The Slim Man returns home to cook and croon at La Scala

It’s always a pleasure to welcome Baltimore musician Tim Camp back home to discuss his work as The Slim Man and his Rat Pack crooning as he returns to Little Italy on Thursday night at La Scala to raise funds for the Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital. Nestor gets all of the old Bootcamp, early MTV video stories and his work as a songwriter with Brian Jack of Child’s Play, as well as all of his current music (he calls it “a male Sade”) work in Palm Springs, California. Oh, and Slim is still cooking in the kitchen, too!

Nestor Aparicio discusses his Maryland Crab Cake Tour, highlighting events at Pizza John’s and East Point Mall. He interviews Slim Manicotti, who performs at La Scala on Thursday for charity, benefiting Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital. Slim shares his musical journey from Motown to Boot Camp and MTV, and his current projects, including a Rat Pack show. They reminisce about Baltimore’s music scene and Slim’s culinary talents, including his crab cake recipe. Nestor plans to attend Slim’s performance and discusses the end of East Point Mall and the upcoming Orioles and Ravens seasons.

• [ ] Perform the Rat Pack set at La Scala on Thursday night with Howard Z on bongos; the show is a benefit for Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital.

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Upcoming Events

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, mentioning events in Essex and East Point Mall.
• Nestor shares a personal anecdote about winning a lottery ticket at East Point Mall and using it to see Springsteen.
• Discussion about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and local celebrities like Phil Weiser from Paramount.
• Nestor mentions Slim Manicotti, Tim Camp, and his upcoming performance at La Scala in Little Italy.

Slim Manicotti’s Background and Musical Journey

• Nestor and Slim Manicotti discuss their mutual friends and Slim’s background as Brian Jack’s roommate.
• Slim talks about his collaboration with Brian Jack on the album “Promise of Love.”
• Nestor mentions Slim’s performances at La Scala and his diverse musical styles.
• Slim explains his two main musical projects: the Slim Man original music and the Rat Pack show.

Slim Man’s Musical Styles and Upcoming Performance

• Slim describes his music as a male shade, combining jazz, pop, and soul.
• Nestor and Slim discuss the upcoming performance at La Scala, featuring Rat Pack songs and some Slim Man originals.
• Slim mentions his bandmate Howie Z on the bongos and their collaboration on the Rat Pack show.
• Nestor shares a personal story about Slim’s connection to Baltimore and his performances at various venues.

Slim Man’s Early Career and Motown Connection

• Slim recounts his early career as a songwriter at Motown Records, writing songs for various artists.
• He shares a story about getting a meeting with Motown by persisting after a failed initial attempt.
• Slim explains his songwriting process, mostly on the piano, and his experiences at Motown.
• Discussion about Slim’s transition from Motown to forming the band Boot Camp and their early success.

Boot Camp and MTV’s Early Days

• Slim talks about Boot Camp’s early days, including their first videos on MTV.
• He describes the process of making their videos, including borrowing equipment and shooting on the streets.
• Nestor and Slim discuss the excitement and opportunities that came with MTV’s early days.
• Slim shares his experiences of being contacted by labels and agents after their videos aired on MTV.

Slim Man’s Baltimore Roots and Current Residence

• Nestor and Slim discuss Slim’s Baltimore roots, including his upbringing in Govins and attending three different high schools.
• Slim explains his move to Nashville and later to Palm Springs, where he now lives.
• Nestor shares his fascination with Palm Springs and his desire to visit.
• Slim talks about his frequent visits to Baltimore and his connections to the city.

Slim Man’s Cooking and Culinary Style

• Nestor and Slim discuss Slim’s cookbook and his love for cooking Italian and Baltimore-style dishes.
• Slim shares his recipe for crab cakes, emphasizing the simplicity and focus on the crab meat.
• Nestor shares a personal story about a listener asking him for a crab cake recipe.
• Slim talks about his signature dish, shrimp with lemon and limoncello, and its popularity.

Slim Man’s Performance at La Scala and Benefit for Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital

• Nestor and Slim discuss the upcoming performance at La Scala, featuring Rat Pack songs and a benefit for Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital.
• Slim explains the collaboration with Nino, the owner of La Scala, and their donation of proceeds to the hospital.
• Nestor shares his excitement about attending the performance and supporting the cause.
• Slim invites Nestor to sing a song with him during the performance.

