Batu was born in Argentina on Cinco de Mayo – the 5th of May – 2004. Batu’s grandfather was a famous bull terrier from Germany named Rock. Batu’s owner paid $15,000 for Rock. He could’ve bought a car for fifteen grand. I’m glad he didn’t. But that’s still a lot of money for a dog.Batu’s owner had high hopes for the young pup. Batu was entered in a few South American dog shows, but there was some technical defect in his bone structure--he was bow-legged, just like me--which prevented him from advancing any further in his show dog career.Their loss. Batu was a neglected champion, much like Yours Truly. He was kept in a crate, not like Yours Truly. No one knew what to do with him. He just sat in his crate.I had wanted a bull terrier ever since I saw the movie Patton. Patton had a bull terrier named Willie. When my cousin – a true dog lover who knew I wanted a bull terrier – found out about Batu, she decided to get him for me for Christmas.She has a house in Chile. She’s well-connected in the dog world down there. She left Baltimore, Maryland, flew down, rescued Batu, and brought him to me on Christmas Eve, 2005. I was at my uncle Oscar’s house on the river. Cat Tail Creek, outside Baltimore, Maryland.
Batu came out of the bedroom that Christmas Eve, walked up to me, and stuck to me like Velcro that night--and almost every day since. Batu came with that name. I don’t know how he got it. I Googled "Batu" and all that came up was the grandson of Genghis Khan, Batu Khan.Batu Khan. So that’s the story I’m going with.At the time, I was living in an apartment in Roland Park, an incredible place in an old mansion that used to be a country club.I loved the place. When I brought Batu home, he would not leave my side. If I walked into the kitchen, he’d follow me. If I walked into the living room, he’d be right behind me. If I went into the bathroom, there he was.The first few nights I had Batu, he slept in bed with me. When I found a tick on the sheets one morning, I decided to get him his own bed. I put it on the floor by my bed, and that’s where he slept. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I would reach down and pet him.I think Batu had separation anxiety. Or maybe it was me. Whenever I’d leave, he’d howl.Truth was, I missed him, too.
So I took him just about everywhere I went. If I went to a recording studio, I’d call in advance and make sure it was OK. DC, Philly, New York — if I had a session, Batu went with me. If I went on vacation, Batu went with me. If I went to visit my Dad in upstate New York, Batu went with me.Whenever I’d sit down and play piano or guitar, Batu was there. Almost every song I wrote for the past eight years, Batu was at my feet, eyes closed halfway. He was probably dozing off. My music has that effect on people.The apartment in Roland Park had a crazy little kitchen with a small four-burner stove. I got a video camera and started shooting cooking videos; short, goofy little five-minute home movies which featured Batu.
I had heard about this new website called YouTube that had just started. I started posting the cooking videos on YouTube. One of my five or six fans saw the cooking videos, and brought them to the attention of their friend who was involved in a new network, the Italian American Network.They liked the videos. They loved Batu. The Italian American Network started posting the videos on their channel. They encouraged me to do more. Batu and I started making more cooking videos in that little kitchen. And I started writing those recipes down, so the Italian American Network could post them along with the videos. Batu and I kept on making videos and posting recipes.A few years later, Batu and I were at my Dad’s house in upstate New York on the Fourth of July, 2009. We were cooking and making videos. It had just rained, and there was a double rainbow reaching across the mountains. I took a photo. I walked inside my Dad’s house. The phone rang. My Dad lives on top of a mountain, a place called Rat Tail Ridge, and there aren’t too many neighbors. The phone doesn’t ring too often.
I picked up the phone. I got the news that Oscar—my Dad’s only brother-- had died. I told my Dad.My Dad said “Fuck!” about a hundred times in a row. Then he cried. I’ve only seen my Dad cry twice. When his best friend died, and when Oscar died.Unc — that’s what I called him – had fallen down the basement steps at Cat Tail Creek. He was going to the cellar to get a bottle of wine for the osso buco he was cooking. Unc died immediately. He was extremely wealthy, in good health, had a beautiful young wife. He was 88 years old. Unc and I were really close. He was like a second father to me, I had lived with him for a couple years. Unc taught me a lot about cooking. And wine. And life.I packed up Batu and my Dad, and we drove for six hours from Rat Tail Ridge down to Cat Tail Creek. We didn’t talk much. I was heartbroken. I felt so bad for my Dad; Oscar was his only brother, they had grown up poor on the mean streets of New York, and Oscar was always looking out for his younger brother – throughout their whole lives. Unc was like the Godfather — our world seemed to revolve around him.After the funeral, there was a wake at Unc’s house. The next day, I took off for a show in San Antonio, Texas. I had no idea how I was gonna get through it. I left Batu with the family. They knew him, loved him, and I knew he would get more than enough attention. Everybody loved Batu.When I landed in Texas, I got a frantic phone call.My sister started shrieking. They were crabbing off the pier. They put a chicken neck on the end of a string and threw it in the river. Batu jumped in after it. Batu can’t swim. Bull terriers can’t swim. They sink.Batu sank to the bottom. Everyone started jumping off the pier, right into the river--clothes on, wallets and cell phones in pockets. They were following the trail of bubbles, trying to find Batu. Finally they dug down, found him and fished him out. Mouth to snout resuscitation was not needed. Batu survived.Right after the concert in San Antonio, I flew back. Batu was fine.
I’ve had dogs all my life, but I never had a connection like I had with Batu. I never thought of him as a dog. To me, he was more like a funny little man in a dog suit.Batu had a bark that would make you jump five feet straight up in the air — it was loud and sharp and startling. He didn’t bark much. He was a very calm, laid-back mutt. Not much bothered him. When we would walk the streets of Manhattan, there was so much noise – trucks, sirens, car horns, brakes screeching. Batu never flinched. I could have fired a gun next to his head and he wouldn’t have blinked an eye.Batu had a sense of humor, he liked to play. He was funny. He was photogenic. When I pulled out the camera he’d look right at it.
Batu loved to ride in the car. To the post office, to New York City, or across the country, he was all-in. I’d throw his bed in the back of the car, and I’d have to lift all 70 pounds of him into the back. Then we’d take off. It’s funny; I guess he never knew if we were going a mile away, or a thousand miles away. He was just happy to be along for the ride. He would lie there for hours and hours and not make a sound.I’d have to reach back and shake him just to make sure he was alive.In 2011, Batu and I packed up the Slimousine and moved to Nashville. I wanted to re-pot the plant. Wipe the slate clean. So we drove to Tennessee. Eleven hours. Seven hundred miles. We did it in one day.I love Nashville. I found an apartment in a neighborhood called The Gulch. But after we moved in, Batu’s skin problems started getting worse. He’d always had skin problems, really bad sores between his toes. No one could solve the problem. I took Batu to more vets in more states than any one dog known to man. We tried soaks, meds, diets, boots, salves, and nothing worked. His feet were always pretty bad. In Nashville, Batu’s skin got much worse.How bad? At one point, I took Batu to his vet in Nashville and asked him if we should put him down. I told the vet that if we had to put Batu down, he might as well put me down, too. Maybe we could get two for the price of one.
