This is a review for The Crabby Cookbook The Crabby Cook Cookbook: Recipes and Rants Paperback produced by Jessica Harper. I received a copy The Crabby Cook Cookbook in return for this review. I would like to let you know the thoughts in this review is mine and mine alone. Also in this post are my affiliate links and if you click on the links and make a purchase I will make a small percentage off the items you purchase.
At one time I liked to cook and fancied myself a good cook. Although in the 11 years Charlie has been born I begun to stop cooking. David took it over. Even though a lot of the time I have to tell David how to make something. Charlie swears I don’t know how to cook and if we depended on me we would starve.
Although that isn’t true because when my dad comes to visit I cook breakfast and dinner. I believe the reason is I get to make foods we never eat. Because like the The Crabby Cook Cookbook says Charlie only eats about 6 foods. David only likes meat and Potatoes where I like Vegetables.
Even though I hate to admit it it’s easy to just go out and eat most of the time. This way everyone can get what they like. Although this causes a lot of Drama because Charlie only likes to eat at certain restaurants or he refuses to eat. I would let Charlie starve and he could find something when we get home. Although David isn’t like that and will stop at another restaurant to pick something up for Charlie on our way home.
I am hoping and Praying The Crabby Cook Cookbook will help us stop and get back to cooking in our home. Everyone will eat the dinners prepared. Cooking and eating dinner together is a wonderful way to spend time together. Eating together allows us to get to know how each others day went. Like in the Dinosaur ages Charlie says. Which might be true but having dinner together each night didn’t kill me but brought my parents and siblings closer together.
Introducing a very funny, slightly edgy, winning new kind of cookbook ―that Jessica Harper, star of Minority Report, Stardust Memories, Love and Death, Pennies from Heaven, and more―is a working mother of two who faces the same problems of every other woman who’s the designated home cook: How do you feed a family of picky eaters when you’re not crazy about being in the kitchen in the first place? A natural-born storyteller and terrifically engaging writer, she does what she’s done all her life―entertain us―while at the same time offering 100 not just easy but really easy-to-make, really tasty recipes.
Her stories are filled with charming crabbiness―of cooking early in the day for the two kids who eat only six things, then later for the husband who eats only about eight things, none of which share common ground with those first six; of inviting her mother-in-law for dinner and handing her an apron; of suffering HAS―Hostess Anxiety Syndrome―having the book club over and picking The Good Earth because it matches the neighborhood’s great new Chinese take-out, so no cooking involved! She wants to give a Nobel Prize to the person who invented bagged salad, and she recounts a wonderful story of making homemade turkey pot pie for the very first time―its crust tasted like rosemary-scented Play-Doh―to serve to Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford.
But crabby or not, she’s found a way to make it work, and work brilliantly. The Crabby Cook is about how to change your food-i-tude―no more garnish guilt, for example, and why “sort of homemade” is just as good as homemade (ie, knowing when to go all out with Pain-in-the-Ass Minestrone and when to settle for the almost-as-tasty Lazy-Ass Minestrone). It’s how to identify those Miracle Foods―the stuff that everyone loves, like Gobble-It-Up Turkey Chili and Tony’s Rigatoni. And even a whole survival guide―despite her HAS―to entertaining, including drinks, Whore’s
Jessica Harper wears many hats. As an actress she co-starred in Stardust Memories with Woody Allen, Pennies From Heaven with Steve Martin, My Favorite Year with Peter O’Toole, Minority Report with Tom Cruise and cult favorites ‘Phantom of the Paradise‘ and ‘Suspiria.’ Harper won a Cable Ace Award for best actress in ‘It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,’ and her numerous other television appearances include a guest shot on Late Night With David Letterman. Her stage experience ranges from ‘Hair‘ on Broadway to co-starring with Al Pacino in regional theatre.
After she became a mom in 1989, Jessica wrote and produced seven CDs of music for children, which have earned multiple awards and rave reviews from critics in Entertainment Weekly, Parenting, Family Fun, Billboard and others. TV Guide’s Parent’s Guide stated that ‘her lyrics’rank with the best of contemporary children’s poetry.’ Of Harper’s 2002 release, ‘Inside Out,‘ Lynne Heffley of the LA Times said, ‘Children’s music doesn’t get better than this.’ People Magazine did a special feature on Harper, her music, and her focus on family.
Not busy enough just being an actress, recording artist , mom, and wife of a busy executive, Jessica became an award-winning author, penning seven picture books in the last decade, including the best-selling ‘Nora’s Room.’ Her most recent book, ‘A Place Called Kindergarten‘ (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006), received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly and a NAPPA Gold Award. Next on the agenda for Harper is a series of chapter books for young readers. The first, ‘Uh-oh, Cleo,’ will be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons this spring.
Jessica’s charitable work includes a board position at PXE International (www.pxe.org) and weekly mentoring sessions with a teenage girl, under the auspices of WriteGirl (www.writegirl.org).
For lots more information, please visit Jessica’s website: www.jessicaharper.com.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
