Slim Man Cooks Pizza

Pizza with Marc Antoine and Dean MartinI don’t know why Marc and I started calling each other “Bastardo.”  We had just met.“How ya doin’, bastardo?”“What’s up, bastardo?”Marc Antoine is a tremendously gifted guitar player.  I love the way he plays.  He’s played with Rod Stewart, Sting, Celine Dion. Marc was born in Paris, and living in L.A. when I first met him.A percussionist named Steve Reid had put together a tour; he called it Jazzatopia. Marc on guitar, Me on vocals, and Everette Harp on sax. We traveled all over the US; Marc and I became fast friends.  The year was 1997.We were in San Antonio playing a place called the White Rabbit.  The night before the show, Marc and I went downtown to the Riverwalk, a collection of bars and cafes alongside the San Antonio River. I was in an open-air Mexican restaurant, and Marc was down by the water.I was sitting at the bar, surrounded by my Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters, when I heard one of my songs come over the sound system.  It was one of the first times I’d ever heard my music on the radio.  I jumped up and screamed out to Marc, who was about 50 yards away,“BASTARDO!”The restaurant went dead silent.  A couple of guys pulled out machetes.  For a couple moments there, I thought guns might be drawn.  Everyone was staring at me.  They finally relaxed when they realized I wasn’t screaming at any of them.  I just smiled a sheepish smile, waved weakly and walked out.  I don’t think Marc and I called each other “bastardo” after that.The Jazzatopia tour started with rehearsals in an industrial complex outside of L.A.  There were three warehouses.In one warehouse they were building white plastic Storm Trooper uniforms for a Star Wars movie.  There were hundreds of them hanging on racks outside in the sun to dry.  It was bizarre.In another warehouse, Fleetwood Mac was rehearsing for their tour.  A year before, I had played a club in D.C. owned by Mick Fleetwood, the drummer.  We became friendly; he wasn’t the kind of friend I could ask to bail me out of jail, but he knew who I was.  I went over and said hello. I stood around and listened to Fleetwood Mac rehearse.Then there was our warehouse, number three.  The Jazzatopia warehouse. At our first rehearsal, Marc got into a fistfight with the drummer, who had to be replaced.  Seriously.  After that, things calmed down a bit.  I think Marc scared the shit out of the rest of the band. Everybody fell in line.One night while we were out on tour, Marc told me the story about a lovely woman he had met while he was doing a TV show in Madrid.  He was playing, she was one of the dancers on the set, dancing to his music, it was love at first sight.She must have made quite an impression, because after our tour, Marc went to Madrid and asked her to marry him.  He invited me to their wedding in Madrid.The wedding was wild and fun and crazy.  We danced.  We ate.  We drank.  We played.  I think I sang a few songs with the band.  The wedding started in the afternoon and went until 4 AM?  Or was it 5?  I think it was 6 AM when I caught a cab back to the hotel.The day after the wedding, I went to Marbella, a beach town on the Mediterranean.  I was at a seaside bar, drinking sangria – the kind they make with white wine and brandy and Cointreau – and I’d had a few.  It was late afternoon.A song came over the sound system as the sun was setting.“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”  Dean Martin was singing.  I love Dino. I love that song. But when I thought about that opening line, I turned to the guy standing next to me and said,“ ‘When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.’ What the hell kinda of lyric is that?”The guy turned to me and said, “I’ve never worked a day in my life because of that song.”He told me that one of his relatives had written that song, and a bunch of others. His relative had willed him the royalties when he died.The guy who wrote “That’s Amore” was Harry Warren, the son of Italian immigrants.  He wrote “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, “Jeepers Creepers”, “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” and a lot of other smash hits.Harry Warren also won three Academy awards, and was nominated eleven times.  No wonder no one in his family had to work.  Ever. True story.I told the story to Marc.  He wasn’t surprised.  Marc then told me a story. His friend had written a song — not a hit song, just a song — that was included on The BodyGuard soundtrack.  That’s the movie with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston where Whitney sings “I Will Always Love You.”The soundtrack sold millions of copies.  The movie was a smash.  Marc’s friend’s first royalty check was for about two million dollars. That’s a lot of dough.Speaking of dough - want me to show you how to make a pizza?When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!PIZZAPizza is kind of like making love.  Even when it’s bad, it’s pretty good.First things first - if you’re gonna make your own dough, you gotta do it a day in advance.  There was a great deli in Baltimore named Mastellone that sold fresh pizza dough, and it was amazing, better than I could make myself. If you can find a great deli that has fresh dough, use it! If not, make your own, it’s a-not-a so bad!This recipe will yield enough dough for 2 pizzas.I make my own tomato sauce, it only takes about 25 minutes--my recipe is on page XX.  You can use bottled tomato sauce.  Either way, you’ll need about a ½ cup of sauce per pizza.Unless you have a wood-fired oven, you’re gonna need a pizza stone.  You’ll also need a paddle to get the pizza on and off the stone – because that stone is gonna get really hot.  How hot?  Five hundred degrees.  That’s how hot your oven should be.  The pizza stone should sit in that hot oven for at least 30 minutes before you put a pizza on it.Ready?INGREDIENTS:For the Dough:3 cups of bread flour, plus a little more for dusting2 teaspoons turbinado sugar (turbinado sugar has a molasses flavor, but you can use regular sugar if you want)1 ½ teaspoons of salt (this is one of those rare instances when I DON’T use kosher salt, I use table salt)½ teaspoon rapid rise yeast1 and 1/3 cups really cold water1 tablespoon olive oil (plus a tablespoon for the kneading surface)Corn meal for dusting the pizza paddleTOPPINGS:1/2 cup of tomato sauce per pizzaFresh mozzarella cheese, sliced into thin slices, or shredded (about a cup per pizza)Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated (about ¼ cup per pizza)Basil leaves (about ¼ cup per pizza)If you want, you can add — sausage, pepperoni, cut-up meatballs, diced chicken cutlets, Feta cheese, Asiago cheese, provolone cheese, spinach, peppers, onions, shallots – feel free to get creative.Here we go…I do the dough by hand in a wooden bowl — it’s kinda sexy that way.Put the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a wooden bowl.  Mix by hand, just a couple stirs.Make a crater in the middle of the flour.  Pour the cold water in the hole, and start folding the flour over the water.  Mix by hand for a few minutes.When everything is combined, and all the flour is soaked up into the dough, take the dough out of the bowl, roll it in a ball and put it back in the bowl.  Let it sit for 15 minutes, uncovered.Then, make a small crater on top of the dough ball, and pour the olive oil in.  Fold the dough around the olive oil, so it blends in.  Work the olive oil into the dough for a couple of minutes.  The dough will be just a little sticky.Lightly oil a large chopping block — or you can use your counter top.  Drizzle some olive oil onto a paper towel, and dampen the chopping block or countertop.  Don’t throw away that towel.  We’ll use it again momentarily.Take the dough out of the bowl, and place it on the chopping block or counter top.  Let’s knead some dough!  Make your hand into a fist, and press your knuckles into the dough, and roll it around, form it into a ball, and do it again.  Knead, knead, knead.After a few minutes, take that lightly-oiled paper towel and rub it on the inside of a large glass or ceramic bowl.Shape the dough back into a ball, place it in the oiled bowl, and cover it tightly with plastic wrap.Put it in the fridge for 24 hours.Time to make some pizza…Take the dough out of the fridge.  Cut it into two equal parts.  Roll each into a ball. Put both dough balls on a lightly oiled baking pan.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap.Put your pizza stone on the middle rack in your oven.Turn your oven to its highest setting, 500 degrees.Wait 30 minutes — for the stone to heat up and for the dough to settle.Time to grab your dough balls.Dust a chopping block or counter top with flour.  Grab a dough ball, put it on the block and flatten by hand into an 8-inch circle.Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12-inch circle.If you don’t have a rolling pin, do it by hand.  Start working the edges, using your fingers to spread the dough into a larger circle, until it’s about 12 inches.You don’t want the dough too thick, or too thin.If things get sticky — your hands or your rolling pin — dust with some flour.After your dough is formed into a 12” circle, dust your pizza paddle with a little corn meal.  Corn meal will help the pizza slide on and off the paddle. Corn meal doesn’t burn at high temperatures like flour does. Dust your paddle with corn meal, and put your dough on the paddle.Take a ladle of sauce, about half a cup, and spread it evenly around the dough in a thin layer.Snip some basil leaves onto the pizza.  Add your mozzarella, spread it around evenly, and then sprinkle on the Parmigiano cheese.If you have any other ingredients you’d like to add —sausage, peppers, olives, etc. — now is the time.Now to the oven - When your pizza is ready, open the oven, and slide the pizza off the paddle and onto the heated pizza stone.Cook for about 10 minutes.Then, check your pizza.  When the outer crust is light brown, and the mozzarella on top is browning and gooey, you’re done.If the cheese needs a little help browning, turn on your broiler, and let the cheese brown — THIS ONLY TAKES A MINUTE OR LESS!Grab your paddle, scoot the pizza off the stone and onto the paddle, and place the pizza on a platter. Eat it up! Then make another pizza with the second ball of dough. Go back, Jack, do it again. Use some different toppings! When it’s done…Slice it up, serve it up, and sing a little song…“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!”MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!!! 