The sores on his feet were so bad he couldn’t walk. He had sores on his elbows, his back, his chest, even his face. It looked hopeless. Batu was so miserable. So was I. The vet then suggested we put Batu on every dog medication known to man, and if it didn’t kill him, maybe he’d get better.We put poor ol’ Batu on antifungals, antibiotics, prednisone - I changed his diet to an incredibly expensive hypoallergenic dog food. I gave him baths a couple times a week with ridiculously expensive medicated shampoo that I had to leave on for 15 minutes at a time. Eventually Batu got better. We started eliminating drugs, and after a few weeks, Batu was almost back to normal. It was miraculous.Once a month, Batu and I would drive from Nashville back to Baltimore to see my Dad. He had moved nearby to Annapolis--Rat Tail Ridge was too isolated, and hard to maintain, with all the snow in the winter. Stacking firewood alone was a full-time job.Soon after my Dad moved to Annapolis, he fell and broke his hip. The doctors placed him in a hospice. I explained to the people in the hospice how much my Dad loved Batu. To my surprise, they let me take Batu up to my Dad’s room. My Dad would always brighten up when Batu and I arrived. When I got there, I’d lean in close to my Dad's ear (he was hard-of-hearing), as he lay there on the bed with his eyes closed and I’d yell,“WHERE DID YOU HIDE THE MONEY? IS IT BURIED IN THE FRONT YARD?”My Dad would smile, frail, cheeks drawn, and squeeze my hand.
A few days later, my Dad passed away. Batu and I were just about to walk into his room when the nurse walked out and gave me the news. I sat down on a bench in the hall. I took a photo of Batu on the floor.Funerals aren’t funny, in general.My Dad’s was. The service was serious, it was at a Quaker Meeting House in Baltimore, the same one where my cousin Johnny had his service years ago; my Mom and uncle Oscar had their services there.I gave the eulogy at my Dad’s service. Afterwards, people got up and told stories, funny anecdotes, and crazy quotes. It was touching, all the remembrances and memories. I played “Summer Days” after the service. It was a song I wrote for Angela Bofill; she recorded it on her debut CD. It was one of the first songs I wrote while I was at Motown. The first time my Dad heard it, he asked me to play it at his funeral. Thirty-five years later, I did.My Dad had been cremated. He wanted the urn of his ashes buried next to his mother, Angela. I had been to that cemetery many, many times. I remembered one February 14th years ago, roses in hand, Batu and I walking through a foot of snow, trying to find her grave, which was a plaque set in the ground. It was her birthday. Valentine’s Day. I stopped, reached down and scooped out some snow, and as crazy as it seems, there was her gravestone.After my Dad’s service, we went to the gravesite. It was freezing cold. There was a small hole next to Angela’s grave. It looked like it had been dug by a five year-old with a Fischer Price shovel. Some spray paint lined the circumference. Pieces of sod sat nearby. Next to the hole was a small plastic orange sign, stuck on a piece of wire, like a flag, that read,
“Please contact our office.”My Dad would have seen the humor. We left a basil plant at his gravesite, to honor his pesto prowess. His wife took his ashes. Batu and I drove back to Nashville soon after.A few days after we got back to Nashville, my sister called. Her only son had died suddenly and unexpectedly of heart failure. Batu and I got in the car and drove back to Baltimore for the funeral. It was heart-breaking. No parent should ever have to bury a child.I spoke at the funeral. And then Batu and I drove back to Nashville. It was a long drive.A year later, in December 2013, I left Nashville with Batu, and we drove to Breckenridge, Colorado. Batu and I needed a change of scenery.Breckenridge is a charming and lovely ski resort, with a vibe like an old Western mountain town. My brother had rented a place there for Christmas so the family could be together and hang out for a week or so. I took a jar of my Dad’s ashes with me, to give to my brother--which we accidentally dropped on the kitchen floor Christmas night. We scooped them up, and went outside, and scattered them at the foot of the Rockies. Batu was there.
After Christmas, Batu and I drove to Scottsdale, Arizona, stayed for New Year’s Eve, and then drove to Palm Springs, California, where I had some concerts lined up. On the way to Palm Springs, we passed the General Patton Museum. We stopped by the statue of Patton and Willie – those two were the reason I got a bull terrier in the first place.Batu and I got to Palm Springs, and decided to hang out for a while. The weather was wonderful; sunny, warm and dry, with fresh lemons, oranges and grapefruit everywhere. Batu loved it.The first four months of 2014 were the healthiest and happiest days of Batu’s life. All of his skin problems disappeared — it must have been the climate. I put him on a diet. He lost nine pounds. He was in the best shape of his life. Batu seemed to flourish in Palm Springs. He was the King of the Springs.Batu had only one health problem remaining. He had an enlarged heart. Batu would pass out occasionally, drop to the ground like a ton of bricks. It was always very scary. But he always came back.Batu turned 10 on the Cinco de Mayo, 2014. He never looked better. On Mother’s Day, I left for a concert in San Diego. When I left Batu with the dog-sitter, all was great.I did the show that night at Humphrey’s, a cool little club on the bay. That night was one of the happier ones in a long time. I had just done a really good show, my California band was sounding really good, Batu was doing great, we were both digging California - all was good in SlimLand.The next morning I got a text from the dog sitter. I called her, and she told me Batu had fallen asleep the night before – Mother’s Day, May 11th – and never woke up.I couldn’t believe it. When I left he was healthier than ever. There was no way he could be dead. I drove from San Diego to Palm Springs. Three of the longest hours of my life. I could hardly see the road from the tears streaming down my face.
