Award-winning journalist and star Judge of Baking It on NBC with Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Andy Sandburg Norma Zager combines her years of stand-up comedy with her writing skills, to create an offbeat, hilarious take on Baby Boomer life and growing older in today's world that touches the chocolate-coated soul of everyone.
One of the stars of the Food Network’s Clash of the Grandmas, Zager had returned to journalism after a 14-year stint as a stand up comic, playing Vegas regularly and opening for the biggest names in laughter. She created Norma’s 14 Karat Cookies after moving to Los Angeles and was the first comedian to have her own comedy/cooking show in Las Vegas. Her numerous television and radio appearances including Home and Family and appearances on the Food Network made her a favorite with audiences.
Her cooking show on Beverly Hills Cable Network can also be seen on Youtube.
In 1999, Zager returned to her journalistic roots when she accepted a reporter position at the Beverly Hills Courier newspaper and became editor after nationally scooping all other media and breaking the story about Laura Schlessinger’s mother’s death.
When Erin Brockovich sued the city of Beverly Hills alleging an oil well on
on high school grounds was the cause of numerous cancers in former students, Zager’s coverage garnered national attention. In 2003 she was named Los
Angeles Journalist of the Year and Best Investigative Reporter by the Los Angeles Press Club. The Wall Street Journal and The Columbia Journalism Review both featured articles about her work on the Brockovich story.
Zager’s book about the Brockovich/Beverly Hills lawsuit entitled Erin Brockovich and the Beverly Hills Greenscam, is currently available on Amazon and bookstores everywhere.
Lila Luminosity and the Lipstick Murders and Lila Luminosity and the Planet Christmas Murders combine her love of comedy, cooking and reporting to create a crazy, zany, fun-filled ride through the universe armed with chocolate, shoes and every woman’s perfect boyfriend. They are also available on Amazon.
Zager and her family reside in Los Angeles, where she is a journalist, radio show host, author, speaker and part-time journalism professor at California State University.
Getting old sucks. Oh sure there are those joyful Pollyanna’s who run about spouting how grateful they are to be getting older, and I would so like to trip them as they leap along on the happiness trail.
No, I am not saying I don’t want to be here and am not appreciative that each New Year’s eve I am still here to celebrate. It’s just that why do we need all these reminders we are getting older? Is the mirror not enough?
There are many who decry birthdays as a day less than exciting. Still, in the past I always regarded that special day as my special day. But is it really? What message is it actually sending? That we are getting older? That we are only special one day a year? That time is passing faster than a collection plate at a Sunday morning church service?
All of the above I’m afraid.
If age is truly a state of mind, why must it be stated constantly? We are forced to come to grips with another passing year on our birthdays, New Years Eve and when our driver’s license is renewed. And of course don’t forget about how many times a day you are asked to fill out forms including your birth date. My question is, “why is it necessary to face the ravages of time so often?”
We all know we are born. Why must we have a day set aside each year to stuff our faces with sugar-laden carbohydrates like birthday cake, get presents we don’t need, see who gives a damn enough to wish us happy birthday on Facebook and listen to people telling you how good you look for your age?
Shouldn’t one day a year suffice? Choose one please. Is it to be New Year’s or a birthday? One is redundant. Why must we be reminded how old we are when we already have enough evidence of the passing of time?
I can look at my children and know how many years have flown. I can see my grandchildren growing before my eyes and wonder where the years went. I can look at my wedding pictures and tear up over all those no longer here. Is it necessary to rub it in for a whole day each year?
I have come to the conclusion that when the devil made his agreement with God to provide the world with flies and mosquitoes (an added bonus) he also begged for birthdays. God, busy with other important things like creating the world, choosing colors for flowers and placing the calorie count into foods was a bit distracted so he paid little attention when the devil said, let’s have a birthday every year.
God being God and all might have assumed the devil was trying to be nice because he threw in the added bonus of mosquitoes; so old Lucifer was able to pull a fast one.
Let’s let them think birthdays are a good thing, he thought. Presents, cakes, making wishes. Old Satan was in seventh heaven knowing people would completely turn his cruel joke around and think it was intended for good.
So what am I saying here? Am I saying we shouldn’t celebrate being alive? Hell NO! But we should celebrate it every day, not once a year when it is clouded with irrelevant side issues like who forgot your special day? And why you can’t fit in the pants you wore on your birthday last year.
We should get up each day filled with gratitude just to be breathing. Where is it written cake can only be eaten with a candle on top to make someone happy? I know I’m happy any day there’s cake involved in the mix.
