We 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--2,500 miles. 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 moment 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 playing. We finished the song, and the crowd was giving us funny looks. 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.
Italian Kale with Shallot, Port and CranberriesWhen I’m out on tour, and there’s a lot of road ahead of me, I’ll get a bag of sunflower seeds in the shell and eat ‘em and drive. One time, on the way back from a Slim Show in Santa Rosa, California, I stopped at a roadside fruit and nuts stand. I was thinking I might run into some of my nutty and fruity relatives there.One time, on the way back from a Slim Show in Santa Rosa, California, I stopped at a roadside fruit and nuts stand. I was thinking I might run into some of my nutty and fruity relatives there.The Slim Family wasn’t there, but there were bags of salted, roasted sunflower seeds, without the shell. I bought one. They were delish. I saved some…I’ve been noticing a lot of Italian kale in the grocery stores these days, and not just the ridiculously expensive Whole Foods-type stores. Most normal grocery stores have Italian kale, it’s called lacinato kale, most of it is organic and it’s ridiculously inexpensive.How inexpensive? A buck a bunch at my local grocer. One dollar! I bought some and took it back to Slim’s Shady Trailer Park in Palm Springs, California.Kale is so good for you. The only problem is it tastes like old hedge-clippings.I cooked it in some olive oil and garlic, just to see what it tasted like. It was not as bitter as normal kale, but it needed a little something. I tried cooking the lacinato kale different ways. With tomatoes. With red bell peppers. With white wine. Nothing was working.One night I decided to cook it with some port wine. Why? It was all I had! I took a sip, the port tasted great, so I added a 1/4 cup to the kale. The sweetness of the port cut the bitterness of the kale.It needed a little saltiness, so I added some sunflower seeds from the roadside stand. I added some dried cranberries, and it gave it some some color and a nice texture.It was good. It was real good.Notes…You can use any sweet wine or port or sherry. Sweet vermouth would work, so would Marsala, or sweet sherry.If you can’t find lacinato kale, you can use regular kale. Either way, you’ll need to clean the kale. Here’s how to do it: start at the top of the leaf. Start tearing the leaves by hand into strips, about an inch or two wide.When the center stalk starts getting tough--about 1/3 of the way down the kale leaf--start pulling the leaves from the side of the stalk, and throw away the stalk.Clean the leaves with cold water and spin dry. You need 4 cups.Add the sunflower seeds and dried cranberries last--you don't want your nuts to get soggy, or the cranberries soaking up the port.Serves two.
INGREDIENTS1 bunch of Italian kale, also known as lacinato kale, 4 cups cleaned and dried3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil2 tablespoons chopped shallotCrushed red pepper to taste (I start off with 1/4 teaspoon)¼ cup of port (or any sweet dark wine—sweet Marsala, sweet vermouth)¼ cup dried cranberries2 tablespoons salted roasted sunflower seedsSalt (I use kosher--mazel tov!)Here we go...Put your lacinato kale in a bowl.Put the olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, and let it heat up for 2 minutes.Add the 2 tablespoons of chopped shallots, and crushed red pepper to taste, and cook for a couple minutes, until the edges of the shallot start to turn golden brown.Add the port, or whatever wine you’re using. Turn the heat to high, and let it cook off for a minute or so.Reduce the heat to medium. Add half of the kale.Cook and stir until the kale wilts, a couple minutes.Add the rest of the kale. Cook and stir until the kale wilts, a couple minutes. Add a sprinkle of kosher salt, stir.Add the dried cranberries and stir.Add the sunflower seeds and stir.Taste for salt and adjust.Dish it up!This is a great side dish, I made it with chicken piccata, and it was a delish.
MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Caprese Salad
I was conceived on the Isle of Capri. That’s what my Mom told me. She would know - I hope!Capri is an island off the coast of Italy. My Dad was in Europe, helping with the reconstruction after World War II. My Mom was with him. On their way back to the USA, my folks stopped in Capri. Lucky for me.I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, soon after my folks arrived from Capri. Couldn’t they have stayed on Capri for a couple more months?My folks loved music. My Dad loved old blues and Dixieland jazz; my Mom loved everything. When I say everything, I mean everything. Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, Ella Fitzgerald, The Band, Dylan, Johnny Winter, Joan Baez, Hank Williams, Sr., Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Dave Brubeck, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Donovan, Dave Grusin, Marvin Gaye, Norah Jones, Anita Baker, Gladys Knight. I could go on and on.I guess I just did.My Mom turned me on to so many great artists. We’d go see shows together; everyone from Gladys Knight and the Pips to Paul Simon. When Paul Simon came to town, she bought a couple tickets. When the young guy sitting in front of us stood up and started doing the hippy-dippy Grateful Dead dance, she pulled him by his shirt back into his seat and quietly told him to sit down.Dayuummm, Ma! Making me look bad! The guy sat quietly for the rest of the show. My Mom was quiet, but strong.
