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, February 1, 2010

Pro Bowl Chili

On Sunday morning, Bobby Flay made "Big Game Chili" on his Boy Meets Grill television show. Sunday afternoon we were also making it! Bobby recommended several recipe adjustments that I have never used before. Chili I am used to has ground beef, but Bobby used grilled chunks instead, so I went to the store and got sirloin cut up into cubes like for a stew. I cut the cubes into even smaller sections and this grilled the steak in a pan on the grill. Bobby's recipe for the chili sauce as a trip around the spice cabinet - ancho chili, chipotle, garlic, oregano, coriander, red onion, and tomato puree. After the steak was grilled, I tossed all the chili sauce ingredients into a big pot and let it heat up on the grill. Soon it was simmering so I added in the streak chunks and then the special ingredient...a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout and some beef stock. This all stayed on the grill and simmered with occasional stirring for about 45 minutes. Inside Dorothy was making Focaccia bread from scratch! We served it up with sharp cheddar at the kicked off. 


What was on? The Pro Bowl. I am a big NFL fan. Dorothy and I each own 1/68,000th of the stadium in Nashville and we haven’t missed a Titans game since they moved to Tennessee. But, the NFL screwed up this year with the Pro Bowl. I am pretty sure the commissioner doesn’t care what I think, but here is what should happen to undue this mess. First, move the Pro Bowl back to Hawaii. The Pro Bowl is supposed to be different.  Playing in Hawaii and in a neutral stadium makes it different. The players in the Pro Bowl always take their families for a vacation after the long season – Miami is not bad, but Hawaii is a real vacation. Second, the Pro Bowl must be played after the Super Bowl not before. I understand that we don’t want to extend the season into March, so playing the Pro Bowl between the playoffs and the Super Bowl saves time, but I have a better solution. Stop playing four pre-season games. Nobody likes those last pre-season games – they look like a Colts game in week 15 – all the stars are on the bench. Someone always gets hurt and ends their season for a meaningless game. So replace the fourth pre-season game with the first regular season game. The first game that counts would be played in August and that would shift the whole season around so that we would be playing the Super Bowl this week and the Pro Bowl the following week – as it should be. I saw that of the 87 players voted to the Pro Bowl, only 56 are going to actually play in the Pro Bowl. The other 31 are either on the Colts or Saints and are waiting for next week, or have decided that another trip to Miami wasn’t worth it. We are left with a Semi-Pro Bowl at best. And while we are at it, stop playing a regular season NFL game in London, England! I hold my breath every year when the schedule comes out hoping that a Titans home game is not stolen from us. That game is just not fair to the fans who have invested in their home town teams. And one more thing – Go ahead and move the Jacksonville Jaguars to Los Angeles – it is inevitable anyway. The Jacksonville fans had their chance and blew it. When the Jags go to LA they should switch divisions to the AFC West and the Kansas City Chiefs should switch to the AFC South in their place. The Chiefs play in Missouri which has a common border with Tennessee so geographically it makes sense. The only other alternative is to expand the league to 34 teams and put brand new teams in London and Los Angeles. London joins the AFC East. LA joins the NFC West. I really don’t like this alternative because it messes up the schedule balance we have now, but a twice yearly game between the New England Patriots and the London Red Coats would be interesting. But like I said, the commissioner is probably not listening to me. The AFC did win the Pro Bowl and Chris Johnson scored the winning touchdown.


Weather Report. The deep freeze continues. Last week I showed you the photos I took while flying over the Monteagle Winery. Their vineyard is small, but not the smallest. I have the world's smallest vineyard - only three plants! For the last two years I have been growing Chianti in the courtyard, behind the grill. This is the year, it may actually produce grapes, but icicles were hanging from the grapevines today. A thaw is predicted today - Paul
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