Why do we need an excuse to give the people we love gifts or shower them with love? This should be a regular occurrence that requires no special time frame.
When I was younger I would fill with gloom two weeks before every birthday. The skies were cloudy and the earth would seem dark and depressing. I’d walk around like Pigpen with a cloud above my head and then the day would arrive.
It was my birthday. I’d awaken awaiting the earth to open and swallow me, or worse. Then the happy birthdays would come, the cake, the presents and well wishes, and somehow by the end of the day the clouds had lifted and the sky was blue once more.
I always attributed this to the fact I’d survived another year. I now believe it’s that I survived another birthday.
When Satan realized he’d gotten away with the birthday thing, he invented magnifying mirrors to destroy the Lord’s merciful response to the aging process… farsightedness. The less clearly we see the ravages of time, the kinder the universe.
Magnifying mirrors destroyed the illusion we are not seeing wrinkles, sagging jowls and all the other fun things that happen to our faces. So the Lord gave us plastic surgery, fillers and Botox to counteract the devil’s cruel little joke.
But the devil didn’t care cause he still had birthdays.
Every second, we get older by another second. Should we light a candle every second? Who decided one year would be the celebratory marker. Why not every two years or ten?
I know it’s a blessing to be getting older, but I’ve made up my mind that waiting for a birthday to celebrate isn’t sufficient. I need presents, cake and feeling special every day. So I’ve created the anytime I want a birthday birthday and treat myself whenever I wish.
I need some special today so I’m buying a cake and blowing out a candle. Hey, it’s a free country.
Not one to enjoy being one of the crowd I shall create my own way to celebrate my own day whenever and however I choose. Besides, after a certain age they don’t call you crazy but eccentric and I passed that marker a few birthdays ago.
I’m calling my grandsons to celebrate with me today. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me… Join me, please!
The recipe for this blog I have called Snoozles. Mostly because it is such comfort food, it can put you to sleep.
It’s based on my favorite meal my Grandmother used to prepare for me; greasy hamburger, lumpy mashed potatoes and peas.
My grandmother was a terrible cook, but I loved it when she made anything for me. I created Snoozles to remind me of how wonderful it felt watching her place that greasy hamburger onto my plate. It was a special moment when she prepared food, because I knew it wasn’t her favorite thing to do, so I guess I appreciated it even more knowing that was the case.
This dish operates on two levels, it tastes delicious and it also feels good to eat because it conjures up wonderful memories of my Grandma.
Enjoy!
Snoozles
Two sheets of puff pastry
3 ½ cups mashed potatoes
½ cup peas fresh or frozen
1cup turkey or hamburger ground or chopped
Add peas and turkey to mashed potatoes
Spread evenly on puff pastry sheet
Roll over once and cut Roll over again and cut and repeat this until all cut.
Place in well-buttered muffin tins and place a puff pastry pumpkin on top.
Brush with egg wash.
Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes until puff pastry is cooked.
Design
Cut a design like a flower or anything you’d like out of puff pastry and place on top of Snoozle before placing in oven. When done paint with food coloring or leave plain.
Hollywood is a Grandma-free-zone and no one who is intimidated by the aging process should step foot on Hollywood Blvd.
Last week I saw them dragging a screaming old lady away from Clark Gable’s footsteps at Mann’s Theatre for being old in public. One tourist turned to another and asked, “Who was Clark Gable?”
I’m not sure what was the saddest part of that whole scene.
The newest and most profitable business in Los Angeles is a company that builds boats for people over 49 to be sent out to sea to die. There’s a three-year waiting list already.
If you think I’m imagining this insanity ask any producer or television exec what happens when you mention the word Grandmother. They break out in hives, start to hyperventilate and run from the room in terror.
Exaggeration?
I think not.
A friend and I met with a producer about a show we developed for older women.
His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw the word Grandma in the title.
I quickly covered the word with my hand and said, “It’s okay, calm down, see I made it go away.”
After catching his breath and downing two Xanax he informed us in no uncertain terms no one was interested in women on television over 49.
“And don’t say Betty White either,” he retorted. “She is only on there because she is surrounded by young hotties.”
I never had the heart to tell him that those “hotties” would never see fifty again. Why destroy his illusions?
Forget that one of the most popular and loveable characters on Bravo television was realtor Josh Flagg’s late grandmother, Edith.
Yes, Hollywood is a world-unto-itself. Thank the Lord.
In Europe older women are embraced as sexy, wise and worldly. Men delight in their vast experience and their ageless beauty. Sophia Loren is looked on as a goddess, not an old crone.
