The other night I was feeling the need to bring some excitement into my regular salad repertoire - something new and different - when I came across this recipe from epicurious.com. Not only did the combination of pepitas, currants, arugula, avocado, couscous , and chicken sound fabulous, but the recipe had also received an average of four fork ratings, with 92% of reviewers claiming that they would make the recipe again. As a veteran user of epicurious (and market research data), I knew that this pretty much guaranteed that I would not be screwing up the dish at the culinary equivalent of 95% statistical significance.
Later on, as I was perusing the recipe in the kitchen, I realized that this dish had actually come from a restaurant called Cowboy Ciao in Scottsdale, Arizona, and that the salad was originally called "the Stetson Chopped".
First of all, I am definitely one to appreciate cute names. The fact that I was going to be sharing the meal with a cowboy software engineer made it even more interesting.
A week later, as I was catching up on my impressive stack of Wine Spectator back issues, I got to the annual Dining Guide (August 2006). Lo and behold, Cowboy Ciao, with a rating of two wine glasses (i.e. the "Best of"Award of Excellence) for its 2900 wine selections! (For context, Thomas Keller's The French Laundry also has two, while Daniel Boulud's Daniel in NYC has three).
Needless to say, I've checked - it's about an 11.5 hour drive from San Francisco (that's about 4x the farthest I have ever driven for food - see my previous post on the best pizza east of the Mississippi). Though I'm not sure if that will stop me. There'll be a right time and place. And when that comes, I'm going to order the Big Biceps Salad and a bottle of that Bründlmayer grüner veltliner.
2 comments:
Foodie doesn't begin to describe you anymore.
Food-lover-aholic is more like it.
Glad your taste buds are staying stimulated.
I am writing to inform you about Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale, a national campaign that mobilizes Americans to help end childhood hunger by having a bake sale in their community. Now in its’ fourth year, over 1 million people have participated in the campaign to aid the 12 million children in America who are at risk of hunger. The campaign, which runs through August, was recently promoted by celebrity chef Rachael Ray on ABC.
Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale offers a unique way for you to connect with your readers about the severity of childhood hunger in America while providing them with a simple and fun way of how they can fight it. Perhaps you can include information about the campaign in a section of this blog?
I was unable to find an email in which to contact you. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, and I can provide you more information about the campaign.
Thank you,
Max Kelemen
Share Our Strength
mkelemen@strength.org
(800) 761- 4227
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