Cooking IRL — Turkey Meatloaf

6 min readSep 23, 2019

Making this recipe ramps up my anxiety. Should I follow Bobby Flay’s recipe or my wife’s improvisations for Thursday night dinner?

By James Neil Clarke

My wife, Elle Beau, wants to make Bobby Flay’s Vegetable Meatloaf with Balsamic Glaze, together. This causes great anxiety for me. You see, Elle usually makes this recipe by herself, and it is always great. Really great. But, I know that she does not exactly follow the recipe because she does that with everything. Everything. Great results, but she does not follow the recipe, or make the sauce. Never has, never will. She even changed the name of the recipe — it’s Turkey Meatloaf now.

But, Bobby Flay and his recipes also hold a special meaning for me because he really introduced me to cooking. He made cooking more than a hobby for me. Because of him, my cooking has become an expression of love for my family and friends. Thanks to Bobby, who uncoincidentally prefers to plate his food family style, I have another creative outlet and a happier life based on cooking with love.

That began in 2007, when the television writers’ strike forced me into watching HGTV. I watched all the home improvement and contest shows. I was even watching reruns of House Hunters with Suzanne Whang.(1) I had run out of shows. So, I switched over to the Food Network and began watching Boy Meets Grill with Bobby Flay.

Bob, that’s what I call him now, changed my life. He’s an Iron Chef, but on Boy Meets Grill he taught me how to really use my bbq and kitchen to make my family and friends happy. Unlike, Design on a Dime’s Kristan Cunningham, who was just sending me to Home Depot for vinyl tile squares and spackling that I would never use, Bob was making my life better. All I had to do, was follow his instructions exactly, and I could turn out grilled salmon, green chili cheeseburgers, and beautifully sauced vegetable sides that my loved ones loved.

So, that is what I did. I watched, rewatched, and memorized every episode of Boy Meets Grill and then Grill It!, bought all of Bob’s cookbooks, and all of his Kohl’s line of plates and cookware. I followed all of his culinary instruction to the letter. I even found discrepancies in different versions of his recipes — but the Mesa Grill Cookbook says to use roasted garlic??! — which I attributed to sloppy editors, not Bob.

By 2009, I was replicating Bob’s dishes pretty regularly, and I knew all of his likes (blackberries, because they are sweet and tart) and dislikes (stuffed chops, because they cook unevenly). Obviously, I knew every chile pepper, whether it was smoked, dried, or fresh; its Scoville score; and to always add honey or maple syrup to “even out the heat.” I entered Colombia Crest’s Flayvors of Washington (audible grown) video-recipe contest on FoodNetwork.com, with two dishes. Both of my video recipes, which in retrospect were overly derivative of Bob’s, finished in the Top 10 nationally. I got a congratulatory form letter, which is framed in my kitchen, and a signed copy of the Mesa Grill Cookbook.

According to Bob, the Vegetable Meatloaf recipe calls for finely diced zucchini and peppers. So, Elle begins the Turkey Meatloaf recipe by telling me that she does not want to chop all of those vegetables. She just grates them, she says. So, I chop the vegetables, and Elle tells me that she has never made this recipe before with “such large vegetable pieces.” (I seethe a little, but in fairness, I did not get a really fine dice on the zucchini). Then, Elle tells me to add an onion, which is not among the 15 ingredients listed in the left column of the Vegetable Meatloaf recipe. Elle advises (and she is not wrong) that onions make just about any meat better. So, I chop half an onion, and in it goes.

“Oh, you put an egg in it? I usually don’t do that.” My blood pressure rises a few points

Next, I discover that we don’t have thyme. “That’s okay,” says Elle, “we have rosemary.” I begin perspiring, shaking a little, but not a word passes my lips about substituting herbs or Elle’s devil-may-care attitude on the matter. In goes the rosemary.

I tune out as she starts talking about Simon & Garfunkel, blah, blah, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and my internal monologue takes over: How I hate that song because, despite its catchy hook, it teaches that all herbs are alike, or at least that they all happily go together. Those herbs NEVER all go together. The sage would overpower the other herbs. The parsley would be lost in the jumble. I imagine the recording session: “Hey, Artie! How about another dash of oregano?” The duo knowingly smirks at one another. “Tarragon? I say ‘bring-it-on,’ Paulie, my brother!” I manage to mutter aloud that “rosemary will be great,” and then my internal monologue continues. Stick to the guitar, Paul Simon and get the frak out of my kitchen! Damn hippies high on “oregano.”

The sound of silence is broken by “I’ll get the loaf pan.” This causes me even more angst. You see, in some of Bob’s recipes for Vegetable Meatloaf, he uses a loaf pan, but in others, he recommends mounding up the meat on a half-sheet pan, Martha Stewart style. I saw him on BBQ Brawl! Flay v. Simon recently, and he voiced a preference for Martha’s technique. But, truth be told, meatloaf is better in a loaf pan. Bob was saying that you get more crispy bits by making a mound, but I think the meat dries out too easily, and we have a special loaf pan with a built in strainer, so Elle is correct in her pan selection. I remain conflicted though. Conflicted, but wisely silent.

An hour passes, and the Turkey Meatloaf comes out of the oven. It smells great, despite the obvious notes of rosemary. But what the hey? You see, Elle started making this meatloaf “recipe” after my infatuation with Bobby Flay began. The fact that she even used a recipe as a rough guide, and that she used Bob’s, was a statement that she loved and cared for me and wanted to provide me with things that made me happy. I keep this in mind as I offer her some extra Balsamic Vinegar Ketchup. “No thanks,” comes her inevitable reply. “I’m not a big sauce person.” I know. The meatloaf does not really need a sauce because the vegetables, including the onion, make it very moist. I nevertheless swipe a spoonful of the special ketchup on my plate for show. Plating counts for a lot — it does on Iron Chef — and this meatloaf looks pretty badass. Tastes that way, too.

I bought us tickets for an upcoming book signing of Bobby at Home, Bob’s new cookbook. I told my friend Connie that I am afraid that I might try to kiss Bob. “Get that on video!” she said. Elle thought that was funny. She says that we will have a good time, even if I don’t kiss Bob. But, I have some anxiety about having them both in the same room. What will I do?

(1) When I went to check the spelling on Suzanne Whang’s name, I sadly learned that she died today of breast cancer. There is some synchronicity that Elle and I would be talking about Suzanne just as she passed from this world, which she left a better place for having lived in it.