I walked in to the house. Batu was lying on the kitchen floor. I scooped his lifeless body up, and put him in the car, as I’d done so many thousands of times before. And I drove him to the vet to be cremated. When they took him out of the car and walked away, you would have thought that everybody I had ever loved had just gone down on the Titanic. I broke.Three thousand fifty-nine days. That's how long I had Batu.Seems like a long time. It wasn’t nearly long enough. I miss my sidekick. He had been by my side for the past nine years, through the good times and the bad.I started this cookbook when Batu and I started making cooking videos for the Italian American Network. It was early 2006.This recipe was the last recipe I did with Batu. I took the photos for this dish on May 3, 2014. Batu passed away the following week. After a couple of weeks curled up on the floor in the fetal position, crying my eyes out, I decided to start this cookbook.CHICKEN STUFFED WITH GOAT CHEESE
I don’t like wasting food. If I’ve got leftovers in the fridge, as long as they don’t have anything growing on them, I’ll eat ‘em.I had some goat cheese that was on the cusp, so to speak. I took a sniff, and it smelled OK.But I knew I needed to use it soon, so I came up with this brilliant idea--mix it with some scallion and red pepper and make a little stuffing for the chicken breasts I was about to cook.The dinner was actually delizioso.A couple things -Before the lawsuits start flying in, always remember to check the expiration dates on your food. Your nose knows. Take a sniff - when in doubt, throw it out.My brother once made a hot dog late at night, and as he was eating it, I noticed the bottom of the roll was all moldy and green. It was pretty funny - until that night when he threw up in the drawer of the bedside table that we shared.It’s important to check stuff before you stuff your face.Whenever you handle raw chicken, make sure you clean everything it touches really well.As with any recipe, if you don’t like an ingredient, leave it out, or substitute.You guys are smart. With incredibly good taste, I might add. You can do this.INGREDIENTS
¾ cup goat cheese1 tablespoon chopped scallion — the middle part only1 tablespoon minced red bell pepperSalt and fresh-cracked black pepper3 chicken breasts, sliced thin (about ¼ inch thick)
3 slices prosciuttoFlour (1/3 cup should do)1 tablespoon butter1 tablespoon olive oilHere we goPreheat your oven to 400 degrees. Now let’s make our stuffing…Put the goat cheese in a small bowl.Add 
the scallion and red pepper.Add salt and pepper to taste.Mick ‘em up.Set aside. Let’s make some chicken!Lay a chicken breast flat on a plate.Put a slice of prosciutto on half the chicken breast.
Put a couple tablespoons of the goat cheese mixture on top of the prosciutto, spread it around evenly.Fold the breast over, in half.Do this with all 3 of your breasts.Put some flour on a plate, about 1/3 cup. Add some salt and pepper, mix.Grab a folded breast.Place it on the flour.Turn it over, so both sides have been dusted with flour.Do this with all the chicken.Get a sauté pan; put it over medium-high heat.Add the butter and olive oil.When the butter starts to bubble, add the 3 chicken breasts.Cook for 4 minutes.Turn ‘em over, cook on the other side for 4 minutes.Put them in a baking dish, and place in the oven for 5 minutes.Pull ‘em out, check for doneness.If they’re not done, put ‘em back in the oven for a few more minutes.When the chicken breasts are done, dish ‘em up!I did roasted beets with carrots as a side dish, along with some risotto.
MANGIAMO!!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Chicken with Marsala and Porcini Mushrooms
Chicken Marsala with Elvis in Memphis
I was in Memphis in the late 1980s organizing a country music talent contest with my friend Michael.Michael is black. I’m white. Well, Italian.Marlboro sponsored the contest. Why they picked a black guy and a white guy — two city slickers, no less — to do a country music talent contest, is still puzzling.It’s not puzzling why Michael and I did the contest - they paid us a lot of money and they paid all our expenses. I ended up doing four tours for Marlboro. The one with Michael was my first.Michael and I traveled around the USA looking for the next big country music star. We went to more honkytonk hellholes than most cowboys. We’d roll into a town like Memphis, find a club, organize the bands, and do the contest. The grand prize was $50,000. Fifty grand.I was in charge of the bands; I made sure all the musicians knew where to go, what to bring, and what to do. Michael was the MC. He was the Ryan Seacrest of honkytonks. When Michael appeared on stage, and introduced himself to the primarily white, all-country crowd, there was a little apprehension - on both sides of the microphone.He’d come out and say,“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Marlboro Country Music Talent Roundup.”That’s when the crowd got a little quiet. Michael was from New York City, and he sounded like it. He’d continue,“I know I don’t look like the Marlboro Man, and I don’t sound like the Marlboro Man, but tonight…”He’d reach down and put on his white ten-gallon Hoss Cartwright cowboy hat on, and continue,“I am the Marlboro Man.”Michael sounded like Shannon Sharpe — the football player and NFL analyst. He looked like Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles. Michael always got a laugh when he put the big white hat on. He had a singular charm.Marlboro tossed a lot of money at this thing. We had all kinds of great merchandise — denim jackets, satin jackets, duffle bags, playing cards, T-shirts, polo shirts, denim shirts, posters. And they gave away free cigarettes at every show. All you could smoke.They should have given away a Marlboro coffin. Or maybe a Marlboro iron lung.Here’s how we ran the contest - we had ten bands a night, three nights in a row. Each band got 15 minutes on stage. We had three minutes in between bands, that’s all.Judges picked the winners--not the audience. We’d find judges —usually three — from the local talent pool; DJs, producers, managers, agents. The judges would pick one band to go on to the finals in Nashville, where they would compete with the other finalists from other towns for the grand prize of $50,000.Before we got to Memphis, we got a call from Marlboro headquarters. They told us to be careful. It was the 20th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination in Memphis. And then they told us that the club owner was rumored to have ties to the KKK.The club was called The Vapors, a country music honky-tonk in the middle of Memphis. Michael and I pulled up to the club in our rental car. We walked inside and met the owner. He was friendly. He was as nice and helpful as could be. He wasn’t wearing a white pillowcase over his head.
Michael and I got set up for the show that night. We had to hang all the Marlboro Country Music Roundup signs around the club, we had to make sure the sound company was good to go, the bands ready to play, and the judges prepared to judge.We finished soundcheck and had a few hours before showtime. Michael had a friend who had a limo and tour bus company based in Memphis. She rented these things out to bands and rock stars. She invited us for a limo ride to Graceland and a private tour. She was a friend of Elvis Presley’s Mom.Graceland is the house that Elvis built. It’s now a museum.Michael and I drove over to his friend’s house. She had all these limos and tour buses parked all around her property. She got behind the wheel of one of the limos and Michael and I got in back. She put the big black limo in reverse and floored it.She rammed it into the side of one of her tour buses that was parked right behind her. BANG! We got out, and surveyed the damage. It was substantial — to both the limo and the tour bus.She left the smashed-up limo right there, and got into another one and drove us over to Graceland. She gave us a private tour. We saw the Graceland that not many people get to see. It was surprisingly small, and had a sixties vibe to it—lots of yellow vinyl and white shag carpets and mirrored walls.Elvis must have loved TV. There were TVs everywhere. He had quite a collection of cars, all kinds of exotic sports cars. Elvis also had two luxury jets parked right across the street from Graceland.
After the Graceland tour, Michael and I went to visit the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. There were TV news crews doing interviews about the 20th anniversary, and one of them came up to Michael and interviewed him.It was eerie.Michael and I went back to our hotel, a Holiday Inn. We decided to take a jog before the big show that night. We put on our running shoes and started jogging down the streets of Memphis, side-by-side.On our way back, we heard someone shout from a car – you’ll have to excuse the language, but this is the way it went down.“Hey nigguh boy! Hey hippie fag!”True story. That’s exactly what was said. I couldn’t believe my ears. Then I heard it again.“Hey nigguh boy! Hey hippie fag!”Oh, shit, I thought. Here we go. A black guy and a long haired white guy, running down the streets of Memphis. I stopped and looked to see where the voice was coming from.It was the owner of the Vapors. He was laughing, hanging out the window of his car, smacking his hand on the door.“I got you! I got you goin’! See you fellas at the club later! Have a nice run!”
