Nikki Dinki - Meat on the side: delicious vegetable-focused recipes for every day

St. Martins Griffin
New York

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For EVAN and my WILLA

IM NINE YEARS OLD, ITS DINNERTIME ONCE again, and Im sitting at the table surrounded by my family, including my sisters and my newborn brother. When you come from a big family (especially a family of Dinkis) it can be hard at times to get noticed, and as a born performer I was always looking for an audience. But not on this particular night. Tonight I let everyone else upstage me and even keep calm when my older sister makes that face, which would normally get a rise out of me. Tonight is different. Tonight I have a plan.

Being the creative person that I am, I had concocted a new way I could get out of eating the wholesome food my mother had a habit of putting in front of me night after night. I had exhausted my usual go-to techniques: I needed a new plan and I had a genius idea; tonight the injustice would end. Tonight I had the best plan yet. Tonight Picky Nikki (I hated that name) was taking it to a whole new level.

The mission started at 5:03 P.M. I waited until the regular dinnertime commotion commenced and I made my move. Casually, but not too casually, I got up from the table with my little heart racing, palms sweating, and most important, plate in hand. As I reached the family room, I found what I had predetermined was to be the landfill for my mothers meal: an open heating vent. After I pushed the last of my broccoli into the dark unknown, I quietly returned to the table and declared myself finisheda member of the clean-plate club. To my mothers immense satisfaction, she released me from the table and I ran away, grabbing a quick string cheese on my way out.

I was a geniusit was the perfect plan. Except that I had not accounted for the smell wafting up from the vent the next week. After a long investigation by my father to discover where the awful scent was coming from, I finally came clean. Once my parents were done contemplating how a nine-year-old snuck away from the table with her plate in tow without anyone noticing, it was obvious that new rules were needed. I expected the worst, but somehow got the best. To my complete satisfaction, my mother declared that I could eat whatever I wanted. However, she would not be a short-order cook, and I would have to make do by myself. My reaction? AMAZING! I was free! I went to work as a mini restaurateur, creating nutritious dishes for my menu including, and pretty much limited to, cereal, toasted bagels, slices of American cheese, and ramen noodle soup. What about vegetables you ask? Ha, never! Protein? Doesnt American cheese count? Anyway, who needed such things?! I was completely content with my bread, cheese, and cereal diet.

Before I knew it, I was twenty years old and trying to convince myself that these things composed a proper diet. It was hard to explain to my new friends in New York City that I could eat only the white rice if we went to a sushi restaurant, or only the bread basket anywhere else. Most of the time, I simply didnt make dinner plans because it was always awkward, and there were never any good answers to their questions as to why I ate this way. I was well aware that I couldnt go on like this forever. I had learned long ago that cheese, bread, and cereal do not make up the essential food groups. I had probably stunted my growth and I felt gross all the time, but most of all I was embarrassed by my eating habits. I knew things had to change and was determined to change them.

I made it my mission to start trying new things. At first, I just resisted the urge to convulse as vegetables hit my lips. I made sure to eat in low light so the food looked slightly less scary; oh, and wine helped, too. My initial goal was to simply get to a point where I could swallow regular food that might be served at a restaurant and not look like I was in pain as I ate it. This seemed like it would make me a more popular dinner companion.

Then something amazing happened. I noticed that I was actually developing a taste for these new foods. The first time I had a tomato I hated it. The second, third, and fourth times were not much better. But by the tenth time, it was tolerable and somewhere around my twentieth time tasting a tomato, I actually liked it. My brain started racing. What about all the other things I hadnt tried yet? I had started with vegetables, and then after years of eating a vegetarian diet I slowly added fish, then chicken, and finally pork and red meat to my diet. My relationship with food completely changed. Food became a fun, enjoyable adventure and I couldnt wait to experiment with my newfound palate by cooking at home.

When I started cooking, I felt like a novice, but a natural, too. I started sauting onions and using my oven, and the key to my success was that I messed up enough times to learn exactly how to do it right and make it foolproof. I watched every cooking show, read every book on the subject, took over one hundred hours of classes, and kept on cooking and cooking. It became an extreme hobby. Before I knew it, cooking had taken over my life in the most fantastic of ways.

I had spent my noncooking years pursuing acting, photography, and writing, so it seemed natural to me to combine them all. My husband came home from work one day and I announced I was going to put cooking videos online and start a blog, and that I would be working toward a goal of one day having my own cooking show. I knew that I could make people excited about a whole new way of cooking. I had taken a unique journey with food, and developed a unique cooking perspective because of it. Since vegetables were my gateway into the culinary community, I always thought of them first, and I never stopped learning about and experimenting with them. I cooked meat, too, but I cooked the meat on the side, making vegetables the star of the dish and never using more than 4 ounces of meat per portion. Now, it was time to share this perspective and my excitement with the world!

I went right to work. My first cooking videos were extremely popular and my new fans wanted more. Soon after my first few posts, I met a radio producer who wanted to put me and my food ideas on the air, soon allowing me to wield the mic every week on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City. Of course, if I was on the radio, I needed a Web site that would serve as a hub for my ideas, recipes, and demonstrations. So I launched a Web site called NikkiDinkiCooking.com. I sat down and looked around at this new life I had created and realized that when something feels right, it just works.