This Is Not Your Mother's Cookbook

By Robert N. D'Ambola

Growing up in an Italian household, I frequently heard the word Giambott. It is an Italian vegetable stew made with potatoes and zucchini. The actual pronunciation is Ciamotta. The Irish also make claims on this dish (They use cabbage of course) but no one takes the Irish seriously when it comes to food. It sometimes referred to as a summer stew, also known as Poverty Stew. We weren’t poor but we ate it year round. It became much more than just a stew. It grew into a fine meal when family time at meals were special and meant something. This mixture was often referred to as a hodgepodge or a mishmash. The correct word today is medley. This sounds more pleasant and almost musical. It was a really just a collection of whatever was in the refrigerator at the end of the week. Everyone knew it was a sin to throw food away because there were children starving in some far off land. We never saw them but we knew they were there. The threat was significant enough to clean our plates. Our leftovers became our delicious banquet.
This book is like that collection of random leftovers (Some may have gone bad). There are some short stories based upon life’s observations or experiences, short pieces of fiction and marriage advise. Please do not follow any advise from me. I haven’t figured out anything yet. The book also contains at least one actual song. You can try singing the other parts but it won’t make any sense. I have intermingled my favorite recipes throughout the stories to be savored and enjoyed, preferably with a glass of wine or a case of beer, whatever it takes to make it more palatable or help you choke it down. Please do not eat while reading this book because it may lead to actual choking. My Heimlich skills do not work over the phone and 911 operators can’t understand muffled grunts. You have been warned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664130982

Robert N. D'Ambola

Robert would like to think of himself as a Renaissance man. He is alone in his thoughts. He would never have been allowed to carry the artist tools for Leonardo da Vinci or Michael Angelo. He would have never been allowed to turn a page for Beethoven or sharpen a pencil for Shakespeare. He has had training in the art of fencing, ceramics, photography, martial arts, writing, politics, and yoga. However, he does none of these well so he moves on and continues his search. This is Robert’s fourth book. His first two; Shut Up When You Talk to Me and Just Plain Stupid, are a collection of short but unbelievable true stories. His third book was a work of fiction based upon real events. Knights of the Forest tells the tale of a small band of boys growing up in simpler times during the 60s. Robert D’Ambola served for over a quarter century in Law Enforcement fighting the never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way for a city police department. He holds a BA in Law/Justice from Glassboro State College (Rowan University), a Master’s Degree in Administrative Science from Fairleigh Dickinson University and graduated from the Northwestern University School of Police Staff & Command. Robert held many ranks in the Police Department including Detective Sergeant, Traffic Lieutenant, and finally Patrol Commander. He was assigned to the Union County Narcotics Strike Force and Union/Essex Auto Theft Task Force. The latter assignment was during the period when Newark, N.J. held the dubious honor of “Stolen Car Capital of the World.” Robert remains a Certified Police Training Commission Instructor and has taught at the John H. Stamler Police Academy for over 25 years, the last 20 as the Ethics instructor for all recruit classes. After a weekend retirement, he became Chief of Security, Certified Business Continuity Professional & Emergency Planner for a global publishing company. His office was directly on the Hudson River waterfront with a front row seat of the New York skyline. It was here Robert was able to witness the “Miracle on the Hudson” when on January 15, 2009, US Airways jetliner, flight 1549 was forced down into the frigid Hudson River directly outside his office building. Robert lived in Union County NJ for 60 years before moving to Hunterdon County. He married his High School sweetheart, Cindy, and they had 2.5 children. They owned a dog large enough to be classified as cattle. He is now blessed with two granddaughters, now in the terrifying threes, and a new grandson. He took up writing to leave these precious children real proof that their G-PA was a certified lunatic.