He smiled and waved and drove off, laughing.He got us, all right.We did the contest that night at The Vapors. The owner couldn’t have been nicer, the crowd was as cool as could be and the show went as smooth as glass.I love Memphis - Sun Studio, Graceland, Beale Street - and any city with a restaurant named Automatic Slim’s is OK in my book.CHICKEN WITH MARSALA AND PORCINI MUSHROOMSAutomatic Slim’s did not have chicken Marsala on the menu. But they should have!I came up with this dish a few weeks ago. I used porcini mushrooms and the water they soak in. It was amazing, if I may say so myself.The next night I cooked it for a very beautiful woman of excellent taste, and it was just OK. I overcooked the chicken, and it was a bit tough and dry; so don’t overcook your chicken.I like to serve this sauce over egg noodles – not a lot, just a little bit underneath each serving.I used three boneless, skinless chicken breasts. They were real thick, so I cut each of them in half. I had six cutlets, each was about ¼ inch thick.Marsala is a wine from Marsala, Sicily. There are basically two kinds; dry and sweet. I used sweet Marsala.Be careful when handling raw chicken—clean every surface it touches, wash your hands, and get out the pressure washer and put on the HazMat suit.
INGREDIENTS6 chicken breast cutlets, about ¼ inch thick½ ounce dried porcini mushrooms (soaked in 1 cup of water for a minimum of 20 minutes—don’t throw out the water!)2 tablespoons butter2 tablespoons olive oil½ shallot, chopped fine, about 2 tablespoons3 garlic cloves, sliced thin, about 1 tablespoon¾ cup sweet Marsala1 cup of water1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped½ pound of egg noodles – pappardelle work wellKosher salt and pepper to tasteHere we go…Rinse off your chicken breasts and pat them dry with paper towels.Remove the porcini mushrooms from the cup of water with a slotted spoon.Take the remaining porcini water and strain through cheesecloth — I used a coffee filter, by the way. I’ve even used paper towels as strainers. Whatever you use, save the water – you’ll use a half cup for the sauce, and a half cup in the pasta water, if you want to put the sauce over pasta.Rinse off the mushrooms and pat dry. Chop into small pieces.Grab your breasts. Then grab your chicken breasts. Notice the difference. Salt and pepper the top of the chicken breasts. Fresh cracked black pepper is the way to go. Salt and pepper just one side of the chicken breasts.
Let’s make the sauce first.Put a small sauté pan over medium heat.Add one tablespoon of butter, and one tablespoon of olive oil.When the butter starts to bubble, add the shallots.Cook and stir for 2 minutes, until the shallots just start to brown.Add the garlic, cook for 2 minutes. Give it a stir.Add the Marsala.Add ½ cup of porcini water.Turn the heat to high and let it cook for 2 minutes.Turn the heat to medium-low, and add the porcini mushrooms.Cook for 2 minutes while stirring.Add the rosemary. Cook and stir for 2 minutes.Remove from heat. Sauce is done!Let’s do the chicken.
Get a large sauté pan (I used a 12 inch skillet). Put it over medium-high heat.Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.When the butter starts to bubble, add the chicken breasts, salted/peppered side down.Cook for 2 or 3 minutes until golden.Flip ‘em over.Cook for 2 or 3 minutes on the other side until golden. Give a cutlet a slice, make sure it’s done.Pour the Marsala/porcini sauce over the breasts.Remove from heat!Plate ‘em up! You can put this sauce over egg noodles, or rice, or eat it as is.I like to put this sauce over egg noodles--pappardelle are my favorite. I use a half-pound. Get a large pot, fill it with cold water. Add the remaining ½ cup of porcini water to the pasta water. When it all comes to a boil, add 2 tablespoons of kosher salt.Add the egg noodles, cook until al dente, drain and drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil. Stir.Put A SMALL PORTION of egg noodles on a plate. Put some Marsala sauce over the noodles, put a chicken breast on top, spoon some sauce and juice and mushrooms on top and…
MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Arancini
Arancini and Christmas 2013For the record, when I die, I want a Viking funeral. They put your body on a small wooden boat, cover you with hay, float you out on the water, and shoot flaming arrows until the hay catches fire. Then the boat burns and sinks.Is that too much to ask?In November, 2013, I drove from my home in Nashville to my hometown of Baltimore. Seven hundred miles. Eleven hours. Batu, my bull terrier, drove with me. We did it in one day.A couple days later, I dropped Batu off with a friend who just loves Batu and loves taking care of him. Then I flew to Madrid to work on the new Bona Fide CD with guitarist Marc Antoine. He had volunteered to produce and mix.Two weeks later, the CD was almost finished – all it needed was a couple of tweaks. I left Madrid, flew back to Baltimore, and picked up Batu. I was getting ready to drive back to Nashville when I got a phone call.My Dad’s second wife had passed away in Annapolis, Maryland. She was young, and it was so sad. My Dad had passed away two years before — on January 4th. He was cremated.I went to the memorial service for my stepmom. It was heart-breaking. It had to be tough for her two kids. Right before I left, her son — my half-brother — gave me two jars of my Dad’s ashes. One for me and one for my brother.Batu and I drove from Baltimore to Nashville the next day. I stayed a few days in Music City, and then packed up some things – including the jar of my Dad’s ashes for my brother – and Batu and I decided to head west. Destination? Breckenridge, Colorado, a skiing village in the Rocky Mountains. My brother, the Slim Bro, had rented an apartment so the family could spend Christmas together.My plan was to hang out in Breckenridge for Christmas with la famiglia, go to Scottsdale for New Years, and then head to Palm Springs, California, for a couple months of Slim Gigs. So I packed up the Slimousine, threw Batu in the back and we left Nashville and drove west.Batu and I got to Breckenridge safe and sound. We drove 1200 miles. It took us two days. We checked in to the apartment. It was pretty nice, on the ground floor, right in downtown Breckenridge.
Batu and I sat on the couch. I was reading the brochure for the apartment when I noticed there was a $100 dollar-a-day fine for having a dog. A hundred bucks a day. It was too late to find a new place. So I had to keep Batu on the QT, the Down Low and the Hush-Hush.My brother walked in. It was so great to see him. I hadn’t seen him since our Dad’s funeral. I gave him the jar of our Dad’s ashes. He put it on top of the refrigerator.Breckenridge was bitter cold. I woke up one morning and it was one degree outside. We were at 10,000 feet. I went jogging, like a fool. I jogged around the mountain. It was exhilarating – clear and sunny and beautiful and freezing cold.On Christmas Day, my brother, the family and I went to an absinthe bar on Main Street. I had never had absinthe. I’d heard about it. It’s an alcoholic beverage that is supposed to make you really crazy.How crazy? Well, rumor has it that one time Van Gogh drank way too much of the stuff, then cut off his ear and gave it to a prostitute.I’m sure she would have preferred to be paid in cash.So, on Christmas Day, we, the Slim Crew, went into the absinthe bar in Breckenridge, Colorado. We sat down. The waitress came over and started explaining the different kinds of absinthe. I think she must have tried most of them within the past hour, because her eyes had that space alien luminescence about them. And her ear was missing.The absinthe was expensive. Twenty bucks a shot.We ordered a couple. Only one of us had tried absinthe before. That person — I won’t say who – drank a lot of absinthe the night before a wedding, took a fire extinguisher off the hotel wall and sprayed everybody in sight.