I am not certain this is because the men in America have better eyesight or the Europeans are not as fussy about their women. And yes, let us keep in mind French women don’t shave their armpits. Of course Europe is an old country and America a baby so maybe…
In America women over fifty are invisible, unless of course they are walking around half naked with a set of store-bought DDDs stopping traffic on Sunset Boulevard.
If you would think it is a scary state of being, you would be correct. So what is a Grandmother to do?
Throw away her Oil of Olay? Pack and leave town before she brings disgrace on her family? Wear a veil?
Okay, so that does work for Muslim women.
Ah, now I get the whole Burqua thing!
Shall I repair into my golden years in a black dress and sensible shoes like an Italian grandmother? Spending all my time making sauce and rolling pasta dough?
“Come dip my homemade Italian bread in Grandma’s perfect marinara?
Or shall I make Aliyah to an assisted living home where my children may come to visit once a month, if I am lucky?
Or if wealthy enough make a pilgrimage to Boca Raton, where I can spend my time playing maj jong and looking for a man with his own teeth who can still drive at night?
You would think I am embellishing my conundrum, but unfortunately I am not.
Last week the Beverly Hills City Council took up the issue of whether or not the police should give tickets for excessive wrinkling. The measure was, of course supported by all the plastic surgeons and Botox manufacturers. It failed by only one vote.
Isn’t it bad enough the fat police patrol is still at large, suspiciously eyeing anyone at the Krispy Krème drive thru and taking license plate numbers?
So what should one do who feels they still have more to offer the world than good lasagna or mandal bread?
Don’t move to Los Angeles is a damn good start. There is no doubt in my mind as to why there are so many kooks running through the palm-tree laden streets of LA. Why there are so many car chases across its bumper-to-bumper freeways. Why men always look like a cat that just ingested a ten-pound canary.
Simply, it is because young women are in abundance and older women are in hiding. Or, as we refer to these young chicks in over 49 circles the third-wife-to-be.
Yoga classes are filled with fifties and ups stretching and downward dogging their way back to youth. Hair colorists are so abundant you can’t blink without bumping into one and plastic surgeons are so finely honed, that a woman can leave for lunch and arrive back at work looking ten years younger.
Men check women out like Carl Sagan checked out every star in the galaxy. They balk if a woman has one wrinkle too many, reminds them of their mother or simply isn’t the perfect image of beauty they feel they deserve.
Meanwhile, have you taken a look at these aging Lotharios lately?
OY!
They have spray on tans, spray on hair, blue pills bulging from their pockets and a dating profile on those meet-a-felon sites that is filled with more lies and exaggerations than a politician’s resume. Quick dating tip here: orange jump suits are not a turn on!
They examine every woman they date with the precision of a butcher frenching a lamb chop for the Oscar’s Governor’s Ball and their expectations are higher than Keith Richard’s partying with Janis Joplin.
As Bette Davis once opined, “getting old is not for sissies.” It is also not for women. And please don’t ask me, who is Bette Davis!
Men age well. They gain an air of distingue and intrigue. Women gain weight and arm themselves each day for another battle with gravity. A war they ultimately lose.
They Spanx themselves together as best as they can before embarking into the world, ass dragging and boobs searching the sidewalk like they are looking for lost quarters.
No bra too big
No skin too tight to hide the ravages of time.
Good News! There is always a way to cope with these depressing facts of life; grandchildren. One hug from my grandsons and I am immediately as young at heart as a 66-year-old man riding the Seine at midnight with a Paris model.
As one learns quickly in LA, there are certain foods that will arm one best for battle against the aging process and this week’s miracle food is beets. Supposedly it is the nuclear option for battling all the ravages of time. I am of course waiting for the day the Surgeon General announces chocolate as the cure all for all human ailments.
Until that glorious day you can find a good plastic surgeon on your own. But before you do, go hug your grandchildren. I promise it’s cheaper and totally pain free.
Here is my recipe for Garlic Sirloin Egg Rolls. ENJOY!!!!
Garlic Lovers Sirloin Egg Rolls
4 cloves of garlic roasted (or 11/2 cps of the roasted garlic in the grocery store already roasted and peeled. I buy the ones at Whole Foods olive bar)
1 cup of ground sirloin
2 packages of mushrooms
1 cups of onion chopped
1½ cups of heavy cream
½ cup of shredded provolone cheese (optional)
1 tablespoon of butter
2 tablespoons of oil
½ cup of Sherry
2 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon thyme
Egg roll wrappers
If roasting your own garlic preheat oven to 400 degrees. Unwrap outer cover of garlic leaving heads in tact. Cut off the top portion of the head so a bit of the garlic is exposed. Smear with some olive oil and wrap garlic cloves in foil and roast them in the oven for about 45 minutes. When done, carefully remove foil and squeeze garlic out to use.
