! Enjoy every fiber of flavor on that porterhouse bone.

There are a couple of schools of thought when it comes to cooking steaks. The first is gas grill versus charcoal grill. The second is marinated versus gloriously naked.

This is just my opinion, but, if you're going to use a gas grill, you might as well broil your steak in the kitchen. You won't have to wave off the flies, mosquitoes, and yellow jackets, and the steak will taste pretty much the same. I know, you put the lava rocks in the bottom of the grill. Supposedly, the fat drips from the steak, hits the rocks, and gives the steak a grilled flavor. But, to me, it doesn't work. A charcoal fire is a lot more mess and work, but it is worth every bit of the bother. You absolutely have to be sure to allow the fire to die down to ash-covered embers, and you need to keep a spray bottle of water handy to put out the licking flames, but the result is an aroma that will call hungry carnivores from hundreds of feet and a flavor like no other.

The second question is to marinate or not to marinate. In my opinion, the native flavor of the charcoal-grilled steak is so satisfying that adding other flavor via a marinade reduces the perfection of the pure steak flavor. So, sprinkle on a little salt (go on, salt it-it's vacation, remember?) and maybe a little pepper, but that's all the perfect porterhouse needs.

Chuck R. Stewart purchased a case of porterhouse and other steaks online for a family picnic later this summer.

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