San Francisco

Baking flatbread (pizza) on the grill is something I probably would not thought of on my own, but I must say it does work. This is Grilled Flatbread with Garlic-Rubbed Filet of Beef, White Bean Puree, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes from Boy Meets Grill page 34. I did use store-bought pizza dough, but Bobby gives us permission to do this on page 31, "If you are really pressed for time, you can even make these breads with purchased pizza dough." But the recipe to make your own dough is also in this book. Store-bought or not the crust turned out great. I rolled out the dough over the baking sheet with some non-stick butter spray underneath. I had the grill turned up about half way and as the dough began to bake it formed golden, odd shaped edges. I prepared everything is stages. I grilled the beef first after letting it set in a glaze of garlic and olive oil. I also roasted shallots, which I had never done before. After the steak came off the grill, I let it rest several minutes and then sliced it into thin strips. I did the same with the shallots when they were cool enough to handle. We did not have sun-dried tomatoes on hand, so we scraped the ice off the 4WD Jeep and made it to the store and back in the snow. The sun-dried tomatoes, shallots, steak strips went into a bowl with balsamic vinegar, and honey and mixed together. The steak was great, the tomatoes were great, the pizza crust was great - but I must admit that the White Bean Puree was not our favorite. It became a paste of white beans, garlic, thyme and lemon juice when mixed together in a processor. When the flatbread was on the grill and the crust about half baked, I spread the white bean puree like you would tomato based pizza sauce. Then over that came the steak, sun-dried and shallot mixture as the crust finished baking. I think the next time I do this, I will use a tomato base.

The weather did present me with a challenge before I got started. The grill was completely covered in ice. I pried the grill cover up with no problem, but the gas burner knobs were frozen stuck.

   

I could not get the knobs to turn, so I could not turn on the gas. I had to be resourceful, so I used about half a can of windshield deicer that I found in the garage and sprayed it around the knobs. It worked, but I'm pretty sure windshield deicer is toxic so I kept the grill hood down and hoped for the best. With the knobs free, the grill roared to life - and we didn't die from the deicer. 

What to Drink?  Guenoc's Victorian Claret from California's northern coast. Guenoc Valley is north of San Francisco, past Napa, beyond Calistoga - but worth the drive. Claret is like Cabernet, but deeper in color and bigger in flavor. This one was no exception. It's color was past red, past ruby. It was garnet and great. The wine from Northern California called for some music from there as well...

What was on? Dorothy downloaded a new playlist for me that she thought I would like. I did. It was Train. Train is a folk-rock band from San Francisco and the download we listened to was their fifth album which is titled Save Me San Francisco. Check them out at: http://www.trainline.com/us/home

Dorothy was right, this is great music and since I have been saved by San Francisco a few times myself, I was very grateful she picked it. I spent several 1970s summers in San Francisco. My father was offered a chance to teach at a seminary in the Bay Area, so we all just loaded up the Kingswood Estate Station Wagon and drove west. That time and that place had a big impact on us all. San Francisco has a way of accepting all comers. The city doesn't seem to have any sense of what normal is supposed to be. You can be freaky or straight-laced and the city doesn't seem to care. The city just moves on with no judgement. Who you are is good enough in San Francisco. While we were there we learned to accept and then embrace this new normal. We would go to the city and plunge into the crowd. One time as we were surrounded by hippies, tourists, gays, straights, street musicians, street ministers, street vendors and you name it, my father said "we are out here amongst 'em!" I think he meant that we were with people not exactly like us, but wasn't it cool. That was a good lesson for a teenager to learn. Years later I had two students, Sasha and Lance who were not what you would expect. Sasha and Lance never met, they were about ten years and two colleges apart. In my work, I teach airline pilots and airline pilots are supposed to have a certain look about them - clean cut, competent, confident. The look that should put passengers at ease. Sasha and Lance did not fit the mold. These guys were long-haired, bearded, blue jean wearing rebels. If you saw these guys board your airplane you would think they were off to a Woodstock reunion, and you probably would get off the airplane if you saw them enter the cockpit. But these guys didn't want to be anybody's airline pilot. They wanted something different and they worked just as hard to get what they wanted as any pilot bound for the airlines ever did. Today, Lance flies as co-pilot on the Hemisphere Dancer. That is Jimmy Buffett's airplane. That is right, long-haired Lance landed his perfect job. He flies around the Caribbean in a seaplane landing at mythical Margaritaville every night. Sasha runs his own flight school outside Denver, Colorado now. He is married, has kids, and is a business man -  more respectable than he ever figured he would be. I spoke at a conference in Denver a couple of years ago and Sasha showed up, eventually giving me a ride back to the airport. We sat in the airport bar before my flight was called and he said, I want to thank you for giving me a chance all those years ago. I didn't know what he meant really. He said, "a lot of other people saw me and saw a misfit, but you didn't treat me any differently than those 'normal' students. You let me be me." It was probably a lesson I learned in San Francisco. When we were "out there amongst 'em!"

Paul

And speaking of Margaritaville....

This is making the best of a snowy situation!