My Mom didn’t have a lot of dough, but she’d treat herself to music—she always had a nice stereo, and went to see concerts. I remember her going to see Bonnie Raitt when she was playing local college gymnasiums. My Mom would drive to Annapolis, Maryland, to see Charlie Byrd play jazz guitar at the King of France Tavern.My Mom had a lovely voice, sweet and clear with a natural vibrato. She would put on some music, and cook dinner and sing along. Then, we’d have dinner and read cookbooks—looking for new recipes to try. She loved music and loved cooking.She grew up poor in Eastport, which at the time was a ghetto across the bridge from Annapolis, Maryland, which was home to the Naval Academy, where her dad worked as a custodian. My Mom met my Dad in Annapolis; he was going to St. John’s College, and was in a school play. My Mom was also in the play, even though she wasn’t a student. They fell in love, and had us three dimwits. When I was born, we lived with my Dad’s Mom, Angela, in the basement of her house in Baltimore, near Pimlico Racetrack – a thoroughbred horse-racing track that was home of the Preakness Stakes.When I was six, we moved into a house a couple miles away, on a dead-end street named Rosebank. It was a great old house, what they call a “fixer-upper.” It had an upright piano in the dining room. The previous owners had built the room around the piano, and when they moved, they couldn’t get it out. So they left it there. I took the piano apart. I painted it black. I replaced the keys with new ones. I put it back together, and started playing.I was already taking trumpet lessons. Once a week, my Mom would take me down Greenmount Avenue, and I’d study trumpet with Mr. John at a place called Freitag’s. I absolutely loved Herb Alpert, and made Mr. John do all the Tijuana Brass duets with me.I used to read comic books. In the back, they had these advertisements for seeds. No, it wasn’t marijuana seeds. Vegetable seeds. You’d send away for seeds, sell them to your neighbors, and after you sold a certain amount, you could redeem your points for prizes--one of which was a guitar. I learned how to play by ear. It would have been a lot easier if I had used my hands.
There I was, a little kid, learning how to play guitar and piano and trumpet. I can imagine all the horrible sounds my Mom had to put up with. It ain’t fun listening to a kid practice. My first gig was playing guitar and singing Beatles songs at the sixth grade graduation. I was in fifth grade. Roland Park Elementary School. My first gig!When I started my rock band, Momma Max, my Mom let us rehearse in the basement. It must have been incredibly loud upstairs. When I started writing songs, my Mom would type out lyric sheets, and write letters to publishers. When I got rejection letter after rejection letter, my Mom would quietly encourage me to keep going.When I got signed to Motown as a songwriter, my Mom was ecstatic. When one of the first songs I wrote for Motown – “Summer Days” – was recorded by Angela Bofill on her debut CD, my Mom could not have been more proud—she saved all the articles and reviews. When I got offered a record deal with Motown, my Mom’s house was the headquarters while we recorded in Baltimore. When Motown decided not to release the CD, it was my Mom who kept me from jumping off the roof.After my stint at Motown, I started a band called BootCamp. The music was loud, it was rock, and it was making some big noise in the music biz. But I was screaming at the top of my lungs, all night, every night, singing way out of my range.When I lost my voice after all that screaming, when I thought I’d never be able to sing again, it was my Mom who encouraged me to sing low and slow. And that’s what I did after BootCamp broke up. Slim Man was born!When the first Slim Man CD--End of the Rainbow-- was released, my Mom was at the release party. She was about the only one in the joint. Seriously. It was a howling failure. Nobody came out. I was convinced the CD was gonna sink like a stone in the sea.Not my Mom, she kept my spirits up, kept gently encouraging me. When the End of the Rainbow CD started getting airplay, I was playing piano in a dive bar in Baltimore called The Horse You Came In On. My Mom would call the bar on Fridays, and tell me how well the CD was doing on the charts. The CD ended up going Top Ten for the year. My Mom was a huge Slim Man fan. Whenever I played around Baltimore, she’d come see me play. And then she got sick.She had this horrible illness called Supra Nuclear Palsy, a disease where the body’s motors shut down. It becomes hard to move your mouth or tongue; it’s tough to chew or swallow or talk. It’s hard to move your arms or legs. It was difficult for my Mom to even close her eyes to sleep. And yet her mind was still sharp as a razor.My Mom never complained. Not once did I hear her say, “Why me?” I rarely say “never” but I never heard her complain. All she could do was lie in bed and watch TV or listen to music. I once got an advance from a record company; I spent it on a TV and a stereo for my Mom. It was the least I could do after all the hell I’d put her through when I was a teenage idiot.Even when she was sick, she’d get my sister to take her to the Slim Shows. It wasn’t easy, getting her around in the wheelchair, when she couldn’t even move a muscle. But she made it, even when it was snowing.I took care of my Mom the best I could. I brought her food all the time. I called her almost every day, even though she couldn’t talk. I had a jazz radio show in Baltimore on Sunday mornings, I always dedicated the show to my Mom. After the show, I would visit her, bring her a dish, and we’d drink a Bloody Mary and watch old movies. One time, I rented a handicapped van, and took her and the nieces to Pimlico racetrack. Nothing like some horse-racing to take your mind off things!When I got an offer to do a cruise, I was hesitant. I didn’t want to leave my Mom, but she insisted I go. Michael van Droff--who owned a German record company that had released some of my music--organized the concert cruise. I flew to Germany, practiced with the band, and then flew to Jamaica, where the cruise ship was docked. We were going to cruise the Caribbean for a week, cross the Atlantic, and cruise the Mediterranean for a week. Not a bad gig. My first cruise.My first night on the ship was a night off. I had dinner at the huge buffet, and then nestled into my tiny little cabin. Early the next morning I got a phone call.My Mom had died. I was crushed. I was inconsolable. The Germans, they’re a pretty stoic bunch. My grief must have been pretty alarming to them, because they had me off that cruise ship within hours. It was like an evacuation. A small boat picked me up, took me to a small island, where I caught a small cab to a small airport.How small? There was one tiny runway among the palm trees. The terminal had one counter and no walls; just an old rusted tin roof overhead. They had a small sound system that played music in between announcements – which were few and far between. I was pacing; I couldn’t sit still. I had a lump in my throat the size of a basketball. My eyes were swollen and red.
I was staring off into the distance, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened, when a song of mine came over the tiny sound system. How that happened, in that little airport, on that tiny island in the Caribbean, I’ll never know. The song was “Night Like This.”I picked up my cell phone and called the first person I always called when I wanted to share a moment like that. My Mom.Except she was gone.CAPRESE SALADMy Mom was an excellent cook. She prepared all kinds of foods—Indian, Mexican, Italian, French. She once made coq au vin—a French dish of chicken with red wine—for my entire seventh grade French class.