Book preview

This is Not Your Mother’s

COOKBOOK

21217.png

ROBERT D’AMBOLA

Copyright © 2020 by Robert D’Ambola. 818787

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any

information storage and retrieval system, without permission

in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

Rev. date: 09/25/2020

Contents

Preface

One-Pot Cooking

Cat in the Dish

Be There in a Minute Honey

The Three Bears Blues

Meatloaf by the Microwave Lights

That’ll be the Day

Clowns Anonymous Principals

The New Health Plan - Idonotcare

Eggplant on Track Two

They’re Killing Me

THE WALKING DOG

My Best Sandwich Ever

Pick a Number

Things I have learned from Game of Thrones

Because, Because, Because, Because, Because

There is No Crying in Geography

Many Happy Returns

Easiest Hot Sandwich

New York is a Dick

Things I learned from My Dog

Modular Mayhem

Be A Pepper

Remember the Future

Politi-Speak

Things I Learned from My Mailbox

My Drinking Problem

The Best Drink Ever

Over the Top

You Gonna Eat That?

Toast to My Youngest

The Speed of Smell

Peter Parker’s Perfect PITA Potato Salad

The Wolf

Till Death

Reasons I should be POTUS

Shave and a Haircut

Smasha Potatoes

Two Wrongs don’t make a Right but two Wrights made a Wrong

He had a Hat

Best Meal of the Day

Leftover Nuggets for the Stew

I would like to

dedicate this book to my

mother, Olivia, who taught me everything

she knew about nutrition and who

believed a balanced breakfast consisted of

Oreos and chocolate milk and also to my wife,

Cindy, who rescued me from these beliefs

before they killed me.

21792.png

Preface

The proverb goes: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This only works with lemons because lemons are sour and represent any shit that may come your way. Optimists think you can grab life by the lemons and turn any crap scenario around to your advantage. That, my friend, is not how life works. Life is the Golden Goose written by the Brothers Grimm. The fact that a couple guys named Grimm wrote fairy tales for kids should tell you something about how reallife works. It makes no sense.

The true story about the Golden Goose is as follows. The Goose is sitting in some local dive bar. He is smelly, drunk, grouchy, and moulting furiously. At closing time the bartender has to inform the Goose that it is time to leave. He tells the Goose, You don’t have to go home but you can’t goose here. Two things can happen at this moment. Either, the Goose can excrete an extremely messy pure golden egg into the hands of the bartender, making the bartender rich beyond his wildest imagination, or the Goose could throw up on the bartender’s shoes. There is a possible third option where the Goose punches the bartender in the face, but this is highly unlikely because a goose cannot make a closed fist.

Life is full of surprises. Even when life is good, you have to work damn hard for that. It is never a fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after. I’m fine with just having a pleasant day or just getting through the day. You will discover at some point, probably as soon as you picked this book up, that this is not a real cookbook. It is a collection of life’s moments with some food added because, ya gotta eat! Sometimes it will be fun and sometimes the Goose throws up on your shoes. Mangia.

Giambott

Growing up in an Italian household, I frequently heard the word Giambott. It is an Italian vegetable stew made with potatoes and zucchini. The actual pronunciation is Ciamotta. The Irish also make claims on this dish (they use stinky cabbage of course). It sometimes referred to as a summer stew, also known as Poverty Stew. We weren’t poor but we ate this dish year round. It became much more than just a stew. It grew into a meal often referred to as a hodgepodge. The correct word today is medley. It was a collection of whatever was in the refrigerator at the end of the week. Everyone knew it was a sin to throw food away because there were children starving in some far off land. I offer Sam Kninison’s advise to those people, Move. Our leftovers became a delicious banquet.

Since this book is like a collection of random leftovers, (some may have gone bad) I have intermingled my favorite recipes throughout the stories to be savored and enjoyed, preferably with a glass of wine or a case of beer, whatever it takes to make it more palatable or help you gulp it down. Mary Poppins used a spoonful of sugar (but that may have been code for cocaine).

**********

WARNING

This is not a healthy cookbook. This is shit I like to eat with stories I like to tell. These foods and tales do not include the daily-recommended content of anything. That would be like looking on the wrapper of a Twinkie to see the nutritional value. It ain’t there! This book is probably not good for you in any manner especially if you read these stories as you eat these recipes because it could create a choking hazard. None of these recipes are doctor recommended. If you are a runway model, body builder, or just want to live long enough to enjoy retirement, then only eat this shit in moderation, and do not read the stories while operating heavy machinery. Drink up, sit back, and enjoy. Manja.

