There has always been a "Mr. Beef" in my life,  but it hasn't always been the same Mr. Beef. 

To qualify, the dish must be very special. It must be a holiday, special-occasion, impress-your-friends kind of dish, and so far, there have been three, but never at the same time. As my life has changed, so has my definition of Mr. Beef.

The first Mr. Beef was a fat-cat. Times were swell, I lived in England (the temple of roast beef), and due to the weather tended to entertain indoors.

Thus, number one was a 7-bone standing rib roast, which the butcher in our village would chine for me. He then re-attached the chine bone with a little skewer which, after roasting, could easily be pulled out to ensure stress-free carving. Roasting with the chine bone attached was crucial since, as every meat man (and woman) knows, the meat closest to the bone is the tenderest and most flavorful. (Having left England long ago, I can only read in horror of those three years when beef "on-the-bone" was banned. A black market flourished, but still.)

Then, times became, quite suddenly, quite lean. The excessive cost of the first Mr. Beef was deemed to be, well, excessive. The London Evening Standard provided a solution, which for about five years was known as "The New Mr. Beef." The Italian dish Beef in Barolo has been around for a long time, but when attempted with chuck, my results had always been disappointing. It took English food writer Sophie Grigson (daughter of the famous Jane) to suggest making a similar dish using brisket. To prevent dryness, the beef is larded with strips of bacon and studded with garlic cloves. An entire bottle of wine is required, but I'm here to tell you it doesn't have to be Barolo.
Zinfandel works quite well, but since the tenure of the second Mr. Beef included three years in southern Spain, the dish was most often executed with a mid-range Rioja. (It does take three days to produce optimum flavor in this dish, but since the truism "money, but no time, or "time, but no money" was never more true than in my case, that wasn't a problem.)

In recent years the pendulum has swung again, perhaps not so high as during the time of the first Mr. Beef, but to a place that is sweet, calm, happy--perhaps the best word is "mature." Southern California provides the weather for outdoor cooking, and life has brought me a wonderful man who loves to assemble the supporting cast of flowers and candles while I nurture the star that will be eaten. The third Mr. Beef is by no means the final Mr. Beef, that much I have learned. (To assume that life will remain the same would be naive and small-minded.) Six pounds of bone-in rib eye is studded with garlic, rosemary, and bits of mild, white anchovies. Then it's impaled on a spit and basted with butter. It turns slowly over the coals and, towards the end, receives the secret crust-building treatment. In a surprisingly short time, the result is ready for its close-up (after a decent rest, of course): Crusted a deep, dark brown on the outside and perfectly rosy and yielding inside, this is Mr. Beef at his finest, I say. Try as I might, I've never been able to stretch this quantity of meat to satisfy more than four people. One of the benefits of growing older is that we know what we want, and, in general, we're going to have it, if at all possible.

And what my friends and I want is lots of Mr. Beef.