Insalata Caprese--that’s what the Eye-Talians call it--is my favorite salad. Yes, I was conceived on the Isle of Capri, where this recipe comes from, so I am partial. But this salad is so quick, easy and delicious.There is only ONE THING you have to remember.Every ingredient has to be the best.The tomatoes have to be ripe and luscious. The olive oil has to be extra virgin, or at least one that hasn’t been pole-dancing at the club every night.This would be a good time to splurge on bufala mozzarella. Yes, it’s expensive. But it’s really, really good. Take out a second mortgage, if you haven’t already. Break open the kids’ piggy bank. This is the one time to dig deep and fork it over.Bufala mozzarella comes from water buffalos. The scientific name for water buffalo is Bubalus bubalis. Which sounds like something I made up, but didn’t. Bubalus bubalis! Boo-Bah Lish!I used organic heirloom tomatoes. They weren’t expensive, and they were so fresh, ripe and colorful and tasted like heaven.Some people use balsamic vinegar as well as olive oil on their Caprese salad.I prefer using just olive oil. But what the hell do I know?INGREDIENTS2 or 3 heirloom tomatoes, or fresh vine-ripened tomatoes1 large ball of mozzarella — I suggest bufala — about a poundExtra virgin olive oilSalt and fresh-cracked black pepperFresh basil, a handfulHere we goSlice the tomatoes into circular slices, about a ¼ inch thick.Slice the mozzarella the same way.
Grab a small flat plate. We’re going to make individual servings. Put a slice of tomato flat on the plate. Put a slice of mozzarella on top.Grab another slice of tomato, preferably a different color. Lay it on top of the first slice of mozzarella, but down about an inch, so it’s layered, like when you play solitaire. Put a slice of mozzarella on top of the second slice of tomato.One more time! Grab a slice of tomato, lay it down, put a slice of mozzarella on top.If my math is correct, you’ll have three slices of each.Drizzle some olive oil on top.Add some salt and fresh cracked black pepper.Grab some basil leaves and a pair of scissors. Snip some basil right on top of the tomatoes and mozzarella.Make as many individual plates as you can, this usually serves four. Unless you’re in my family --this would feed only one of those monsters.Serve with some crusty bread, and…
MANGIAMO!!!
Slim Man Cooks Spinach with Toasted Almonds and Raisins
A lot of people ask me to sing at their weddings. My answer is usually,“Yes. Yes I can.”I love singing at weddings. It’s such a happy time. When I’m singing at a wedding where I hardly know anyone - that’s a lot of fun; watching strangers go nuts at a wedding is a blast. Watching people you know and love go nuts at a wedding is enough to make you want to grab a dart gun and shoot somebody in the neck.A couple years ago, a young gal from Baltimore asked me to sing “End of the Rainbow” at her wedding. She had no budget.I told her, “I can do it.” But if Taylor Swift asks me to open up for her that day; or if David Letterman calls me at the last minute to do the Late Show, I won’t be able to. If you can live with that, “Yes. Yes I can.”The week before her wedding, as hard as it is to believe, Taylor Swift did not call. David Letterman did not appear on my doorstep. I told her yes. She was so ecstatic. Ever since she saw me sit down at the piano and sing “End of the Rainbow” at a concert in Annapolis at the Rams Head Tavern, it had been her wish for me to sing that song at her wedding. I was flattered. Really.When she asked me to sing, I was thinking - I could walk in, sing “End of the Rainbow” and then get back to packing.Packing? Yes. I was moving. The day after her wedding, I was leaving Baltimore to move to Nashville. A permanent move. A big move. The wedding was on a Saturday. I was leaving Sunday. I didn’t mention My Big Move to the bride to be. I figured she had enough on her mind.A couple days before the wedding, we were talking on the phone about details when she said,“You need to be on the boat by 11:00 AM.”Boat? Pardon me…did you say “boat?” Yes. The wedding was a cruise around Baltimore - for five hours. We would be out to sea the whole time, and there was no getting off the boat. The thoughts that were running through my mind - maybe I could have someone pick me up on a Jet Ski after my song. Maybe I could leap on to a passing barge. Or borrow an inflatable boat and bring it on board with me.I’m not a big boat guy. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night and say, “Damn! I wish I were on a boat right now.”My Dad had a small fishing boat, a 17-footer with an egg-beater on the back. That was fun. But a big boat out on the open sea makes me a bit woozy.But una promessa é un debito--“A promise is a debt.” That’s what my uncle used to say. I told the Bride of Baltimore that I’d be on the Love Boat bright and early.
