Once upon a time, I enjoyed steak, but the thought of eating two steaks in one day was inconceivable to me for three very important reasons:

1. I was but a lowly school teacher. How could one such as I afford two steaks (universally regarded as the Meat of Kings) in a single day?

2. What of the deep, well-documented societal prejudice against those who eat more than one steak in one 24 hour period? What about propriety?!?

3. A third reason, also important.

Then one day four years ago (the third Sunday in December, unless that was too close to Christmas, in which case it was the second Sunday), everything changed.

I joined a teacher-friend and her French Club on a lunch-time trip to La Bonne Soupe in Manhattan. (La Bonne Soupe is French for "First Annual Double Steak Day." And thank you, yes, my French is excellent.) Because it was a field trip, I ate for free, though as I'm explaining it now, that sounds unethical.

Oops.

Anyway, later that night, my roommate and I went out for dinner to a very exclusive fine dining restaurant you may have heard of called Chez Pizzeria Uno. And since I hadn't yet paid for a steak that day, I thought, Why not go for two?

While we were waiting for our steaks to arrive (in this version of the story, everyone else was eating steak too), my roommate and I improvised a game of checkers out of napkin bits and a checkerboard patterened table cloth.

I lost badly, but this began the tradition of playing checkers every year on Double Steak Day - so in a way I also won badly.

Then the steaks came. And they were good.

(And by good, I mean, I enjoyed mine greatly. If you can only appreciate a really expensive steak, you're going to wind up spending a lot more on Double Steak Day than I do.)

At the end of the day, I was happy and full of steak for what I vowed would not be the last time. The next morning, I had a little tummy ache, so I vowed that the next non-last time would need to wait a while.

And the morning after that, when I woke up with the same tummy ache I'd had for the past two days, I said, "You know what? It's probably a good idea to wait a full year between double steak days!"

And thus a holiday was born!

Now, I've learned a few important lessons since then:

1. It's usually good to balance a large steak at dinner with a smaller steak at lunch.

2. It's also nice to mix in a steak with an interesting sauce, like the French people do (ala La Bonne Soupe, oui oui).

3. It's also economical, and entirely within the rules, to buy a bunch of steaks and cook 'em up and serve 'em at home family style (perhaps with your actual family), but you shouldn't do this for both meals.

4. One of the great things about Double Steak Day, is that it's based around two meals, so - as the song says - you can have one meal with your friends and another with your family.

   Or you can have one meal with your friends, and one with your other friends who aren't on speaking terms with those first friends anymore. That way, everybody wins!

   (Unless you have three sets of friends, none of whom are speaking to each other. If that's the case, I recommend that you start your own holiday. I don't think that anyone's claimed "Three Cheese Day" yet.)

Now, I'm not a school teacher anymore. I have a real job (i.e. one that doesn't help anybody), but even a school teacher can afford to celebrate Double Steak Day once a year, especially if they follow some of the cost-saving tips above (like preparing one meal at home and having low standards).

And as for propriety? Well... We change minds one steak-sated celebrant at a time!

Happy Double Steak Day, everybody!!!