Nestor’s Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Upcoming Events

• Nestor talks about the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, including events at Pizza John’s and East Point Mall.
• He shares his excitement about meeting fans and enjoying crab cakes at various venues.
• Nestor mentions the importance of supporting local businesses and the community.
• Discussion about the end of East Point Mall and the sentimental value of the location.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Slim discuss their plans for future performances and collaborations.
• Slim shares his love for cooking and his desire to share his recipes with others.
• Nestor expresses his admiration for Slim’s diverse talents and contributions to the music and culinary worlds.
• They conclude the conversation with plans to stay in touch and continue their collaborations.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Happy summer to everybody out there celebrating. The Orioles getting back on the map. Luke’s getting back on the map. We’re talking about baseball this week as well as football, but plenty going on. Everybody knows me, knows that I’m out doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, which I’ll be doing this week, next week, and every week. The rest of the summer, we’re going to meet together for the for the first time in Essex this week at Pizza John’s. John Allen’s going to be meeting us, and we’re going to go through East Point Mall for the last time on Friday afternoon. So we’re inviting people. There’s a funny little meme out online. It’s brought to you by friends at the Maryland Lottery, where I actually had the only winning lottery ticket in my lifetime at East Point Mall at East Point Liquors. I used the 80 bucks to go see Springsteen on the Tunnel of Love tour at the Spectrum. It’s true, everything comes back to music with me, and I’ll be talking music with John and others on Friday. We talk so much about Brian Jack and Child’s Play, and I’ve even mixed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame into this thing last month as well with with the the celebrities we’ve had around here and Phil Weiser as well from Paramount and local celebrities and legends. This guy here is playing at La Scala on Thursday night down in Little Italy. He’s got an interesting Baltimore background in so many ways, and in ways that I don’t know that he and I have ever fist bumped. He was older than me. He was the guy that I saw on television and and wrote about. Was on his way in life when I became the almost famous music critic and sort of cross paths with the Ravens and the the Paper Cups and just all of these bands of kicks of my childhood, Child’s Play that I’ve already mentioned. Slim Manicotti, the Slim Man, Tim Camp, back in town, Baltimore guy up early. We wore the same salmon color today. I’m wearing my Costas gear. We’re back at Costas. I’m watching the World Cup there. Welcome home, man. How are you? I didn’t know you was gonna get up and get all dressed up and get all like video oriented with me. You got an instrument out. It sounds like you’re gonna sing to me, man.

Slim Manicotti 2:12
Yeah, well, Nestor, anything for you? No, I gotta represent when I get on the Nestor show.

Nestor Aparicio 2:17
Well, and you got a cookbook. You got all sorts of stuff going on. First things first. I follow you on social media. We know each other sort of vaguely, but we have so many mutual friends. And every time I bring you on, I peel back the lair of the slim man back to being Brian Jack’s roommate at one point. You’re gonna have to fill you like there’s weird stuff that you have in history, but you just like appear from your California estate once in a while back here because you’re in the mood for a crab cake. Yeah, right. And and you show up down a little Italy and you play and you don’t play the music you used to play. Sometimes you don’t even play the instruments you used to play. Right. I think you’re. I mean, you’re not like the beer guy, the world’s most interesting man, but you could definitely play an understudy. I think for me, at least.

Slim Manicotti 3:04
Well, thank you, Nestor. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me on. I do appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. It’s funny about Brian Jack. I was just thinking about him. We lived together for for quite a while, for years, and one of my best friends. You know, I wrote a lot of songs for him, and that whole first album that we did together, “Promise of Love, was you know that was that was a collaboration. I wrote the songs, he sang them. It was really great. What a great talent! What a voice! What a presence! So charismatic. I was just a big fan of Brian Jackson, and also one of my best friends.

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Nestor Aparicio 3:44
Well, we honor him all the time. I mean, Johnny’s coming out on Friday. We just did the the the show down in Columbia, and his spirit is very. I mean, it’s the first thing you and I talked about. And even though I want to talk to you about your music and all the cool stuff you’re doing, and times I see you posting that you’re playing here, playing there. I mean, I remember back during COVID when we were all masked up. You were sort of an internet background in our house a little bit. What are you up to, man? What about what am I going to hear? And I know you’re playing collective at the Encore, beautiful place down in Columbia on Sunday night. By the time this airs on the radio, you’re kind of between gigs here, but this is your homecoming week, right? Literally, right? Yeah.

Slim Manicotti 4:24
Well, um, basically, I do two things now. I do the Slim Man stuff, which is mostly original music stuff that I’ve written over the past couple of years, and then I do a Rat Pack show where I do Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, do all of those songs, and I do that show every once in a while out in Palm Springs, where I live, out in California. It’s where Frank Sinatra lived, so I I do that show out there once a week, and it’s it’s doing really well. So I do two things: the Slim Man stuff, which is the original stuff, and the Rat Pack stuff. What a Slim

Nestor Aparicio 4:59
Man! What what kind of music is Slim Man?

Slim Manicotti 5:01
You know, it’s when when we first came out with the first album, End of the Rainbow. A lot of the journalists they would describe it as a male shade. It’s kind of like got that you know that laid back kind of combination of jazz and pop and soul, all kind of wrapped in. You look like a

Nestor Aparicio 5:19
smooth operator. I got to tell you right,

Slim Manicotti 5:21
right, yeah, exactly. So that’s you know that’s when it first came out. That’s that’s how most people described it was a male shot day.