That Saturday, I jumped in the Slim Vehicle, and drove to the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. I parked my car, and walked a few blocks down to the water. I had on my beige Hugo Boss suit and my brown suede Donald J. Pliner loafers. Gotta dress big for a big wedding! I saw some folks boarding a small cruise ship — it held maybe 200 people. I got on the boat at 11:00 AM.The Love Boat was all decked out in flowers and ribbons. It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was out, it was warm – but not too – and there was a slight breeze as the boat slowly headed out into the Chesapeake Bay. They had the ceremony on the top deck. They exchanged their vows and everybody walked downstairs to the middle deck. And there I was, sitting at the piano. I sang “End of the Rainbow” for the bride and groom and their guests.After I finished, people were crying.They were crying, “Don’t give up your day job, Donkey Face!”After I sang, I guess people needed alcohol. My music usually drives people to drink. Folks were lining up at the bar. After cocktails, it was dinnertime. I sat next to Annabelle. I’ve known her for years. Annabelle is a joy. She is one happy woman.Annabelle is married to one of my bestest amigos. They've been separated for ten years, but never got divorced. They get along better now than they ever did. They’re the best of friends.Annabelle and I used to work together at a dive bar in Fells Point called the Horse You Came In On. People in Baltimore go to Fells Point to drink. She tended bar, I sang the blues. My band was called the Scrappy Harris Blues Band.Scrappy Harris was the barback at The Horse. He looked like a skinny little homeless kid. He smoked Marlboro Reds, drank Budweiser and was loud and boisterous. Scrappy had a small apartment nearby that looked like a flophouse. Bare mattress on the floor. Old sheets nailed over the windows. But Scrappy wasn’t poor. It turns out he was a trust fund kid. Had a ton of dough. He just liked being a barback, getting ice, stocking booze at The Horse You Came In On.We named the band after Scrappy. I wrote a song about him. I also wrote a song about Annabelle.“Annabelle…my sweet Annabelle, I’m going down to the wishing well…wish for a girl like Annabelle.”Annabelle and I had a blast at the wedding. After dinner, a band played. The guitar player was amazing, in a Stevie Ray Vaughan kinda way. I got up and sang “Pride and Joy.” The band was good. Really good.At the end of the shindig, Rob Fahey got up and sang “Raised on the Radio.” Rob was in a great Baltimore band called The Ravyns. “Raised on the Radio” was a big hit for them. It was used in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High with Sean Penn.Rob sang his heart out. What a way to end the wedding.The Love Boat pulled up to the Inner Harbor. It docked right by the food pavilions. The Baltimore skyline was shining in the setting sun. I said goodbye to Annabelle. I walked up to the bride and groom. They handed me an envelope. Inside was a gift certificate for way too much money for my favorite Italian restaurant in Baltimore.La Scala.I had told them I would sing for free. I’m a great guy, ain’t I? The gift certificate was unexpected, but much appreciated. And very thoughtful.I said my goodbyes, and started walking from the Inner Harbor to the parking lot. On the way, a pickup truck drove by, splashed through a puddle, and splattered mud all over my pants and shoes. It looked like, well, like you can imagine. Dark brown mud. Beige suit. I was getting strange looks as I walked back to my car.I went home, changed, and walked Batu. Then I went to sleep. The next day, Slim Drummer John E Coale came over in his SUV. We packed up everything into our two cars, and drove 700 miles to Nashville.
Batu was in the back of the car, his dog bed piled on top of all the boxes, his head poking between the front seats.Goodbye, Baltimore. Hello, NashvilleBut wait! There’s more!I got an email the other day,“Can you sing “End of the Rainbow” as we walk down the aisle for our wedding? That song has been our song ever since we met.”He told me he was getting married Labor Day in Palm Springs. I’ve been staying in Palm Springs for the past few months. I wrote back and told him the same thing I told the Bride of Baltimore — if Taylor Swift calls at the last minute, I’ll have to bow out. He took it as a “yes.”He was so excited. He wrote me back and told me he was going to keep it a secret – he wanted it to be a surprise for his partner, Jack.SPINACH WITH TOASTED ALMONDS AND RAISINS
If you need some fortification before a Big Day, like a wedding day, why not make some spinach? It worked for Popeye!A few things about this dish…I used multi-colored organic grape tomatoes. Why?I saw them in the grocery store. They looked real cool and colorful. And they were inexpensive.You can buy almonds already toasted. But I like to toast my own nuts. I use raw slivered almonds, and toast them in a dry pan over medium-high heat. Do not leave your nuts unattended. Nothing worse than burnt nuts.I only cook the tomatoes for a couple minutes, you don’t want them to lose their shape or their skin.And only cook the spinach for a couple minutes, just enough to wilt it.Add the toasted almonds and raisins last. Because you don’t want your nuts getting soggy, and you don’t want the raisins to absorb all the sauce.I used brown raisins. Golden raisins would also work well.Serves 2INGREDIENTS8 ounces of baby spinach (I use organic)2 tablespoons raw almonds, chopped or slivered2 tablespoons olive oil2 tablespoons chopped shallotsCrushed red pepper (I start off with about ¼ teaspoon)1/3 cup white wine1 cup grape tomatoes, cut in half, seeds squeezed out1 tablespoon raisins (brown or golden)Salt to tasteHERE WE GO…Rinse off the spinach and spin dry--unless it’s the kind that’s already been triple-washed. Make sure it’s clean, SlimNation.And now, let’s toast our nuts."Here's to you, you nuts!"Get a small sauté pan.Put the heat on medium-high.Grab your nuts, put them in the dry pan.Shake your nuts around until they’re golden brown.Put your toasted almonds on a plate. Let ‘em cool.Put the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat.Add the 2 tablespoons shallots.Add the crushed red pepper.Cook for 2 minutes or so, stir every now and then.When the shallots are almost clear, add the white wine, turn the heat to high, and let it cook off for 1 minute or so.Turn the heat to medium-low, add the tomatoes, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring every now and then.Add the spinach, cook and stir for 2 minutes--or until it wilts.Add salt to taste.Add the toasted almonds.Add the raisins.Give it a stir.Dish it up! This would make a great side dish for any of the Slim Fish Dishes.
MANGIAMO!!!!!!!!
Slim Man Cooks Chicken Stuffed with Goat Cheese
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's Cod Pieces
You couldn't ask for a better friend than Cowboy Pickles. He has a recording studio outside Washington, D.C. It’s a studio, yes. But it’s really just a small spare room, in his humble home that’s close to the University of Maryland.I did the first Slim Man CD there. The second one, too.The room is about 20 feet long and 15 feet wide. It is stacked, floor-to-ceiling with audio equipment—old, new and everything in-between.Cowboy has never gotten rid of anything. Fender Rhodes electric pianos, old Hammond B3 organs, Hohner Clavinets, Mini-Moogs, Commodore 64 computers, old JBL speakers, amplifiers, cassette recorders, 8 track tape machines…every microphone, guitar, keyboard he's ever bought, he still owns. Some of it is junk. Some of it is priceless.Cowboy Pickles has an old rifle by the studio door—the kind you might see in an old Western movie. He has an ax--a big ax--by his toilet, as if he were expecting some crazed Meth-Head to come crashing through his bathroom window.Walking through the studio is like walking through a small maze. One false move and a wall of junk might fall on you and bust your cranium.