21599.png21792.png

One-Pot Cooking

It took me until college to learn that if you want to eat, there are several steps that must be accomplished before and even after a morsel of food gets shoved into your pie hole. Meals used to magically appear for me during my formative years and then were taken away. I did know where leftovers were kept and often ate them cold out of the refrigerator because I was too damn lazy to heat anything up, which meant clean up, and there were no microwaves. I never worked for my meals because, like Maynard G. Krebs, I was allergic to work.

I found my perfect food by accident and enjoyed it through college and for several years afterward until they yanked it off the market. It was probably recalled due to some alien carcinogen but no one ever told me the exact reason for the disappearance. It was greatly similar to the mystery surrounding the Lost Colony of Roanoke of the 1500s. Well it was to me. If I had known they were going to remove it from my life I would have bought a tractor-trailer load. I did not fear the unknown poison as everyone has to die from something, and I believe we often have a choice in the method of our own demise. If you drive recklessly then the chances of dying in an automobile crash are drastically increased. So like that.

My instrument of death would have been Drumstick Rice (DSR). I am assuming this would have been less horrifying than a car wreck. I do not recall the manufacturer or I would have been on the doorstep of the CEO of the company seeking an answer to my quest. DSR came in an appealing mouthwatering yellow box of approximately eight ounces. Preparation was simple. Bring an equal amount of water to a boil in a small pot. Carefully open the special silver sealed packet and then dump in the contents that looked similar to a child’s sandbox, after a cat had visited, complete with lumps. Add the rice from the box and stir. Cover and remove from heat and let stand for about five minutes. Ready to eat right out of the pot. Clean up involved one pot and one fork. I lived on this for four years. I never gained weight nor did I absorb any beneficial nutrients.

My favorite meal of all time soon became harder to find in supermarkets until eventually it went extinct along with Triceratops Soup. I spent a few months in a rehab facility until I found Minute Rice. This was not the replacement for DSR but it worked. It was my methadone program. It was as easy to make as drumstick rice but the thing that won me over was that you could add your own shit to this mix.

Ingredients

• 1½ to 2 cups rice of Minute Extra Fluffy Premium Rice (Not to be confused with the not so premium)

• Equal amount of water (You can always drain it later - too much is better than too little or it comes out like gravel)

• Spoonful of butter (Margarine is not butter – margarine is one molecule away from being plastic)

• Grated Pecorino Romano Cheese to your liking

Directions

1. I discovered that almost any leftover could be chopped up and thrown on top of the rice while it absorbed the water in the pot. In essence the added toppings would be steam heated to perfection. I have used everything from hamburger, chicken, and cutlets, to stuffing and all kinds of vegetables. I added a chicken potpie on top and it was amazing as was my wife’s special zucchini casserole. You can also boil frozen vegetables in the water before you add the rice but you need to add more water first and then drain the rice before adding anything else.

2. Now that I have your stomach grumbling, let me present you with a food dilemma.

21792.png

Cat in the Dish

This is a story about a cat in the dish. This should in no way be confused with The Cat in the Hat. The Cat in the Hat was a drug-induced apparition. This story does not contain a Thing Two or even a Thing One, due to severe budgetary restrictions and copyright legalities. I certainly do not need the Seuss Machine up my ass. Please let me explain about my cat in the dish.

I am sure that at some time in your life you would have had the occasion to bring some type of edible offering to a friend, neighbor, or family member’s home, because you are an all-around nice person and food is the universal sign for peace. That sign of love and friendship was most likely transported to its destination in one of your relatively good dishes in hopes that the vessel would eventually find its way back in to your possession. It is clearly understood that this dish was a loaner and not a gift. You’re not that fucking nice of a person to give away your crystal or good china.

I know I have violated this trust on more than one occasion as there are multiple foreign dishes residing within my cabinets as you read this. I fully understand that in the heat of battle, that is the art of entertaining, there is great confusion especially when numerous guests arrive simultaneously. There is a juggling of hellos, air kisses, and various presentations of the gifts, while the magical garment dance takes place to transfer the coats to the bedroom and the food to the kitchen. Somewhere along the line, during this commotion, your identity and credit as the creator of the specific food item is often lost along with your ownership of the receptacle that contained it. The dish is then orphaned unless the captor realizes they have your dish or until you finally call and inquire as to the ransom demands to return said item. They say possession is nine-tenths of the law, which does not mean squat when you are missing one of a set of twelve of anything. The definitive goal is repatriation. When I am the holder of the dish, I usually ask for unmarked small bills dropped at an isolated park bench.