Slim Man Cooks Italian Chicken Soup

Chicken Soup and My Dad's EyebrowsMy Dad (I called him Paps) had eyebrows that looked like two small porcupines had perched above his eyes. His eyebrows were so wild and wooly he could have combed them straight back and it would have looked like he had a full head of hair.Paps was bald. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t let anybody trim his eyebrows. It was the last patch of thick hair he had on his head. You would have needed a weed-whacker to trim them, anyway.We kids would beg my Dad to trim the shrubbery, but he wouldn’t. The barber would offer to clip the hedges, and my Dad would refuse.His eyebrows were a topic of conversation among the family. They were hard to ignore. They’d enter the room a few minutes before he would.   You could have braided them. As my Dad got older, his eyebrows got hairier and more wiry. If you got too close to him, they’d poke your eyes out.My Dad was the least modest person I knew. He let it all hang out. I don’t feel bad telling stories like these, because I’ve told tell them many times, right in front of him. And he’d be the one laughing the hardest. That was one of the many beautiful things about Paps — even though he was a serious guy, he didn’t take himself real seriously.But he had some real serious eyebrows that he never trimmed. Except once.My Dad had come down to Baltimore to fix up his Mom’s house. Angela had died a few months prior — April, 1975. I was living with her when she passed away. It was a horrible time. She was so sick and in so much pain. After she died, I continued to stay in her house, which was near Pimlico Racetrack, a horse racing track where they have the Preakness Stakes race.I idolized Angela. She was an Italian immigrant who came to this country with nothing and made an incredible impact on this world. She was such a comfort to be around; she was easy to talk to. She was generous. She paid for my piano lessons, even bought me an upright to practice on. When she died, I was heartbroken.I wanted to keep on living in the house, but my Dad and his only brother, Oscar, wanted to sell the place. The neighborhood was going downhill--probably because I was living there. So my Dad came down from New York to get the house ready to put on the market.One night, after a hard day’s work on the house, my Dad and I were sitting at the kitchen table. He wanted to cook something in the oven. It was one of those old gas stoves that you had to light by hand. Paps turned the gas on.I explained to him that you had to light the stove by hand. He bent over, opened the oven door, and struck a match. Before I could stop him, a blast of flame knocked him flat on his ass. I thought for sure that his face was fried.But it wasn’t. He was sitting on the kitchen floor, facial hair smoldering. I helped him up and sat him in a chair.His eyebrows were trimmed at last. As a matter of fact, I think they might have saved his life. The flame probably had a hard time burning through the shrubbery that was his eyebrows, which probably saved his face from getting flame-broiled. His eyebrows looked normal for once. That was the one and only time my Dad’s eyebrows got trimmed.We worked on the house just about every day, cleaning, painting and fixing everything up. I was really struggling with the loss of Angela. We were real close. One day, when I was feeling low, my Dad took me to the racetrack, which was right up the street. He thought it might take my mind off things. We walked up the street to Pimlico racetrack.On the way, Paps found a wallet in the bushes stuffed with cash—hundreds of dollars. Paps looked at the address on the driver’s license, and we walked to the house. Paps walked up and knocked on the door. A guy answered, and my Dad handed him the wallet. I’ll never forget the look of relief and gratitude on the guy’s face. He offered my Dad some money. He didn’t take it.Paps and I walked to Pimlico racetrack, a thoroughbred track. When we got there, he explained to me how to bet, how to pick horses. I wasn’t paying attention. If I liked the way a horse looked, I’d bet a couple bucks. If I liked the jockey’s colors, I’d bet a couple bucks.I lost every race. I was more depressed than ever! When the last race came around, Paps explained that it was a trifecta, which means, if you pick all three of the winning horses in order, you win big.I picked the #2 horse to come in first, the #1 horse to come in second, and the #4 horse to come in third.2-1-4. It was Angela’s birthday, February 14^th—2-1-4.The horses took off out of the starting gate. For the whole race, the #2 horse was in front, the #1 horse was second and the #4 horse was third. When they crossed the finish line, the #5 horse beat out the #4 horse for third place. The final order was 2-1-5. I was a big loser!I showed my Dad my ticket, and then threw it on the ground. He picked it up, gave it back to me and told me that the race wasn’t official yet. He explained that the race wasn’t official until they had a chance to review the race, which took a couple minutes.A voice came over the PA system. There was an objection against the #5 horse--he had bumped into the #4 horse right before the end of the race. The officials then disqualified the #5 horse, and the final, official result was 2-1-4.I won $899 on that race. I could feel my grandmother smiling down on me.We went back to the house, and the next day, started working again. We eventually got the place all fixed up. It didn’t take long to sell Angela’s house. It was a great place, with an apartment on the second floor that had a big balcony off the main bedroom. I hated to see the place go.My Dad took the money from the sale of Angela’s house and bought a place in upstate New York. It was called Rat Tail Ridge. Forty acres on top of a mountain with a view that was breathtaking.One door closes, another one opens.ITALIAN CHICKEN SOUPThe toughest thing about making Italian chicken soup is finding an Italian chicken. They’re usually the ones in the corner of the coop, drinking wine and arguing.My Dad loved soup. He was a soup guy. Maybe it was because he lived on Top of Old Smokey, where it was so cold that bears knocked on the front door looking for a place to hibernate. Hot soup works wonders when you come in from the cold.I roasted a chicken the other day. I used my Mom’s recipe, which is basically sticking a whole lemon inside the chicken and baking it. The next day was a cold and rainy winter day, so I made some soup from the chicken.If you have leftover chicken (turkey works, too), here’s what you do - pick the meat off the bones and the carcass. I usually end up with about three cups of chicken meat. Throw away the stuff you don’t like—fat, skin, small bones and such.I broke the carcass into two pieces. I used those and a couple leg and wing bones in the soup — they add great flavor. Just make sure you remove all the bones and stuff before you serve the soup. Take a slotted spoon and go fishing for bones or skin and remove them. You don’t want any of your guests breaking a bicuspid on a chicken bone.After you’ve made the soup, if there is any fat on top, skim it off.You can serve this soup as is, or you can add some pasta or rice.I like using small pasta, like ditalini. I cook the pasta separately, and put some in each individual bowl. I used to put it right in the soup and let it cook in there, but the pasta absorbs too much broth, and gets soggy.You’ll need to smoosh the Italian tomatoes before you add them to the soup. Open the can, pour them in a bowl, and dig in with your mitts and smoosh ‘em up! Remove the small yellow core from each tomato, and any skin or stems.INGREDIENTS¼ cup of olive oil1 cup each — chopped celery, carrots, and onion4 garlic cloves, minced2 cups cabbage — I used Napa cabbage — sliced into small pieces8 cups chicken brothChicken or turkey carcass and bones2 cups water1 bay leaf1 twenty-eight ounce can whole, peeled Italian tomatoes, smooshed up by hand2 tablespoons fresh oregano, or 1 tablespoon dried3 cups of chicken or turkey meat, white and dark1 cup of corn–fresh, canned or frozen½ pound of pasta (ditalini works well, as does elbow macaroni)Salt and pepperHere we go…Put a large pot on medium heat.Add the olive oil, let it heat up for 2 minutes.Add the celery, carrots, onion and garlic.Let it cook for about 7 minutes, stirring every so often.Add the cabbage.Cook for 5 minutes.Add the chicken broth.Put the chicken/turkey carcass and bones in the pot.Add the water.Add the bay leaf.Add the tomatoes.Add the oregano.Turn the heat on high and bring to a boil.Then lower the heat to medium-low, cook for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.Remove the carcass pieces and bones.Pick off any remaining meat from the carcass and bones that you’ve just removed, and add the meat to the soup. Discard the bones and carcass.Add the 3 cups of chicken or turkey meat to the soup.Add the corn.Cook for 5 minutes.Take the soup off the heat.Check it for bones and any other funky stuff.If you want to add some pasta…Get a pot, fill it with cold water, and put it on high heat.When it comes to a boil, add a couple tablespoons kosher salt.Add the pasta.When it is VERY FIRM, drain it.Dish it up! Serve the soup in large bowls.Add a little pasta to each bowl. Give it a stir.You can also add some cooked rice, if you'd prefer that to pasta.Serve with some crusty bread, and…MANGIAMO!!!!!