Batu loves Cowboy Pickles’ studio. He lays down on the floor and listens to the music, eyes half-closed like he’s in a state of bliss.The Pickles Compound is near a railroad track. It’s close to a small airport. And it’s so close to the University of Maryland that you can hear the marching band rehearsing in the distance.Cowboy Pickles gets some amazing sounds out of that little spare room.Recording vocals was a challenge. The timing had to be just right or else the microphone would pick up all those noises…planes taking off, trains passing by.And the air conditioner had to be shut off or else the mic would pick up the hum. Which wasn’t bad in winter. But in the dead of summer, when it’s 90 degrees and 90% humidity, it was murder without AC.And we did most of our recording in the summer. Cowboy Pickles is a music teacher--he gives private piano and guitar lessons. And when his students went on summer vacation, we'd have a lot of time to record.Whenever we got ready to do vocals, we’d shut off the AC. Then we’d open the windows and listen for…planes, trains, marching bands, lawn mowers, dogs barking.If all was quiet on the Eastern Front, we’d record.Sometimes, we’d get a great vocal take. But when we’d listen back to the track all by itself, we’d sometimes hear a plane landing. Or a train going by. Or a car horn.Birds chirping was OK. I kinda liked the way it sounded.But a marching band…unless it was somehow miraculously in time with the song we were working on, we’d have to start all over. Any time there was an open microphone—vocals, sax, etc., we had to listen closely for all kinds of extraneous noises.Most of them we caught. Some we didn't...We were mixing a song called Shelter From A Storm, from the stunning Slim Man debut CD, "End of the Rainbow." Mixing is the final part of the process where you determine the volume and tone of the tracks you've recorded. We were listening to the song, and I heard the phone ring. I yelled to Cowboy Pickles...“Answer the phone!”Cowboy picked up the phone. No one there.We went back to mixing the song. I heard the phone ring again.“Answer the phone!”Cowboy picked up. No one there. It happened a third time. We stopped mixing. We took a listen to my vocal track. We listened to it ‘solo’, which means…all by itself.And sure enough, there was a phone ringing on the vocal track. Plain as day. In one spot, you could hear…RRRRRRRRing!So we had a decision to make. Start all over…re-record the whole vocal track. Or just leave it in. We left it in.So…if you’re listening to the first Slim Man CD, and you hear a phone ringing…don’t answer it!When the CD was finished, we had a CD release party and concert at a club in downtown Baltimore. We invited every newspaper, magazine, reporter, TV station, radio station--we invited everybody. Anybody.Nobody showed up. I counted 16 people in a place that held 200. I went home that night, and was about as down-low as you can go. I was convinced the CD was gonna flop.I was playing piano at a waterfront dive bar in Baltimore called “The Horse You Came In On”. It’s one of the oldest bars in America. I played Friday afternoons, mostly to a group of guys that called themselves "The Knuckleheads".They wore hats like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble wore to their lodge meetings--hats that looked like furry coneheads with steerhorns sticking out each side.One Friday, the phone rang at the bar. The bartender, Annabelle, answered it, listened, and then called out:“Looks like you’re number 27!”I had no idea what she was talking about. Neither did The Knuckleheads. But apparently, the radio promoter I had hired was finally starting to get some interest.The next week…”You’re number 21!"It continued to climb the charts, week by week. It got all the way to #9. Nationwide.
So technically, it was a Top Ten Hit. We started selling tons of CDs, we went out on tour, we played all over the US and Europe…All from a little studio, in a spare room, next to an airport, near a train track and within earshot of a marching band.Codfish CakesIn Baltimore, where I spent most of my Slim Boyhood, almost every little grocery store had coddies--codfish cakes. The two ingredients were codfish and mashed potatoes. The coddies were displayed on a tray, along with Saltine crackers and plain yellow mustard.I loved ‘em.When codfish went on sale a few weeks ago at the local grocery store near Slim’s Shady Trailer Park in Palm Springs, I thought it would be a great time to create my own codfish cake recipe. I call my new creation...Slim Man’s Cod Pieces
INGREDIENTS3 medium Yukon gold potatoes, cut into cubes (about 2 cups)1 pound codfish filet, skinless, cut into cubes (about 2 cups)2 tablespoons minced shallot1 tablespoon minced garlic1 tablespoon chopped rosemary2 tablespoons butter4 tablespoons olive oilKosher salt, fresh cracked pepper…to taste6 cups water1 egg½ cup of panko breadcrumbs (I used Progresso Panko Italian Style)FlourHERE WE GO...Get a large pot, put in 6 cups of water or so, put it on the highest heat ya gots.Put the taters in the water.When almost tender—it took mine about 10 minutes after the water came to a boil—add the fish cubes. That's right, put the fish right in the boiling water with the potatoes.Cook for 5 minutes.Drain in a colander.
Put the fish and the potatoes in a bowl, add 1 tablespoon of butter, add salt and pepper, and mash coarsely.Let it sit and cool as you…Get a sauté pan and put it over medium heat. I used a 10-inch pan.Add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.When the butter starts to bubble, add the garlic and shallot.Saute for 3 minutes until the shallots are clear and the garlic is pale gold.Add the rosemary and stir a few times.