Sauté ground sirloin seasoned with salt and pepper and set aside.
Cut up mushrooms and add with onions to oil and butter in frying pan. Season with thyme and salt then sauté until soft. Add sherry and sauté until sherry is reduced about 3 minutes more.
Combine sirloin in pan with mushrooms and onions. Add garlic and mix together on low heat until heated through two minutes or so.
Remove mixture and then add 2 cups of cream to fry pan used for mushroom frying. Warm on low heat until cream thickens and can coat the back of the spoon. Add two tablespoons of roasted garlic to cream mixture and stir in well. Pour through a sieve to remove bits.
Set aside and cover to keep warm.
Spread about 1 heaping tablespoon of garlic on the egg roll wrapper at the pointed edge. This is where you can add the shredded cheese if you’d like. Roll up halfway and fold in sides and continue rolling sealing with water at the end to seal. Do not roll too loose or oil will seep in. Place on wax paper until ready to fry.
Add 1 cup of oil to a ten-inch fry pan and heat to 350.
Place egg rolls in hot oil and fry on all sides until golden brown. Don’t overfill pan of the temperature will drop and the egg rolls will be greasy. Serve hot with cream dipping sauce.
Can be a meal, appetizer or made smaller to use as an hors D’oeuvre. Can be stored by separating them with wax paper so they don’t touch when you place them in freezer.
Grandmas don’t just say “that’s nice”– they reel
back and roll their eyes and throw up their hands and smile. You get your
money’s worth out of grandmas…Author unknown
I
have always found it difficult to understand women who say in a distressed
tone, “I can’t believe I’m going to be a grandmother.”
Sure, it’s an absolute
sign you are growing older, but will being a grandmother change the passing of
years? So, how better to spend those years than with your grandchildren?
Today’s Grammy is a
new and improved model, hip, downward dogging and botoxed to the hilt. It is a
baby boomer Grammy who rules the roost now. We are not our mothers or
grandmothers and certainly don’t look the same.
We have worked,
exercised, pursued noble goals and watched television go from Howdy Doody to 24 to the Real Housewives of anywhere you can think of.
We think young, so
young in fact we can relate to our precious angels with a new and modern
mindset.
We still bake cookies,
but they are organic and sugar free.
We still play games
with our toddlers, but they are on the smart phone.
We text, turn heads
and remain relevant and fabulous.
We are the new black.
So what does a modern
Grammy do to ensure she remains in good stead with our au currant and health-conscious
children?
After all, somewhere
deep inside us there is still a need for that Sara Lee brownie, some French
fries and an occasional diet cherry Coke.
Young mothers today
follow a set of guidelines so filled with rules and regulations, it makes
filling out your income taxes a day at the beach.
Is it sugar free?
Organic? Plastic without PBA, grass fed and hormone free, vegan, gluten free?
The list is endless and grows by the minute.
What happened to the
good old days when Toll House cookies were a necessity following a tough school
day? When a glass of milk with Hershey’s was the drink of choice and Yoo
Hoo was revered by chocolate gourmets?
Did we care if our
wine was filled with Flavonoids, our flour was enriched, chickens were free
range or vegetables organically grown?
Now it is all about
organic, environmentally correct and green clothing and toys.
Washing detergents
that don’t pollute and some dubious child-rearing methods that don’t compute.
Still, one must look
on with a sense of gratitude that their grandchildren are so loved and adored
that our own children are putting so much effort into raising them in new ways.
Ways that may ultimately create a whole new set of issues and consequences no
one ever foretold or saw coming. Hopefully, they will not.
Sadly, our children
haven’t yet grasped the “here one day; gone and guilty another
theory” of child rearing.
When my daughter was
born her pediatrician recommended a certain brand of formula.
I followed all the
rules, but being a baby boomer, pseudo hippy I also had some ideas. I delivered
all natural, made baby food in a blender and believed I was doing the best I
possibly could to raise her in a healthy and caring fashion. After all, we
claimed to be tied to the earth.
Bursting with
confidence, I entered second child land self-assured.
I spoke to the doctor
about formula for my newborn son and asked if I should continue using the same
I’d used for my daughter.