Slim Man Cooks Lemon Chicken

Lemon Chicken with Ace FrehleyThe first time I saw Ace Frehley he was waving an Uzi machine gun around in his kitchen.All this before lunch.He wasn’t trying to kill anybody, he was just showing us one of his toys. Ace had lots of toys. Fast cars, guns, guitars.Ace used to play guitar in a band called KISS. I was at his house with my band BootCamp. We were recording our first EP in his studio, which was built into the side of a small hill underneath his Connecticut house.Ace was under house arrest for driving his ridiculously expensive and exotic sports car the wrong way up the freeway while drunk. If you’re gonna be under house arrest, it might as well be in a place like Ace’s. It was pretty amazing, more like a castle than a house. It had gates – all it needed was a moat.Ace would wander in and out while we recorded in the basement studio. It was a basement, yes – but it was more like a luxury bunker with a recording studio. It was plush, had all the latest gear; it was a real pro studio, ready to go. There was only one small problem.The septic system was screwed up. So the whole place smelled faintly of – well let’s say it didn’t smell good. We were encouraged to go outside in the woods if we had to go to the bathroom.Oh, the glamorous life of show biz. My band, BootCamp, was doing pretty well. We had a few videos on MTV that were making some noise. We had labels that were interested. Managers were calling. We got the attention of two guys who were the road managers for Van Halen. We signed with them. Our new managers thought we should do an EP. Our first single (we released it on vinyl) had done really well, and we needed a follow-up.Our new managers thought we needed a producer, so they brought in Rob Sabino, who played keyboards in Chic. I loved Chic; loved the sound, the playing, and the production on those records –“Good Times”, “Le Freak”, “I Want Your Love”.Rob got the job. Rob Sabino knew Ace Frehley from back in their early days in the Bronx. Rob suggested we record at Ace’s bunker. So that’s what we did. It was winter, there was snow on the ground, and we recorded in the Luxury Bunker, and slept in a small motel nearby.Tom Alonso played keyboards, Bob Fallin played guitar, Hit Man Howie Z (known back then as Howard Zizzi) played drums, and I played bass and sang. When we started recording, I wasn’t getting warm and fuzzy feelings about what I was hearing. Maybe it was because I had just recently completed two weeks of complete vocal rest, and my voice sounded like one of the Chipmunks.Maybe it was because I thought Ace might stroll in at any second and start waving his Uzi around, and accidentally fire some rounds into the ceiling. Ace was always strolling around. I think his cologne of choice must have been Eau de Rum and Coke, because that’s what it smelled like when he walked by. I will say this, Ace seemed like a happy guy. He had a slurry way of talking and always had a loopy grin on his face. Ace had a certain boozy charm, like Dudley Moore in Arthur.Ace was proud of his toys. He showed us his collection of guitars. It was pretty extensive. He had all kinds of electric guitars – a lot of Gibsons – hanging from the ceiling on hooks. He had a guitar that shot flames out of the neck. When Ace showed us that guitar, he couldn’t get the fire to shoot out. I was kinda glad when he couldn’t get it to work. I was afraid he’d fry my new hairdo, which resembled a coonskin cap made of dark curly hair.We recorded four songs in four days. When we finished, we packed up the truck, and waved goodbye to Ace and his castle and his busted septic tank. We drove in the freezing cold from Connecticut back to Baltimore. A few weeks later we got the songs back from The Luxury Bunker. It wasn’t my favorite recording of all-time.That didn’t stop the EP from selling. It did extremely well. BootCamp got a ton of airplay. We were playing more gigs than ever. That EP led to a lot of really good things.BootCamp had a really good run, nearly six years. Then we all went our separate ways. Tommy started doing film and TV work. Bob took over a company in Orlando and it took off. Howie started working the nightclub circuit around Maryland. He also plays bongos in the Slim Man band. And me?Like Batman, Superman and Spider Man, I’m Slim Man—a superhero disguised as a singer; spanning the globe, fighting the forces of Evil while masquerading as a mild-mannered songwriter.LEMON CHICKENAfter a week of rocking and rolling all-night and partying every day, there’s nothing better than a home-cooked meal like lemon chicken.This is such a simple dish to cook. It is my Mom’s recipe. She was an excellent cook, and not only did she cook a wide variety of cuisines — French, Italian, American, Indian, Mexican —she did them all authentically and deliciously.I made lemon chicken the other night. As I was getting ready to stick it in the oven, I thought I might tie the legs together. They call it “trussing”, and it helps the chicken maintain its shape and cook more evenly. When real chefs truss a chicken, it’s complicated, and resembles minor surgery and requires a doctorate. Me? I simply tie the legs together. But I didn’t have anything to tie them with. I was thinking of using one of my old guitar strings, but I came to my senses and in a stroke of culinary cleverosity, decided to tie the chicken legs together with a piece of rosemary.I’m a jenius! I poured a little olive oil over the rosemary after I tied it, to keep the leaves from crumbling. It looked really cool when it went in the oven. But after an hour and a half, the leaves turned dark green, almost black. You can remove the rosemary from the legs after the chicken is cooked, if you want. I left it on; I liked the way it looked.I’ve cooked this dish a lot of times. This was by far best, there was an aroma and a taste that was pretty delizioso. I cooked the chicken in a large glass baking dish, uncovered.Roasted sweet potato wedges go well with this dish. Check out my recipe on page XXX. The sweetness of the potatoes blends well with the lemoniness of the chicken. And you can cook both the sweet potatoes and the chicken at the same time.Finally, whenever you handle raw chicken, you gotta be careful. Make sure you wear your HazMat suit when you handle raw chicken. Clean off every surface that raw chicken touches with soap, warm water, and a pressure washer. Bring out the heavy artillery and scrub-a-dub dub.INGREDIENTS1 chicken, a whole chicken (I used a 4 pound chicken)Olive oilSalt and pepper1 lemon, cut in half3 sprigs rosemary, plus one long one to tie the chicken legs together4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat side of a knife¼ cup dry white wine¼ cup chicken brothHere we go…Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.Rinse off your chicken, inside and out. Pat dry – inside and out – with paper towels. Place the chicken in a large baking dish. Rub the chicken with olive oil. Rub your chicken! Sprinkle with salt and pepper, inside and out. I use fresh cracked black pepper and kosher salt.Put the 2 lemon halves inside the chicken – give them a gentle squeeze on the way in. Put 2 rosemary sprigs inside the chicken. Put 3 of the smashed garlic cloves inside the chicken.Pour the wine and chicken broth into the bottom of the baking dish. Put a rosemary sprig and the garlic clove in with the wine and broth.Take the remaining rosemary sprig, and tie the chicken legs together. Slim Folks! If I can do it, you can do it. Drizzle the rosemary sprig with a little olive oil, so the leaves don’t catch fire and burn down the McMansion.Put the chicken in the oven. Most chickens these days have pop-up thermometers that let you know when your chicken is done. Meat thermometers come in handy for a dish like this. DO NOT use the thermometer you use for your dog. Or your kid. The minimum recommended temperature for poultry is 165 degrees. A 3 or 4 pound chicken should take about an hour and a half.Baste your chicken every 15 minutes or so.After an hour, start checking the temperature of the chicken every 15 minutes or so. When the chicken is done, take it out of the oven, Don’t be afraid to carve off a piece to make sure it’s done. If you cook it too long, it will be dry. It should be juicy, Lucy!When the chicken is done, dish it up! Carve your chicken, put a couple slices on a plate, add a few roasted sweet potato wedges and…MANGIAMO!!!!!!

Slim Man Cooks Aglio e Olio (Garlic and Olive Oil)

