It was created by playwright Terrence McNally,[1] featured a theme song by Kander and Ebb,[2] and starred Lila Kaye in the title role as a New Yorker with a cooking show.
Each episode began with her instructing her viewers on a recipe that was never completed because a parade of family members, friends, and acquaintances kept popping in to interrupt her and eat up the show's running time.
[4] There was snobbery in theatre groups over TV writers, so McNally hitched his star to the wagon of Norman Lear, who was an uncredited producer[4] and assembled a crew of veterans of All in the Family, including Paul Bogart, who directed all 13 episodes.
Not knowing how television worked, McNally initially insisted on writing all of scripts himself,[4] but he ultimately penned seven of the teleplays, with the others knocked out by established TV writers, as well as fellow playwright Leonard Melfi.
[5] Initially, the show was slated to premiere in the fall of 1982,[6][7][8] but it was dropped from the schedule to make a slot for Filthy Rich,[9] which was an unexpected hit when its pilot episodes were burned off that summer.