Nestor Aparicio 5:28
Well, what act are we doing on Thursday at La Scala? Because um, and I want to make a little bit of a public announcement here because it is public. My dear friend Alan McCallum and Slim, he was my my first ballpark reporter and many many years and Alan is a recurring figure. He is a part of my my whack pack around here, certainly for the baseball side of things. Lost his mom this week. Her her ceremony is Thursday night, so I’m working it in. But I’m going to get around town. That’s at Randallstown. Anybody wants to pay a tribute to Alan, throw him a note, throw me a note. I can get you in touch with Alan. But it’s been a rough time, so I’m coming to see you. And I thought it was like sit down dinner. Lascala sounds fancy when I’m there. Sometimes I, you know, I get I get some pasta. Tell me what you’re doing, because I want to come and see you play. I really

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Slim Manicotti 6:12
do. On so this Thursday, I’m doing the Rat Pack show. I’ll be singing Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, all that kind of stuff. I might throw in a couple of Slim Man originals, and I have Howard Zizzy Hitman Howie Z on the Bongos. He was the drummer in Boot Camp, the band from way back when. So well, that’s how I

Nestor Aparicio 6:30
know you, dude. You know what I mean? When you’re smiling now, you know. I mean, when I’m throwing an East Point Mall goodbye party, right, and I put a picture in a poop tower of the original one, the one that looked like the Ganda Purina back in the day, right in the Mercantile lot in the back there where McDonald’s is now, and so we’re old school. And to me, your boot camp to me, yeah. Anybody’s own those boot camp, they know that’s you, right?

Slim Manicotti 6:54
Yeah, yeah. That that that was kind of the first first. Well, I got my start as a songwriter at Motown Records. That was my very first job, writing songs for Motown Records. I got paid 1000 bucks a month to write. Wait, man, how’d

Nestor Aparicio 7:05
you get that gig? Is that like what was the Motown connection in Baltimore? Because there’s so many Baltimore connections to A and M Records, and even like Herb Alpert, and like there’s just and writers that came from Baltimore to write songs, and even like Buddy Dean’s show and Greg Kin at that time, our loves in Jeopardy. We lost a great gig, great. I mean, very much like that music was sort of boot campy, right? Am I right?

Slim Manicotti 7:32
Yeah, yeah. I’m so I got my song as a songwriter at Motown. What I did was I collected a whole bunch of songs, went up to New York, had a meeting with a publisher. The meeting did not go well. I told myself I’m not going back to Baltimore without at least playing some songs for some other publishers. So I figured, why not go to the you know the biggest best publisher I know, Motown. You know, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops. You know, so I so I went and I just knocked on the door. I got a meeting, and a couple weeks later, I was signed to a contract as a songwriter. That was my first start.

Nestor Aparicio 8:06
So writing songs was like on a piano or on a guitar.

Slim Manicotti 8:10
Oh, mostly on the piano. So I would write songs. Yeah, I would submit piano was your

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Nestor Aparicio 8:14
first instrument.

Slim Manicotti 8:16
Actually, trumpet was my first instrument, but piano was what I wrote most of my songs on. So I would give Motown would call me up and they’d say we need a song for there’s a new movie coming out. It’s an animated movie with featuring Garfield the cat, so it’s a full full length feature film, and we need a song for him about how he enjoys being fat. So I wrote a song called “Fat Is Where It’s At. While I was at Motown, it got placed in the movie and did real well. So that was the kind of stuff I was doing at Motown. I had some stuff. I had a song recorded by the Temptations, but this was this this was this was a little bit after that whole era. This era of Motown was the Rick James, Tina Marie era, and so after the Motown thing ran his course. That’s when I started boot camp, and then we went on to have like a couple of the first videos on MTV, and that’s you know that was the evolution of it. Motown, then boot camp, and then Slim Man.

Nestor Aparicio 9:14
What was your first love musically? Then I mean this, dude. I’m fascinated. By the way, Slim Man’s here. Slim Man Akati, Tim Camp boot camp. He’s playing at La Scala and doing the Rat Pack routine this week down at Little Italy. And I mean, you got rock and roll roots and Baltimore roots. And I mean, I’m yeah. Every time I bring you on, I learn new stuff. So now I really want to peel back to like how all this happens for a young you. And part of me is full stories. The Neil Diamond show was down at the Hippodrome a couple months ago, a couple weeks ago, and I went, and his songwriting back. Remember, I knew he wrote the Monkey songs and all that, but that whole life that, as it’s been portrayed, of sit in a cubicle and write me a song, and then into the 70s and. Even all the send-up latter-day documentaries and people that all the MTV stuff that talks about how songwriting worked and all that in those days to try to get a gig back then there were so many avenues for that right yeah and I guess going to New York with your guitar under your or going to Nashville, maybe which kids do today to be country music stars, or going to Hollywood to be an act. There’s something so romantic about that. All these years later, for me, whether you made a billion dollars or you’re still doing it at La Scala this week, it really is. I’m turned on by it as somebody that didn’t go down that life’s pathway and people like you. I remember you boot camp MTV and think, how did he get there? You know?

Slim Manicotti 10:46
Yeah. Well, that was kind of crazy. The boot camp MTV thing. We we had just we had just started was 1980, and our manager at the time said there’s a new thing coming out. It’s called MTV, and they showed us some of these videos that they were putting on MTV, so we said, “Why don’t we do a video? So we went to we went to a cameraman who worked at WJZ TV, and and we said we want to do a video. So one night he went into WJZ and borrowed the video equipment, and we went down to the we

Nestor Aparicio 11:19
had a word for that moonlight. Yeah, right. Moonlight.

