Annie Ross Says ‘Come on In!’...and try her favourite recipes (1972)

My mom used to read cookbooks. I never understood it. How can you just read ingredients and procedure? That's got to be boring. Nobody writes that well. But my mom was into food. She would be called a foodie in her prime - always curious and willing to eat and try to cook new things. I would help her prep for some business dinner party they would be throwing at our house and she would look at me and say loud enough for my dad to hear, "I hope this turns out."

We had the usual cookbooks in the house - Betty Crocker, Julia Child and later the Joy of Cooking. But there were no celebrity cookbooks in the collection. After a quick search I am surprised. Elvis had one. Sophia Loren, Liberace, Frank Sinatra. Vincent Price wrote one that's supposed to be the best of the lot. And how did my mom not have Dinah Shore's cookbook? I've read Kenny Shopsin's, Eat Me, that is amazing. He was a local celebrity. I have a cookbook by Mario Bitali's kids from when he was my boss that my daughter read through. That also yielded several great Del Posto related cookbooks by Lydia that were great to read because of the history. I bring this up because the best cookbooks have stories attached or interwoven. I have a cookbook called, The Secrets of Salsa, that is just salsa recipes from all over Mexico told directly by the women from there who wound up in the Anderson Valley of Northern California. Read that one end-to-end in a day, it was so interesting. Salsa. I like salsa but had no idea there were so many variations. 

But i digest. I just love to talk about food. Let me try and reach around - no, circle back!

I used to sell weed to Annie Ross. I frankly mostly knew her from her roll in Short Cuts. I wasn't a Lambert, Hendricks and Ross fan or a fan of vocalese, in general. And had no idea about her appearance on or even the existence of the Hugh Hefner After Hours show. Or that she dated Lenny Bruce. How did I not know that? Or that she made a record with Gerry Mulligan. I knew her signature song, Twisted, but I didn't go any deeper than that, unfortunately.

After meeting her the first time, I was so into her vibe, I did my homework. The record with Gerry Mulligan on Pacific is great. She made one with Zoot Sims that I love, too. I didn't have to go far to listen to L,H and R again. My new wife had 2 of their records. And her performance on the Playboy show is so cool. She was the real deal, original bebopper cat. Every time after that I would ask her a little question and she'd tell me a little story. When one day she told me, her pianist, Tardo Hammer, had said, Yeah, Dred can play, I was - as my mom would say - over the moon.

I got the gig at Del Posto and didn't have to sell weed anymore, so I didn't see her except when she performed. She came into the restaurant a couple of times. I was playing Lush Life as she brushed by the piano on the way to the bathroom one time and she said, 'Ain't it the truth.' 

The book. Right. The book is hilarious. Miles, who also wrote a cookbook, told her to put cumin in the chile to give it 'an earthy flavor.' I used her chile recipe. Nothing special. The story about her barely escaping the Haitian revolution is somehow funny, though. The boiled bacon and cabbage recipe is not funny. But her parting advice is and sounds just like I remember her...

'Be relaxed, have a drink from time to time, all good cooks do. So start early, take your time, don't panic, and don't get drunk until later.'