Welcome to Bobby Flay Everyday!

I am not an expert. I have never even taken a class. I have no formal training - but I love to grill. I love the food off the grill and I just like the idea, the fun and the relaxation of grilling. So naturally Bobby Flay is a hero. I have his books, I watch his shows and I try out his recipes. So my idea is to grill one of Bobby's grilling recommendations everyday and see how it goes. Bobby Flay Everyday!

The idea to grill and blog is not original. Julie Powell wrote a blog that became a book and then a movie when she cooked all 524 recipes from Julia Child's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. But this is not French Cooking - this is backyard, after work, tailgate, American male grilling. I grill outside in a man-cave in every kind of weather. There is no "grilling season" for me - its everyday, year-round. We will skip around through Bobby's books and TV shows and grill what we like. But grilling is more than food, its an experience - so we will also report on what music we listened to or what ball game was on while we were grilling. We will keep track of what we were drinking during the grilling and later with the food. I'll try to figure what went wrong when we fall short of Bobby's perfection and pass on any tips I know about or discover along the way. Maybe it will give others some ideas as well.

The photo is of me and two of my brother-in-laws roasting the Thanksgiving turkey on the grill last year. That's me on the far right. In real life I am a college professor and pilot. I have written 12 books, but they were all about flying - here we write about grilling. We write about Bobby Flay Everyday!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Premium Wine






This is Butterflied Chicken with Rosemary-Lemon-Garlic Oil, Parmesan, and Black Pepper. Page 178 of Boy Gets Grill. I mixed up the marinade, made with olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, rosemary (from Dorothy’s herb garden), kosher salt and black pepper. I put the chicken and the marinade together in a gallon size re-sealable plastic bag and let it set in the frig all afternoon. I added coarsely ground black pepper and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano after the chicken came off the grill.


We used Bobby’s method of preparing and grilling asparagus. The recipe is on page 12 of Grill It! Except we traded Feta cheese for the shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano since that was on the chicken.


Weather Report. This was the best weather day of 2010. I should have been over a wing or under a sail.


What to Drink? Bobby said that this was a classic Italian taste, so I wanted a classic Italian wine to go with it. For expert advice on wine I visited my friend, Tim Miles at Premium Wines and Spirits. When I came in the store, he had one question, “What’s for dinner?” I told him the ingredients and he was quickly around the counter and on his way to the perfect wine selection. Mike has never missed yet with a wine suggestion. He doesn’t try to sell you the most expensive bottle in the store, but he does try to sell you the best match for the best value. This time it was the 2007 Primitivo Petra from the heel of Italy’s boot. A region named Puglia.
Wine online? 





We first got to know Tim several years ago when Dorothy and I took an online wine tasting class. The class was offered by ed2go.com and taught by Linda Kissam. (http://www.kissam.net/) We never met Linda face to face, but the course was great. She introduced us to all the wine varietals (grapes) and gave as a homework assignment each week. That is where Tim comes in. We would take our homework sheet into Tim’s store and he would help us pick out the type of wines that Linda wanted us taste, compare and contrast that week. Ninety-five percent of what I know about wine has come from three people. Two of them are Tim and Linda.


Tim is a guy who really is passionate about his craft and works very hard. His passion has become his family business and as I have said here before, we must support our small business owners now more than ever. As you can see I like to work with experts who really care about what they are doing. They don’t just go to a job, they go to follow their dream. Tim’s dream can be found at




and please make a point to patronize at least one small business this week where ever you live – lets keep dreamers off the endangered species list. 







What was on? Shed a Little Light by James Taylor on MLK Day.






Let us turn our thoughts today


To Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us
All men and women
Living on the earth
Ties of hope and love
Sister and brotherhood
That we are bound together
In our desire to see the world become
A place in which our children
Can grow free and strong
We are bound together
By the task that stands before us
And the road that lies ahead
We are bound and we are bound




Paul




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