Slim Manicotti 11:23
So we went down. We went down to the block, and we told them we were doing a movie with a Ben Vereen or something, and they closed off the street for us, and we shot the video down there on the block, and and for like about an hour until the cops found out that we weren’t actually shooting a movie, it was just us kind of doing a music video, and they kind of shut it down. But you had a

Nestor Aparicio 11:45
camera that looked professional, which nobody had in 1980, right?

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Slim Manicotti 11:49
Right. It was the guy from Jay Z TV 13. So we we put we put together these videos, two of them, and so we submitted them to MTV, and they were one of the first ones ever played. I remember your

Nestor Aparicio 12:02
video being on MTV, and I didn’t know you were a Baltimore band till later. You know what I mean? Literally. Yeah,

Slim Manicotti 12:06
that was that was all shot. Well, MTV

Nestor Aparicio 12:09
didn’t have any videos to play, right? There just there wasn’t. They didn’t have enough content, so nobody was racing to get a video together.

Slim Manicotti 12:17
This was right when it first started. They so when we we we had like I don’t know like the the 47th one and the 88th one, so the top 100 of MTB we were on there and they continued to play it and it was really kind of exciting time. The phone was ringing, labels were calling, you know, agents were giving us a ring, you know clubs were getting packed and stuff. It was a really cool time.

Nestor Aparicio 12:40
Slim Manicotti’s here. He is bringing his Rat Pack Act to the La Scala on Thursday. I’m really looking forward to seeing him. I follow him out on the the interwebs. Palm Springs, how does what is home for you in Baltimore? Like I’m Dundalk. What would you say is home for you? Where’d you go to high school?

Slim Manicotti 13:01
Well, I went. I went to three different high schools. I won’t tell anybody. I was. That’s all right. I was a problem. You turned out

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Nestor Aparicio 13:08
okay.

Slim Manicotti 13:08
I yeah. I grew. I grew up in Govins, right down the street from the Senator Theater, and that’s where I grew up. And so that’s my. That’s those are my Baltimore roots. You’re in

Nestor Aparicio 13:21
the city then. You’re from the city. Yeah, I

Slim Manicotti 13:23
was a city boy, and I went to three different high schools. I went to City, Polly, and Northern.

Nestor Aparicio 13:30
All right, so you were, you know, and then you went to boot camp after that. Yeah, obviously, it

Slim Manicotti 13:36
was boot camp.

Nestor Aparicio 13:37
So you know, you you live in Palm Springs. Give me a little primer. It’s one of the very few places I’ve never been. I’ve looked at it a million times. Coachella, Joshua, like all of that stuff. My my yogini, Kim Manfredi, who taught me yoga 25 years ago. She practices art out there and has a gallery. And I I know it’s hot as hell. I know it’s going to be cool. I know I’m going to love Palm Springs when I come, but like, I never met Bob Hope or anything like that, you know. Right.

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Slim Manicotti 14:04
Well, you know, I was I went from Baltimore to Nashville. I stayed in Nashville for a bunch of years, and then after that, I got a couple offers for some gigs out in Palm Springs, and it was in January. I left Nashville. It was like 12 degrees. I went to Palm Springs. It’s 80 degrees and beautiful, and I was playing, you know, and I was like, it was it was great. I loved it, so I decided to stay because there was a lot of gigs out in California. So that’s that’s where I live now. But I was born and raised in Baltimore.

Nestor Aparicio 14:32
You come home every year, right?

Slim Manicotti 14:34
Yeah, yeah, many two, three times a year.

Nestor Aparicio 14:37
Well, and you give an opportunity for people like me that know you in any walk of life in any way, to come and see you perform in relatively intimate environments. I mean, the collective Encore collective, unbelievable place. So you come back, you book a couple of gigs and play some gigs, and I love having you come on every couple years and tell some stories and stuff like that because you are so connected to here. And you’re one of those unique guys. You come home and you play. That’s kind of neat. I mean, I I know there’s a handful of other folks who do that. I mean, you know, I have Gina Shock on, and she comes back once in a while and does stuff. When, but I Mitch Allen lives out on on the West Coast and comes back and plays a little bit. So I mean, there’s so many of you of that era, and I don’t know. It’s probably one of the most special weeks of the year. Not to mention you get the crab cakes, but you can ship them. I mean, Kostas, Faith. These all my clients, they they ship them. But the piano,

Slim Manicotti 15:29
yeah, the piano player in um in boot camp. He’s every year for my birthday. He sends me out a couple of pounds of jumbo backfin lump crab meat, and I make crab cakes out there. And people out there, when they make crab cakes, they have no idea what they’re doing. They’re they they have no comparison to the crab cakes here in Baltimore. So he sends me a couple of pounds of crab meat every year. So I make jumbo lump crab meat and crab cakes. And the people out there like, wow, this is the best thing we ever had. But yeah, I’m still uh yeah I still bring a little bit of flavor of Baltimore to Palm Springs. Look,

Nestor Aparicio 16:06
man, you could come to Essex on Friday, and I can get some Pizza John’s. They have a great crab cake there. We’re doing the Maryland crab cake tour. I can have you be a part of it. You could bring the Slim Man Cook’s book. So you’ve written the cookbook, and part of my gig with you is you do all this Italian food, you do. She’s just so nice. So you do different things like that. Crab cake recipe for you. Is it in a book?

