Tomato Bread & Jazz

We were going out to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band performing with the Nashville Symphony ourselves on Saturday night. Since we were not going to be home for dinner, I prepared an appetizer on the grill. This is Bobby Flay's Tomato Bread with Prosciutto (page 37 of Boy Gets Grill). This really took only about 15 minutes and we were off to the show. I put three Roma Tomatoes in the processor with some garlic, olive oil, kosher salt, ground black pepper and hit the button. The topping was ready in about 10 seconds. I sliced a loaf of whole grain bread on the bias into one inch thick pieces. With the grill grates already hot, I brushed canola oil on the bread and put them right on the grill. You can see the grill marks on the bread - that took two minutes on each side. Then I put it all together - spooning the tomato topping onto the bread and then placing a piece of rolled up prosciutto on top. Done. I added some slices of genoa salami and provolone just to have a little more to go with the whole thing.

What was on? Check out both the Nashville Symphony and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and here this for yourself. Of course you won't be hearing it inside the Schermerhorn Symphony Center where the acoustics are as famous as the grammy winning orchestra.

http://www.nashvillesymphony.org/main.taf?p=0

http://www.preservationhall.com/band/index.aspx

What to drink? We received a very special FedEx package today. Our first shipment from the Wine of the Month Club. Ziggy gave us this gift for Christmas. We get one red and one white wine each month. Tennessee has some very unusual laws when it comes to wine. Every time you visit an out-of-state winery the folks always offer to ship your wine directly to your home (since you can't carry the wine onboard an airplane anymore) so they ask, "what state are you from?" When you say Tennessee, they get very disappointed. "Sorry we can't ship to Tennessee." One of the laws finally changed this year, but its still not perfect. If a winery goes through a very bureaucratic process to become registered in Tennessee, then they can ship a small quantity of wine as long as some someone over age 18 signs for it. The wines from the Wine of the Month club are some that we can't otherwise get in Tennessee so it is always a great surprise. Paul Kalemkiarian is the president of the Wine of the Month club and you can find out more from their website at

http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/

Here are our first two arrivals - but they won't be here for very long!

Paul