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

I’m on my book tour, and I loved doing the Today Show because it proved that, propelled by the energy of Kathie Lee and Hoda, you can actually make an entire brunch in three minutes, which, of course, is a Crabby Cook’s dream. Okay, yes, they do provide help in the form of three chefs and two prop people (none of whom could be persuaded to come back to L.A. to live with me and solve all my kitchen bitchin’), but still, this was speed cooking at it’s finest.

Here is the recipe for the pumpkin pancakes I made on the Today Show, in case you missed it or the speed-of-light cooking style was too fast for you. Don’t worry if you can’t make both of these (along with the Acon-Bay Olls-Ray and Bloody Marys also concocted during my segment) in three minutes. It just means you will never be on national television and are pretty much a loser.

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I’m making Killer Pumpkin Muffins for Christmas breakfast. I might even make my own pumpkin puree if I have the energy, although at the moment that seems unlikely.

This recipe dates back to my daughters’ pre-school days. The school was a co-op, and a daily snack was provided by parents on a rotating basis. On your day, you r kid would act as the snack-bearig waiter, so you had to provide something that would do her proud or she’d be humiliated. The snack also had to be healthy enough to pass muster with Karen, the pre-K teacher. (Karen behaved like Oz’s Glinda, the good witch, with the kids, but with the parents she was more like Glinda’s wicked green-faced counterpart.) Read More

You wake up, do the treadmill while watching the TiVo-ed Hot In Cincinnati, shower,  write for a couple hours, return fifteen emails, make a chicken sandwich, yell at the dog for eating half your sandwich, install a new bathroom fixture and congratulate yourself for doing so, purchase a head scratcher online, write six emails, yell at the dog for eating your sandal, go to the grocery store to return a furry cheese, and now it’s 4 p.m.. It’s time for a tea break.

I’ve become obsessed with the ritual of afternoon tea after a day of thrilling activity. If you read my last post, you will know that this is the second in a tea-themed series. (If you did not read my last post, you are a loser.) First, you got my Irish niece’s recipe for brown bread, and now she’s got me making Tea Bread, which is made with (as well as eaten with) tea. Read More

The last time I had afternoon tea on a regular basis was when I shot a movie in London and the whole set came to a halt at precisely 4:00 p.m. so everyone could sit down, slurp tea, nibble cakes and discuss world affairs for twenty minutes. Then they’d leap to their feet again, all caffeinated and carbed,  and briskly continue with the task at hand.

Yesterday, I had a tea break with a friend which revived my enthusiasm for the custom. I’d consulted with my niece who lives in Ireland, where they are so much more with it than we are, tea-wise. Read More

(Makes 6 to 8 scones, which will disappear very quickly)

My older daughter turns 21 today. She’s home at the moment, so I get to indulge her every birthday wish.

She wants to go to a Dodgers game. (Her dad’s handling that.) Then, in keeping with 21^st birthday tradition, she wants to go to a bar and order a cocktail. But, like her father, she is actually much more interested in chocolate thatn she is in tequila. What she really wants when she takes that first big step into adulthood is chocolate chip scones for breakfast. Read More

This Mother’s Day my kids AND my own mother are all two thousand miles away. For the first time in 20 years I won’t have some kind of maternal relationship in the house, unless you count Oliver, my dog and almost-son. However, since he is equipped with paws, he is (sadly) unable to bring me breakfast in bed (my favorite Mother’s Day privilege), although I know he’d like to.

My daughters will be home from college in a few weeks. They’re studying for finals, and in a frenzy of maternal energy (inspired by their upcoming absence on Sunday), I sent them care packages.

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With both kids at college, the holidays just ain’t what they used to be. There was no trick-or-treating last Halloween, no pre-Christmas gingerbread house construction, no homemade valentines, no leprechaun pinching on St. Patrick’s Day, and today, for the first time ever, there’s no Easter egg hunt.

Last year, when Easter fell at a more convenient moment, a few of Elizabeth’s college pals came over for a hunt. Although all three of them were large men who looked  comical carrying the cute Easter baskets necessary for egg gathering, they were more enthusiastic about the hunt than my own kids had been in years. They tore around the yard, competitive as the Green Bay Packers, and then ate the spoils of the hunt until they were just barely pre-nauseous. This made me very happy. Read More

This time of year the marketplace is flooded with images of cute animals—lamby-kins and chickies and duckies and bunnies. We home cooks are expected to come up with an Easter menu that includes a slaughtered, roasted version of one of those little cute-niks, but it’s hard to get your mind around it. Just try going through checkout at Ralph’s with a leg of lamb in your cart while there’s a stuffed, fleecy-white relative of that leg’s former owner staring down at you from atop the cash register.

Ham is less guilt-inducing because the piggy is not regularly featured in the crush of Easter creature-cuteness. Plus it’s called ham, not piggy, so you can mentally disassociate it from the darling, pink animal whose butt it once was. Read More