A couple years ago, they shot a Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore movie in Manhattan.  It was called Music and Lyrics.I heard about the movie from an online casting agency.  I was hoping for a small part, maybe Hugh’s dog trainer, or Drew’s bikini waxer. I was already in Manhattan doing some cooking shows at my cousin’s apartment for the Italian American Network.  I figured - why not?  I signed on.  I ended up being an extra.The movie is what is known as a Rom-Com, a romantic comedy, except nobody was laughing while we were filming.  Everyone from Hugh to the crew looked miserable and tense.Hugh Grant’s character had been a pop star back in the 80s – a Wham!-type band - and he was trying to stage a comeback by writing a hit song for a famous young girl singer.Drew Barrymore was the woman who watered Hugh’s house plants.  One day she started blurting out lyrics to the song Hugh was writing on the piano.  Hugh didn’t want any help.  Especially from the plant-watering girl.  He was pissed off. They start off hating each other, and then - surprise!  They end up writing songs together and falling in love.Washed-up Hugh is still doing a few Oldies gigs here and there to make ends meet — state fairs, amusement parks – and he gets booked to play a high-end high school reunion.  They filmed the reunion in a swanky hotel ballroom in Manhattan, and that’s where my scene was shot.They shot the reunion scene in one ballroom, and they had all us extras corralled into another ballroom across the hall.I saw Hugh Grant quite a bit.  They shot the scene dozens of times.  They kept playing this song — it sounded just like “Careless Whisper” by George Michael — over and over again.  And they kept shooting the same scene for 12 hours.  No exaggeration. No wonder everybody looked so miserable and tense.Hugh looked like he was in pain, like he was passing a kidney stone or something. On one hand, I felt for Hugh. Doing the same scene 25 times in a row is enough to drive you crazy. On the other hand, you’re getting paid a couple million bucks to make love to Drew Barrymore.I wore a white suit.  And a white shirt. I looked like the ice cream man.  Or a Colombian drug dealer.  For 12 hours, I stood around in that stinkin’ suit, listening to the same song, over and over and over again.  Towards the end of the day, I found a big empty room and sat by myself at one of the tables.  I was beat, dead-tired from doing nothing.Drew Barrymore walked in with her assistant.  Or manager, or reflexologist.  Both gals sat at my table.  There were dozens of other empty tables in the room. But they sat at mine.We sat there for a few minutes.  I looked over every once in a while to wave or say hi, but neither of the women would even look at me.  They’d look away. It was weird.  The film folks told us not to approach Hugh or Drew.  But this was different — they had approached me.  I felt like saying,“Do you come here often?”“Haven’t I seen you before?”“I’m not wearing any pants.”But I didn’t.  After about a half-hour they both got up and walked away. They didn’t say goodbye.  They never even said hello.  They just walked out.I rented the movie after it came out.  The scene we spent 12 hours shooting took up about five minutes of the movie. I guess my big film debut got left on the cutting room floor, because I never saw myself.  Not once. I did make $84.  For 12 hours work.  Which comes to - roughly $7 an hour.  Isn’t that illegal?I thought the movie was pretty good. But I swore I’d never do it again.  But a couple years later…I got a call from a casting agent named Joyce.  I was living in Nashville, Tennessee.  Music City, USA.  Joyce asked me if I could be an extra on the TV show Nashville.  She told me they had seen my photos online and liked them.  I declined.Joyce kept calling me.  She called and told me the director liked my look.  She called and told me the shoot wasn’t far from the Slim Shack.  She called me so often, I felt like I was married.  I didn’t have much going on in Nashville.  I was pitching some songs to publishers, making some demos, shopping stuff around.I had a few poles in the water but nothing was biting.So, I thought, why not?  Maybe the director would discover me, love me, and cast me to play Dean Martin in the new biopic he was planning to do for Universal.I told Joyce I would do it.  She told me where to go and what to wear--I needed to dress like I was going to the Grammys.A couple days later, early in the morning, I was driving from the Slim Shack to Titans stadium, where the Tennessee Titans play football.  There was a holding area for the extras. There were about a hundred people inside.  I signed in, and then we all got on old school buses that drove us to the General Jackson, an old steamboat docked on the Cumberland River, next to the stadium.We boarded the steamboat, and went into the concert area – a ballroom on the first level that was decked out with a big raised stage.  Tall cocktail tables were scattered around, and there was a second-floor balcony overlooking the whole scene.The assistant director stood up, got everybody’s attention, and then described the scene we were about to shoot.  An older female country singer, Rayna James, and her young rival, Juliette, are nominated for the same country music award — Female Vocalist of the Year.  Juliette — played by Hayden Panettiere — shows up on the steamboat drunk and does her new song on stage, all liquored up.That was the scene.  We extras were the audience members, and we were directed to be puzzled by Hayden’s drunken stumblings.  The cameras started rolling - Action!Hayden/Juliette came out and sang her song.  I’ll admit this — it was a really good song.  I liked it.I didn’t like it so much after hearing it for five hours straight.  They shot the scene over and over again.  Every time they changed a camera angle, they’d have to re-position the lights. Re-position the cameras.  Re-position the actors.  Then it was time to break for lunch.  We all went to the third floor of the boat.  There were a couple tables laid out with…Two big tubs of Costco peanut butter and jelly, loaves of bread, Tootsie Pops, and Goldfish crackers.It was a nice lunch – if you were in kindergarten.  After about an hour, we went back down to the concert area and shot the same scene over and over again.  After about five more hours - at around 10 PM – we broke for dinner, a buffet that wasn’t so bad.After dinner, we sat around an empty banquet hall and waited.  And waited and waited. An assistant director walked in, and started looking us over.  He looked at me and crooked his finger. I went over to where he was standing.  He whispered,“We need a guy to play a slick record executive type, an older guy.  Are you interested?”When he said “older guy” I felt like boxing his ears in.  But I just said “yes.”He walked me upstairs to where they were shooting the scene. It was being shot on the top deck, which was open-air with a lovely view of downtown Nashville.  It was freezing.  I stood in a small group of people, around a small table all decked out with flowers and ribbons, and the prop guy handed me a glass of champagne.Joy.  Except it wasn’t champagne, it was ginger ale.  The director came over and explained the scene - one of the stars of the show, Scarlett, was coming over to talk to this small group of four folks, and I was supposed to have a fake conversation with this girl standing in front of me.Fake conversation?  The director wanted me to move my lips, but not make any sound. I found out later that they have to pay you extra if you talk.  So I had a fake conversation with my fake glass of champagne with this really good-looking girl.We finally wrapped up around 2:30 AM.  I had been on the set for seventeen hours.  I drove home, let Batu out, made some aglio e olio and went to sleep.My scenes actually made it into the show.  When I appeared on TV, a friend took a photo of their TV set and sent it to me. There were no reports of people firing handguns at their TV sets during my scenes.  I only had a couple minutes of screen time, but I got a lot of messages, phone calls and texts.  Mostly from my family, making fun of me.“Hey, Mr. Big Shot, Mr. TV Star!  Too good for us now, huh, Donkey Face?”AGLIO E OLIOWhat do Romans fix to eat as a late night snack?  Aglio e olio.  Pasta with garlic and olive oil.This is a great dish to fix after a long hot day of doing nothing on the set.When I make this dish, I add a little chopped red bell pepper, or yellow bell pepper.  Or both.  Why?  I like the color it gives to this dish.  After the sauce is mixed in with the pasta, I add a little chopped fresh Italian parsley.  Serves three, maybe two if you’re in my family.INGREDIENTS:3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil6 cloves garlic sliced thin (2 tablespoons)Crushed red pepper (I start with ¼ teaspoon)1 red bell pepper (cored, de-seeded, and chopped) about ¾ cup½ pound pasta (I use spaghetti, penne rigate works well, too)2 tablespoons fresh, clean Italian flat leaf parsley – coarsely choppedKosher saltHere we goFill a large pot with cold water and put it on the highest heat you got.  This is for your pasta.As the water heats up, start your sauce.Put the olive oil in a small saucepan on medium-low heat.Add the garlic, the crushed red pepper, and the bell peppers.Add a little kosher salt.Let the sauce simmer.When the pasta water comes to a raging boil, toss in 2 tablespoons of kosher salt.Add the pasta.Stir every few minutes.Follow the directions on the box of pasta. Two minutes before it’s supposed to be done, take a bite of a piece of pasta. If it’s chalky in the center, it is not done. Check every 2 minutes. It might take longer than the instructions say. When the pasta is al dente, (firm to the bite), and not chalky, drain and transfer to a bowl.Add the sauce, the fresh chopped parsley, and toss again.Dish it up.  The Romans don’t put cheese on this dish.But if your lady friend wants freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, save yourself some trouble, just shut up and grate.MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slim Man Cooks Broccoli Rabe