The waitress brought over two glasses of absinthe, one clear and one green. She put a small strainer over top of each glass, and placed a cube of sugar on top of the strainer. She brought over a samovar of ice water, and placed the two glasses under the two faucets. She let the water drip slowly over the sugar cube, through the strainer, and into the absinthe.When the cube dissolved, we turned off the faucet, and we each took a sip. It tasted like old bathwater, smelled like stinky sweat socks and kicked like a mule. We passed the two glasses around, and drank. When we finished, we walked in the snow through the quaint little village, which was all decked out in lights and wreaths and ribbons.The town was glowing. We were also glowing – like nuclear waste. I don’t know if it was the absinthe or what, but we were definitely feeling merry and bright.When we got back to the apartment, we had a traditional Christmas dinner — turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. We drank wine. Not that we needed to. After we finished, as we were cleaning up, someone — I won’t say who — knocked the jar of my Dad’s ashes off the top of the refrigerator. It shattered on the kitchen floor.We all stood in silence for a moment. Then we started laughing.Why were we laughing? You’d have to know my Dad. He was a professor of philosophy and literature; a tough and gruff and grouchy curmudgeon who also had an incredible sense of humor. He once taught a course in comedy. He had a great laugh, his eyes would squint, he’d throw back his head, and he’d let it out.We all looked at his ashes there on the floor. What to do?We gathered up the ashes in a dustpan, picked out the glass as best we could, and went outside in the cold, dark night. I took the dustpan, and scattered his ashes in a schoolyard behind the apartment. Then we gathered in a circle, held hands, and mumbled something that sounded like a prayer.That was our Christmas. But that’s not the end of the story.When it came time to check out of the pet-unfriendly apartment, it was just me and Batu, cleaning and packing. My brother and family had checked out earlier. Check out time was 10 AM. At 10:05, there was a loud knocking on the door.“Time to check out!”Apparently, they were not only pet-unfriendly, they were people-unfriendly as well. Batu started barking. His bark could make Superman jump.I tried to get Batu to shut up. As the knocking got louder, so did Batu’s bark. All I could think about was paying the $100 a day dog fine. I grabbed Batu, lifted him up, and went out to the balcony of the apartment. I lifted all 70 pounds of him over the four-foot railing and dropped him in a snowdrift (don’t call PETA, we were on the first floor).
I grabbed his bed and tossed it over. Then I jumped over the railing, into the snow drift. I scooped up Batu, grabbed his bed and ran to the car. I threw the bed in the car, put Batu on top of the bed, and ran back to the balcony.I jumped the railing, went inside, and went to the front door. I opened it. The guy who was knocking came in and started looking around. There was obviously no dog. He walked around, and then left without saying a word. I packed my car and took off with Batu.We drove from Breckenridge to Scottsdale, Arizona. It was treacherous — up and down icy, snowy two-lane roads. The car was skidding all over, and there were no guard rails. The drop was precipitous. The drive took forever. I had the death grip on the steering wheel. It was tense. A trip that should have taken 10 hours took 20.But we made it. That’s my Christmas story for 2013. Happy Holidays.
ARANCINIWant to make people happy around the Holidays? Make some arancini! Arancini are Sicilian rice balls stuffed with mozzarella cheese.Arancia is the Italian word for oranges. Arancini means “small oranges” which is the size and shape these rice balls should be.Two cups of leftover risotto should make about seven or eight small rice balls.In the past, I’ve used mozzarella for the stuffing. One night, all I had was goat cheese. So I used that, and I loved the way it tasted. If you are using mozzarella, cut it into small cubes, two for each rice ball. If you are using goat cheese, roll it into seven or eight small balls – each about the size of a grape.Eight ounces of cheese should be more than enough for seven or eight arancini.INGREDIENTS2 cups leftover risotto – I used some risotto with shrimp and peas I had cooked the previous night½ cup of flour3 eggs1 and ¼ cups breadcrumbs (I use panko)½ pound of mozzarella, cut into 16 small cubes, or ½ pound of goat cheese, rolled into 8 small balls¼ cup olive oilHere we go…Take the leftover risotto, put it in a large mixing bowl.Put the flour on a plate.Break 2 eggs into a bowl, add some salt and pepper, and mick ‘em up.On another flat plate, add 1 cup of breadcrumbs.Break an egg into the risotto, and add the remaining ¼ cup of breadcrumbs.Mix the risotto, the egg, and the breadcrumbs by hand. Mick ‘em up.Take a small amount of risotto. Put it in the palm of your hand, roll it in a ball--about the size of a small orange. Poke a hole in it, add 2 cubes of mozzarella in the center, or one goat cheese ball, and fold the rice over the mozzarella.
Take the rice ball, roll it in the flour, and then dip it in the egg. Let the excess drip off, and then roll the rice ball around in the breadcrumbs until it's coated. Keep making the rice balls until all the risotto is gone.Put the olive oil (you can also use canola) in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. I used a 12” pan.When the oil is hot, put your rice balls in the pan, and sauté until golden on the bottom, about 3 or 4 minutes. Don’t burn your balls.Turn them over, and sauté on the other side, about 3 or 4 minutes, until golden brown.When done, put ‘em on a platter lined with paper towels.Dish ‘em up!Eat immediately. Serve with some absinthe and go nuts!
