Joe Yonan - Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One

Copyright 2011 by Joe Yonan
Photographs copyright 2011 by Ed Anderson

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yonan, Joe.
Serve yourself : nightly adventures in cooking for one / Joe Yonan.
p. cm.
1. Cooking for one. 2. Cookbooks. I. Title.
TX652.Y68 2011
641.5611dc22
2010040639

eISBN: 978-1-60774-064-3

Production by Colleen Cain

v3.1

For Mom, whose ease in the kitchen inspired my own.

CHAPTER 1
BASIC RECIPES, CONDIMENTS, AND PICKLES

CHAPTER 2
EGGS

CHAPTER 3
SWEET POTATOES, BEANS, AND OTHER VEGGIES

CHAPTER 4
MEAT, POULTRY, AND SEAFOOD

CHAPTER 5
TACOS

CHAPTER 6
PIZZA

CHAPTER 7
SANDWICHES

CHAPTER 8
RICE, GRAINS, AND PASTA

CHAPTER 9
DESSERTS

It was a Facebook comment that finally did it.

I had just posted a link to one of my Cooking for One columns in The Washington Post, and amid the compliments on the recipes for mulled wine syrup and salmon braised in Pinot Noir, I got this: At the risk of getting too personal, perhaps you might find someone to share life/meals with. That would kill your column concept, but could change your life in a positive way. The pleasures of the table are so satisfying when shared.

Well, of course they are, and I share them all the time. A few days earlier, I had paid up on a promised birthday meal for two friends by kneading flour and egg until it was smooth as babys skin, running it through thinner and thinner settings on a pasta machine, and hand-cutting it into pappardelle. I served it with a ragu bianca: chicken thighs ground with chicken livers, simmered in white wine, and tossed with olive oil and shaved pecorino. We scarfed down the silky noodles and the deeply flavored sauce and sipped Cabernet while toasting to another year and the impending approval of my Canadian friends green card application.

I fold candied ginger and lemon juice into pound cake batter, bake it until barely done, glaze it with more ginger and lemon, then take it to dinner-party hosts. Extra batches of some cookie experiment go to colleagues at work. I butterfly one of my sisters homegrown turkeys, set it over dressing, and blast it in her 800F brick bread oven for Thanksgiving in Maine. And when Im dating, Ill court the object of my affection by stuffing a chicken with kaffir lime leaves and roasting it over sweet potatoes, then rolling homemade grapefruit curd and blackberries inside freshly made crepes.

Or, I dine out with friends, trying a Viognier with avocado-pistachio bruschetta at a hot new wine bar or marveling at the liquefied olives at a six-seat temple to molecular gastronomy. And sometimes, naturally, Im so angry and hungry at the end of a workday (a combination I call hangry) that its all I can do to grab a falafel on the way home, or dial up the nearest Chinese restaurant for delivery thats so speedy it makes me wonder if theyre stir-frying in my basement.

But those are all exceptions. The every night rule is a meal thats all about me, start to finish, and I keep all the pleasures of the table to myself. And why wouldnt I? Not to break into The Greatest Love of All about it or anything, but to me, cooking is the ultimate act of self-appreciation. When I cook for myself, I tend to make something more off-the-cuff, a little less refined than I make for friends, but I always strive for something sustaining, even energizing. Not only do I want (and of course need) to eat, but I also like to do it in a way that satisfies me on every level. Its partly that I want to have control over what I eat, but its also about answering my particular, ever-shifting cravings. After all, only I really know what I want, and I usually know how to make it. If I dont, Im willing to learn, and that confidence has formed the basis of my cooking explorations for most of my life.

The Facebook comment was innocent enough, I guess; but frankly, I found it incredibly nave and even a little insulting. More importantly, though, it motivated me to get on the stick and write a book about a subject thats been on my mind for years now. Cooking for yourself doesnt need to feel like a chore or, perhaps worse, it doesnt need to bring to mind that character in Hitchcocks Rear Window. Remember Miss Lonely Hearts? As Jimmy Stewarts character watched through his binoculars from across the courtyard, she set a table for two, raised a glass, forced a smile, and mimed a romantic dinner with an empty chair.

Naturally, Id love to share my life with someone. And I spend a not-insignificant amount of emotional energy looking for and nurturing the possibility of good relationships. But until the right one comes along, I gotta eat, I gotta cook, and Im determined to do both well. When I make myself dinner, I dont pretend my true love is sitting across from meIm often too excited about the flavors Ive just put together to think about much of anything else.

Serve Yourself is a celebration of this dynamic, and I hope it becomes an indispensable guide for all those food-loving single cooks who need ideas to help them face some of the most common challenges: How do you feed yourself well without continually resorting to recipes that serve four or six or more, leaving you with leftovers for days or, God forbid, weeks? Some meals are worth eating more than once, but we solo artists deserve just as varied a diet as anyone. While I love having some leftovers around that can morph into new dishes, I also appreciate the beauty of starting and finishing a single cooking project on a given night. If I want more, its much easier to double a recipe thats written for one than it is to shrink one for six.

Believe it or not, these strategies arent just for singles, either. Most modern couples I know consist of at least one person who frequently works past the dinner hour or is out of town for days at a time on business. To paraphrase Cher (Ive always wanted to write that), sooner or later, we all eat alone.

Theres enough of us solo dwellersmore than 31 million in the United States alonethat youd think there wouldve been scores of cookbooks on the subject by now. Single-person households have been the fastest-growing census category in America since the 1980s, making up more than a quarter of all homes, and the category is continuing to grow. Young people are waiting longer to get married, or are foregoing it altogether, while older people who outlive their spouses are healthy enough to live independently.

My own lessons in independent living and cooking began when I was a kid, thanks to my mom and stepdad, Vern. My mother let me use her stand mixer to whip the cream or potatoes, and Vern taught me to make chicken-fried steak and cornmeal-coated pan-fried catfish. Perhaps most importantly, I started grocery shopping for the family at age eight.

The latter happened after my parents divorce, once my mother realized that although she had lost privileges to shop at the commissary, the steeply discounted grocery store on Goodfellow Air Force Base for military personnel and their dependents, her kids had not. So she made up a list, handed me cash, and drove me to the store. The first time she worried: Are you all right doing this, honey? Ill be right out here if you need me.