Broccoli Rabe and First Slim Man TourWe left Ellicott City, Maryland, in an Isuzu Rodeo, a small SUV. It was me, drummer John E Coale, and keyboardist Rick O’Rick, AKA “Cowboy Pickles.”All three of us, our luggage and all the gear—drums, keyboards, bass amp, CDs—were crammed into the car. It was tight. You had to allow an extra 50 yards when you hit the brakes, otherwise a snare drum might smack you in the back of your cranium.It was our first Slim Man tour – the year was 1995.Our first gig was in Cleveland, Ohio. Hello, Cleveland! It was a club called Peabody’s Down Under. Why Down Under? Because we played in the basement. It was just us down there, us and the bathrooms. People stood around a circular balcony on the first floor, and looked down at us, playing in the basement. We had to look up to see the crowd.Crowd? There were about 25 people there, and after the show, a large and lovely woman came up to me and said,“You’re like Fabio…but you can sing!”We packed up the Rodeo after the show that night and drove all the way to San Francisco. It took us a couple days. We pulled up to the Great American Music Hall for sound check. I walked up to the front door, and there was a line around the block. I asked some guy waiting in line who the line was for. He said,“Slim Man.”Wow. I looked at the line and thought…all these people are coming to see me? It didn’t make me nervous — quite the opposite. I couldn’t wait to play. I was pumped up. Let me in, coach!I’m rarely nervous on stage. I’m nervous the other 23 hours of the day.We played that night to hundreds of people — it was crazy. We signed autographs afterward for what seemed like hours, and sold a ton of CDs. I hate to admit it, but it felt pretty damn good. It was OK wallowing in obscurity for all those years. But not as nice as wallowing in a brief bit of minor celebrity.We had a sax player sit in with us in San Francisco that night. We had never played with him before. We didn’t even rehearse. We didn’t have time. He showed up at soundcheck, we introduced ourselves and then did the show.But that’s the way we rolled on that first tour. We traveled as a trio. We had to – we couldn’t fit anybody else in the car! We would pick up a soloist whenever we got to town — a sax player, trumpeter, anybody. And the sax guy in San Francisco that night at the Great American Music Hall was pretty good.The next night we played in San Jose at the Ajax Lounge and everyone in the audience bought a CD. Of course, there were only six people there. Really. That was it. I remember counting them - it didn’t take long. It didn’t bother me. I was just glad to be out playing and touring.Next it was off to Monterey. We played outside on a deck, overlooking the bay. A guy named Roger Eddy played sax — like most of the soloists who joined us on the road, it was the first time we’d ever met him. The place was small, but packed.We left Monterey and headed south. As we were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, Rick O’Rick suddenly got violently ill. Disgusting stuff was coming out of every hole in his body. I resisted the urge to throw him out of the car at 80 MPH.We eventually made it to Viejas, a brand new Indian Casino outside of San Diego. It was so new - they were still hammering nails into the floor as we were loading in. Literally.The concert hall must have held at least a thousand people. It was beautiful – a gorgeous stage, with a big red velvet curtain, a brand new PA, and new lights. The only problem was, Rick was so sick, we had to stay with him backstage all day, right up until showtime.We had a percussionist sitting in named Michael Kelleher. We had not met Michael until that night, and I’m sure he was a bit apprehensive when he saw Rick O’Rick looking like The Alien might burst out of his chest at any second. When showtime came around, we got Cowboy Pickles propped up behind his keyboards.We all waited quietly behind the red curtain.They announced our name over the PA — “Ladies and Gentlemen, Slim Man!” The curtains slowly parted, and…There were two people there. In a place that held a thousand. There was the promo gal from the local radio station, Janet. And there was a guy standing at the bar. That was about it. Seriously. But we played our hearts out —we always do, I’m proud to say. Both people loved the show, or at least they pretended to.After the show, the guy at the bar introduced himself. Art Good. He asked us to play the Catalina Jazz Festival. That was one good thing that happened that night.The other good thing was Rick O’Rick was feeling better. Thank God, because we had to drive all the way to Kansas City the next day. Fifteen hundred miles. We made it in two days. We’re going to Kansas City. Kansas City here we come!The show was at a place called America’s Pub. We drove up, unloaded the Rodeo, did our soundcheck and went to the hotel room to shower and shave our backs.When we walked into America’s Pub in KCMO that night, the applause was deafening. It was packed to the rafters. Sold-out. Standing room only. SRO! It was one of the most amazing responses we’ve ever had. The crowd was screaming.I couldn’t tell exactly what it was they were screaming, but it seemed positive. We had a sax guy sit in that night, and of course, we had never heard him play before. He was really good, brought some of that saucy Kansas City style to the Slim Men.It was the loudest crowd I’d ever heard in my life. The whole band was on cloud nine.The next day, we drove to St. Louis—the last gig of the first Slim Tour. We pulled up to a place called Brown’s Pub and an old white guy came up to us. I have nothing against old white guys. Some of my best friends are old white guys.This old white guy was dressed like he was getting ready to play golf - with the Three Stooges in 1955. Knickers, crazy hat, bright colors and patterns. I kinda dug it. It was certainly colorful. He said,“My name is Chops. I’ll be your trombone player tonight.”OK, Chops! We walked inside the club. The place only held about 75 people. A gorgeous gal introduced us to the crowd. She was a DJ from the St. Louis station, KNJZ, that was playing our music. The response from the crowd was like the applause you hear at a golf course. Polite.Right before we started I leaned over to Chops and said,“I’ll cue you for your solos. Don’t play over the vocals.”John E Coale counted off the first song - and Chops played non-stop from beginning to end. His trombone playing was like Dixieland meets Bugs Bunny meets Ringling Brothers. Chops could play, the only problem was…he never stopped. We finished the song, and the crowd was looking at us funny. I leaned over to Chops and whispered,“Chops! Don’t play while I’m singing!”John E counted in the second song. Chops started playing from the first beat and didn’t stop until the end of the song — the man didn’t take a breath. The crowd was looking at their watches. They were checking the exits. Even though we’d only been playing about 10 minutes, I told the crowd we were taking a break.I walked the band outside, and told Chops that it wasn’t working out, paid him in full, and he left. We went back in and continued as a trio. As we were playing, I spotted a guy in the back of the pub with a trumpet case slung over his shoulder. I called out to him, over the PA,“Hey! Can you play that thing?”The crowd turned around and looked at the guy. He came up and played. He was really good, had a Latin style that really fit well. I really liked his playing. And so did the crowd. The rest of the night was really cool, and that trumpeter really blew, so to speak.I’ve always loved the trumpet. It was my first instrument. Louis Armstrong was the reason I fell in love with music. And that trumpet player in St. Louis on the last stop of the first Slim Man Tour sounded really good. We ended the tour on a high note, so to speak.The next morning, John E, Cowboy Pickles and I packed up the Rodeo, and drove the 800 miles back to Baltimore.The trumpet player from St. Louis sent me a message on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time I’d heard from him in 18 years. Alex Galvez is his name. He’s still playin’. So am I.BROCCOLI RABEAfter a couple weeks out on the road, there’s nothing like a little broccoli to soothe the soul.That and a bucket of whiskey!Broccoli rapini is a slightly bitter leafy broccoli, kinda like the Italian version of collard greens. Rapini comes from the Italian word rapinare, which means to rob, which may be why people sometimes call it broccoli rob (rabe).Some variations - If you like bacon (who doesn’t?) you can add a little chopped cooked pancetta (Italian bacon) when you add the Balsamic vinegar. Or, you can top off with some toasted pignoli (pine nuts). Or add some raisins at the end (I like golden raisins–they look mo’ better).IngredientsBroccoli rabe, stems trimmed, large leaves torn in half, about 8 cups trimmed4 tablespoons olive oil5 garlic cloves, sliced thinCrushed red pepper1 tablespoon balsamic vinegarKosher saltHere goes…Rinse the broccoli. Make sure it’s clean.Put a large pot of water on the highest heat you got.When it comes to a boil, add 4 tablespoons of kosher salt.Add the broccoli rabe. Cook for 2 minutes.While the broccoli is cooking, get a large bowl and fill it with ice water, or really cold water. Now back to the broccoli -After 2 minutes, drain the broccoli in a colander.Put the broccoli in the ice water, to stop it from cooking.Drain the cooled broccoli in a colander, remove it to a plate lined with paper towels.Pat dry.Take a large pan, big enough to hold all of the broccoli rabe.Put the heat on medium-low.Add the olive oil.Add the crushed red pepper.Add the garlic, cook until pale gold about 5 minutes.Add the broccoli, stir.Add the balsamic vinegar, stir.Cook for a couple of minutes.Add salt to taste.Dish it up! This would go great with chicken Milanese, or chicken Marsala.MANGIAMO!!!!!!

