California Cobb Salad with Green Goddess Dressing

The Cobb salad was born at three in the morning in 1937. Robert Cobb, owner of Hollywood's Brown Derby restaurant, was hungry after a long shift and raided his walk-in cooler. He chopped whatever he found, arranged it in neat rows over lettuce, and accidentally invented one of America's most enduring dishes. That's how the best recipes happen. Necessity, not pretension.

The genius of the Cobb lies in its composition. This isn't a tossed salad where everything muddles together. Each ingredient gets its own lane, its own moment. You eat it by dragging your fork across the rows, gathering a bit of everything in each bite. The salty bacon meets the cool avocado. The egg yolk enriches what the vinegar sharpens. The blue cheese asserts itself without dominating.

I've paired this Cobb with green goddess dressing rather than the traditional red wine vinaigrette. Both are California originals, and they belong together. Green goddess was created at San Francisco's Palace Hotel in 1923, a tribute to actor George Arliss and his play of the same name. The anchovy gives it backbone. The fresh herbs make it sing. It's substantial enough to stand up to this much protein.

This is summer cooking at its most honest. Everything can be prepped ahead. The dressing improves after a day in the refrigerator. Assemble it just before serving, and you've got a meal worthy of company or a Tuesday night when you want something satisfying without heating up the kitchen.