Slim Manicotti 16:29
Yeah, I have one in the first cookbook, and I have one in the second cookbook. I open that

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Nestor Aparicio 16:33
cookbook right now, and I want you to read me the recipe for the. I want to know what’s in a slim man crab cake. I need this right now.

Slim Manicotti 16:41
In this crab cake recipe, it’s it’s um, it’s um, it’s a traditional. You know, it’s it’s a traditional crab. Inspired by

Nestor Aparicio 16:49
your mother, grandmother, family. Just

Slim Manicotti 16:51
this, just from what you know, from what I was uh, you know, you know, I I was, I would get a bunch of uh,

Nestor Aparicio 16:58
I see it right there. What pages are

Slim Manicotti 17:00
crab cakes, and so I would get crab meat, and I would just you know experiment with my own recipe. So it’s basically just it’s very simple. I like to taste the crab meat. I don’t want to have too much other stuff. So it’s a little bit of mayo, a little bit of mustard, parsley, bread crumbs, egg, and and I broil them. In the in the second cookbook, I have a friend who lives in Ocean City, Maryland, down the ocean, hun, and he puts in crushed as his binder rather than breadcrumbs. He uses crushed up lace potato chips in his recipe, which is not usable, but really good. So not us, no.

Nestor Aparicio 17:39
Listen, this-I swear on my life-this happened last night. I got off the yoga mat. I was at the supermarket, non-sponsor supermarkets. I want to point that out. I’m up for grabs. Anybody, anybody at Giant hears this wants to grab me. So I’m-I’m standing in front of the seafood counter. I don’t even want seafood. I was in there to get pork. Swear to God. And I looked down, and a guy came up to me. And you know, I do this crab cake tour Slim, so people, yeah, no, they talk crab cakes to me, right? This guy comes up to me, and I swear to God, I thought he was a listener, kind of having fun with me, right? He he was a working man, and I mean, he had really he looked like he changed oil for a living. He had really a working. I mean, Dundalk guy. He had working man hands, right? Yeah. He came up to me, and this was at 530 in the afternoon. There’s a thunderstorm outside, and it was it was peculiar, but so peculiar. I want to tell the story because it lends right into where we’re going with this. He says to me, “Hey man, do you know how to make a crab cake? And just like that, like a little crazy looking. And I looked at him, and I thought, “All right, you’re on the my crab cake tour. You know that I do the crab. He did not know who I was. He like literally, I’m looking around. It looked like he was almost like he was looking over my shoulder. Like, all right, he’s having his kid video this to have fun with me to goof with me and I’m gonna like and I realized no this is just a dude who’s getting off of work who does not know how to make a crab cake and I said to him I’m like listen I make a pretty decent crab cake but you can Google it there’s a lot of ways to make a crab cake but I literally when I caught on to the fact that a I was not being ambushed. It had nothing to do with my radio show. He did not know who I was at all. It was just a dude who did not know how to make a crab cake. Swear to God, who said to me, “How do you make a crab cake? And I said to him, first the internet. I didn’t say you know you could just go to Koco’s or Costas or any of our sponsors. Fadelies get a crab cake. They’re delicious. He would literally wanted to buy a pound of crab meat and make a crab cake without knowing how to do it. And I said to him, just what you said. I said, well, you’re going to need some little mayo, little mustard, little parsley. I said, now you need a binder egg. I said, breadcrumbs, fine. Now what I told him wasn’t potato chips. I said. Him and this comes from my expertise of he asked the right guy. It’s like me asking you, you know, like how to play something, how to play fly me to the moon. You know, can you do that for me? Yeah, I mean, just whip out it and I’ll just do it. You know, but I said to him, crackers, crackers, crackers are like an ingredient that a lot of places use. So I just wanted to throw that out. My person asked me, and I just threw it at, and I’m like, you know, crab cakes aren’t hard to make, but they are really hard to make. Awesome, you know. Yeah, that’s true.

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Slim Manicotti 20:32
And the saltines. I mean, that’s that’s the way my friend. We’re doing the show, La Scala, right? Hitman Howie Z, Howard Zizzi on Bongos. Used to be the drummer for a boot camp. I’m at his house right now, and the way he makes crab cakes is with crumbled up saltine crackers as well. I use breadcrumbs sometimes, crushed up potato chips. He uses saltines.

