I can take a cow out of Compton and make it taste better than Kobe beef at your favorite steakhouse. There’s only one thing I’ve been doing longer than rapping: cooking. People don’t know this about Coolio. I was making thirty-minute meals when I was ten years old and I haven’t ever looked back. I’m the ghetto Martha Stewart, the black Rachael Ray. I am the kitchen pimp who won’t hesitate to fillet Bobby Flay or send my posse after Emeril Lagasse.
My specialty is making something out of nothing. That’s a direct result of growing up poor as a motherfucker. Poor kids gotta figure stuff out. What’s in the re-friga-merator? What do we got? Canned tuna, bread, hot sauce, and one clean plate in the cabinet? That may sound like a culinary catastrophe to you. But to me, growing up how I grew up, I learned how to turn that into a masterpiece.
That’s part of why I wanted to write this book. I want people to know that just because you’re poor, you don’t have to eat fast food every day. People always try to tell you that you have to have money to eat well. Whole Foods and Gelson’s have a lot of great stuff, but Ralph’s, Von’s, Safeway, and Winco have everything you need to make haute cuisine at home. Hell, when I was growing up, I could make a meal out of a package of Top Ramen and a bottle of Windex. All you need is a little bit of food and a little bit of know-how.
As you probably know, more than two million people have seen my online cooking show, Cookin’ with Coolio. A lot of people were surprised when they found out I had a cooking show. They were all like, “Why is Coolio cooking on the Internet? Why would he want to do something like that?”
Because Coolio likes to cook, and when Coolio likes to do something, he likes to do it better than anyone else. I did the only thing I know how to do: Be the best of the best and put the rest to the test. I wanted the world to see what it was like to deep-fry a Soul Roll. I wanted everyone to know how to properly molest a turkey. I wanted aspiring ghetto gourmets to have the experience of making Finger-Lickin’, Rib-Stickin’, Fall-Off-the-Bone-and-into-Your-Mouth Chicken!
After a few conversations with my cousin, the Assistant Chef Pimp Jarez, I had an idea for a cooking show that would let me show the world how to pimpify their kitchens. By now, millions of people have seen me cook, and let me tell you, they’re picking up what I’m throwing down. People all over the world are secretly saying, “Shaka-Zulu,” as they move their spices out of jars and into dime bags. After the first season of the cooking show, I decided to turn up the flames on my culinary career. In April 2008, I debuted my catering company and personally cooked meals for private parties in Hollywood and charity events in Beverly Hills. Oxygen, the cable network, actually made a whole reality show called Coolio’s Rules about the creation of my catering company.
Now, I like to keep busy, so what’s a kitchen pimp to do? Clearly, it’s time for a Cookin’ with Coolio cookbook. Everybody loves to watch my cooking show, but what if you just can’t get enough Coolio? I can’t make shows as fast as people can make my meals. That’s why I decided to put together seventy-six of my favorite recipes all in one book, so people can pick up a copy and have enough recipes to keep their stomachs in a gangsta’s paradise for a long-ass time.
I’ve been all over the world playing music and seducing women. But all that rapping and ass slapping can make a man hungry, and a man’s gotta eat. What I’m bringing you is a collection of tastes, flavors, and ideas that come from all over the place. Some of my recipes come from the Far East, and some from the Westside, but all of them come from that place inside of me that wants to turn every man, woman, and child into a bona fide kitchen pimp. Let the kitchen pimpification of America begin. Shaka-Zulu!
My mom, Jackie, made the best spaghetti this world has ever tasted. She made a chop suey with more moves than Jet Li. Her fried chicken would literally put on tennis shoes and run the fuck into your mouth. But like I said, we grew up poor, and my mom worked nights and my stepdad worked days. When I wanted hot food, I had to figure it out for my damn self. Seeing that I was too young to use the kitchen, I’d sneak around and cook shit when I didn’t think anybody would find out. One day, I don’t even know what happened, a pot jumped out of my hands and I burned the carpet. I waited for my mom to come home like I was on death row and it was my last meal. When she finally came back after a long night of work, two things happened:
1. I got a whooping I wouldn’t forget for a long time.
2. After I healed, Mom said, “Okay, smart ass. You want to learn how to cook? All right, you’re gonna learn how to cook!”
From that day on, I never ate a meal I didn’t have a hand in. I was chopping onions, mincing garlic, dicing tomatoes, peeling potatoes. Man, I was a sous chef in my momma’s own version of Hell.
It wasn’t until about five years ago that I realized what all that slave work had done for me. I came to discover that I had an exceptional palate. I could taste any food and tell you what was in it. Matter of fact, I could take one bite out of a rainbow trout and I could tell you where he came from, what his name was, and what kind of music he liked. I started talking to chefs at all the restaurants in all the countries I visited on tour. If they didn’t want to tell me what the recipe was, I’d tell them how experienced I was with a pistol. Using that, I managed to assemble a catalog of recipes that could almost match my catalog of songs.
That was the beginning of my education. The rest of my education came when cooking became something I had to do.