MANGIAMO!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Halibut Panko Fish Sticks
My sister had all her kids by C-section. They’re all pretty normal, except whenever they leave the house, they go out the window.When the doctors perform a C-section (cesarean section) they make an incision, and bring the baby out via the abdomen rather than, well you know. They stitch you back up, and instruct you to stay still for a week or so until your incision has healed. When my sister had her first baby, she asked me to babysit for a week while she recovered. I did. I loved it. I told my sister that whenever she had another kid, I’d do it again.I had no idea at the time that she’d go on to have four more kids.The doctors should have put a piece of Velcro on her stomach. My sister had kids every two years, like clockwork. At one point I was babysitting a newborn, a two year-old, a four year-old, a six year-old and an eight year-old. My sister used cloth diapers. Not on herself, on the kids. So whenever the kids peed or pooped, you had to take off the diapers, shake ‘em out, and put on a fresh one—with safety pins. And then put on a diaper cover. Babysitting was hectic. Crazy.It was exhausting, yes, but I actually didn’t mind it. Whenever my sister and her husband needed a break from their precious little monsters, they’d ask Uncle Slimmy to come up for a while.Babysitting five kids is like living in a tornado – it’s a whirlwind of activity. Get ‘em up, get ‘em dressed, make breakfast, get lunches packed, cut chewing gum out of their hair and then get them off to school.After school, you pick them up, drive ‘em around to all their after-school activities, go home, make dinner, clean up, make sure they do their homework, and then put ‘em to bed.The next day, you get up and do it all over again for the ingrates.One especially hectic morning, all the kids were running around screaming. I was trying to make sure all five were dressed; I was making school lunches and trying to get everybody ready for school.I’m not good at breakfast. I can cook you a dinner that will make you cry tears of joy, or at least not make you sick, but breakfast for me is some fresh fruit, maybe an English muffin.I rarely eat cereal, especially the kind kids like to eat – Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, Count Chocula. But when you need to feed the little monsters in the morning and you’re in a hurry, cereal is quick and easy. You just fill a bowl and grab some milk.Which is what I did that crazy morning - except when I grabbed the milk carton, it was empty. Well, there was a drop. Kids love to do that, don’t they? They’ll drink out of the carton, and leave the last drop so they won’t have to throw it away.
So there they are, five kids seated at the table, bowls filled with cereal, clock ticking, and no milk. The kids had a rare moment of silence. They all looked at me, wondering what I was going to do next.I looked at the clock. We were running way late. I grabbed a liter bottle of Coca-Cola and poured it over the cereal in each bowl. They first looked at me like I was crazy. Then suddenly they all just thought it was the coolest thing in the world. 
They ate it up. They left the house that morning on the highest of sugar highs.No one got sick, so I’m marking it down as a successful meal.Breakfast was a crapshoot, but I almost always had a nice home-cooked dinner for the kids when they got back from school. Spaghetti and meatballs. Chicken Parmigiano. Cacio e Pepe (Italian mac ‘n cheese).But one night, I realized we had nothing in the fridge. It was too late to go to the store and come home and cook. So I ordered Chinese food. Only one problem – they didn’t deliver out in the sticks where my sister lived, meaning I’d have to jump in the car and go pick it up…My favorite car ever? My Jeep Wrangler convertible. I loved that car. It was a manly man’s car; stripped down of all luxury. No radio. No AC. No back seat. A canvas top. Canvas doors. Plastic windows. It was a rough ride. I loved to put the dogs in the back, smoke cigars and drive around.When the weather was nice, and you had the top down and the doors off, it was heavenly. It was basically a two-seater. Which posed a problem that night. I couldn’t leave the kids home alone while I went to pick up Chinese food.I didn’t have enough seats or seat belts to strap them all in. What to do?I put the two youngest in the front seat and strapped them in together. The other three I put in the back, and covered them with a big blanket. It looked like I was trying to smuggle illegals. I told them to shut up, and I gently drove to the Chinese place, picked up dinner, and drove back.It was only a few miles. I took it easy on the brakes – I didn’t want those kids rolling around the back of the Jeep. I’m just glad I didn’t get stopped by the cops.After that, the kids wanted me to drive them around all the time in the back of the Jeep. I didn’t want to press my luck with the police, so I’d drive them around the property, through the cornfields, over the hills. They loved it.I did an all-ages show one Christmas in Towson, Maryland. The nieces and nephew were just kids, they came down and sat in the front row. It was the first time they’d seen me on stage. To this day I remember how good that made me feel to see them there. None of them fell asleep, like people normally do at my concerts.I introduced the kids to the crowd, and then asked them to come up on stage and sing with “Uncle Slimmy.” They were mortified. It was the first time I ever called myself Uncle Slimmy. The name stuck. The kids didn’t come up on stage that night—but they’ve been coming to Slim Shows ever since. I thought they’d have more sense than that.I was honored when my oldest niece asked me to sing “End of the Rainbow” at her wedding three years ago. She just had twin girls. She didn’t name either one “Slim”. But it does make me a great uncle.Great Uncle Slimmy.HALIBUT PANKO FISH STICKS
My Mom was a great cook. But when she was in a rush to get dinner on the table for us kids, sometimes she’d pull a package of Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks out of the freezer and heat ‘em up. When I was trying to come up with a recipe for a piece of halibut, I decided to cut it into pieces the size of Mrs. Paul’s, and make my own fish sticks. I’m a genius, ain’t I?How did fish get to be so expensive? The halibut I used was $28 a pound. That’s ridiculous. What’s even more ridiculous is using that expensive halibut to make fish sticks. But they are so ridiculously good.I love panko bread crumbs. I mean, I don’t eat them out of the bag, but they’re great for frying. Panko breadcrumbs are all the rage right now. I understand why panko breadcrumbs are so popular. They’re light, crunchy, delicious, and have a great texture.Where the hell were they a few years ago? It’s like balsamic vinegar - up until ten years ago, nobody knew what balsamic vinegar was. All we had was Progresso red wine vinegar.And now? We have 500 varieties of balsamic vinegar. We’ve got $600 bottles of balsamic vinegar made by monks in Montepulciano.As far as the fish goes, you can use any thick, firm-fleshed white fish — halibut, sea bass, or grouper. Cod would be an inexpensive alternative. The best way to cut these filets is into rectangles, about four inches long and about an inch wide.Another thing – don’t bread the fish in advance. Dip and fry, that’s what I always say. If you leave breaded filets sitting around, they get gooey and don’t fry right. And you know what Nat King Cole said,”Straighten up and fry right!”INGREDIENTS
1 pound skinless halibut filets, cut into rectangular pieces2 eggsSalt and fresh ground black pepper½ cup canola oil (or olive oil)2 cups panko breadcrumbs on a plate (you might not use them all)Here we go…Rinse the fish and pat dry with paper towels. Put the fish on a platter.Take the eggs, and put them in a shallow bowl. Add salt and pepper. Beat it!Heat the canola oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. You can use canola oil for this, because it doesn’t smoke at high temperatures. But I’ve used olive oil many times with great results.Grab a piece of fish. Dip it in the beaten egg, let the excess drip off.Then roll it in the panko breadcrumbs. Press each side in, make sure the panko sticks to each side of the fish. Put it on a plate.Do this with all the pieces of fish.When all the fish is breaded, take a pinch of the breadcrumbs, and drop ‘em in the oil. If they sizzle, the oil is hot and ready.Place as many pieces of fish as you can in the hot canola oil. When you see the bottom edges of the fish turn golden brown – 2 or 3 minutes - use some tongs and turn them over. Don’t fork it – you don’t want to lose any of the juiciness, and you don’t want the fish to flake apart on ya.Brown on the other side for about 2 or 3 minutes.When both sides are golden brown, place on a plate with covered with a layer or two of paper towels.You gotta eat this dish right away. Plate it up right quickly, garnish with parsley, and serve with lemon slices. My Caprese salad is the perfect side for these fish sticks.
MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Angela's Chicken Stew
Angela's Chicken Stew and The Story of Angela
Almost every Sunday, we’d go to my grandmother’s house and have a big Italian dinner. The usual suspects would be there; my Mom and Dad and us three kids, and my uncle Oscar, his wife and three kids. The kids would play in the backyard, wrestle on the living-room floor, and jump on the beds in the basement. Angela would cook, and when the pasta was ready, she’d serve us kids at the kitchen table and say…“Eat that spaghetti or I’ll shove it down your throat.”Which we kids thought was ridiculously hilarious.Angela was my grandmother. She was an Italian immigrant, who came from Italy to New York City as a child. The family lived in Harlem. As a teenager, Angela and her sister, Marie, started working in a garment sweatshop — like so many other Italian immigrant women--seven days a week, all day long, for next to nothing. Disgusted with the working conditions, she and Marie helped organize the first dressmakers strike for the fledgling International Ladies Garment Workers Union.Their mother, Giuseppina, accompanied her daughters on the strike, brandishing a rolling pin, telling anybody within earshot that if anybody messed with her girls, they’d have to go through her first. Angela and Marie continued to organize, with Giuseppina following them with her rolling pin.Angela was very effective; she was an eloquent, persuasive and fearless organizer. She was eventually offered a chance to organize and manage the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia area (later known as the Upper South Department of the ILGWU) and she accepted the challenge. So she gathered up her two sons, and moved to Baltimore, Maryland.Angela started by going to small towns on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She didn’t drive. The ILGWU eventually found her a driver, a one-eyed African-American named Jesse. I can only imagine what it must have been like, going to these tiny towns in the not-so-deep south, an Italian woman and her black driver, trying to convince people to join the union.Organizing was a tough business in those days. Factory owners didn’t want anything to do with unions — it would obviously cost them money to pay a decent wage and provide benefits. A lot of those factory owners ran their towns. They had the politicians and police in their pockets.My grandmother was thrown down a flight of steps when she tried to organize one shop. She was thrown in jail after trying to organize another. She was beaten more than once.But she persisted. Why? Because it pissed her off the way the workers were treated. Women were locked in factories for hours at a time. One hundred and forty six garment workers died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York because the owners had locked the doors to keep the workers inside working. Women were sexually abused. They made very little money. They had no rights. Angela wanted to change all that.And she did. She took her region of the Ladies Garment Workers Union from nothing to about 16,000 members when she retired in 1972. She was the first woman vice president of a major union. She substantially raised the standard of living for thousands and thousands of people. And she did it without expecting anything in return. She told me more than once…“When you give, you give with no strings attached.”Everybody loved her, including the bosses she fought with. They respected her.
Angela made some tough choices when she started organizing in New York. Her marriage suffered. Her husband, Romollo, was an Italian from Rome; Angela’s father had arranged the marriage. Romollo, who was old-fashioned and older than Angela, didn’t approve of her radicalism, and they filed for divorce. During the divorce, her children — my father Philip and my uncle Oscar – were put in an orphanage while Angela and Romollo, fought for custody.Romollo was a waiter at a fancy hotel. Angela was a radical union organizer who’d been thrown in jail. Romollo used that evidence against Angela and won custody; a crushing blow to Angela. She started using her maiden name, Bambace.Angela stayed close to her kids; she moved to a house in Queens near Romollo’s. She watched over her two boys; she was determined to do whatever she could to help. When she moved the family to Baltimore, she put Oscar through medical school and Philip through law school.Angela was amazing –feisty, strong, and strong-willed. She drank (bourbon Manhattans or chianti), she smoked (Larks), and she cared more about people than anyone I have ever known.Angela used to wait in the alley in her housecoat during Christmas to tip the garbage men. Homeless guys would come to the back door; she’d make them a sandwich, and then pay them to do yard work. All this from a woman who was invited to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration and had U.S. Senators sending her Christmas cards. Mayors and governors would stop by the house during holidays.
One day she was in the hospital for a surgery when Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President of the United States called. They were friends. The nurse handed the phone to Angela, but she thought it was her son, Philip, playing a joke. So she hung up, saying she wasn’t in the mood for any of his “crap.”A few moments later the phone rang again. The nurse told Angela it was the Vice President. Again. She took the call.Angela would cuss on occasion. I remember one night she took us kids to a restaurant, and she told the Baltimore City Comptroller, Hyman Pressman, that he was “full of shit” after he recited an impromptu poem about my sister. Everyone laughed, including Hyman, who knew my grandmother well, and loved her.The politicians admired Angela because she was honest, uncompromising; she couldn’t be bought or influenced. She fought for what she believed in. She was a champion to the workers she represented; people who were really struggling to make ends meet.
Angela was modest, in every sense of the word. She never bragged about her accomplishments. She lived in a modest house. She didn’t wear diamonds or fancy jewelry. Oscar once bought her a fur coat; she didn’t feel comfortable wearing it, because she thought it would be hypocritical to be fighting for the causes of working people while waltzing around in a mink coat.My family lived with Angela from the time I was born until I was six. I lived with Angela again when I was in my late teens. I used to do her shopping. I’d drive (in the used American Motors Rambler she bought me) to a little store behind the Lexington Market in downtown Baltimore called DiMarco’s. They used to sell Italian meats, cheeses and wines.I used to buy her Chianti – in the small straw bottles — that didn’t cost more than two or three dollars. Angela and I would have dinner, we’d have a glass of Chianti, and she’d tell me stories about her life. I was fascinated. Crazy how some kids get so attached to their grandparents. I was really attached to Angela.One night Oscar, her first son, walked in with a suitcase and a case of wine. He told us he had just left his wife. I guess Oscar’s wife wasn’t too happy about it, because the reason he brought the case of wine was because he didn’t want her pouring his ridiculously expensive vino down the sink after he left.Oscar moved in. The two of us shared my bedroom in Angela’s basement.Angela and I were having dinner one night when Oscar told us he was going out. He left, and we finished our dinner and our glass of Chianti. When she asked me for another glass, I told her there was no more.
She asked about Oscar’s wine. I told Angela that all we had was Oscar’s special wine. She looked at me and said.“Who more special than we?”Angela told me to go get a bottle. So I pulled a bottle from Oscar’s case, and poured us each a glass. Angela took a sip and started laughing. The wine was that incredible.After we finished our glass of wine, she wanted to go to sleep. I asked her what to do with the wine. She said to stick a cork in it and put it in the fridge, just like we did with the Chianti. I did, and then went to bed.A little after midnight, I woke up when I heard Oscar yelling my name. He came into the basement bedroom. He wasn’t too happy about finding his fine wine in the fridge with a cork jammed in it. I told him the story. When I got to the “Who more special than we?” part, he started laughing.Oscar then gave me my first lesson in wine, one of many to come. He explained to me that the bottle I had opened was a 1954 Chateau Mouton Rothschild cabernet. The labels were drawn by famous artists –Salvador Dali, Picasso, and Miro. When he told me the bottle of wine was worth three hundred dollars, I was amazed. It was the early 1970s. At that time, three hundred dollars could buy a car. And a house. With a pool. And a wine cellar.
