All Blog Posts from Hannah's Blog

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Even though today is a day to indulge at the dinner table, our fave dietician Keri Glassman has some great tips to help you pick "the best of the worst!" My favorite dessert is pecan pie, which Keri informs me is the worst of the worst, but I'm gonna eat it anyway.

Dave Price and I are hosting the Thanksgiving Day Parade on CBS and we don't get to move off the set for three hours, so afterwards we are absolutely ravenous! I am headed to Bobby Flay's for a feast! Hope your meal and your day are wonderful. Thank God for our families, our friends and our health!

It’s cold and rainy in New York -- a really dreary day that's perfect for comfort food. And it doesn't get much better than the mashed potatoes we had on The Early Show this morning. Sure, it was part of our Thanksgiving Dinner 101 series, but why wait? We made ours with lots of butter and cream and added chives and cheddar cheese. They are the best I've ever had!

I have never been a good mashed-potato maker, but my mother-in-law’s potatoes are legendary and she has always called them "bunny tails" because they are so white and fluffy.

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It's a quest as old as time (or at least dating back a couple hundred years) -- how to cook a big bird that has almost no flavor and try to give it some modicum of taste, while, at the same time, not drying it out and actually having it look somewhat edible on a platter. Yes, I'm talking turkey.

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With my dad, Mike, and his wife, Lynn, overlooking the mall in Washington D.C., Saturday, Nov. 2, 2007. Dad’s older sisters, Trish and Mary Lane, had 19 kids between them! Sixteen made it to the wedding -- a real feat!
Click here to see more photos from our family gathering over the weekend.

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Family has always been really important to me. I coming from a huge Irish Catholic clan with no less than 25 first cousins! We used to vacation every year together in Nags Head, N.C., but as we all got older with families and jobs of our own, we see each other much less frequently. My dad, Mike, has always tried to keep everyone in touch. This past spring, it really hit home just how important that is to do. Dad had an emergency quadruple bypass... it was really serious. When you come close to losing someone, you realize that whatever it takes, I'm terms of planning and schedules, that making that extra effort to see family really pays off. So when my cousin, Sean Kiley, got married this past weekend in Tysons Corner, Va., we were there in full force, having a blast and appreciating every minute of our time together!

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As you know, toys with high lead levels have been in the news a lot lately, with a slew of recalls since summer.

Conscientious parents have been snapping up home testing kits, to check and make sure the toys in their homes are safe for their kids. But here's what we discovered at The Early Show: Our intrepid consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen, who has two young ones of her own, found out from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that those tests are "unreliable." Check out the video of today's segment for more details.

The bottom line: You can't test these toys at home and you better hope all of the bad ones are off the shelves. I know that with three girls, the jewelry recalls really concern me -- I have one daughter who is in grade school who still likes to chew on everything! So this is something we all need to stay on top of and The Early Show is on the case, especially with the holidays coming up. More to follow!

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Toy recalls and safety information

If you have a preteen or teenage daughter and have browsed the bookshelves of your local store lately, you have no doubt seen the less-than-impressive collection of books in the "young adult" section. There are some hugely popular series with such inspiring names as "The It Girl" and "Gossip Girl." The latter has even made into a widely popular TV series as well ... a virtual "Sex in the City" for the younger set. And if you think the show is racy, check out the books, which are chock full of vulgar language, sex, drugs and drinking.

In the books, it's high school kids doing this stuff; in real life, younger kids are reading it.

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If you have a preteen or teenage daughter and have browsed the bookshelves of your local store lately, you have no doubt seen the less-than-impressive collection of books in the "young adult" section. There are some hugely popular series with such inspiring names as "It Girl" and "Gossip Girl." The latter has even made into a widely popular TV series as well ... a virtual "Sex in the City" for the younger set. And if you think the show is racy, check out the books, which are chock full of vulgar language, sex, drugs and drinking.

In the books, it's high school kids doing this stuff; in real life, younger kids are reading it.

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If you have young kids and get a chance this weekend, you might want to go through your medicine cabinet and toss out those infant cough and cold medicines, says our Dr. Emily Senay. Most big companies are participating in a voluntary recall of these medications, which are not only ineffective, but can also be very dangerous. You may notice your local drug store cleaning them off the shelves, but here's a warning: Do not buy medications which are meant for older kids and give them to your child under the age of two. Emily says these medications are inappropriate for that age group. In fact, we may even see them re-evaluated for older kids as well. It's always best in the case of cough and colds with kids of any age to do the natural things. I remember many days of saline spray and cool mist humidifiers, and that's what Emily says we still need to do with our little ones who have stuffy noses.

Click here for more of her advice for parents, including a list of the recalled products.

Wishing you a safe and healthy weekend. See you Monday!

Odds are you probably have one of these in your household. My fifth grader has been a super picky eater since she was a toddler, opting only for white foods -- processed foods involving white sugar or white flour, or starchy foods. French fries, pasta, chicken nuggets and Cheerios are the staples of her diet. Somehow, she has managed to grow into a tall, healthy and smart little girl. But I still have trouble reconciling the fact that her diet is essentially protein free! Three's no peanut butter, eggs or meat of any kind “except” for one certain brand of chicken nuggets that she has been eating for the last eight years. She used to eat hot dogs until she found out they were made from beef. Now, because of her professed love for cows, she won’t touch them. In fact, she has taken to telling people she’s a "cow-etarian."

I’ve asked myself, where did I go wrong?

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