The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

In my childhood home, vanilla treats were favored. We ate vanilla pudding, vanilla ice cream, vanilla cookies and cake. I grew up thinking of chocolate as sort of exotic. To this day, it’s vanilla that makes my world spin: I’m a vanillaholic. Read More

While I was in Florida on my book tour, two things got my attention. First, a piano showed up on a sandbar in Key Biscayne, prompting lots of jokes about a new piano bar and a whole new set of Florida Keys.While this event didn’t get much attention out of state, Miami was abuzz with speculation as to how the piano got there… Read More

In each city I visited on my book tour, I was shepherded around by an “escort,” whose job it was to get me from A to B, to make sure I didn’t fail to show up at the venue (radio or TV station, market or bookstore) that expected me. This was a smart hire on the part of my publisher. I have trouble finding the elevator in a hotel, let alone a TV station in an unfamiliar city. Left to my own devices and Avis, I’d have ended up in a neighboring state.
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I was pretty impressed when I cruised one list of Top Valentine’s Day Gifts For Men. But after careful consideration, I decided to go a more traditional route.

See, while the Pickle-of-the-Month gift idea had a certain appeal (pickles are one of Tom’s favorite food groups), when I imagined sitting down to a candlelight dinner on 2/14 and handing him this month’s selection, it just seemed like a buzz kill.
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I’m going to the annual Christmas cookie swap party, and I’m having my annual recipe crisis. My less crabby second cousins are coming to the rescue…

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First there was that L.A. Times recipe for  coffee cake that was supposedly so delicious you’d want to “eat it on your deathbed,” as your last supper. Then I stumbled across a recipe for “Dead Guy Sauce” (which had, by the way, a mystifyingly benign ingredient list–no hemlock, say, or piggy entrails–and no other explanation for its suggestive title). Next, a recipe for “Drop Dead Brownies” caught my eye on Twitter, and I started to get the culinary creeps. Read More

The other day, I heard a lady on the radio whose name was Patience Wait. (I am not kidding.) She was participating in a news quiz, and she sounded like a very patient person. I guess she’d have to be patient, growing up with all those knuckleheads cackling about her name. I wonder if, had I been named Patience Wait, I’d have grown into that sort of person, instead of one who irritably paces her kitchen, cursing at a spatula. I guess we’ll never know.

If you have a coconut craving and do not have the Patience to Wait for say, a coconut cake to appear, try making these incredibly easy cookies. They’re ready in minutes. Just be sure to let them cool before you chow down. Patience. Wait. Read More

When I was a freshman in high school, I auditioned for the annual Gilbert and Sullivan production (that year it was Pirates of Penzance) and I snagged the role of  “a villager,” which involved lurking on stage in an ugly dress, chatting sotto voce with other villagers about the activities of the more interesting characters. The director (fresh out of drama school—she knew her stuff) told us that if we all spoke the word “rhubarb,” over and over, we would collectively sound like we were making intelligent conversation. Read More

I know it’s Easter and we’re supposed to be eating marshmallow Peeps but instead, I’m treating myself to another sweet thing: Jo’s chocolate-covered graham crackers. Jo’s been making them since the forties, in your choice of dark or milk chocolate. I buy a mixed box, because Tom likes dark and I like milk The dark are gone in sixty seconds, while I tend to hoard the milk, saving them for special occasions, like Easter, when, what with the girls gone to college and my aversion to marshmallow sprayed with yellow dye #6, I see no good reason to purchase Peeps. Read More

It’s tough to go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day, actually.

For one thing, it’s tough to remember that you have to make a reservation a month in advance, even if you write a note-to-self on the palm of your hand like Sarah Palin does. Then if, by any chance, we do have a reservation, it’s tough to dress up in red or pink finery (it clashes with my new hair color), and then you get there and it’s tough to order (who can read by candlelight?), tough to hear each other (too much ambient laughter), tough to stay sober (who can resist the champagne?) and tough to dance to “Our Love Is Here To Stay” in high heels. It’s just tough all over. Read More