Ellis Johah - Toss your own salad: the meatless cookbook with burgers, bolognese, and balls

Eddie McNamara

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY BY APRIL RANKIN

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOSH LORD
LETTERING BY JONAH ELLIS

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For Meirav: my love, my partner, my muse, my everything

I need to say a few things up front. First, Im not going to make you read through long-winded, bullshit prose about how the sun bounced off the fiddlehead ferns that swayed in the summer breeze in those oh-so-beautiful childhood summers in my grandmothers garden. Seriously, what the fuck is up with these twee descriptions of greenmarket produce? The rambling, hazy memories of the way desserts smelled coming out of a hot oven at a fantastic little bakery in the South of France? Cmon, people, Im trying to make dinner over here.

Second, Im not a sexy Italian TV personality or food trend influencer. A lot of cookbooks are written by celebrity chefs who spend most of their time dazzling the press and taking fan selfies, or by executive chefs who lead a brigade of cooks in a commercial kitchen. Are these the people you want recipes from? What does any of that have to do with you, some schmuck at home staring into the refrigerator and wondering what the hell youre going to eat tonight? Nothing, thats what. I dont have a cooking show and I dont work in a restaurant anymore, so what I do every night in my kitchen is more relevant to what you, the home cook, are trying to do. MAKE SOME GODDAMN DINNER.

Im just a regular guy from Brooklyn. (Though I live in Manhattan now. Look, ma, I made it.) I used to be a cop with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. On 9/11/01, I responded to the World Trade Center at 10 a.m., and worked on-site with the Rescue/Recovery team for the next nine months. I didnt know it then, but there wouldnt be any rescues. That meant my jobevery day, twelve hours a daywas making recoveries. We called the smoking, unstable pile of rubble we dug through The Pit, where we found what was left of the people we lost. Take a moment and imagine that version of reality, night after night. It marked me in ways I never even considered. It wasnt longabout five yearsuntil I was forced to come to terms with my PTSD and panic disorder and retire my badge. My condition made me afraid to leave the apartment. During my time as an urban hermit, I figured if I was pent up at home all day I might as well make dinners for me and my wife, Meirav. I became obsessed with cooking and watched the Food Network incessantly. In a ploy to get me out of the house, she signed me up for three basic cooking classes at the Natural Gourmet Institute. And I liked them so much that I enrolled in the chefs training program.

I loved culinary school. I had enthusiastic instructors, passionate classmates, and a Xanax prescription to curb my breakout panic, just in case. My Act Two was somehow going to involve cooking. After graduation, I interned for Amanda Cohen at Dirt Candy, a then-tiny, boundary-pushing vegetable restaurant in the East Village. (Now, its a much bigger, award-winning restaurant on the Lower East Side.) Working for my favorite chef at the best vegetarian restaurant in the world was awesome, but I wasnt about that restaurant life. I did some private chef jobs until I landed a gig doing recipe testing and development for InStyle magazine. Similar gigs came in from HGTV and Womens Health. It was the perfect job for someone with severe panic attacksI did all the work from my own kitchen.

Like you, I want to eat healthy-ish, save a few bucks, and enjoy my meals. In fact, my book is less about delighting an audience and more about documenting the food I actually make for myself and my wife every day. I dont want to eat to balance my chi or read a literary essay about a ripe eggplant. Im honestly confused about how vegetables have been fetishized by food writers. Theyre vegetables. Theyre for putting in your mouth. And sometimes they need a little helpthe right tools, spices, and techniquesto make things more exciting. This I can help you with.

Third, I dont have a weird agenda. Im not trying to sell you branded vitamins or convince you to join a vegan militia. (By the way, lets not get all hung up on the whole vegetarian versus vegan thing. That drives me nuts.) I happen to eat a vegetable- focused diet. Most of the time. More accurately, Im as loyal to vegetarianism as a French Prime Minister is to his spouse. Most of the time Im good, but when something tempting falls into your lap what can you do? You can count on this, though: There are no recipes in this book for boeuf bourguignon or fried chicken. All these recipes are meatless because thats how I eat at home. If Im out to eat, it might be a whole different story.

And lets not start hating the carnivores just because theyre out there eating Bambi. Vegetarian recipes are what meat-eaters ask me about the most. Either theyre trying to reduce their meat consumption for a variety of reasons, or they want to eat more vegetables but arent sure how to make them more palatable. Look, if you cant live without putting meat in your mouth, make it on the sidethats what vegetarians have to deal with their whole lives. I dont care if youre vegan, vegetarian, or your guru has requested that you eat only raw, sprouted foods. Want to live like a CrossFit caveman? Go ahead. Im not about gimmicks or unsubstantiated health claims, and Im not going to try to scare you or guilt you into giving up meat. My intention is to share some of my favorite recipes that are cheap, healthy, hopefully clever, and most importantly, taste awesome.

Heres the final thing I have to say: You dont need the patience of a saint or advanced knife skills or a diploma to be a great cook. Becoming a great cook takes two things: a little knowledge and a lot of practice. You dont have to go to culinary school just to make dinner. You also dont have to spend your whole paycheck at a farmers market to cook the recipes in this book. If a recipe is simple enough for me to whip up at home, you can do it, too. Itll be tasty and (relatively) healthy, and it wont take up your whole night. Just flip to the page of the dish you want to make, grab your ingredients, and go for it. Ive got your back.

When I was testing, rewriting, and developing recipes for magazines, it was my job to make sure that the recipes turned in by the chef who screamed at people on TV, or the one with the clever catchphrase or the really pretty blonde who always seemed to be in soft focus, actually looked and tasted the way they were supposed to. I spent about half the time scaling down restaurant recipes, simplifying them for a home cook, or telling my editor that the recipe was perfect just the way it was because it was amazing and some chefs are famous for good reason. The other half of the time I was breaking my ass to fix a recipe that was clearly some bullshit made up on the fly in a phone call with the publicist. If Im paying for a cookbook, I want to be sure that the recipes are going to work. If you want Penne Tikka Masala, you can Google a random recipe and take a chance, or you can see and make mine, knowing that its going to be delicious. I made it for dinner and took OCD notes. My friends have eaten it and bugged out. My editor and publisher made these recipes and loved them, too. How else do you think I got to write this book?