Slim Man Cooks Crab Soup

Crab Soup and Destiny

The day I turned fourteen, I got my worker’s permit.  I’ve been working ever since.I’ve worked myself up from nothing to a case of extreme poverty.Soon after I got my worker’s permit, I got a job at my grandmother’s office as an office boy.  At that time, she was Vice President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union.Angela was an incredible woman, a poor Italian immigrant who worked in a garment sweatshop in New York City.  Disgusted with the working conditions, she became an organizer, was assigned to the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia region, and helped start the International Ladies Garment Workers Union - the ILGWU.  She went on to become the Vice President, the first woman vice president of a major union in the USA.  She had an incredibly positive impact on thousands of lives.The ILGWU offices were in Baltimore, Maryland, on the corner of Howard and Baltimore Streets - right across the street from the Civic Center, which was where I saw Hendrix, the Doors, Led Zeppelin and a ton of other bands.My Mom didn’t drive.  My Dad moved back to New York when they got divorced.  This meant when I needed to get around, I took the bus.In the morning, I’d walk to the bus stop and I’d take the bus to school.  Roland Park.  After school, I’d take the bus home and have lunch.  Then I’d catch a bus downtown, and work at Angela’s office until it closed.  Then I’d catch the bus back home, have some dinner, do my homework, and go to sleep.One cold winter day, I was waiting outside the Civic Center to catch the bus home from work.  It was downright frosty.  I noticed a kid about my age, no coat on, no winter clothes, standing there shivering.  I went over and asked him if he was OK.He told me he had run away from home, had just arrived from Florida; no money, no clothes, no job, no nothin’.  I invited him to the house for some dinner.We got on the bus and rode to my neighborhood.  The bus stop was about a half-mile from my house on Rosebank Avenue. When I walked in, I started to introduce this kid to my Mom - but I didn’t know his name.  When I asked him, he told us his name was -Destiny.He had long, blond, scraggly hair.  He was short and slight and skinny as could be.  He was shaking from the cold.  About the only thing he had to his name besides the clothes on his back was his harmonica.I asked my Mom if he could stay for dinner.  She said yes.  Destiny ended up staying with us for about a year.My Mom was the sweetest woman in the world.  She was so wonderful in so many ways that it could fill a whole book or two.  She brought out the best in people.  Everybody shined a little brighter in her presence.  And she took Destiny under her wing.Destiny immediately went to look for a job.  About the only thing he could find was a job at a car wash.  In the winter.  I gave him some of my clothes, but he was a lot shorter than I was, so he looked kinda funny.  We went to an Army surplus store, and got him a military coat, and some other things.Destiny would come home from the car wash, and he would be frozen, his shoes soaked with water.  My Mom would feed us dinner, and Destiny and I would go upstairs.  I’d do homework.  Then, I’d play guitar and Destiny would play his harmonica.He used to sing this song that he wrote…“The River of Love is soft and free.”Then he’d play a little harmonica riff.“The River of Love was meant to be.”Then he’d play another riff.What he lacked in talent, he made up for with enthusiasm.  It was a catchy little tune.  We became really good friends.  He also became pretty good on harmonica.My Mom loved him.Destiny was an incredibly polite and positive kid.  I never heard him say a bad word about anybody or anything.  I never heard him complain.  He had a funny laugh, like he was almost embarrassed for chuckling.My Mom was a great cook.  She cooked all kinds of different stuff — Italian, French, Indian, Mexican.Destiny had never eaten food like that.  He ate a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell’s tomato soup out of a can. When my Mom would cook some exotic foods, Destiny would get this look of apprehension on his face.One time my Mom cooked crab soup.  Her recipe was amazing.  She would not only use crabmeat, she used other parts of the crab as well, mostly the claws.  When she served you a bowl, there would be a vicious looking crab claw peeking out at you.The first time my Mom served Destiny a bowl of crab soup, he saw that crab claw, and had no idea what to do.  We showed him how to crack it, and eat it.Destiny was clearly not used to anything like that.  He took one look at that crab claw, and you could see the trepidation in his eyes.  He was way too polite to do anything but try to figure out how to eat it.  After he finished, I could tell he was trying to say something sweet to my Mom.  He looked at her and said,“Thank you very much, Miss C.  It’s been a long time since I had a meal like that.”From that point on, that was our go-to line when we ate something we didn’t like.One Friday night, there was a knock at the front door.  I opened it up.  A young kid asked me if Destiny was around, and I showed him upstairs.  The two kids hugged.  Destiny introduced the other kid.  His name was -Joker.I’m not joking.Joker was Destiny’s younger brother.  The two of them left Rosebank shortly thereafter and I didn’t hear from Destiny for years and years.Then I got an email about forty years later.  It was from Destiny.  He told me how he’d moved to Florida, and then to Georgia, and had a kid.  He named his son –Timothy.Destiny was so incredibly grateful for what we’d done.  He told me that he had taken up painting.  Not houses, but artwork.  He asked me my address and I gave it to him.  He sent me one of his paintings.   It was really cool.  I was flattered.The painting was called –LOVE.It’s all about LOVE.CRAB SOUPMy Mom loved steamed crabs.  In Baltimore they use blue crabs; they catch them in the Chesapeake Bay and the surrounding rivers in the summer, and import them from the Gulf of Mexico in the winter. The fine people of B-Mo steam the crabs in beer, vinegar and Old Bay.Old Bay is a seasoning with salt, pepper, paprika and other spices. It was created in Baltimore; they used to make it at a factory on the water by the Inner Harbor. In the summertime, downtown Bawlmer smelled a bit…spicy.My Mom would get a couple dozen steamed crabs from a place called Bo Brooks, and bring them home.  We’d cover the table in newspapers, grab some wooden mallets, and have a little crab feast. It’s a Bawlmer tradition, Hon!When we were done, my Mom would pick through the leftover crabs, and use the meat and some of the claws to make crab soup. But unless you’re in Baltimore in the summertime, you’re going to most likely use a pound of crabmeat for crab soup rather than fresh-picked steamed crabs.Jumbo lump crabmeat comes from the top of the hind leg; it’s really good but expensive. You can also get lump crabmeat, which comes from the top of the other legs, and is less expensive but real good. You can also buy claw meat, which is the least expensive, and not as quite as moist or tasty as the others.  But still pretty good.  You can use a combination of these crabmeats; just make sure you end up with a pound.If you’re using a pound of unseasoned crabmeat, you’ll need to add Old Bay seasoning to the soup. I use 2 tablespoons. if you're not into spicy food, start off with 1 tablespoon, give the soup a taste halfway through. If it needs a little more spice, add another tablespoon of Old Bay.If you’re using leftover crabs, they’ll have some Old Bay on them, so you might not need any additional seasoning. Give the soup a taste halfway through the process, and if it needs more spice, add some Old Bay, a teaspoon at a time.You can use fresh corn--cut off the cob--or canned or frozen.Ingredients3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil½ cup each--chopped celery, carrot, and onion4 or 5 celery tops (the leaves at the top of the stalks)2 cups water2 cups beef broth (you can use vegetable, chicken or seafood – in Maryland we use beef)1 cup each lima beans, sweet corn, string beans – ends trimmed, broken into bite-size pieces1 twenty-eight ounce can of Italian tomatoes, smooshed by hand into small pieces1 pound of jumbo lump crab meat2 tablespoons Old Bay seasoningOPTIONAL: 8 steamed crab claws, don’t rinse off the Old Bay!Here we go…Get a large pot or Dutch oven.  Put the olive oil in the bottom over medium heat for 2 minutes.Add the celery, carrots, and onion. Add the celery leaves. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until soft. Stir, stir, stir.Add the water, the broth, the lima beans, corn, and string beans.Add the tomatoes.Add the Old Bay seasoning.Cover, turn the heat on high.When it comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.  Stir every couple of minutes.As the soup simmers, put the crabmeat in a bowl.Gently feel for any crab shell or cartilage.Be careful!  You don’t want to break up the lumps.Discard any shell or cartilage.After the soup has simmered for 10 minutes, and the vegetables are tender, add the crabmeat to the soup, along with any leftover steamed crab claws – if you got’em.Let the soup simmer--uncovered--for 10 minutes.  Keep in mind, the crab claws and the crabmeat are already cooked, you’re just heating them up — don’t overcook, and don’t stir too often.  You don’t want to break up the lumps of crab.Taste for Old Bay seasoning, and add another tablespoon if needed.Taste for salt, and add if needed.Dish it up!  Get a large soup bowl, ladle in some soup, place a claw on the side of the plate to give it that dangerous look, and…MANGIAMO!!!!!!!

