I started taking all these cooking classes. I learned a lot in them, but you think you're going to retain it, and you don't. Under the pressure, it's hard to retain everything.

When Joan Rivers walked through the curtain on 'The Tonight Show,' nobody in my house was allowed to utter a sound. Her gait was full of pep and purpose and her voice unmatched.

Of course I love cooking Eastern European food because I'm a Jew, but I also love making roast chicken. I love making Hungarian goulash. There are a lot of egg noodles in my cooking.

When I got a part in 'All American Girl,' in 1994, I remember thinking, 'Now I have a series, I'm not going to need to do standup,' but every night I'd go out afterward and get onstage somewhere.

Mother humor is such a universal theme. I wrote a show called '25 Questions for a Jewish Mother.' I had people coming up to me after the show saying, 'I'm Baptist, and my mother is just like yours.'

I do believe that it's something that we don't talk about, but when there are clearly defined gender roles, it is much simpler. Because you don't have to think, which people apparently don't like to do.

I would love to get married, first of all, from my children's perspective. People don't think of children when they think of gay marriage, but I do have children, and for them to see their family validated as other families are validated and protected by our government, yes.

I'm not sure when exactly I knew I was funny, but I always knew I was different. I never had an 'edit' button and would say whatever came into my head. Most of the time, what came out of my mouth was the very thing everyone else was thinking - but too polite or afraid to verbalize.

My desire for my own sitcom began as a little girl - I spent hours lying on my belly on the shag carpeting getting lost in the world of the '70s sitcom. All I wanted to do was run away to the Brady house, The Partridge Family bus; even the project on 'Good Times' seemed better than Clark, NJ.

Twelve years ago my mother gets her cataracts removed. So twelve years ago the doctor gives her these enormous sunglasses to wear to protect her eyes from the sun for 4-6 weeks after the operation...twelve years ago. She still wears them. She thinks they're attractive. She looks like Bea Arthur as a welder.

I have decided now that my mother should be the GPS woman, don't you think? That would be fantastic: 'Make a left in 11 miles. Get over now - I want you to be prepared. Turn right on Elm Street, I want to see if Myrna Rosenblatt is still alive. Make your second left by the Dairy Queen. Don't go in, they're anti-Semitic.'

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