This week, we went for comfort.

Whenever the weather is anything but 70 degrees and sunny in Los Angeles, Cait needs a little extra love to cheer her up. That usually means I cook a comforting meal and pair it with a delicious n/a bevvy.

With all of this rain (and snow in LA), we’ve had a moody couple of weeks, to say the least. We'd outdone the chicken noodle and matzo ball soup, so I turned to another one of our cozy favorites- hibachi steak. 

We headed to Bristol Farms (yes, a treat), picked up a Snake River Farms Wagyu Ny Strip steak and some Bachans Japanese Barbecue sauce, then headed home. 

While I let the steak reach room temperature, I chose which ingredients would serve as my improvisational additions- sesame oil and rice vinegar would give my jasmine rice a little depth, and red pickled onions would be a nice, slightly acidic and sweet balance to the rich umami flavors. Once I had that squared away, I threw the steak on my 12" cast iron skillet, flipped it once, and let it rest- simple.

WTF should I drink?

In the meantime, I started to think about what we would drink. One of my biggest fears about giving up alcohol was not being able to find something to drink with a gorgeous steak. That's where NON comes in. We had a couple of different bottles - 1,3,7. After some back and forth, I decided NON1 would perfectly complement the rich, salty flavors. NON1, is made with whole raspberries, chamomile, verjus, and Murray river salt. It's sparkling and extremely chuggable. So it was settled.

I sliced up the strip, smothered it with Bachans, placed it alongside its additions sprinkled with green onions, and served it with a large glass of NON1- it was everything we wanted and more.