Table Of Content00-FrontMatter_fnl.indd 1 11/3/08 10:43:55 AM
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Rock YouR kitchen
And Let the Boys
CLeAn Up the Mess
by:
Nadia
Giosia
Guilford, ConneCtiCut
An imprint of The Globe Pequot Press
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Copyright © 2009 by B360 Media, Inc.
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oDfu teh itso p laimgeit.ations of space, additional art credits appear on pp. 206–7 and constitute an extension
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Righteous Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
The Hand that Rocks the Ladle Is the Hand
that Rules the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
The Bitchin’ Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x
The Kitchen Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Chapter 1: The Single Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2: One-Night-Stand Breakfasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 3: Anxiety Blasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 4: Furious Foods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 5: Bag ‘Em Tag ‘Em Meals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Chapter 6: Impress the In-laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Chapter 7: Break-Up Bonanza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Chapter 8: Make-Up Soups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 9: Halloween Hootenanny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Chapter 10: PMScapades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Chapter 11: Sex-Life Savers: A Chapter for the Boys . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Chapter 12: Italian Christmas Eve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Chapter 13: Deflate Your Mate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Chapter 14: Valentine’s Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Chapter 15: Geek Grillade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Chapter 16: Broke-Ass Dishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Chapter 17: Get Famous Foods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Chapter 18: Gold Diggers Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Chapter 19: Rehab Recipes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Chapter 20: Underdog Vegetables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
For Newbies
Essential Cooking Gear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Introductory Grocery List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Bitchin’ Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Metric Conversion Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
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Bitchin Kitchen Cookbook
My uncle Pashqua used to say, “Any occasion
is a good occasion for a meal.” No one
was ever more right . . . or sweaty.
As an Italian, I know that a good meal isn’t reserved for just Hallmark holidays, pretentious
dinner parties, or . . . some other example because comedy works best in threes . Oh no! Every day
there’s a good reason to *shkoff! From One-Night-Stand Breakfasts to Dump ’Em Desserts, this
cookbook focuses on the other occasions—the daily dish that’s relevant to a new generation who
simply don’t give a flying fuck about stuffing a turkey in the name of pillaging .
And when these overlooked occasions arise, you’ve got to celebrate, devise, deal . And what
better way to deal, than to stuff your face like a savage? Food brings your friends, family, and
thighs closer together . It can soften a blow, get you your way, or channel your rage . Food gives
us a reason to wake up in the morning (and eat breakfast), visit our grandparents, stay in crappy
relationships! And that’s what this cookbook explores at its very core: the connection between
food, circumstance, and greased-up chiseled man babes . . . . What was my point again?
Oh yeah . . . Bitchin’ Kitchen! But it goes even deeper than that! It’s about me, I mean
“us .” It’s about Net Genners, Punk-Italian Fusion, and Angry Squirrels . It’s about
kicking polite pastel lifestyles in the ass, rocking your kitchen, and letting the
boys clean up the mess .
I know what you’re thinking: “Is that my cell phone ringing?” Of
course it is! But I don’t care, because this is a righteous introduction .
So sit back, take off at least one of your socks, and get ready
to get your hands dirty, because you’re going to shkoff like
you’ve never shkoffed before! (Or you can always just look at
the pretty pictures . Come on, everybody likes pictures .)
WGlhoesnsaervye rf oyro ua dseeef inaint iaosnt eorfi stkh,i sit smayeianngs— ytohua tc’sa nif cyhoeuc’kre t hneo t
already familiar with Italian-American slang, *capisce?
vii vii
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The Hand that
Rocks the Ladle
When i was growing up i was always jealous of my mom’s prowess
in the kitchen: the way she’d be able to whack me with a slipper as
she answered the phone, all the while pouring a steady stream of
salt into the pasta water, just feeling the perfect amount . it was
witchcraft! She never had a measuring cup; i never saw her
meticulously quantify 1⁄ of a teaspoon of anything . ever .
8
Around the house there were no written recipes, nor at
my *nonna’s, or at her nonna’s1 . if you were to ask
my mother how much salt goes into a quart of water,
she’d tell you, annoyed: “*Ma, what do i know?!
You look, you feel, you taste .” And that was that .
You look, you feel, you taste .
i was so aggravated by this as a teen
that i rebelled against the *Casalinga style of
italian cooking, snatching up any recipe that had
irrefutable amounts, bullet points, friggin’ diagrams!
And with this arsenal of tangible instructions in
hand, i set out to vengefully make the biggest,
best meal anyone had ever tasted… . oh,
and if someone were to ask me how much
salt I used, i’d cordially reply: “Why, 1 .78
teaspoons, Madame . . . ” But no one ever
asked, because all those meals sucked .
they sucked hard, and sucked for years .
they never came together . Maybe i was
following the wrong recipes, or maybe
it takes more than a set of measuring
spoons to make a good meal . Maybe it
is witchcraft .
viii
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Rocks the Ladle Is the Hand
that Rules the World
. . . or knowing your ingredients . And how do you get to know your ingredients? Well, you
look, you feel, you taste. By trial and error, you realize that a whole head of garlic for 1 cup of
tomato puree is a bit much . You make a mental note . And as you sit there, defiantly shkoffing a
plate of nasty pasta, hoping that the next forkful will miraculously reveal itself as delicious, getting
progressively more full, and progressively more aware of how much fucking garlic is
in this godforsaken sauce, you learn . it haunts you, from the mess in the kitchen to
the hole in your wallet to the indigestion . Some of us give up at this point, figure
we’ll never learn to cook and order out for the rest of our days .
But some of us don’t . Some of us rise up to the challenge because food is too
important . it was the first thing that ever gave you comfort, before sex, drugs, or
rock and roll . Because the pleasure you get from eating or watching someone
succumb to your culinary genius is too primal, too satisfying, too powerful to
ever not hold in the crook of your wooden spoon .
’s
It witchcraft baby.
1We did own “The Good Housekeeping
Illustrated Cookbook,” which was used
once for a fashionably bland curry in
the mid-80s. It then got buried in the
Wedding/Communion/Confirmation
video drawer and was never seen again.
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