You might not know this about me, but I have six kids, one for almost every day of the week. For me, one of the best ways we can all get together is by having dinner as a family. Now, you know it’s hard to always please six people, so I’ve had to think of dishes that almost everybody will love. But once I whip up a couple of Fork Steaks, just the smell drifting around the neighborhood not only brings my kids to the table, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of their janky-ass friends start showing up too. Before I know it, Daddy Coolio’s gotta feed twenty people at each meal. I can’t afford to buy filet mignons and fresh truffles all the time, so I learned how to improvise and make something taste as good as it would if I had bought everything at a specialty shop. Not only that, but I don’t always have time to cook, so my recipes are easy enough so that even my six kids, who are lazy as hell, can make them.
If you’re a smooth operator with tons of game, you may not need this. But there’s always someone smoother than you, homeboy, and you don’t wanna wake up one day to find out that while you’ve been eating your microwave oatmeal, your girl’s down the street eatin’ somebody else’s huevos rancheros. The kitchen ain’t just for the ladies. In fact, the ladies all know that a real man knows his way around the kitchen.
Every once in a while, you meet a woman and you just think, Damn! I got to find a way to make that girl mine. Well, let me guarantee you this: If I can get a woman to come over to my house, and I can get her to eat some of my food, I can get her to take a three-hour tour of my bedroom too … and come back for dessert. Shaka-Zulu!
I’ve been to restaurants where I paid thirty-five dollars for two pieces of ravioli on a giant plate. Now, let me be clear, the ghetto gourmet ain’t hard up for cash, but he’s certainly not about to burn it up like a blunt. Spending thirty dollars on two measly pieces of pasta doesn’t necessarily mean you’re eating well. It might just mean that you’re trying to look good in front of your date. That might work, but when the check comes and you can’t even take her home because you can’t afford gas, you’ll be wishing you stayed home and made ravioli your damn self.
You need a grip of money to floss in a club and a flashy car to pick up chicks when you’re cruising, but with a couple of dollars and a little bit of know-how, you can be a Casanova of the kitchen, a pimp of the pantry, and a stunner on the stove. The women will swoon as you sauté and fricassee. They’ll start to melt as you baste and bake, and the way you flip omelets will make bitches’ knees shake. When you put on that pimpron (that’s an apron for a pimp, for those of you who didn’t know), you better get ready to be around some prime-time nakedness, because fall-off-the-bone chicken is the quickest way to guarantee fall-off-the-girl clothes. Shaka!
But in all seriousness, there’s nothing more attractive than a man who can cook—except a woman who can cook.
Let me tell you that Coolio has a very discerning palate and excellent taste. That’s not just for the food, it’s for ladies too. When I’m trying to find my next wife, I’m looking for a woman with a tight body, a sharp mind, and a stocked pantry.
Now, everybody knows that woman is perfect. Everybody knows it doesn’t get any better than women. I love women even more than I love food, and that’s saying a lot. But if you show me a woman who can cook, I will literally let my jaw drop to the floor and let my tongue roll out like Bugs Bunny. It’s easier to be faithful to a woman who cooks than it is to make a grilled cheese sandwich without burning it your damn self.
Ladies, I know you don’t need no extra gimmicks to keep the men coming back for more. But the Ghetto Gourmet makes it so damn easy, you’ll have ’em tying themselves to your bed like James Caan in Misery. They’ll be like a deer in the headlights when you come out of the kitchen in your pimpron (ladies can be pimps too) with a tray of Coolio’s sensational scallops. And then you can choose if you wanna run them over or pull over and let them in.
Not only am I gonna give you some recipes that’ll make your kids eat their vegetables, I’m gonna help you deliver food so good they’ll be begging for more broccoli. These healthy recipes might make you lose weight, but your wallet will just keep growing fatter as you eat more meals at home. Coolio knows what it’s like to have a whole herd of kids to take care of, but whether you have one kid or a hundred, saving money is very important. Keeping your kids healthy is a great way to save money. This cookbook will help you keep your meals cheap and keep your kids light on their feet. If they don’t wanna eat what you learned in Cookin’ with Coolio, send them outside and make them run a few miles. See if they’re hungry after that.
Kids can be picky as hell. All they want all the time is Chicken McNuggets and macaroni and cheese. That’s fine once in a while, but we all know how hard it is to get kids to eat their vegetables. All the recipes in this cookbook are kid friendly. Not only will kids love to eat them, but, as I mentioned before, most of these recipes are so damn easy your kids can even make them for you, and that’s a good way to get them away from the television and into the kitchen. A kitchen pimp feels good when he makes a fine meal, and there ain’t no reason a kid can’t be a culinary captain too.
My cooking skills have been the subject of articles in Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Sun-Times. I have sold more than twenty-seven million albums, played on six continents, toured with the USO, and won a bunch of awards. Beyond that, in October 2008, the Oxygen network debuted my reality series Coolio’s Rules, based on the creation of my catering company. It was a prime-time hit.
But even more important, everything I cook tastes better than yo’ momma’s nipples. Whether it’s my Tricked-Out Westside Tilapia, my Swashbucklin’ Shrimp, or my Cool-a-cado, I can teach you how to control your seafood, chillax your chicken, sanctify your salad, and legitimize your lobster.
I may not be an iron chef, but I’m the only chef with platinum records.