Imagine you're a rock star, with all the money in the world. Now imagine you're a rock star with all the money in the world, and you like food. You really like food. What would you do?
"I'm on a quest to eat everything on the planet," said Sammy Hagar.
Hagar, the hard-rocking, hard-partying singer known for "I Can't Drive 55," "There's Only One Way to Rock" and for his 20 years with Van Halen, turns out to be very serious about food. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with Van Halen, Hagar has just written an unusually entertaining cookbook called "Are We Having Any Fun Yet? The Cooking and Partying Handbook."
Some celebrity cookbooks seem to be written more out of vanity than a deep-seated passion about food. Not this one. Hagar has been cooking since he was in grade school, long before he began to rock.
"Probably grilled cheese sandwiches," he said on the phone from his home in Northern California. "And then I made that pizza, with the dough from the can that you hit against the side of the sink and it explodes."
He describes that pizza in the book and says it was his first food specialty, topped off with his mother's leftover tomato sauce and the Parmesan cheese that comes in a green can. He was so proud of it, he made one for his brother after school _ and then his brother asked for another.
"I'll never forget the feeling I got from that," he writes. "I've been chasing it ever since."
Hagar has homes in Northern California, Hawaii and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, areas that are widely known for their spectacular fresh produce. Like so many of today's chefs, Hagar likes to cook with whatever is fresh and local. In Mexico he goes with freshly caught seafood _ the cookbook includes a recipe for crudo, which is raw fish. In California, he has gardens full of fruit trees, herbs, onions, potatoes, zucchini and more.
And practically everything grows well in Hawaii, he said. The sugar cane picks up all the flavors of the islands, and he now sells his own brand of rum, Sammy's Beach Bar Rum (he sold his interest in Cabo Wabo tequila, which he also began, some years ago).
Pot also grows in the wild in Hawaii. Although he writes "I'm not much for marijuana anymore," his cookbook also includes a recipe for a compound butter made with marijuana buds.
Cooking, he said, "has been my passion for my entire life, and it's just like writing a song. If you don't have a plan for dinner or you don't have a plan for a song, you sit down and say you want to start cooking dinner or writing a song. You pick up your instruments and start playing around, and suddenly out of nothing you've got something."
To Hagar, cooking and songwriting are part of the same creative process. If he is stuck for an idea while writing a song, he will often head to the kitchen to cook until he solves the problem in the song. In the same way, if he can't get a recipe to come out just right, he will pick up a guitar and play until he gets an idea about the food.
"It's the same process; you create something out of the ether," he said.
From humble beginnings in a trailer park, Hagar has built up a fortune from his music, his many restaurants and his liquor businesses. The money has allowed him to travel around the world and eat at nearly all of the great restaurants. But at 67, he has grown a bit weary of all the refined foods and the exquisite preparations.
"I've come back to simple cooking. ... A couple of shrimp on a piece of toast, some grilled peppers. Things like that, and a great bottle of wine," he said.
Wine is an exception to his simple-foods philosophy. He has a cellar with more than 10,000 bottles, many of them very, very expensive.
Wine, he said, "is really something. You have to develop your palate. The first time I tasted really great wine, I got it. It put the hook into me. But before that, if someone gave you a jug wine it didn't do anything for you. The same thing with beer. When I was a kid, we'd buy the cheapest beer you could find, or have someone buy it for us. In was rank and it was warm and you'd say 'I can't stand beer.' But then you grow up and you go to England and you try real ale, and you say 'Yeah, I like this.'
"When you taste a good first-growth Bordeaux, or even a second-growth or third growth, you say 'Yeah, this tastes like the countryside.'"
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SAMMY HAGAR'S HUEVOS RANCHEROS
Yield: 2 to 4 servings, depending on how hungover they are
1 pound ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, chopped (for a lot of other dishes I remove the seeds of jalapenos, but we're dealing with a hangover here, so I go for the nuclear option)
2 tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 to 4 eggs
Olive oil, for frying
Tortilla chips
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco or shredded mozzarella cheese
Fresh cilantro and salsa or hot sauce (optional), for garnish
1. In a medium-to-large skillet, brown the meat over medium-high heat. When the meat is cooked through, add the onion and jalapeno and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, just long enough to release their flavor but short enough to preserve a little crunch in them.
2. Add the tomatoes, crank up the heat to get the meat and tomato juices sizzling, and then reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. You want the whole concoction to be a little runny, so if it seems too dry, add a little water. Season the meat with salt and pepper to taste.
3. As the meat is simmering, fry the eggs in olive oil to your liking. I like to leave the yolks nice and runny. Even if the whites are slightly undercooked, that's okay, because the eggs will continue cooking when you combine them with the meat.
4. When you're ready to serve, scatter some tortilla chips on a plate. Sprinkle the cheese over the meat, let it start to melt, then slide the eggs on top of that and let the eggs continue cooking until the whites are done.
5. Carefully, so you don't break the yolks, tilt the pan to slide the meat onto the plate over the chips, with the eggs resting on top. Garnish with fresh cilantro. Hit it all with a splash of salsa or hot sauce if you want.
Per serving: 365 calories; 24 g fat; 9 g saturated fat; 268 mg cholesterol; 31 g protein; 5 g carbohydrate; 3 g sugar; 1 g fiber; 262 mg sodium; 145 mg calcium.
Recipe from "Are We Having Any Fun Yet?" by Sammy Hagar
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