The Crabby Cook - by Jessica Harper

I heard on NPR that what a mother eats while pregnant influences the food preferences of her child. So, a mom who loves steak and spuds will bear a like-minded child. This inspired me to try to recall what the hell I ate when my first daughter was in utero.
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Smoked salmon is one of those things nobody ever told me about until I was grown up. I mean, I guess I heard about it, but it was food beyond my reach. It never appeared in our kitchen; in small-town Illinois, it seemed exotic.

Other things I didn’t see much of included calves’ liver and oysters but when I tasted them for the first time, I knew it would be the last. I had quite a different reaction to silky, seductive smoked salmon. Read More

I made a New Year’s Resolution not to be so crabby. But the damn butternut squash soup is challenging my resolve…
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What you see here is a picture of a butternut squash I made the mistake of trying to peel.
Well, I don’t care what Ina G. says. Don’t attempt to peel a butternut squash before it’s cooked. As a friend of mine said, it’s like wrestling with a rock. The upper body exercise is such that you will require physical therapy afterwards. Just cut the damn thing into chunks and roast ‘em, THEN peel ‘em and proceed with your recipe.
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As usually happens at this time of year, Mother Nature is being a drama queen. One day it’s 60º, the next it’s 90º. This makes menu-planning very difficult. Are you supposed to make soup for dinner or chicken salad? Not that menu-planning is something crabby cooks really do anyway. Generally speaking, I plan the evening’s menu when the evening is already in full swing. Read More

My new favorite bread is Pain Quotidien’s 5-grain bread with raisins. Use it to make a grilled cheese sandwich (to go with your butternut squash soup) and your troubles will be over. If you have no troubles (in which case you are either a Republican or delusional), make it anyway and you will remain trouble-free. If you do not follow this advice, trouble may come your way, but, hey, it’s your call.

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Its very hard to get Thanksgiving-y in LA when it looks like August outside. Nature, in her recent whackedness, has been randomly eliminating the few seasonal changes we are supposed to have here. LA is just all hot and fire-scorched, relentlessly sunny.  For those of us who are used to a Thanksgiving that is cold and smells like wet leaves, it just doesn’t feel right.

I just went to NYC where I saw turkey-shaped cookies at E.A.T. and it was fifty degrees and rainy for two days (just SO November). Everyone kept complaining about the weather except me. I was all chirpy: “I am SO happy to see rain! To wear a scarf!” I’d say, alienating all the damp New Yorkers within hearing distance. Read More

Okay, so Tuesday I posted something on my Blahblahblog about the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile and then Wednesday, there it was: a piece I the New York Times Dining section about…Oscar Meyer. I know, I’m prescient, right? OMG.

Specifically the article was about the dozens of hotdogueros (hot dog vendors) in Tuscon, who sell Sonoran-style hot dogs, which are wrapped in bacon before grilling. Supposedly the bacon dog was invented by our pal Oscar, back in the fifties, in an attempt to sell more of his piggy product. Somehow, Mexicans picked up on this idea, and it evolved into a thing Mexican-Americans call their own: a bacon-wrapped dog topped with beans, chopped tomatoes, salsa verde and a squirt of mayo. Read More

If Oliver spoke English, he would tell you: a turkey burger with a little pesto thrown in is a beautiful thing. Oliver is, however, a golden retriever, so, although he is nearly perfect, his language skills are limited. But as a food thief, he has no peer.

He has, of late, really honed his counter-surfing skills; his silent stealth rivals that of a rattlesnake. I left Tom’s lovingly made, fat, juicy pesto turkey burger in the kitchen, stepping over Oliver, who was ostensibly sound asleep on the floor. When I came back seconds later, both the burger and the dog were gone. Read More

My daughter Nora is pissed off at me.

“Why do you buy things for yourself right before Mother’s Day?” she asked, irritably, when I bragged that I had just bought a panini maker, exactly what she’d planned to get me as a gift for my favorite holiday.

It is pretty shocking whenever I buy something for the kitchen, whether or not a holiday is involved, because I do it so rarely. I have limited counter space (and limited patience) for cappuccino machines and waffle irons. When things like that enter my house, they usually make their way to the garage in short order, where they cure for a couple of years before heading down to the Goodwill. Read More