This ultimately leads me to the dilemma. The person returning your own dish is often someone you know very well. They are not of the homeless, deranged serial killer type variety. They may very well be upstanding citizens of the community, respected by many. You know they are considerate and caring people that have a fully developed brain. They are clean well kempt people. You happily accept the return of your long lost dish and then you immediately wash it.

You feel a slight pang of guilt because you know and trust the person that had provided a loving and safe home for your dish during its temporary absence. They took care not to chip or damage it in any way. You know they washed it and dried it and wrapped it for you for its safe return home. Yet you wash it again. You do not pass go, you do not collect $200, but bring it directly to the sink and wash it before placing it back among its ceramic and glass friends. This makes you feel bad that you are so neurotic that you cannot trust another human being not to poison you, even though you have accepted food on a plate in countless restaurants that hundreds of other strangers have eaten off. Someone making about four dollars and hour, who, just snuck in the country ripe with the Ebola virus, had handled your dinner plate minutes prior to your arrival. (Note: never go into the kitchen of any restaurant, no matter how many stars they get in the ratings, you will be disgusted) You wash your dish at home because it makes you feel better that you actually witnessed the cleansing of your dish within the confines of your own sink, using your own real naturally fake lemon scented detergent and special gentle washing instrument. Now you are at peace with the universe. That is…

That is until you remember that the person that held your dish in loving foster care owns a cat. You feel a sharp stab in your heart like Julius Caesar at the after-party, because you know the cat was in the dish. You have no idea how or why, you just know this to be true. You are shocked and appalled at this thought and so you wash the dish once again, this time more vigorously, to remove the disgusting cat in the dish image from your mind. Now you feel better, almost. You will always remember that there was a cat in the dish, and the next time you go to use the dish all you can think about is that there was a cat in the dish. Nothing is ever going to taste the same because there was a cat in the dish.

I know many cat people and I have excused them for this, as I am a diehard dog person and cannot understand cat ownership. Cat people tell you that their cat is clean. This means the cat licks their paws. That doesn’t register any points on the scoreboard with me because the cat also licks its ass. Cats catch, kill, and eat rodents - rodents that carry world-exterminating diseases. Ask King Edward III how that Black Plague thing worked out for him. Cats also walk through Kitty Litter, which in common terms means shit box. The person that invented the phrase kitty litter should have won the Noble Prize. How do you turn cat shit catcher into a nice household word? Please change the kitty litter.

Everyone knows that cats are the incarnation of Satan. They are night predators and have that fucked up vertically slit pupil thing going on like snakes and aliens. At one time they used to hurl cats from bell towers to exercise the witchcraft. (A practice that is still conducted at an annual festival today in Ypres, Belgium, only with stuffed cats.) And let’s face it, Cats could care less if you stroked out right in front of them and you croaked on the kitchen floor. When Mr. Pussykins runs out of Kibbles ‘n Bits, he will just eat your face.

Don’t get me wrong there are dog people that disgust me too. Please do not let me see you allow your dog to lick the dinner plates before you place them in the dishwasher. If I am not present for this vial act, please do not tell me about it either. How would you feel if I told you I peed in your coffee cup before I placed it in the dishwasher? I know that you wouldn’t give a flying rat’s ass if I had a setting on my dishwasher for NASA sterile clean room. You would pass on the next cup of Joe you were offered even if you were in severe Alexa Hente caffine withdrawal. It’s all about the visual that you cannot extract from your memory.

If by chance the cat dish is one of an identical limited set, you are still able to distinguish it from the others even after placing it back within the pile of all the other dishes. You try sorting the dishes so it always stays out of the dish rotation, but it always seems to work its way back up to the top of the stack. You could spot it from across the room. This is similar to that time when you were grilling outside. Of course you get excited with the smell of burning carbon wafting through the air, invigorating your testosterone levels and you become a little too exuberant with the flipping process. A burger lands on the ground and you only had just enough to go around. You do exactly what they do in five-star restaurants. You pick it up off the ground, scrape over the gravel, and throw it back on the grill. Blowing on the food does nothing but ease your