Slim Man Cooks Pasta Fagioli

Christmas Eve was always a whole lot more fun than Christmas Day for me.My uncle Oscar threw these crazy Christmas Eve parties. They were the highlight of my year.  I loved partying with Unc, loved being around the family.This is how it usually went down…I’d arrive around 7 PM at Oscar’s house — Cat Tail Creek — right on the river, about 20 miles south of Baltimore, Maryland.  The trees that line the gravel driveway would be twinkling with Christmas lights.  I'd park the car and walk up the front steps. The door would be unlocked, but I’d ring the doorbell anyway. The “Theme from The Godfather” would chime inside.I’d walk in the door. I’d yell “Zio!”, Italian for uncle. He’d yell “Timmer!” which is what he called me. We’d open the wine, he’d start cooking, I’d try to help, and Oscar would constantly yell at me, “What the f*** are you doing?  That’s all wrong!  I give you one thing to do, and you f*** it up! Let me show you how it’s done. Madonna Mia!”It may not sound like fun, but it was.The rest of the family would be there, along with wives and girlfriends and boyfriends and husbands. Oscar was ringleader. I was jester and troubadour.  Those parties were so much fun.  Oscar’s daughter gave me Batu as a Christmas present at one of those Christmas Eve parties. Best Christmas present ever.One Christmas Eve, I had a show at the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland. Annapolis is a bayside Colonial town, right on the Chesapeake Bay. Annapolis is my Mom’s hometown; Oscar’s house was not far away. The Rams Head Tavern is one of the coolest small clubs in the country – it holds about 300 people, and has been voted best concert venue in the world under 500 seats many times. It’s one of my favorite places to play.Oscar had booked a bunch of tables front and center for the Slim Christmas Show at the Rams Head that night. I was at Oscar’s house, getting ready to leave for the show when all of a sudden -Everyone started getting sick. Violently ill. Almost everyone in the house was suddenly under severe and violent gastro-intestinal distress. One minute, someone would be feeling perfectly fine, and then suddenly, the attack would occur.  It was disgusting. People were trotting around in a panic.  Folks were banging on bathroom doors. From the inside and out. It was not very festive. I was just glad it wasn’t from something I cooked.As much as I wanted to stay, I had to leave Cat Tail Creek for the Big Slim Christmas Show. When I left, one of the Slim Family—true story—was laying on a rug outside the bathroom door, doubled over and moaning.Merry Christmas! Love you!I drove to the Rams Head. I felt fine. Apparently, a lot of folks in the area had the stomach virus too, because there were some empty tables at the Rams Head that night, even though it was sold-out. None of the Slim Family showed up – they all had the stomach bug.  I had brought a date to the Rams Head. We had been going out for a few weeks.  The Slim Man show went well.  So did the date.After the Rams Head show, the two of us went back to Oscar’s house. It was as quiet as could be. Everybody had gone to bed. Nobody was laying on the floor outside the bathroom. There was no one in the huge living room, but the fire was still glowing in the fireplace. I stoked the fire, so to speak, and Slim Gal and I sat on the couch in front of the glowing embers, the Christmas tree twinkling in the corner of the room. I grabbed a couple pillows and a blanket from the couch, and we lay down on the rug in front of the fire. I put the blanket over us. It was very snuggly. Things started heating up. Some outer layers of clothing were shed, to ward off the heat prostration.The house was dead silent, everyone was sleeping, and it was so romantic, quiet and lovely in the middle of the night.‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.That’s when the creatures started stirring.  My Dad came out of his bedroom and sat on the couch, just a few feet away from us.  He turned on the TV, which was next to the fireplace. My Dad is deaf, duro d'orecchio. The TV came on and the sound was so loud you could hear it across the bay. The volume was deafening and startling. My Dad, of course, had no idea.My cousin’s extremely large Rottweiler started barking furiously, and came bounding down the stairs, heading right for me and Girly-Girl. I rolled on top of Slim Babe, pulled the blanket over our heads, and whispered in her ear, “Pretend you’re dead!”I really did say that. The dog came over and sniffed. My cousin’s husband came down the stairs and let the dog out. Some other Slim Family members started wandering out of their bedrooms, wondering what all the commotion was about. They had to have seen me on the floor. I guess everybody thought it was just me under that thin cotton throw.Slim Gal and I were trying hard not to laugh. Of course, no one would have heard anything over the blaring TV, anyway.“Phil! Phil!! PHIL!!!”Somebody finally got the remote from my Dad, and turned the TV off. Some folks started milling around the kitchen, getting water and Kaopectate and Pepto-Bismol. Then everybody went back to sleep. My Dad went back to bed. There was a short symphony of gaseous emissions coming from the various bedrooms. Then things got real quiet again.We started getting cuddly again, as the fire glowed.  Things began to get a bit amorous -Until Oscar’s wife came running out of her bathroom, waving a plunger over her head, screaming that the toilet had backed up and was flowing all over her bathroom floor. Everybody leaped out of bed, and started charging around.  Folks were bounding down the stairs. People were grabbing rolls of paper towels, and buckets and mops and dashing in and out of the bathroom. It was pandemonium.The Slim Babe and I were still lying on the rug in front of the dying fire, hiding under the small blanket, hoping nobody would notice us.  They finally got the toilet plunged, got the mess cleaned up, and went back to bed.We waited for a few minutes, to see if any other craziness might occur. There was no more vomiting.  No more trots.  No more TVs blaring. No more toilets overflowing. It was finally quiet.  Finally!‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house…But the vibe was busted. The fire had gone out – literally and figuratively. I walked her to the door and gave her a big Slim Kiss.Soooo - how do you like The Family?PASTA FAGIOLI The Slim Babe who was with me that Christmas Eve by the fire?  She made a great pasta fagioli. She had some of the best cooking instincts I’ve ever witnessed. Oscar let her have free reign over his kitchen, which is something he didn’t even give me.I love this soup.  It is perfetto around the Holidays, when the family is gathered around the table, exchanging blows.Fagioli is the Italian word for beans. So pasta e fagioli means pasta and beans. Some folks just call it pasta fagioli. Some Americans call it pasta fazool.One of my favorite Dean Martin songs is called “That’s Amore.” There’s a line it that goes like this…When the stars make you drool just like pasta fazool, that’s amore!It’s a really good song, and this is a really good soup. The main ingredient is beans, so a big bowl of this delish dish might not be a real good idea right before a long car ride with the family.I’ve made this dish two ways, one with beans, and one with beans and ham. They’re both pretty harkin’ good, if I may say so myself. A couple things…I cooked this yesterday. I went to the store and bought what I needed, and went back to Slim’s Shady Trailer Park. When I opened the cans of beans and poured them in a bowl, they didn’t look right. They looked kinda gray. I took a bite of one and it tasted like soggy cardboard.I’ve never actually tasted soggy cardboard. I’m not encouraging anyone to go out and taste soggy cardboard. All I’m saying is, the beans didn’t taste good, so I took them back and bought another brand. They looked great and were delizioso.Here’s my point. If you’re making pasta e fagioli, and beans are your main ingredient, make sure they taste good before you toss ‘em in there. This goes for all recipes. I once was getting ready to make a carrot and onion sauce, and I tasted one of the carrots and it wasn’t good. I tasted another, same thing. I went back to the store and bought another bunch.Slim People. You gotta give things a taste before you get started. Maybe not with raw chicken, but most of the time, give your main ingredient a sniff and a chew. When in doubt, toss it out.This recipe calls for pancetta.  Pancetta is bacon.  You want to cook pancetta just like you’d cook bacon — brown it on one side in a dry pan, then brown it on the other. When you’re using pieces of pancetta, it can be tricky. Try and get it browned on all sides. You can use bacon, if you need to substitute.You can use a whole piece of pancetta and dice it. I used a package of Boar’s Head sliced pancetta, and cut it in slivers, it tasted really good. If you’re a vegetarian, you can skip the pancetta.Another thing…the rinds of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese really make this soup delish. Parmigiano-Reggiano is ridiculously expensive, but ridiculously good. I cut the rinds off a piece of cheese that I had in the fridg. One rind was about the size of a playing card, the other was a little smaller. Make sure you take them out of the soup when it’s done…Because you don’t want to serve a big old gnarly cheese rind to your Uncle Vito. Come to think of it, you might not want to give him a whole lot of beans, either. Could be explosive.If you don’t have cheese rinds, you can give a generous sprinkling of fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on top of each bowl. When I use cheese rinds in the soup, I usually don’t add any extra cheese.But if your Snarlin’ Little Darlin’ wants some cheese, just shut up and grate.And finally! I’ve never cooked a turkey, but I once bought a ham for the Holidays.  There was a lot left over.  I trimmed almost all the ham off the ham bone, and removed as much fat off the meat as I could.  I had about 2 cups of chopped ham.  And a ham bone.  I put it in my pasta e fagioli and it was heavenly. If you want to add ham to your pasta fagioli, go ahead. Pork and beans go together, like peanut butter and jelly!Serves sixINGREDIENTS4 ounces of pancetta, diced3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil1 cup each—chopped carrots, chopped celery, chopped Spanish/purple onion1 tablespoon minced garlic, about 4 cloves¾ cup dry white wine1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary1 can crushed/diced Italian tomatoes (San Marzano are best but $$)1 large rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (or 2 small)2 fifteen-ounce cans of cannellini beans1 quart chicken broth (or vegetable broth)Salt (I use kosher, mazel tov!)¼ cup fresh chopped Italian flat leaf parsley½ pound tubetti (or any other small pasta like ditalini, small elbow macaroni)OPTIONAL: 2 cups or more of chopped ham, and a ham boneHere we go…Get a large Dutch oven or a large heavy soup pot.Put the heat on medium, and add the pancetta. Let it cook for 3 or 4 minutes, then give it a stir and let it cook for another 3 or 4 minutes. We want the pancetta to brown, so you don’t need to stir it but once or twice.Turn the heat to medium-low and add the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Give ‘em a stir. Let ‘em cook for 8 minutes. Stir occasionally.Turn the heat to medium-high, and add the wine. Stir, stir, stir for 2 minutes.Add the rosemary and let it cook for 2 minutes. Stir, stir, stir.Turn the heat to high, and add the tomatoes, cheese rinds and the beans. Stir gently a few times. You don’t want your beans going all mushy. OPTIONAL: you can add 2 cups or so of chopped ham, and a ham bone.When it all comes to a boil, put the heat on low and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir gently just a couple of times.Add the chicken broth and a teaspoon of salt. Stir gently a few times.Put the heat on high, and when it comes to a boil, lower the heat to low and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Stir gently just a few times.Remove from heat, and add the parsley.Now would be a good time to remove the cheese rinds and the ham bone, if you used ham.)Some folks like to cook their pasta right in the soup. I prefer to cook it separately, and add a little to each bowl, and stir it in. Some Lady people I know are avoiding pasta these days. Sophia Loren loved pasta, and she’s been sexy her whole life. Just thought I’d toss that out there.Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box; mine always seems to take a little longer than instructed.When the pasta is firm, not soggy, drain it, put it in a bowl and drizzle with a LITTLE extra virgin olive oil, about a tablespoon, and mix.Put some soup in a bowl. Add a little pasta and give it a stir.If you haven’t used cheese rinds, now would be a good time to add a little fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Or a little pecorino Romano, and…MANGIAMO!