Nestor Aparicio 20:54
I got a real controversy here, and one day, really, you should come and eat with me because you’re. I mean, you got a cookbook, Slim. You know what I mean. Like, come on. Slim Adicotti’s our guest here. He’ll be at La Scala on Thursday night. He’s a chef. He’s a musician. He’s a friend. He’s a rocker. He’s a jazzer. He’s a crooner. Yeah, I mean, literally, man. Like you’re like one of the world’s most. I want to have a Merlot with you, or at least a Cabernet. Anytime. So, but what I’m, you know, the the whole cooking thing and the crab cake thing, and we make there are like taboos about different things, and you know, I want it fried, I want it broiled, I eat it with tartar, which like to me, like stop, that’s for a fish stick. Cocktail sauce in East Baltimore, a lot of I’ll call it Chesapeake Bay flavoring because Old Bay is not a sponsor and Jo doesn’t want to be one. So I mean, but the seasoning on the east side of town much more salt and Old Bay seasoning forward, whereas it’s more delicate on the Eastern Shore and much more just the crab meat and the jumbo lump and mustard forward. It fadleys and there’s different. different styles of how to cook. The controversy is when you start adding pimento or pepper.

Slim Manicotti 22:09
Oh, no,

Nestor Aparicio 22:11
loses you.

Slim Manicotti 22:12
No, never. So you don’t do a

Nestor Aparicio 22:14
crab imperial, nothing like that.

Slim Manicotti 22:15
No, no, no. I just want to taste the crab meat, like green pepper, pimento. No, never.

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Nestor Aparicio 22:21
At it, okay. I’m just checking in on you. So if I’m coming over to your house, I really want to know this in Palm Springs one night. Let’s say the weather’s ideal and it’s not 114, and you could cook an egg on my head. Um, and we’re just gonna like cook. What What do you cook guests at at your house in Palm Springs on an 80 degree day? Because it seems to me like if you invite me over. You’re gonna be in a kid. I had a neighbor when I lived in Harbor Court. He loved to cook. God rest his soul. And he would invite us over on a Sunday to say, “Look, I’m cooking a meal for everybody in the building because I like to cook, and you know I’m just putting out food. We go to his place, and it would be insane. I have a feeling you’re that guy as a host.

Slim Manicotti 23:00
Yeah, yeah. Well, um, I mean, if I, if I, if I have crab meat, I have to get it from the Eastern Shore. I have it shipped there. It’s $70 a pound, $70 Nestor, $70 a pound. I talk

Nestor Aparicio 23:14
about why it’s this way. It’s the processing plants. It’s the fact that Maryland meats unique. It’s the it’s on and on and and we don’t and the the the the fish are eating them and like invasive species. Although I do I talk a lot about more than just eating them. I swear I yeah I yeah.

Slim Manicotti 23:35
So if I if I can I’ll have some shipped out and I’ll make crab cakes for people. But usually the if you had a

Nestor Aparicio 23:40
good week at the bar, right? Yeah,

Slim Manicotti 23:42
yeah, right. Yeah, if if I had a good week, that’s that’s what I’m making for people. But that’s but a lot of times I’ll make something that’s a little more accessible for people. So, I like I came up with this recipe. I create my own recipes. I do Italian stuff, Baltimore stuff, and Slim stuff. Those are the three kinds of things that I cook. When the people come over, I’ll make one of my signature dishes, which is shrimp with lemon and limoncello. Basically, it’s just shallots in in oil. You cook until the edges get crisp. You toss in a shot of limoncello. You light it on fire. Right, it’s explosive. Right, explodes in the air. Then you put in your shrimp, some lemon, and that’s it. And so you can put that over pasta. You know, you can eat it as an as it’s on its own, or you can put it over burschetta. But the shrimp, the lemon limoncello sauce is so quick, so easy, inexpensive. You can get the ingredients anywhere. It’s explosive. It’s great, you know, for when you have guests over because it’s like flames shoot up and it’s it’s cool. That that that would probably be what I would cook, if if unless I hit the lottery and I’ve I’ve got 20 pounds of crab meat.

Nestor Aparicio 24:53
And then the fire department up on Providence Road shows a couple minutes later. I know, I know. You gotta you gotta have

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Slim Manicotti 24:59
the. Garden hose ready because if things get explosive, you gotta you know.

Nestor Aparicio 25:03
Well, look, I’ll bring this full circle right now from Brian Jack and boot camp and all that to you. Got to put on a show. You got to put on a show, Slim. So the show is Thursday. Tell me what I’m gonna see because I’m coming down to La Scala for a while. I’m gonna pay tribute to Alan’s mom. God rest her soul. She taught lots of kids about life and music and reading as an educator, and I’m gonna come and visit with you, and and we’re gonna toast her. And I, I mean, you’re playing. So like, if I’m there yelling at you and I yell “Fly me to the moon, you play it. If I yell “Mack the Knife, you play it after me, right? Exactly.

Slim Manicotti 25:37
We do both of those songs. If

Nestor Aparicio 25:38
I give you any Engelbert, can you can you play me, please reduce me, let me go. Anything you want, Nestor anymore.

Slim Manicotti 25:49
So so what we do is Howie Howard Zizzy plays bongos. I sing, and we and we do these rapac songs, and it’s also it’s a benefit for Mountain Washington Pediatric Hospital.

Nestor Aparicio 26:00
Oh, even I’m bringing Leonard Raskin right away. Nobody does more for Mount Washington, Paula. Every let’s go. I’m down. This is for Mount Washington Pediatric. I didn’t do that.

