Pam Anderson - How to Cook Without a Book, Completely Updated and Revised

In the spring of 2000, I published How to Cook Without a Book. With my first bookThe Perfect Recipelaunched, it was now time to share with other working parents how I finally overcame the challenge of getting dinner on the table. Eighteen years later and I am still receiving royalty checks. In 2013, How to Cook Without a Book made Buzzfeeds 19 Cookbooks That Will Improve Your Life list. Says Ree Drummond, It isnt glossy, fancy, or full of photographs, but it single-handedly altered the way I approach cooking by showing me how to take a small handful of cooking techniques and use them to create literally endless variations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I recommend it to anyone trying to find their footing in the kitchen!

Over the years, many have suggested that I dust up and republish How to Cook Without a Book, but I always demurred because so much had changed, both in the food world and in me. My book was a teenager by now, and I knew better than to try to change a teen. What I could do, however, was to write again in that same spirita how-to that made sense for this time, one that taught people how to cook without reading a recipe.

THE BACKSTORY

How to Cook Without a Book was born of my struggles as a 1990s working mom trying to get dinner on the table. For months, Id walk in the door at 6:30 p.m. to two hungry kids and a kitchen-clueless spouse. Id frantically open the refrigerator door and stare. I saw ingredients, not dinner. The two big barriers to weeknight cooking were finding a recipe and grocery shopping. I knew how to get a recipe and shop for everything I needed to nail itI was a magazine food editor, for Gods sakebut when it came to feeding my family on a Wednesday night, this was a recipe for frustration.

Working in New York City, I was a long way from home, a world away from my Alabama mother and grandmother, who pulled off weeknight cooking without breaking a sweat. How did they do it? I wondered. True, my mother didnt work outside the home, though she had her hands full sewing, cleaning, caring for a child, running errands, volunteering, helping Dad fix up a handyman special, then building and maintaining her dream home. My grandmother was a dirt farmer, and later in life worked full-time in a garment factory making pajamas. Yet both of these women could do something I couldnt: regularly get dinner on the table.

I had accessliterallyto thousands of ingredients theyd never heard of, and had made everything from crme caramel to cassoulet, but I was missing something. By keeping their pantry, fridge, and freezer stocked and relying on a set of internalized techniques and formulas, my mother and grandmother overcame both of the barriers to weeknight cooking: recipes and running to the store.

Following their example, I quit shopping ad hoc and stocked my kitchen. Eventually I developed my own set of techniques and formulas that worked for my busy life. In other words, I started to cook without a book. Regardless of the season, I could walk in the kitchen and start cooking with whatever ingredients I had around. With a few staples, I could transform chicken breasts, broccoli, lemons, and rice into a sauted chicken breast dinner complete with a restaurant-style citrus pan sauce, a quick comforting soup, or a kick-ass stir-fry. With a carton of eggs, a seasonal vegetable, and a little cheese, I could whip up a supper frittata or a super-size omelet. And for years, I found a way to carry on like Mom and Mama Skipper, bringing my family around the table for dinner nearly every night.

THE CHANGING FOOD SCENE

Now that all seems like ages ago.

I still use many of the techniques and formulas I developed for How to Cook Without a Book, but in the last two decades, food and diet have shifted dramatically, and both my lifestyle and my cooking style have evolved.

I was proud in the nineties that hearts of romaine (not my mothers iceberg) dominated my salad bowl. Twenty years later, hardy dark greens like kale and beet tops are my new lettuces. And what used to be side dishesbutternut squash, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and carrotsI now roast, drizzle with vinaigrette, and call salad.

I still enjoy the occasional sauted boneless, skinless chicken breast with a pan sauce, but meatier, more flavorful chicken thighs have gradually taken their place. Youll find fewer oversize Styrofoam trays of steaks and double Cryovac packages of pork tenderloin sitting in my Costco cart. Im serving up more meatless meals and using meat as flavoring. And when I do choose meat, I no longer dirty three pansone for meat, one for starch, and another for the vegetable. I mostly cook in one pot, one skillet, one large roasting pan, or on one oversize baking sheet.

A new book would need to account for the sea change in food preferences since How to Cook Without a Book came out at the turn of the century.

THE TIME CRUNCHNEW GENERATION, SAME PROBLEM

Like my grandmother in the thirties, my mother in the sixties, like me in the nineties, both of my daughters are married. They both work full time, as do their husbands. One is a mother. Watching their lives, I see the pattern repeatingexcept that my kids seem to have even less time than I did. They want to make healthy meals with ingredients they feel good about eating. And since they grew up with regular family dinners, they understand their importance and try to make them a priority. But like me at that stage of life, there are so many things competing with their need to eat well. I see not only the challenges of my generation, but also the particular stresses of the next generation.