Bob Sloan - Dads Own Cookbook

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

VOLTAIRE

foreword by Mario Batali

by Bob Sloan

illustrated by Serge Bloch

technical illustrations by Barbara Smullen

Workman Publishing, New York

Copyright 1993, 2007 by Bob Sloan and Paul Hanson

Illustrations Serge Bloch

Technical illustrations Barbara Smullen

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproducedmechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available.

eISBN: 9780761172635

Designed by Paul Hanson and Beverly McClain

Workman Books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for premiums and sales promotions as well as for fund-raising or educational use. Special editions or book excerpts also can be created to specification. For details, contact the Special Sales Director at the address below.

Workman Publishing Company, Inc.

225 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014-4381

www.workman.com

This book is dedicated to my wife, my kids, my mom, and especially, my dad, Big Irv.

Cooking is ephemeral. You eat dinnerits gone. Ruth Sullivan, my editor at Workman Publishing, has played a big part in helping me create something that, hopefully, will last a long time. I am very grateful to her. Special thanks go to Paul Hanson who brought me into this project and has created a handsomely designed book. Karen Watts played a crucial role throughout this process, and our friendship is the first positive result of the book. Though its been many years since Ive worked with them, I still consider Mary Cleaver of the Cleaver Company and the late Fred Rothberg to be my first and best teachers. And Carmine Cincotta is still my first and only produce man. I have also learned a great deal about food and cooking from David Sanfield of the Pitfire Pizza Restaurants. From Mario Batali I have learned not just about food, but about larger, more ontological concerns, like how to keep from slicing my drives. And listening to Jim Harrison describe a great meal is as sublime an experience as having actually eaten it.

Now that my catering business has taken a backseat to writing about food, I have to keep my skills sharp by cooking for friends. It seems curious to be thanking them for coming to dinner, but I do.

Phil and Sally Sanfield have continued to be incredibly supportive of all my ventures, as have Alice Jarcho and Tommy Gallagher, Pat and Ron Nicholson, and Paul and Karen Izenberg.

My brother Larry didnt help much with this project, but I love and miss him a lot. My kids, Nate and Leo, have eaten almost a decades worth of meals, many of them cooked from this book. They havent complained, so I guess the recipes still work.

Above all, I thank my wife, Randi. None of this would have happened without her.

by Mario Batali

Bob Sloan is the quintessential dad/chef and this dual expertise is what makes this both a fun and a practical cookbook. My family and I have had many meals at the Sloan home and Bobs cooking is seemingly effortless, fun, kid friendly, and most importantly, delicious. That kind of cavalier approach to food is reflected in these recipes. They work. Theyre easy to prepare. They have abundant flavor. My kids like them. So will yours.

Like his cooking, his approach in the book is straightforward. But the information, though casually presented, is comprehensive and will sneak a lot of worthwhile knowledge into an unsuspecting dads head while he thought he was just making a school-night dinner.

He challenges you to make some things you never thought you could, leading you through the recipe like the best kind of cooking coach, leaving nothing to the imagination but never making you feel dumb for not knowing it in the first place. The book is organized in a way that both dads with no confidence or no experience in the kitchen as well as dads who can cook will appreciate and, more importantly, use. (If Ronald Reagan had read some of the vegetable recipes, ketchup would never have been considered one of the major food groups on the school lunch lines.) The primer information, cooking techniques, and useful charts of this book could easily stretch into another tome altogether as they are filled with tons of useful and relevant info. But what is most important is the simplicity and ease that Bob brings to all kitchen taskseverything from cutting an onion (for the kitchen stooge) to making stocks from scratch (for the truly committed). He demystifies the kitchen and yet makes cooking intuitive to the novice. His spirit of camaraderie and cooking skills serve to augment his obvious joy in and love for everything about preparing food, something all dads (and moms) can really catch on to.