My Sunday started like any other: I planned to sear a beautiful, mythical piece of red meat over lump charcoal.

I drove to the Costco Wholesale on Los Feliz Boulevard and hurried to the meat section to grab several packs of ribeye caps. The cap, also known as the spinalis dorsi, comes when a butcher trims a whole ribeye roast — cutting the meat off the bone — and rolls the resulting marbled piece into a log and ties it with twine. It’s a little pricier than an average steak. But it’s meat gold; it was my go-to cut for when I wanted to wow guests at my Sunday cookouts.