Cook for 2 minutes.Take the shallot/garlic/rosemary mixture that's in the pan and add it to the codfish and potatoes.Mix it up.Grab your egg, put it in a bowl, and beat it.Add it to the codfish and taters, and mix.Add the breadcrumbs and mix by hand.If the mixture is too liquidy, add more breadcrumbs.When the mixture feels right—not too liquidy, not too bready--make cakes.I like my cakes about the size of a yo-yo. This recipe yielded 8 codfish cakes.Put ‘em on a plate.Take the sauté pan that you used for the garlic/shallots/rosemary.Put it over medium-high heat.Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil.As the oil heats up…Get a flat plate, put some flour on it.Lightly dredge each codfish cake in the flour.When the olive oil is hot, put the cakes in the pan, and saute for 3 minutes, until the bottoms are golden brown.Flip ‘em over—be gentle--and cook on the other side for 3 minutes, until golden brown.Place on paper towels when done.Serve with spicy brown mustard, or plain old yellow mustard like we used to do in Bawlmer!
MANGIAMO!!!!!!!
Seared Scallops with Ginger and Garlic
I was a teenage idiot. I did some stupid stuff when I was a teenager. Nothing horrible, just the usual stupid teenage stuff—underage drinking, staying out too late, having parties at the house when she was out-of-town. When I got older, I must have apologized to my Mom a hundred times for being such a knucklehead.I’m still doing stupid stuff. But not as frequently.As a teenager, it is required by law that you do the exact opposite of what your parents tell you to do. Your parents tell you not to smoke pot, for instance. For generations, parents have been telling their kids not to smoke pot. Does it work?No. Why not? Teenagers don’t listen.We three kids – my older brother, my younger sister and I – lived with my Mom on a dead-end street named Rosebank, in Baltimore, Maryland. When my folks divorced, my Dad went back to New York. Divorce is tough on teenagers. You don’t know who’s right, who’s wrong, what to do, or where to go.The basement at Rosebank was our haven. It was our safe place. We decided to fix it up.Uncle Oscar gave us a pool table. He had bought it for his son, Johnny. Johnny and I used to play pool at Oscar’s house. Johnny and I were close in age and close in general. He used to come see my band, Momma Max.Johnny died in an automobile accident when he was sixteen. It was so heartbreaking for the whole family. I was crushed. It was the only time I saw Oscar cry. He gave us Johnny’s pool table. It took a bunch of us kids, but we managed to get it in the basement at Rosebank.The basement walls were made of stone. Not the good-looking Hollywood kinda stone, these were stones like you’d see on the walls of ancient caves – rough and lumpy and crumbly. We whitewashed all the walls. It took a few coats, but we painted them all white. We painted the poured cement floor dark green.We got a bunch of brightly colored paints and markers and brushes and spray paints. Whenever anybody would come over – neighborhood kids, friends, cousins – we’d play pool, play music and draw on the walls. Cartoons, poetry, graffiti, drawings, portraits, quotes – the walls became this mash-up mural of collective art.It was where my band practiced. That basement should be in the Slimuseum! It once had a dirt floor and crumbling walls, and now it was all spiffed up, in a hippy-dippy way. My Mom was just glad to have everybody in one place, where she could keep an eye on us dimwits.The ceiling was really low. In certain areas, big iron water pipes hung low, and you’d have to stoop under them to avoid busting your frontal lobe. One time a friend of ours named Bruce made an incredible shot to win a game of pool. In a fit of joy, he leaped straight up, hit an iron pipe, and knocked himself unconscious.Did we help him? No. We were laughing too hard. I told ya, we were teenage idiots.My brother and I used to play tricks on our friends. They’d come over, we’d hang out in the basement, play pool, and play music. Then my brother and I would give each other a wink, and one of us would sneak out of the basement.We’d go outside and move our friends’ cars. Park ‘em down at the bottom of our dead-end street. Then we’d sneak back into the basement. When the party was over, our friends would leave, and my brother and I would wait until we heard the frantic knock on the basement door.“Dude! I can’t find my car! It’s my Dad’s! He’s gonna kill me!”My brother and I would let the terror go on for a few minutes, and then we’d laugh and tell them what we’d done. Pretty stupid stuff. Like I said, I was a teenage idiot.I think the zenith of my moronosity came when I decided to make some pot brownies. I put some pot in a blender, put in some brownie mix, and then made brownies in the oven.
