Hagar - Are we having any fun yet?: the cooking & partying handbook

To all the foodies around the world who enjoy a great meal with family and friends as much as I do

FUN INSIDE

The funny thing about celebrity culture is that it makes us think we know someone even if weve never met them face-to-face.

The first time I crossed paths with Sammy Hagar, I had the same perception a lot of people probably do. It was September 1990, and I was working dinner service at Emerils, my new restaurant in New Orleans, when in walked a long-haired rock and roller, a drop-dead gorgeous woman at his side.

Now, Im into music. Really into music. I played percussion as a kid and I was offered a scholarship for conservatory study before I enrolled in culinary school. Name the genre: jazz, soul, classical, bluegrass, rock. As with food, I love it all.

Needless to say, I recognized Sammy. You couldnt not recognize the lead singer of Van Halen. And I was pretty sure what I was in for: a larger-than-life figure with all the trappings, a poster child for sex and drugs and rock and roll.

Like I said, you think you know someone.

Sammy and Kari ate at the bar that evening, and while I dont remember exactly what I served them, Ill never forget the impression Sammy made. Big star? Sure. But the chest-puffing rock-and-roll A-lister I expected? Sammy didnt act the part. He was so unpretentious and easygoing, without the slightest bit of me-first attitude. Sitting there beside him, you would have sworn that he was just another guy out with his girlfriend for a nice meal on the town.

Then there was this. Just as I was really into music, Sammy was really into food. We got to talking, and from the questions that he asked and the lingo that he used, it was clear to me that this wasnt your usual rock and roller. The way I figured, he had probably grown up in a restaurant family, most likely Italian. I was sure his mom or dador someone close to himhad known their way around the kitchen and had passed their love of cooking on to him.

As it turned out, all of that was true.

After dinner that night, Sammy and I stayed in touch, and in the months and years that followed, hed stop by the restaurant anytime he played New Orleans. Sometimes he came with Kari, the knockout who has since become his wife. Other times he came alone. Either way, he didnt seem to care who noticed or who didnt. All he wanted was to sit at the bar, and eat and drink and talk and laugh. Invariably, Id wind up joining him, and wed eat and drink and talk and laugh some more.

Rock star that he is, Sammy could have told me wild stories from the road. I know hes got them. But our conversations rarely touched on rock and roll. What Sammy liked to talk about was food and cookingthe proper technique, say, for braising short ribs and the best Barolos to pair with them. Eavesdropping on us, you would have thought that I was chatting with my sous chef or my sommelier, not the front man of one of the worlds most badass bands.

Chris Sentovich

Stephen Holding @ShootingStarsPhotography.com

On one of those visits, midway through the evening, Sammy asked me what I was doing the following night. Before I could respond, he gave me the answer: Im sending a car to pick you up. Youre coming to the show.

I hemmed and hawed. I had a restaurant to run. But Sammy insisted. So the next night, when the car pulled up, off I went. For the next three hours, I watched Sammy rock the house before a crowd of fifty thousand fans. Then I slipped backstage into a surreal scene of culinary contrasts. The other members of the band were in their dressing rooms, eating some sort of crappy service bullshit. And there was Sammy, in his own space, enjoying boudin blanc with a bottle of Chateau Laffite. He poured an extra glass and waved me in.

Sammy is an outsize character, alright. But rock-star clichs dont begin to do justice to a man I now regard as one of my dearest friends.

Since our first meeting all those years ago, our relationship has grown well beyond the table. We hang out together. We vacation together with our wives and kids. In 1995, when Sammy and Kari got married, I catered their wedding. Cooking for a crowd that night in Sammys hometown of Mill Valley, searing filets, simmering risotto, I set off the fire alarm not once but twice. The second time the fire department showed. But there was no putting out the party. There never is when Sammys around.

When we get together at one of our homes, the evening usually goes something like this: Ill start chopping, prepping. Sammy will be sitting in another room, strumming a guitar, singing a familiar song or noodling around with a new one. But before long, it never fails. Down goes the guitar and in comes Sammy, ready to cook.

No matter where we are, we keep up our culinary connection. Ill get a call from Cabo. Yo, E, Sammy will say. I just came out of the ocean with some fresh sea urchin. We bat around ideas for recipes, and afterward, he shoots me a message with a blow by blow: how he used the uni in a killer pasta, spooning it over spaghetti, then spiking it with chives.

The day before Christmas, hell ring me up. Ive got a boar to roast. He wants to talk spice rubs, side dishes, wines.

Ive been lucky enough to have Sammy cook for me. Hes got a way with game birds and paella. His Mexican dishes are over-the-top great.

But the times I cherish most are when we team up in the kitchen. Well start early, with plenty of time to prep. Well mix up some cocktails, or pour ourselves some wine, and spend hours turning out something special.

Then well sit down for a great meal with our wives, our kids, and other people who are closest to us. The combination doesnt get any better: a beautiful fusion of music, family, friends, and food.

Emeril Lagasse

April 2015

Kari Hagar

Sammy Hagar Family Photos

If you want to know how it all startedmy taste for good food, good drinks, good livingyou have to go back to my grandpa Sam, the crazy old Italian I was named for. He came to this country when he was eleven and worked most of his life in restaurant kitchens. His favorite hobbies were hunting, fishing, lying, and stealing.

As a kid I idolized him.

And, man, that son of a bitch could cook.

He lived with my grandmother, a hotheaded Sicilian, just down the road from us in Fontana, California, in a trailer that looked and smelled like an Italian deli. When you stepped inside, you had to duck or something edible would whack you in the head.

Grandpa Sam made sausages and salami, and left them dangling from the ceiling. He brined his own olives, pressed his own olive oil, and pulled his own fresh mozzarella. A lot of his ingredients were ill gotten, on account of Grandpa also being a thief. He canned peaches that he plucked from other peoples orchards and made wine with grapes he swiped from other peoples vines.