The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

My sister-in-law Julie is an incredible cook. Her mother, Bette, taught her to make this chocolate roll. Bette used to make six of these every holiday season to give to her kids’ teachers. As a result of those efforts, she is probably in heaven now.  If I ever meet her there. it will NOT be because I gifted educators with dessert. I’m too crabby to spend Christmas baking six times. Read More

I was wishing I had one of these at four o’clock Friday when I almost bought those black Repetto shoes to wear to a memorial service but instead left the store empty-handed due to shopper shutdown. Read More

I’m kind of obsessed with this cookbook my sister-in-law gave me, which is all about baking with less sugar.

I thought I’d try the White chocolate-Cherry-Almond Cookies because, like, why wouldn’t you, plus It’s nice to have a cookie in the house in case someone drops by unexpectedly. Although I’m not sure who actually does that, except that dude who rang my doorbell the other day, wanting to sell me some steaks. Or that lady who said she was a makeup artist and she was at my house for the porn shoot. (She was confused on so many levels.) Read More

After the Great Flood of ’15—well, it was considered Great in my house, when a veritable toilet tsunami decimated a sizeable area of my once gracious living quarters—I felt the need for comfort food. After some dreary exchanges with insurance types and remediation contactors, my thoughts turned to Dorie Greenspan’s EVO And Yogurt Cake. It seemed like a must.

Not only is it comforting in a way that only something densely vanilla can be, but it happens to be stunningly easy to make, which gives it singular appeal right at this moment when I feel I can only address small tasks, having addressed too many big ones already today.

Whether or not you ever have a Great Flood in your house—you can read more about mine here—keep this recipe on hand for other current or future comfort needs. It works.

You can find it here, but roughly, it goes like this:

DORIE GREENSPAN’S EVO AND YOGURT CAKE

Preheat the oven to 350º. Butter a loaf pan.

Combine 1 ½ cup flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt.

In another bowl, place 1 cup sugar and the zest of one lime (although I used orange.) Rub the sugar and zest together with your fingers until the sugar is fragrant. Then mix in ½ cup plain whole ilk yogurt, 3 eggs and ¼ teaspoon of vanilla until smooth. Then fold in ½ cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil).

Pour batter into the pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, until golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Eat your troubles away.

You’ve eaten too many chocolate chip cookies in your lifetime. In the last year alone, you have had enough of them to satisfy the dessert needs of an entire state, say, Indiana, for a week. And that includes the catering of several gay weddings. Read More

I always have trouble when I have to make a choice between too many good options. This applies whether I am selecting a paint color for my dining room, or a pair of black sandals, or a recipe for a chocolate dessert. In a paroxysm of indecision, I will bring home seven paint samples from Benjamin Moore, buy four pairs of sandals at Bloomingdale’s, and make two desserts instead of one. Read More

I had it on that list I have titled, “Things to do on a really slow day.” (As opposed to others I keep handy like my “To do when you have a ten minute window” and “To put off as long as possible” lists.) It was a recipe involving a thing called a pomelo. Read More

I stumbled into Gastronomie 491 on Columbus Avenue after hours of pre-turkey shopping and there was an angel there handing out samples of Jenni’s ice cream to exhaustoids like myself. Read More

So it’s Thanksgiving and you’re already irritable just thinking about the cooking tasks that lie ahead of you. You wish that it was  your sister-in-law who was the one cooking, as usual,  but she is bailing this year and going to Paris (where they have lousy pumpkin pie, by the way). So there you are with the piles of sweet potatoes and cranberries, getting crabbier by the minute. Read More

I went into Edelweiss Chocolates in Beverly Hills, not to buy chocolates but to buy their white Jordan almonds which I always keep handy in a silver sugar bowl.

“That’s it?” the lady behind the cash register said, casting her eyes in the direction of the case full of beautiful chocolate confections.

“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. Read More