My brother and I each ate a piece. We gave a piece to our sister. We didn’t force her, she wanted one. After an hour, my sister told us she didn’t feel anything. She told us she wanted to eat another piece. We didn’t think it was a good idea and told her so. She ate another piece anyway. Why?Teenagers don’t listen.A few hours later she was screaming that she’d never be the same. She was freaking out, and she kept telling us she needed to go to the hospital. It’s funny now. It wasn’t real funny back then. She finally calmed down, but it scared the shit out of us.That night, I put the brownies in some aluminum foil. I put a skull and crossbones on them, and hid them in the back of the fridge so no one would find them. I guess I should have thrown them out, but, like I said, I was a teenage idiot.The next morning I walked downstairs and saw the woman who cleaned our house eating a pot brownie with her morning coffee.I yelled out her name.She looked at me like I was crazy, and said,“What? What’s wrong?”I thought for a quick minute, which is rare for a teenager. Then I said,“Nothing. How are you?”She gave me a funny look. She’s a wonderful woman, has been a part of the family for years and years. I’m still very close with her and her family.But if I told her that she had just eaten a pot brownie, she would have probably freaked out. If I didn’t tell her, maybe she would just feel a little weird, and not think much about it.My Dad used to tell me, “Nobody gets in trouble by keeping their mouth shut.”So I said nothing. And nothing happened. She didn’t jump out of a window, or start a religious cult, or join the circus.After she left, I threw the brownies in the trash.I guess I was starting to grow out of my teenage idiocy period. I’m now in my adult idiocy period…SEARED SCALLOPS WITH GINGER AND GARLIC 
Scallops are for adults only. They’re too expensive to waste on teenagers!When you sear scallops, it’s real important to use dry scallops. These are scallops that have not been injected with water and chemicals.So make sure you use dry scallops — it’s almost impossible to sear wet scallops, because the liquid they throw off screws up the searing process.When you talk to your fish guy at the market, make sure he knows you want dry scallops. Rinse off the scallops and pat dry with paper towels. Keep patting dry until the moisture is gone from the scallops, and the towels do not get damp.Searing is one of my favorite things to do with seafood. It’s quick. It’s easy.After you sear a scallop or a piece of fish, you can eat it just like that. Or you can add a little sauce.The sauce I made consists of garlic and ginger and honey.When you cook scallops, figure on three scallops per person. If you serve two scallops, people will think you’re cheap. If you serve four, you’ll need to take out a loan.In this recipe, I seared 6 scallops, perfect for a nice romantic dinner for two.Me and Batu!There is enough sauce here for 12 scallops! You’ll only need a teaspoon OR LESS per scallop, you’ll have PLENTY left over—it should keep in the fridge for a week.One last thing! Scallops have a little muscle on the side. Peel it off and toss. The muscle, not the scallops!INGREDIENTS
The Sauce1 tablespoon minced garlic1 tablespoon minced ginger¼ cup of soy sauce¼ cup of olive oil2 teaspoons of honey (I sometimes use more)The ScallopsTurbinado sugar (or brown sugar)Salt and pepper1 tablespoon butter1 tablespoon olive oil6 large dry sea scallops, side muscle removedHere we go...Take all of the sauce ingredients, put them in a bowl, and whisk, whisk, whisk. Taste for sweetness, and add a little more honey if you like.Put half the sauce in a small pot over low heat--save the rest in the fridge for next time. Let the sauce reduce a bit as we sear our scallops.Sprinkle the top of each scallop with JUST A LITTLE sugar, kosher salt, and fresh cracked black pepper.Get a medium-size sauté pan. Put the heat on medium-high.Put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan.When the butter starts to turn brown and bubble, put the scallops in the pan — seasoned side down.
Sauté for 2 minutes. As the scallops sauté, sprinkle the top side of each scallop with JUST A LITTLE salt, sugar and pepper. If you’re concerned about splattering, place a piece of foil VERY LOOSELY over the pan.After 2 minutes, lift the scallops out of the pan with some tongs.Swish the butter and olive oil around in the bottom of the pan so you’re not placing the un-seared side of the scallop onto a dry pan. You need those juices to sear!Put the scallops back in the pan, un-seared side down. Sear for 2 minutes.Dish it up! Put the scallops on a platter with a sprig of parsley or two. You can also put them on a plate of greens. Grab the pot with the simmering sauce. Spoon a LITTLE over each scallop—a small teaspoon, and…
MANGIAMO!!
Slim Man Cooks Pizza Eggs
My brother created this recipe. It’s the family go-to recipe for breakfast on holidays and birthdays and…the morning after a wedding.It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s delizioso.I make my own tomato sauce from scratch. It takes about 30 minutes, start-to-finish, and it is so good and so healthy. The recipe is on the slimmancooks.com website.If you make your own sauce, and I strongly suggest you do, you can make the sauce, and then crack the eggs into it. You’ll need a couple cups of sauce, either way.Bufala mozzarella is made from the milk of water buffalos. Where are they keeping all these water buffalos? I’ve never seen one. How do you raise a herd of water buffalo? Milking water buffalo...you must have to go to a special school to learn how to do that.Bufala mozzarella is pretty expensive, and real good, but necessary for this dish—you can use regular mozzarella. Save the bufala for a Caprese salad!Use freshly-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. That stuff in the box tastes like kitty litter.
INGREDIENTS3 cups tomato sauce1 ¼ cup freshly shredded mozzarella¼ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese6 eggsSalt and fresh cracked black pepperHERE WE GO…
Put a large fry pan on high heat—I used a 12-inch pan.Put in the 3 cups of sauce.When it starts bubbling, lower the heat to medium-low.Break the eggs right into the sauce, but keep ‘em separated from each other.Add salt and pepper.Add a little shredded mozzarella on top of each egg.Cover and cook for about 5 minutes, until the eggs are done.Remove from heat.Add Parmiggiano-Reggiano.Serve it up with crusty bread, to your crusty, trusty gang of banditos, and…MANGIAMO!
Slim Man Cooks Lamb Chops
Elvis hated us.Not the real Elvis.An Elvis impersonator.I had a band in the 1970s called Mixed Nuts. The original name was Nick’s Nuts.The problem was, a gangster guy who booked the band hated the name Nick’s Nuts. He told us to change it, so we changed it to Nix Nuts. He hated that name, too. We changed it to Mixed Nuts. Gangster guy liked it; it fit.We played cover songs, mostly Top 40 dance stuff - Earth, Wind and Fire, Kool and the Gang, Ohio Players, along with some jazz – Grover Washington, George Benson and Weather Report.We played clubs in and around our hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. We had some really good musicians in the band. We sounded good. We looked good, which is much more important than sounding good. Only thing was - we were a little nuts.
