We’ve never understood why eating alone gets such a bad rap. Admittedly, we used to never eat alone at a restaurant until we got confident enough to not care about the looks of derision the hostess at T.G.I. Friday’s would give us. (In our defense, she had really cool buttons on her suspenders and we valued her opinion.)
So whether you’re single by choice, solo by circumstance or simply on a hiatus from your Significant O. for the night, we’ve found a great cookbook by a really experienced gay author (no, no, it’s not us). His name is Joe Yonan and he’s the award-winning Food & Travel editor of The Washington Post, and we found him when getting our nerd on listening to NPR’s The Splendid Table, a radio program all about food.
We could hear the gay in his voice and immediately contacted him to find out more about his fabulous book. He replied quickly and a couple days later, his publisher had a book in our hands. It’s called Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One.
So what’s so special about a cookbook for uno? Well, not only are the recipes delicious (Duck Breast Tacos with Plum Salsa or Philly Style Chicken Cutlet Sandwich, anyone?), there’s no math involved. Typically, recipes are designed for four, six or eight people and reducing a recipe can quickly spell disaster. Here, all the guesswork is taken out and all the flavor is put in. (The recipes do easily double for date night.)
The book is filled with personal stories and funny anecdotes that make it a fun read, whether you ever get out a whisk or pan at all. But one look at the food glamour shots and you’ll want to make a beeline for the grocery store, then your kitchen, to get your mouth wrapped around something tasty. Whether you’re alone, or that something tasty is food, is entirely up to you.
$12.95 at www.amazon.com
www.joeyonan.com