ANGELA’S CHICKEN STEWWe called Angela “Nanny”, which is a screwed up version of “nonni”, which is what most Italian kids call their grandmothers. Angela didn’t seem to love cooking, and who could blame her? She worked long hours, was frequently out of town. We ate out a lot. She loved Chinese food; we used to go to a place on Charles Street in Baltimore called Jimmy Wu’s. She ate lunch almost every workday at a place called Oyster Bay in downtown Baltimore, right around the corner from her office. Pete was her waiter. Angela loved steak tartare, and French onion soup.When Angela cooked, she had a rotation of three dishes for our big Sunday Italian dinners. She almost always made breaded cutlets (veal or chicken) with each dish.Pasta piselli was a spaghetti dish she made with peas and onions. She also made the classic Italian meat sauce—sausages, meatballs, and pork in a tomato sauce that cooked all day long. And she made an Italian chicken stew, which I recently tried to recreate with the few remaining brain cells that I have left. The stew was delizioso!Angela was a champion of the underdog, of the neglected.Most chicken recipes call for chicken breasts. I love chicken breasts. I’m a big fan. Yes, breasts are sexy. A lot of attention gets paid to breasts, and rightfully so. But what about the much overlooked chicken thigh?It’s an underdog. It’s neglected. It needs someone to champion its cause. If Angela were alive today, she’d be singing the praises of the dark meat, fighting for its rightful place in the culinary catalogue.So in Angela’s chicken stew, I use chicken thighs.I admire the thigh. It’s juicy. It starts at the knee and goes all the way up to the hip--which is really close to some sexy stuff. I think thighs are sexy. And I’m bringing sexy back.Notes…When you brown your pancetta pieces, or your chicken thighs, you want the heat high enough to make them brown, but not so high that they burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. Dutch ovens work well for a dish like this. Stoves vary in temperature—on my stove at Slim’s Shady Trailer Park, the temperature varies FROM BURNER TO BURNER! It’s enough to drive you crazy.Well, I was a little crazy to begin with.Angela liked to drink sweet vermouth. Not all day, every day. She’d have the occasional Martini and Rossi sweet vermouth on the rocks, sometimes with bourbon and a maraschino cherry—a bourbon Manhattan.In this recipe, I was going to add some sweet vermouth, but I didn’t have any. I used a medium sherry instead. It added a real nice flavor.If you don't like peas, you can substitute asparagus tips. If you’re using frozen green peas, measure out a cup and a half and let them sit. You don’t have to defrost them. By the time they’re ready to go in the stew, they’ll be defrosted.Finally, when I was at the grocery store, I was waiting in line to buy a whole piece of pancetta, which I was going to chop into small pieces for this stew. But the line at the deli was real long, so I picked up a package of Boar’s Head pancetta, four ounces, thinly sliced. I chopped it up into smaller pieces, and it came to about 1 ¼ cups.It browned really well, and got deliciously flaky and crisp. I’ll probably use it again in the future. It was delizioso!When working with raw chicken, wash your cutting boards, your knives, your hands.Serves six adults, or maybe two teenage boys.
INGREDIENTS2 pounds chicken thighs, boneless, skinless (6 thighs)Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper4 ounces pancetta cut in small pieces (1 ¼ cups)1 cup each—chopped onions and celery1 ½ cups chopped carrotsCelery tops—those leafy green things? Save 4 or 5 leaves!3 cloves minced garlic (about 1 tablespoon)½ teaspoon dried oregano1 cup white wine4 cups chicken broth3 tablespoons of flour4 small red potatoes, skin on, cut into pieces about the size of a ping-pong ball (you’ll need about 2 ½ cups)2 tablespoons medium sherry (or sweet vermouth, or sweet marsala)1 ½ cups green peas (fresh are best, frozen are OK)Extra virgin olive oil (optional)Here we go…Rinse the chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Salt and pepper both sides, I use kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Rub it in. Rub-a-dub-dub.Heat a large pot, like a Dutch oven, over medium heat for 2 minutes.Add the pancetta, let it cook for 4 minutes, or until brown. Try and turn the pancetta over and let the other side brown for 4 more minutes or so. The objective here is to try and get all sides of the pancetta pieces golden brown.When the pancetta has browned, remove with a slotted spoon to a small bowl.There should be some drippings in the bottom of the pot/Dutch oven. We need just enough to coat the bottom of the pan—about 1 tablespoon.If there is not enough, add a drizzle of olive oil until there is. If there’s too much oil, the chicken won’t brown. If there’s too little oil, the chicken will stick to the bottom of the pot. You’re smart. You can do this.Turn the heat to medium-high for 1 minute.Add chicken and let it brown for 5 minutes. Don’t move it around! Let it brown.When it’s brown, use some tongs and turn each piece over. Let them brown on the other side for 5 minutes, until golden.The chicken is gonna cook in the stew for another 40 minutes. We don’t want to cook it all the way. We just want the outsides to be seared brown.Remove the chicken thighs to a platter, and let ‘em cool, baby.Turn the heat down to medium. There should be enough juicy stuff in the bottom of the pan. We’ll need about 2 tablespoons. If there’s not enough liquid/oil in the bottom of the pan, add a little olive oil.
Add the onion, celery--the chopped celery and the tops, carrots, garlic and oregano to the pot. Cook the vegetables for 5-6 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Stir frequently.Put the heat on high. Add the cup of white wine. When it starts to bubble, let it cook off for 1 minute.Reduce the heat to medium, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often.Add the chicken broth, and turn the heat to high.Whisk in the flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it’s smooth and all the lumps are gone. When all 3 tablespoons have been whisked in, and it’s all smoovy-smoov…Add the potatoes. When the broth comes to a boil, let the potatoes cook for 3 minutes, while boiling.Reduce the heat to medium. Add the 2 tablespoons of sherry or sweet vermouth.Cook for 15 minutes.
The chicken should be cool by now. Cut each chicken thigh into smaller pieces, about the size of a small egg.Put the chicken in the pot. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook for 20 minutes.Don’t stir! This is a stew. Let it sit and stew for a while. You keep stirring this thing and potatoes are gonna break up, and chicken is gonna break down.After 20 minutes, give it a stir. Then cook for another 20 minutes.Add the peas and the cooked pancetta. Cook for 10 minutes.Scrape the sides of the pot, right above the stew-line. Scrape it right into the stew, this is some flavorful stuff! Give the stew a gentle stir, taste for salt and pepper and adjust.Stab a potato with a folk—it should be tender. Take a bite of the chicken—it should be firm and just a bit flaky—like me.Dish it up, and…
MANGIAMO!!!!