Slim Manicotti 26:10
Yeah. So Nino, the owner of La Scala, he he kicks in a percentage of whatever he brings in that night, and he donates it to the Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital. Howie and I donate our time, and it’s a great cause. The food is great, and for a couple of hours we sing Rat Pack songs, and people, you know, are dining and they’re partying for a good cause. So the proceeds go to Mount Washington. Can I pay 20

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Nestor Aparicio 26:35
bucks and sing a song with you?

Slim Manicotti 26:37
Yeah, come on up. All right. Well, I’ll contribute.

Nestor Aparicio 26:40
I’m gonna contribute to the Mount Washington Pediatric as always, man. I I stand strong in that. We we do a golf tournament every year, and I’ve swung a lot of putters, you know, for the Mount Washington P. I I’ve hauled a lot of beer in the beer cart, you know, out on the Slim Manicotti. He’s here to Slim Man, Tim Camp Boot Camp, any way you know him, East Side, West Side, Govins. Whether you went to any of his three high schools with him, or now let’s let’s have some fun. All right. Last thing we’re gonna do here.

Slim Manicotti 27:10
All right.

Nestor Aparicio 27:10
All right. We’re gonna play Word Association, and you’re gonna win. But I’m gonna try. Okay. Okay. Let’s go. So I’m gonna say Gerard’s, and you’re gonna say

Slim Manicotti 27:23
boot camp on Tuesday nights, Ravens on Monday nights.

Nestor Aparicio 27:27
All right. So I’m figuring, like, if I said Gerard, you could say Maxwell’s, right?

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Slim Manicotti 27:32
Yeah. Okay.

Nestor Aparicio 27:33
All right. And if I were to say Seagal In, you would say

Slim Manicotti 27:41
boot camp.

Nestor Aparicio 27:43
Ah, see, I thought you played all these clubs around here. I thought, I thought you played like we

Slim Manicotti 27:48
played Seagull. Who was the guy that used to run that? Was it Doc?

Nestor Aparicio 27:51
You know, I don’t. I wasn’t old enough. I just figured with the bands that you were in, you could name every club from. Yeah, I’m trying. I’m trying the Capricorn,

Slim Manicotti 28:02
Capricorn, Redwood Inn, coast to coast,

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Nestor Aparicio 28:07
coast to coast. There’s one. That’s what I’m waiting on.

Slim Manicotti 28:10
Seagull, Maxwell’s, I mean, you name it, we played it.

Nestor Aparicio 28:15
Surf Club. Now, what was it? Sandbar, Sandbar, Sandbar.

Slim Manicotti 28:20
We played there. My friend Robert Schmupt used to own the Sandbar.

Nestor Aparicio 28:23
Oh, of course. Everybody Sandbar, we

Slim Manicotti 28:25
played a Electric Circus, Ocean City.

Nestor Aparicio 28:28
See, all right, I knew you played. Did you ever play the Bonfire in Ocean City?

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Slim Manicotti 28:32
Oh yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 28:33
No, see, my uncle ran that joint back in the 70s too. But that was back more into Captain and Tenille BG’s kind of era. Slim Man remembers it all. He is. Uh, he’s got his. Is that a? That’s a bass guitar, right? Steinberger.

Nestor Aparicio 28:44
Look at that man. You’re gonna be playing that with Scott on Thursday night. I

Slim Manicotti 28:48
might break it out.

Nestor Aparicio 28:49
All right. Well, I I can’t wait to get down and see you and support you. What’s the best way for people to find and interact with you out on social media, Slim?

Slim Manicotti 28:58
Go to SlimMan.com. That’s where you can get most of your information, or at at Slim Manicotti Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Slim Manicotti at Slim Manicotti, or go to SlimMan.com.

Nestor Aparicio 29:11
You know, there’s Manicotti on the menu at Pizza John’s on Friday when I’m doing a Maryland Crab Cake Tour presented by the Maryland Lottery in conjunction with GBMC and Farnham and Dermer. That’s a mouthful. I’m good at saying that. And John Allen and I are at and in your honor. And and hopefully, if you want to drop by old times, if you want to slice a pizza, you are way welcome on Friday to join us at Pizza John’s. We’re going to East Point Mall afterwards. Meet me at the mall in the middle of the mall. We’re gonna meet over there, and then we’re gonna go to Costas Inn in Dundalk and have some proper crabs on front. So we’re doing like a whole Essex Dundalk. I’ll call it the poop plant here. We all know we call it. We all know we smell it. But we’re doing this this week. But they have manicotti on the menu at at Pizza John’s, and I’m going to order just because I love you. So and I’m going to see it at La Scala. What. I get at La Scala if I come down to Lascaux. Like seriously, like what’s the thing? What’s my go-to at La Scala with Nino?

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Slim Manicotti 30:06
When I go to Nino, I just ask him to bring me whatever he’s got. They have this shrimp toast that he created. It’s one of my favorite dishes. I’m going to put it in my new cookbook. Shrimp toast, just amazing as an appetizer. I I was there last Thursday. I we had like four or five orders of this stuff. It was great. So when I get there, I shrimp toast, and then I’ll just tell Nino to bring out whatever he’s got. That so last week it was pasta with white clam sauce. I might do.