Our keyboard player, Danny, was the nuttiest of the Nuts. He was the instigator. He was a short, roly-poly guy, looked a lot like Danny DeVito. Danny did some crazy things.One of our first gigs was opening for an Elvis impersonator. We used their equipment – drums, amps, and keyboards. I'm guessing Elvis' keyboard player wasn't very good, because he had placed pieces of masking tape on each key of his keyboard. He had written the notes of each key on each piece of tape - so the “C” key had “C” written on the tape, the “D” key had “D” written on it, and so forth, up and down the whole keyboard.We opened the show for Fake Elvis, and played for about a half-hour. Danny used the guy’s keyboard. At the end of our show, Danny changed all the pieces of tape on the keyboard – so the “C” key was no longer “C”, and the “D” key was no longer “D”.We left the stage. People didn’t throw things at us, but the applause wasn’t deafening, either. Elvis was waiting in the wings. His band went onstage and the keyboard player started their intro, the theme from 2001 A Space Odyssey.All the notes were wrong, thanks to Danny. The keyboard player looked down at his keys, and then over at Elvis. Elvis gave him a dirty look. The keyboard player started the intro again. Nothing but wrong notes. Elvis looked over at us, and we were smiling.He was not.Needless to say, it wasn’t the best night for Elvis and his band. I don’t think the keyboard player hit one good note all night. After the show, Elvis came looking for us.But Mixed Nuts had left the building.I liked the real Elvis a lot. I’ve been to Graceland more than once. Early Elvis is my favorite. He was cool. His eating habits weren’t the best in the world. A steady diet of peanut butter and bacon sandwiches can’t have a good impact on your body. But Elvis' music had quite an impact on the world.When Mixed Nuts played the Baltimore nightclub circuit, we started at 9 PM and played until 2 AM. We did five 40-minute sets, 200 minutes of music. We usually played the same club for a week. Then, we’d head to a different club, play for a week. We did that all-year long.After a show, we’d all go out to eat. Diners, Denny’s, Holiday Inns – anywhere that served food late at night. Whenever The Nuts went out to eat, we’d arrive at the restaurant in our suit jackets and vests, and dress shirts and ties, shoes and socks, and - no pants. We were always so nonchalant about it, like it was completely normal. We were nuts. Mixed Nuts. We had a name to live up to.A lot of the clubs we played were owned by Greeks – The Latin Casino, The Redwood Inn, Rhapsody, Hollywood Palace, and Club Venus. The owners were all named John. We gave them nicknames, so we could tell them apart…Uncle John. Little John. Big John.We used to play the Hilton Hotel in a neighborhood called Pikesville. It was one of the few clubs in Baltimore not owned by a Greek named John. The Hilton club was run by a guy named Bill, who had a phosphorescent orange tan, fake black hair, and chain smoked cigarettes.One night, The Nuts were at the Hilton doing our Big Finale, which was a song called “Birdland” by Weather Report. It’s a lively little number, a song that we had a request to do. The guy that requested it hit the dance floor as soon as we started the song. He was all by himself, out there on the dance floor, doing a frantic little dance…And then he died of a massive heart attack. Right there in front of us, on the dance floor. True story. We were scheduled to play the Hilton the following week. But we didn’t. Bill didn’t want us playing there anymore after the guy died.It’s not like we killed him.But it did give birth to the phrase “We knocked ‘em dead last night.”Mixed Nuts broke up soon after.Why? Like I said, the guys in the band were really good musicians, and started getting some incredible offers…The sax player got hired by Patti LaBelle. He started touring the world.The guitar player got a gig with Dion and the Belmonts. He started touring the world as well.I got signed to Motown Records. I took the drummer from Mixed Nuts with me to play on the album. Who was the drummer?Hit Man Howie Z. We still play together in the Slim Man Band.Four out of five Nuts went on to be pretty successful in the music biz.And the fifth Nut, the nuttiest Nut? Danny?He got busted a few years later for selling marijuana. The Feds found a lot of pot and a couple hundred thousand bucks stashed on his property. So I guess Danny was pretty successful, too, in his own way. Except the Feds confiscated the money. And the weed.Danny didn’t drink. He didn’t use drugs.But he did do a couple years in the Federal penitentiary. When he got out of prison, he went back to Baltimore.We’re still close friends. He still plays music in and around the Baltimore area. Jailhouse Rock!LAMB CHOPS WITH ROSEMARY AND GARLIC
When I was in Mixed Nuts, I didn’t cook very much. But when I did, I usually made some Italian vegetarian dishes; tomato sauce, pesto, things like that. I didn’t eat a lot of red meat.My Dad cooked a birthday dinner for me one year. He made this incredibly elaborate meal, and the main course was a leg of lamb with mustard sauce. My Dad had invited Danny. He loved Danny, thought he was ridiculously funny.After this extravagant dinner, after all the courses had been served, Danny looked at my Dad and said,“Good slop.”Which my Dad thought was hilarious.I still don’t eat a lot of red meat, but when I have carnivores over at Slim’s Shady Trailer Park, I’ll make lamb chops. This is my favorite red meat recipe.INGREDIENTS1 pound lamb chops (I had 6, each about ¾ inch thick)1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary1 clove garlic, minced (a generous teaspoon)1 teaspoon olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon for searing1 tablespoon butterHere we go…
Rinse off your lamb chops and pat them dry with paper towels.Put the chopped rosemary and the minced garlic on a chopping board.Even though they’re already chopped, chop ‘em up together for a minute. These guys need to get to know each other.Put the chopped rosemary and garlic in a small bowl.Add a teaspoon of olive oil, mix it up. Set aside.Place the lamb chops on a large 
plate.Rub a little of the rosemary/garlic/olive oil mixture on top of each lamb chop—only on one side! Spread it around evenly, a thin layer.Add a little kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.Get a large sauté pan (I used a 10-inch pan).Turn the heat to medium-high.Add the 1 tablespoon of butter, and the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil. When the butter starts to brown, add the lamb chops—spiced side down!Cook for a couple minutes, as in 2 or 3. Thinner pieces take less time, thicker ones, longer.Using tongs, turn ‘em over. Swirl the olive oil and butter around in the bottom of the pan so you’re not placing the lamb chops in a dry pan.Cook for another 2 or 3 minutes.Check them for doneness - at 2 or 3 minutes a side they should be medium rare. If you like them well done, cook for a couple minutes more on each side. If you like them rare, cook them less.That’s it!!Dish it up, make it look nice, add a sprig of rosemary, maybe a dollop of risotto, a couple baked asparagus spears, and…
MANGIAMO!!!!