Slim Man Cooks Roasted Vegetables

Ronnie Dunn and the Roasted VegetablesBack in the mid-1980s, a good friend of mine asked me to help him organize a country music talent contest. Nationwide.The friend was Carl Griffin – the guy who signed me to Motown. We were both “in between engagements” at the time, which is a polite way of saying “out-of-work” in showbiz. My band, BootCamp, had just broken up. My girlfriend and I had just broken up, too. I was all broked up. And broke.Carl had Marlboro as a sponsor. Marlboro wanted us to find the next big country music star. They didn’t want to just run a contest--they wanted whoever won to be HUGE. Marlboro wanted to be a leading force in the country music scene. They sank a ton of dough into sponsoring concert tours and talent contests.Carl wasn’t a big country music fan. Neither was I. The only two country CDs I had were a Best-of Hank Williams, Sr. and the first Dwight Yoakum. But when Carl told me how much Marlboro was paying, I started liking country music a whole lot more.Carl ran the talent contest out of New York City. He asked me to organize the contestants, which I did for the first two tours. For my third Marlboro tour? Carl asked me to MC and host the shows. A promotion!Marlboro wanted me to have an assistant, someone to do my old job – organize the bands. The first call I made was to Hit Man Howie Z, also known as Howard Zizzi. Howie was the drummer in my band, BootCamp.He was in between engagements, too. Howie signed on. We hit the road. Two city boys heading out into the Wild Wild West.Marlboro chose a bunch of markets – mostly small southern towns — all across the USA. Bands would submit their music to the NYC office, and the New Yorkers would choose 30 bands for each town. Ten bands a night, three nights in a row, all in the same club.In each town, we had a panel of judges – local music biz folks – who would choose one band to represent their town at the finals in Nashville. The contests were held in what I affectionately call honkytonk hellholes — rough and tumble small clubs on the outskirts of a town.The grand prize was substantial — a $50,000 production deal with Barry Beckett, who produced Hank Williams, Jr. and Bob Dylan, among others.Each band had 15 minutes on stage. If you went over your 15 minutes, big points were deducted. That was a strict rule.Let me set the stage – a small town, a small club, packed with country music fans, smoking the free Marlboros they’d been given. The lights go dim. Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA” blasts out of the speakers. The song finishes, a spotlight cuts a beam through the fog of cigarette smoke and lands on a microphone stand, center stage…The very first time I walked on stage and looked over the audience, I could feel the apprehension. It got mighty quiet. I could almost hear the whispers, “Where is this boy from? New York City?”I introduced myself to the crowd. My real name is real long, real complicated and real Italian. I looked totally out-of-place, like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny. People didn’t throw stuff at me, but I did see some folks looking around for a piece of rope and checking their guns for ammo.I didn’t get killed that first night, but I decided I needed a stage name, something to lighten things up. The next day, I came up with a nickname- Slim Chance. Slim, because I thought it was a good countrified name. And Chance, because it was a talent contest, after all. From then on I introduced myself as Slim Chance. It didn’t get a ton of laughs, but at least it kept the cowboys from pulling out their six-guns. From that point on, I kept my stage banter light and lively.One day Howie and I pulled into Tulsa, Oklahoma. The contest was at a place called Tulsa City Limits. We got the club ready for the big show. We made sure the Marlboro signs were hung. We made sure the sound company was good to go, and that the judges were ready to judge.The bands showed up for their sound checks. There were some good bands that day, but nothing really knocked us out. When the last band started their soundcheck, the whole club went silent. They were incredible. The drummer was amazing. The singer was even more amazing. He had a great voice. I looked at Howie and said,“Here’s our big winner. This Guy’s going all the way.”When The Guy and his band played that night, they killed. Killed.The local favorite happened to be a gal named Suzy Brandt. She packed the place with her fans. Towards the end of her 15 minutes, she started yodeling, the way some country singers do on occasion. Then she started yodeling faster. And faster. And higher. And higher. I thought her head was gonna explode. Suzy kept on yodeling. She was going so fast it sounded like she was speaking in tongues, like Robert DeNiro at the end of Cape Fear.Suzy went into overtime. She finally stopped. The crowd went wild. I went out to the microphone, told everybody to sit tight and that I’d be back with our big winner. I went into the back room with the judges. We totaled up their score sheets. Suzy had won. But when we deducted the penalty points for the overtime yodeling, she came in second.Who came in first?The Guy. The Guy went on to win the national finals in Nashville. My psychic prediction came true. Marlboro started grooming this Guy for success. Barry Beckett produced some songs for The Guy, Scott Hendricks engineered the session, and everything was going great, when suddenly -Nothing happened. The Guy couldn’t get a record deal. Not a nibble. A few years later, the engineer—Scott Hendricks—played one of the songs for a record executive who was looking for a country music duo. The executive already had one half of the duo—a guy named Kix Brooks--and needed the second half. When he heard the Barry Beckett demo of The Guy, he put the two halves together and they became…Brooks and Dunn. Ronnie Dunn was the Guy who sang at Tulsa City Limits when Howie and I were doing the Marlboro Contest. His drummer, Jamie Oldaker, had played with Eric Clapton a few years before. It was Jamie who entered Ronnie Dunn into the contest. Brooks and Dunn went on to become one of the most successful country music duos ever.A few years ago, I was playing a small jazz club in Fresno, California. I walked outside the hotel and took a jog. On the way back, I noticed a bunch of 18-wheelers, painted black, parked outside the big auditorium downtown. The fleet of trucks had the Brooks and Dunn steer horns logo on the side.I finished my jog and walked inside the hotel. And who was walking out? Ronnie Dunn. He said,“Slim! Man! How are ya?”And the Slim Man name was born.Roasted VegetablesAfter a long night of honky-tonkin’, ain’t nothin’ like some roasted vegetables to soak up the booze and ease the joints. Here at Slim’s Shady Trailer Park, I roast vegetables a lot. Why? It’s easy—you chop ‘em up, add a little olive and salt and pepper and stick them in the oven.Another reason? Roasted vegetables are real healthy.The most important reason? They are molto delizioso. That’s Italian Cowboy talk for, “These vittles are lip-smackin’ good!”The other night, I decided to make dinner. The first thing I did was chop up some red beets. I added a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Then I stuck them in the oven while I prepared some salmon with my incredibly incredible cippolini and bell pepper sauce.I roasted the beets for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Then I gave them a stir and put them back in the oven. I checked them every 10 minutes, stuck them with a fork. It took about an hour, total.Sometimes, it takes less than an hour. The last time I cooked beets, it took about 40 minutes, total. I used the same oven, the same baking dish, but it took 20 minutes less. Why?Who the hell knows!The important thing to remember is…give the vegetables a stir after 20 minutes, and stab ‘em with a fork. If it goes in easily, the vegetables are done. Most likely, they’re not. Put them back in the oven, and check every 10 minutes or so. Average cooking time is about 50 minutes for beets, carrots, potatoes, things like that.When they’re done, take them out of the oven and let them cool for a couple of minutes. You don’t want to be burning the roof of your mouth!That’s my basic roasting method. Olive oil and salt and pepper, roasted in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes to an hour.A few IMPORTANT things…Use a metal pan if you want your vegetables to be crispy on the outside. When I cook potatoes or sweet potatoes, I use a metal pan, because I want the outsides to be crunchy.I use a glass baking dish when cooking beets and carrots, because they roast better that way.When roasting vegetables, it’s important to remember to roast vegetables that are similar.For instance, sometimes I roast red beets and carrots together. They both take about the same amount of time, about 50 minutes, usually.Zucchini and summer squash roast together quite nicely, they only take about 15 or 20 minutes.I like roasting potatoes. I use red potatoes, or Yukon gold. I also roast sweet potatoes. Sweet!There are so many variations. Here is the basic roasted beets recipe, followed by some delectable variations.Makes 4 side servings, perfect with just about any Slim dish!Roasted Red BeetsINGREDIENTS4 cups of red beets1 ½ tablespoons of olive oilSalt and pepper to tasteOPTIONAL: 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegarHere we go…Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.Wash and peel the beets. Cut the smaller beets in quarters, cut the larger beets in eighths. The larger the pieces, the longer they take to cook. They should be about the size of your average strawberry.Put the beets in a glass baking dish. I used an 8”x11” dish, and 4 cups fit perfectly.Drizzle with the olive oil and mix. Make sure they are coated with oil, but not swimming in it!Add the salt and pepper. I start off with about a ½ teaspoon of kosher salt, and about 6 turns of the peppermill.Mix, make sure all the beets have a bit of salt and pepper on them.Put them in the oven.After 20 minutes, give the beets a good stir. Then, stick a fork in one. If it goes in easily, they are done. My average cooking time for roasted beets is about 50 minutes.Check every 10 minutes or so. When the fork goes in easily, they are done.When the beets are done, take them out of the oven, and let them cool for a few minutes.If you want, you can add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.Toss gently and serve.That’s it!MANGIAMO!Beet Variations:Roasted Red and Yellow BeetsUse 2 cups of red beets and 2 cups of yellow beets, and follow the instructions above.Roasted Red Beets and CarrotsUse 2 cups of red beets and 2 cups of baby carrots and follow the directions above.Roasted Red Beets with Goat Cheese and Chives and Balsamic VinegarFollow the instructions above. When the beets are done, pull them out of the oven. Add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and stir. Crumble 3 or 4 ounces of goat cheese over top of the warm beets. Top off with about a tablespoon of snipped chives (I use a scissors.)Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary and ShallotsPreheat your oven to 400 degrees.Use red potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes. Scrub the potatoes. Leave the skin on! Cut them in quarters.INGREDIENTS4 cups red or Yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed, skin on, and quartered1 ½ tablespoons olive oil1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary1 tablespoon chopped fresh shallotsSalt and pepperHere we go... Put the potatoes on a metal baking pan. You can line it with aluminum foil if you like.Drizzle the olive oil on the potatoes and mix. Make sure each one is coated.Add the rosemary, shallots and salt and pepper. Mix, make sure each tater gets some love!Put the taters in the oven.After 20 minutes, give them a turn. Only stir once! We want each side of the potatoes to get nice and brown.Cook for another 20 minutes. Stick a fork in a piece of tater. If it goes in easily, it’s done.My average cooking time is about 50 minutes.When the potatoes are done, take them out of the oven and…MANGIAMO!Roasted Sweet PotatoesTwo or three sweet potatoes should give you about 4 cups, depending on their size. Scrub your sweet potatoes. Leave the skin on! Cut them into small wedges.INGREDIENTS:4 cups of sweet potatoes, cut into small wedges1 ½ tablespoons of olive oilSalt and pepperHere we go…Put the sweet potatoes on a metal baking pan. Line with aluminum foil, if you like.Add the olive and mix. Make sure each wedge is coated!Add the salt and pepper and stir. I usually use about ½ teaspoon of kosher salt and 6 twists of the peppermill.Mix the sweet taters again.Put them in the oven.After 20 minutes, turn them over. We want each side to get toasty brown.Let them cook for another 20 minutes.Then, stick a fork in one. If the fork goes in easily, they’re done.Dish ‘em up!MANGIAMO!Roasted Zucchini and Summer Squash with Oregano and GarlicOne medium zucchini should yield about 2 cups sliced. Same with the summer squash. You’ll need 2 cups of each.Fresh oregano is milder than dried. If you use fresh oregano, you’ll need a tablespoon, chopped. If you’re using dried, a generous teaspoon should do it. I prefer dried for this dish.Scrub your zucchini and summer squash. Slice in circular slices.Peel 4 cloves of garlic, and smash each one with the flat side of a knife.INGREDIENTS2 cups of zucchini, cut in circular slices2 cups of summer squash, cut in circular slices4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed1 ½ tablespoons of olive oilSalt and pepper1 teaspoon of oregano (I use dried, you can use either dried or fresh)OPTIONAL: ¼ cup or so of freshly grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano cheeseHere we go…Put the zucchini, squash and garlic in a glass baking dish.Add the olive oil and mix gently. Make sure each piece is coated with olive oil, but not swimming in it. Start off with 1 ½ tablespoons of olive oil. You can add more if you need to.Add the salt, pepper, and oregano and give it a gentle stir.Put it in the oven.After 10 minutes, check your vegetables! Take a stab at a piece of zucchini. If the fork goes in easily, it’s done. Most likely, it ain’t. No need to stir or flip the vegetables.Cook for another 10 minutes and check.They should take about 20 minutes to be done.Take them out of the oven. You can sprinkle a little freshly grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano cheese on top, if you like.Dish it up!MANGIAMO!