Maybe we were being too optimistic, but we celebrated the temperature rising above freezing with Bobby's Grilled Chicken Cobb Salad with Smoked Chili-Buttermilk Dressing (Boy Meets Grill page 44). The chicken was grilled with constant basting using Mesa Barbecue Sauce (page 29) that contains Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, honey and cayenne to name a few. The dressing turned out really great as well. It was like a ranch but with a real kick because among other things it contains is chipotle pepper. I would recommend this meal, but I will try it again when the weather gets warm. Salad on a cold night didn't sound right at first - but the Mesa Barbecue Sauce made it a winter treat.
What to drink? We paired the salad with Kendall-Jackson's California Chardonnay. This was the first white wine on the site but it went very well. Some chardonnay's are too tart and citrus, but this one was smooth and buttery. This white wine offset and cooled off the cayenne in the barbecue sauce and the chipotle in the dressing. This may be the first white wine we enjoyed with a Bobby Flay grill recipe, but we are always partial to California no matter which grape we chose.
What was on? John Mayer - the Battle Studies CD. I really like John Mayer, but I will need to listen to this again. I was working on the grill and was not able to study the lyrics. His previous album, Continuum was terrific - as a pilot I understand Gravity. Dorothy and I went to see John Mayer last year in concert and I think we were the oldest people there. I know we were the only ones there who remembers holding up a lit match instead of a cell phone to encourage an encore. Back then 'high tech' meant holding up a cigarette lighter instead of a match. We saw countless examples of the new art form - "Facebook Foto." An FF is where one person holds their digital camera at arms length, aims the lens back at themselves and at least one other person leans in for the shot. Since you can only guess at the frame position, most of the shots have only half of someone's head or just a nose. But this seems to be part of the art. There is even a camera now that has a view screen on both sides so that it is easier to frame up an FF. Whether properly cropped or not these photos appear on Facebook pages before the end of the concert. To these kids, the music was secondary - what was more important was to electronically document that they were there at all. It is just a new social dynamic - but that doesn't mean that its bad. Everyone was having fun and nobody got burned by a cigarette lighter. Check John Mayer out at http://www.johnmayer.com/
Here is to more smooth music, smooth wine and spicy Bobby Flay grill selections!
Paul
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