Peggy Lampman's Friday dinnerFeed: Roast turkey cobb salad

A quick Wikipedia search informs that in 1937, Brown Derby owner, Robert H. Cobb, went into the restaurant's kitchen to fix a late-night snack for Sid Grauman, the operator of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Cobb perused the refrigerator for various ingredients, and chopped them up finely. Thus, the Cobb salad was born. Word soon spread about this creation throughout Hollywood, quickly increasing its popularity.

Ya gotta' love the Cobb--it's so accommodating to particular palates. In the first scene of the movie "Julie and Julia", Julie's friends were dining out and the women ordered Cobb Salads, each deleting a particular ingredient. A traditional Cobb Salad ingredient missing from tonight's dinnerFeed is a hard-cooked egg. I used leftover turkey instead of chicken, romaine instead of iceberg and I chopped the ingredients into a larger dice than the traditional Cobb's. I would also recommend adding a tablespoon of bacon drippings to the vinaigrette.

Yield: 4 large salads Time: 40 minutes Cost: $12.50

Ingredients:

4 slices bacon 1 large head romaine lettuce, washed, spun dry and cut into 1-inch pieces ( 8 cups) 4 cups diced cooked turkey 2 avocados, peeled and diced 2 large roma tomatoes, chopped (1 cup) 1 cup crumbled blue cheese 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1/2 teaspoon garlic, minced 1/3 cup olive oil 1 tablespoon bacon drippings, optional

Directions:

1. Fry the bacon until crisp, drain on paper towels, and when cool enough to handle, crumble and set aside. Reserve bacon drippings for vinaigrette, if desired. 2. Arrange a bed of romaine on the serving plates. Arrange the bacon, chicken, avocados, tomatoes, and blue cheese in parallel rows on top of the romaine. 3. In a bowl, whisk together the mustard, vinegar, garlic, olive oil and bacon drippings, if desired. Drizzle the dressing evenly over the salads, and serve immediately.