The Cobb-Nicoise

So summer is starting and I haven’t eaten much fresh salad in months. The winter was you know the gamut of all leafy greens, root veggies in various forms, Bologneses, Octoberfests, soups, gnocchi, dumplings and you know the winter foods. But until tonight I hadn’t had a hankering for a lettuce salad in months. Wait – that’s not entirely true. I have requited a couple of salad cravings in the last while, all of which fell into the same bizarre taxonomical classification: the Cobb. I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, especially on my first blog. I mean the Cobb is some weird American invention and it involves no cooking whatsoever. I’m going to google the history of the Cobb right now … The Cobb was invented in the 1930s (as per Wikipedia) at the Hollywood Brown Derby, an LA-based restaurant, and is named after the restaurant’s owner, Robert Howard Cobb. It is described on Wikipedia as a main-dish garden salad. Apparently it is made from iceberg lettuce, water cress, endives and Romaine, tomato, bacon, roasted chicken, hard-boiled egg, avocado, chives and Roquefort cheese with a red-wine vinegrette. So I guess since America is not a massive mono-culture I’d say that the Cobb is Californian? That just sounds ridiculous, though.

At around 4:00pm today as I was eating my co-worker’s Korean rice balls as I do everyday around that time, I realized I wasn’t going to be going to yoga this evening but was going to be making a Cobb salad instead. Or a Cobb-Nicoise let’s say since I knew that I wasn’t adding chicken and also because I was having another embarrassing craving (I can’t believe this is my first post who will ever follow me) for my childhood comfort food…canned Albacore tuna. (Does it make this any better that I specified Albacore?) By the way, Salad Nicoise (yes, I deliberately placed “salad” before “Nicoise” in a very non-English-grammar sort of way to subtly guide the reader to the assumption that I am worldly) originated on the French Riviera and is named after the city of Nice.

In truth, I really can’t tell if my Cobb-Nicoise looks good at all in these photos but trust me it was. I wish I were a better photographer or had a cool camera or at least knew how to use all the neat features on this point-and-shoot that I’ve got. I’ve been thinking my photos may not do this blog justice but I don’t want to put the cart ahead of the horse on day 1 and commit to improving my photography skills. If no one follows me I’ll obviously know why and invest in my photography.

Enough of my rambling. The salad: it was a bit of the kitchen sink – hence the Cobb-Nicoise-everythingness of it. Romaine, fresh tomatoes, chives, avocado, celery, sunflower seeds, dark raisins, fresh blueberries, canned tuna (teehee), hard-boiled egg, Bleu de Bresse and this perfect fresh strawberry vinegrette I whipped up.

I should talk about the cheese and the vinegrette: I’ve just finished taking this incredible cheese course that has been so informative and has inspired me to pay so much more attention to the cheeses I purchase and also to make my own cheese. Bleu de Bresse is a French blue-veined pasteurized cow milk cheese from the Servoz region of France. It is creamy and smooth and probably cream enriched and has the same texture and integrity as a brie or camembert. It’s gorgeous. Not too piquante for those who hate blues and not too salty for those who like to taste their food. I won’t say much more about the cheese (even though you knooowww I could) because this is getting long and I want you to come back.

The dressing: I blended strawberries, olive oil (a really good one which perhaps I’ll feature on another post), balsamic, honey, Dijon, salt and pepper in the food processor. The sweet dressing complemented the bleu soooo well.

I tossed a piece of some home-baked bread (to be discussed at a future date) into the bowl and dinner was great.

So let’s see: if I really wanted to bring it home (since I have managed on my first post to abandon almost in its entirety my mission statement) I’d say that today’s salad took us to California, the home of the Cobb, and to France, both to Servoz in the Rhone-Alpes and to Nice. I’d say we went back to California for the fresh strawberries and blueberries (since I admit we’re still a few weeks away from Ontario’s strawberry season but man is game on in California right now). And while I’ve never been to Los Angeles or to Servoz (I was in Nice when I was 9 for a few days) I miss all three places dearly.