“Oh, no,” he
said immediately. “There is way too much fat in that brand, we never
recommend it anymore.”
Oops, hello guilt.
Confidence just fell to the basement and I am now feeling responsible for every
fat cell that may have build a condo in my daughter’s thighs.
I found refuge in the
belief my homemade, healthy baby food would somehow repair my folly.
I had only listened to
the doctor after all, how was I to know?
Of course my new
greatest fear was that the formula I was now feeding my son would also in five
years be found sorely lacking.
Motherhood is
difficult. There are no manuals, but tons of books with competing methods and,
of course the advice from your own parents that everyone takes with a grain of
salt. After all, every generation knows better—or does it?
One would think a
doctor’s counsel would be paramount in the “this can’t hurt my baby”
department, but as every parent learns, medical information changes like the
wind and so too the advice that’s offered.
Yet, if raising your
own children was challenging, being a grandparent today creates a new set of
trials.
Sadly, with aging
comes less total recall, at least for some, yet grandparenting foists new rules
and regulations on one constantly. My short-term memory has left the building,
but I can remember the sixties better now than when I lived them.
I am often guilty of
forgetting some new instruction, finding myself in hot water and in,
“Mother I told you not to say it that way land.”
This is hard, like
studying for finals when your dorm neighbors are partying upstairs.
What to say, how to
act, what to feed, wow, there is a great deal of new data, and sadly the
computer in my head cannot boot up as quickly.
Our offspring are so
serious while we just want to grab our grandchildren and have them all to
ourselves.
One friend told me
recently she and her husband were at lunch with their grandson.
When Grandpa attempted
to feed his pride and joy a piece of cake he was blocked by his daughter’s
lecture on the evils of sugar.
He turned to his wife
and whispered, “We’ll have him all next week when they’re on vacation then
we can feed him whatever we want.”
If this sounds unfair
or harsh, let me remind you all that no child ever wanted to rush to grandma’s
house for celery? No kid ever bragged that my grandma makes the best quinoa or
vegan cupcakes.
Point of fact, one of
the joys of childhood is the knowledge that grandparents are exempt from home
rules and regulations.
Visiting is entering
that special land of “I am the grandchild and anything goes at Grandma’s
house.”
An important part of
learning about unconditional love is the understanding there is a place on
earth where you are ruler of the world. You can do no wrong, and as we all know
that place is at Grammy’s.
I imagine that’s why
Red Riding Hood was so shocked to see a big bad wolf. No bad stuff could ever
happen, because it’s the ultimate “all-about-me zone.”
As an enlightened, yet
frequently confused grandmother, I have attempted to live within the
guidelines, at least when I could remember them. I have tried to redo my
cooking to include more healthy versions of my children’s favorites.
These newly
“greened up” recipes help, but don’t you kind of want to occasionally
bake that yummy chip filled cookie for your little angels and serve them up a
giant glass of cold milk (cows not almonds), read them a Grimm fairy tale then
let them watch a Road Runner cartoon with you?
Today’s kids will grow
up shopping at Whole Foods (whole paycheck) and believing you have to sell half
your stock portfolio to go to a grocery store.
However, at the end of
the day, perhaps this may be a case of the egg teaching the chicken. Our kids
do deserve the benefit of the doubt. We did.
Ironic if our grandchildren subsequently offer up a whole new set of rules for our great grandchildren, and wouldn’t it be ironic if it were the old ones we lived by?
Lox and Bagel Bites
2 cucumbers
1 tub whipped cream cheese
1 tablespoon finely chopped
sweet onion
½ cup nova lox cut up
Bagel chips
1 hard boiled egg optional
Cut cucumbers in 1-inch
circles
Hollow out seeds and pat dry
and set aside
Mix together lox onions and
cream cheese and lighting salt and pepper. Remember lox can be salty so go slow
with the seasoning
With a teaspoon or a pastry bag fill cucumber rounds with cream cheese mixture.
Garnish with pieces of bagel chips and if so desired grate some hard boiled egg and capers on top.
Thanks for joining me on this journey through the recesses of my crazy life and crazier mind. If I’ve learned anything from living it is that it’s all so much easier if you can take existence with a teaspoon of chocolate and a sense of humor. After all is said and done, I guess life is really easy, but people make it hard. I strive daily to make it easier by laughing at the absurd, feeling compassion for the struggling and opening my heart to humanity. I wish all my readers, love laughter and all their wishes fulfilled.
“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter…” Mark Twain
NormaZager.com 