Nestor Aparicio 30:36
I might do a shrimp tour, like 30 shrimps in 30 days. I love shrimps so much. I love them every way. I mean, it’s and my wife doesn’t eat shrimp, so like whenever I’m at, and it’s great because shrimp are small. You can just get you can get a little side water or whatever. Get them on a salad. Doesn’t offend her. It’s not like when you get salmon or get something that she won’t eat. You can’t eat it in half. But like like I’ll eat shrimp every day of my life, especially if it’s with like broccoli or with a vegetable, or with rice, Chinese-it’s my go-to. It’s very

Slim Manicotti 31:05
versatile. It’s true.

Nestor Aparicio 31:07
Maybe I’ll take take a month off a crab. Just take a vacation. No offense. Let it let them rejuvenate. Or you know, you do soft soft crab. You soft shell crab. No, I

Slim Manicotti 31:17
love soft shell crabs since season. Yeah, yeah. I just I just got somebody just sent me some a couple weeks ago, a half a dozen soft shell crabs. I came up with the greatest recipe. I soaked them in buttermilk for overnight because it takes it takes off that kind of fishy taste to it. Soak them in buttermilk, then I put them in flour, egg, bread crumbs, and then I fry them in baking grease and I make a BLT over top of a soft shell crab. That’s my go-to recipe. I love soft shells. What

Nestor Aparicio 31:47
kind of bacon you using, man? You using like an outdoor? They’ve got

Slim Manicotti 31:50
this bacon called brewskis. It’s it’s made in Wisconsin. It’s incredible bacon. Yeah.

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Nestor Aparicio 31:56
See, I mean, this is why I have you on. I mean, I feel like I’m just having coffee with you. Like, I don’t want the segment to end. I want you to keep feeding me. Slim Manicotti is here. He’s getting me fat, at least in my mind. You can come down and get fat in your belly if you want it. Lascala and help the the kids at Mount Washington Pediatric on Thursday night. I’ll be there for a little while for sure. Stopping by, I will croon one with you if you allow me. Yeah, absolutely. You know what? Here’s what safe summer win for me.

Slim Manicotti 32:24
All right. All right.

Nestor Aparicio 32:25
Safe summer win for me. And if I can update, you know, like, let me think of another Sinatra song. When I’m, I’m, I’m in. I’m gonna every time I sing, you’re getting a $20 bill from Mount Washington Pediatric, or I won’t. I won’t do it.

Slim Manicotti 32:41
We’ll have we’ll have a whole list of songs. We have about 100 that we do. So we’ll we’ll we’ll give you a list. You pick whatever song you want to come up. Sing a song or so.

Nestor Aparicio 32:50
Summer wind came blowing in from across the sea. All right, linger there to touch your hair and walk and walk with me. Yeah, there you go. All right, all summer long we sang a song. It’s Slim strolled the Golden Sands. He’ll be at Lascaux, also down in Colombia. You can find him at it. Slim Man, all places. Hey, man, we’re both positive. Luke’s back on the grid. Football’s back on the field next week. The Orioles have like a heartbeat after Adam Beachman and I got to get crazy. You’re go ahead. You’re wound up. Go ahead.

Slim Manicotti 33:23
Yeah, I know it because I I came home from rehearsal on Friday, right, and I saw the end of that game. I’m like, man, you know, down two to down two to 113. strikeouts, can’t

Nestor Aparicio 33:34
do anything, right?

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Slim Manicotti 33:36
Two run home run. We win three two. The kid comes in and strikes out the last, and then last night, that was another great game. I’ve been waiting on

Nestor Aparicio 33:45
Tyler O’Neill a year and a half now, right?

Slim Manicotti 33:47
Man, they look good, man. It’s exciting.

Nestor Aparicio 33:50
See, I get a little baseball in here too. Yeah, Luke. Luke is back from Wildwood. He’s belly full of pizza, but nothing as good as Pizza John’s going to be on Friday with John Allen and I. If you’re an East Point Mall aficionado. I want you to join us on Friday as well. Go ahead, Slim. Finish up. Pizza

Slim Manicotti 34:05
John’s. Brian Zach and I used to go there all the time. We lived down there in Essex, off of Woody Road, and we used to go to Pizza. Slim, I mean this.

Nestor Aparicio 34:14
On Friday, we’re doing the show. If you want to come down and sit in with John, bring it in, have some fun. I mean, by all means, come join us on Friday. John Allen will be in from 230 to four. We’re going to East Point Mall. We’re meeting at that crab joint there that used to be to Chick Fil A and the Applebee’s before that. And we’re going to walk the mall for the last time. They’re ripping East Point Mall down next month. We’re going to shed a tear, and then we’re all going to Costas on Friday by 530 and we’re gonna eat crabs, and we’re gonna party like rock stars because I’m gonna have rock stars with me. What do you think?

Slim Manicotti 34:46
Well, that sounds great. Tell John I said hello. I’m flying back to Palm Springs Friday morning, but I’ll be there. I’ll be there in spirit because I got a gig on Saturday night in Palm. All right, I’ll

Nestor Aparicio 34:56
get you Pizza John’s pizza to go. He’s slim. I’m Nestor. We’re Baltimore Pod.