Good news from Austin! The two grandkids are back in school—masked and socially-distanced but very happy to have their lives back. Unlike some finicky adults, these first-and fourth graders don’t give a whit about wearing masks all day. If that’s what it takes, to be with friends again and get a break from parental oversight, it’s worth it! In early September their calendar is jam-packed with after-school activities, sleepovers, and birthday parties—just like the old days. Suddenly, baking with grandma is so old school.

Classic strawberry shortcakes conjure a simpler time in America. A time when deals were signed with handshakes, the July 4th parade tootled down Main Street, and tuna sandwiches contained real tuna. Though my heritage leans more bagel than biscuit, I wanted to give my grandchildren a taste of Americana before it all disappears—replaced by soigné dishes like Harry’s Berries Floating on a Pastry Raft in a Foamy Sea. The only obstacle would be the biscuit.

It takes a cold-hearted woman, one in complete control of her appetites, to resist the allure of a well-frosted cupcake. Though they didn’t play a large part in my Bronx childhood, once I became a mother, providing cupcakes for my children’s bake sales and birthdays felt as important as teaching them how to swim.

I came to know strawberries late in life. Before moving to Los Angeles, strawberries were more like a suggestion for a magical food item—frozen chunks found in Breyer’s ice cream, ice cold slices in sugary syrup strewn over store-bought pound cake, and bright red licorice sticks with no discernible flavor that I fought over with my brother. After all, what little girl doesn’t love a strawberry?

We made apple crisp together back in January, when sexier stone fruits were a faint memory, and we craved something warm and homey for dessert. Looking back at our early pastry sessions, this one was the most relaxing—absolutely perfect for the grandmother who doesn’t so much want to bake, as she wants to spend an hour in the brilliant company of her grandchild. Food prep as a means to an end.

Even for the most experienced grandmother, homemade profiteroles are an ambitious project. They call for mixing on the stovetop and using a pastry bag. But I wanted to pass along a pastry that has haunted me for thirty years, ever since I saw a chef turn a simple lumpy dough into magical golden spheres.

Piper and my love affair with baking took flight during Thanksgiving weekend 2018. She was about six when the family gathered at my Los Angeles home that year, and I wanted time alone with her, away from the hubbub.

I didn’t set out to be a cupcake baker. Before I became a mother, my idea of a cupcake was the one I grew up with. The industrial kind, with a perfect white squiggle sitting atop a depthless chocolate pond.

At this point, Piper is such a skilled baker that she could probably make these heavenly miniature French almond cakes all by herself. Her father may still be useful for handling hot ovens and reaching high shelves; and I’m awfully good at keeping up the patter and setting timers, but let’s face it—we can see the future and we are expendable.

Now that food writing is a legit profession, new college grads sometimes seek me out for advice. “How did you do it? What is the path to a career writing about food,” they ask, clutching their liberal arts diplomas in their anxious little hands.

Back before Covid times, the nation once spent a week debating whether a woman who didn’t want to stay home and bake cookies was fit to be the first lady. Then that non-baker had the nerve to really get out of the house!

By the time Joe announced that he was moving his family to London in 2016, I knew the drill. They had already moved to Austin and New York, and now they were off on their London adventure. I cheered them on, and started searching airfares.

We are a family of cookie lovers. Strawberry thumbprints, apricot coconut haystacks, butterscotch blondies, marbled pinwheels, petit cheesecakes, chocolate espresso drops, chocolate chips. You name it. We love them all. Still, I was surprised when Piper requested a madeleine for our next Pastry Session. So precocious!

What woman hasn’t flirted with a wacky nonsensical diet? I started at age five by eating nothing but the little chocolate cookies called Snaps for a week. I didn’t lose any weight. But I did feel a lot calmer.

A month into our baking sessions, to encourage student engagement, I asked Piper and her father if they had any requests. While she must have been dreaming about triple layer chocolate cakes stuffed with gooey marshmallows and dripping with caramel, Joe jumped right in. “The lemon tart,” he said. 


Growing up in the Bronx in the 1950s was like living in a small Polish village, set at the tempo of a Scorsese movie, shot in Yiddish. Everyone played her part.

In the world of cookies, looks count. These buttery sugar cookies topped with a Jackson Pollock drizzle of chocolate are like the sparkly pixie dream girl of baked goods. Brought to a party, they dazzle.

If every recipe tells a story, these dark chocolate brownies tell a tale of ice-cold greed and grubby ambition set in 1980s Los Angeles. Back when I was just starting to discover the power that being a good cook/baker held, I noticed that if I brought these to Hollywood parties with folks above my pay grade, I got invited back. As long as I kept bringing the brownies, I was a player. Or, at least I got to stand next to players on the buffet line.

Mandelbread, the homely Jewish sister of elegant biscotti, was a gamble to make with an 8-year-old girl. Piper’s palate has been informed by pink overly frosted girlie-girl cupcakes from her favorite London bake shop, chocolate chunk supermarket cookies the size of her head, and stale Girl Scout cookies. 

If I am to be remembered for anything, let it be this sophisticated single layer cake—the most elemental chocolate cake on the planet. I was thrilled when I mastered it 40 years ago, intuiting that I had the perfect 30-minute seemingly flourless chocolate cake to bring to holiday gatherings and dinner parties forever. Back in the 80s, I was working on my first cookbook, Ma Cuisine, a collaboration with the great chefs of Los Angeles, at Ma Maison, the hottest restaurant in town, then led by wunderkind chef Wolfgang Puck.