Transcripts For WBAL Today 20100412 : vimarsana.com

talked about a little earlier. this is a boy, 7-year-old from right shouldera, who was adopted by a woman in tennessee. she cared for that young boy for several months and then sent him back, claiming he was troubled and violent. sent him back on a plane with a note saying i don t want him anymore. a lot of people are really upset about this story. yeah. we ll have more on that, coming up. meantime, over the weekend, i don t know if you guys watched it, but phil mickleson won his third masters in augusta. and watching my husband watched this final. when he s hugging his wife who, by the way, is battling breast cancer, she came in to give him a big hug. you know, we re looking now at tiger woods on your screen. he wanted that win. we ll find out what he had to say about phil mickleson s win coming up. it was a great, great tournament. wasn t it? on so many levels. then your real estate taxes. a lot of people don t know that they can actually fight their real estate assessment. a lot of them don t realize, 60% of homeowners are actually overassessed by their property, in part because the local real estate hasn t caught up with the downturn. who doesn t want a good night s sleep? after you cut your tax, you want a good night s sleep. key to health and happiness. buying a new mattress set can be expensive. consumer tips are out to finding the best mattress at the best price. ann curry and her husband, just about to buy a new mattress. yes. i m going to be paying a lot of close attention. having a good night s sleep, that s it. that is it. it s better than anything. you want that. dave is saying how would i know that? i just know. ann and i share these kinds of things. it s a single bed, too. let s go inside. natalie has a check of the headlines. natalie? good morning, matt, ann and al. poland is united in grief as that country deals with the loss of its president, first lady and 90 others in a plane crash in russia. mourners gathered outside the presidential palace in warsaw where the public viewing of president lech kaczynski s coffin will be available tomorrow. investigators are questioning the pilot s decision to land even after he was warned not to because of bad weather. president obama is meeting with world leaders in washington, on a strategy to keep terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons. and also plans to have talks with china over new sanctions on iran s nuclear program. meantime, iran says it has started production on what it called an advanced air defense missile system. it says it expects a large number of medium-range missiles to be ready this year. gas prices are up almost four cents a gallon in the last three week, according to the lundberg survey. $2.89 a gallon for regular is the average price now. fewer passengers complained about late planes and lost bags last year but it also found fewer people were flying. dramatic rescue sunday in northern california after a car flipped into a creek. a woman who was swept away was later pulled out. but another person died, and a third person is believed to still be missing. as you ve heard, golfer phil mickleson s wardrobe has a third green jacket this morning after he won the masters on sunday in a tournament that also marked the return of tiger woods. more now from nbc s peter alexander. reporter: it was the green jacket tiger woods hoped he would be wearing. instead, crowd favorite phil mickleson was the one celebrating his third masters championship. woods was erratic on the course during sunday s final round. there were glimpses of brilliance but the world s top ranked golfer mostly appeared defeated. so battled every golf shot today. it was god awful. nothing was going my way early. i came here to win the event and i finished fourth. reporter: since his return to the game last week after a salacious sex scandal, woods went from being a source of curiosity to a contender. people realize, my god, he didn t lose his golf swing, you know. he lost his way. golf is so much more borie i bo without him. you, yourself, have not slept with tiger woods? i have not but in fairness to me, that is probably because i have never met him. reporter: on the 18th green, phil mickleson shared an emotional hug with his wife, amy. it s very emotional. it feels terrific and is very emotional. reporter: woods, his comeback under way and his marriage still up in the air left the course alone. tiger could learn a lot from phil mickleson. reporter: after sunday s final round, tiger woods was asked when we will see him compete again next. he said he is going to take some time off from the game and re-evaluate. peter alexander, nbc news, augusta. now five minutes past the hour. let s go back outside once again to matt and ann. you guys were glued to the masters. i know matt was probably. i wasn t. no? i watch ed a lot of it. mr. roker now with a check of the weather. thank you very much, mr. lawyer. some birthday girls here. your birthday wish is to come to new york city. what s your name? hayden. when is your birthday? april 12th. what s your name? mira. how old are you going to be? 7. and you re? 5. very nice. they have their american girls. very nice. you can get out of that store for under 500 bucks. isn t that great? anyway, thankfully, my girls are older now. let s check your weather, see what s going on. a real bargain. under 700, easily. winter storm warnings, winter weather advisory, mountains in california above 5,000 feet. they might be looking at one to two feet of snow in the mountains in the sierras. also looking at about half an inch to a quarter inch of rain. the rest of the country, we ve got beautiful weather up and down the eastern seaboard. slight risk of strong storms through the dakotas, rain in the upper mississippi river valley, texas, gulf coast l good morning, everyone. it looks like a very nice day. i think it will change tomorrow but we will start of monday with mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in that s your latest weather. natalie? al, thank you. new questions surrounding a tennessee woman s decision to send her 7-year-old adoptive son back to russia after deciding she couldn t deal with him anymore, claiming he was violent. the case is now threatening the adopti adoptions of many more russian children. nbc s ron allen is in shelbyville, tennessee, with the latest. good morning. reporter: good morning to you, natalie. the mother, torry hansen has disappeared, her home behind me has been shut down for several days. before this happened, neighbors say they rarely saw the family or the 7-year-old boy named justin. no one can understand why any mother, for any reason, could put a child on a plane with a note saying she doesn t want him anymore. thousands of miles from tennessee after ten hours alone on a flight, 7-year-old justin is being cared for in a russian hospital. outrage still simmering in a proud nation that calls what the mother did cruelty. she paid a tour guide $200 to meet the boy at the airport after sending him back. at the orphanage where torry ann hansen met justin, the staff remembers a happy mother and son, beginning a new life. the boy tells his caretakers while hansen didn t pete him, she often bulled him by his hair. the family claims that he was violent, unstable and threatened to burn the house down with the family in it. still, families like the kilcoynes, with two children adopted from russia cannot understand how a woman can put a child on a plane. your agency is there. once you get home, you should be able to go to them and say we re having problems. reporter: they worry that thousands of american families, adopting russian orphans, now will not be allowed to bring those children home. my heart is just breaking for those families, because they re so excited and they re just ready to, you know, get those children in their arms. this is so true. reporter: it all brings back painful memories for james and barbara diggs, who adopted an 8-year-old russian girl with severe emotional problems and who never bonded with them. she has a problem with compulsive lying, of severe disobedience. reporter: eventually, they made the decision to relinquish their daughter to a family better able to cope. several russian families want to adopt justin. experts say it s unclear how what s happened will affect him. we just don t know yet. the kid is probably a bit traumatized, in shock. a pretty weird thing just happened to him. reporter: as for hansen, many in the adoption community say they see an obvious case of child abuse. we just had a conversation with a local shif here, teriff here, investigator on the case. he hopes to have a meeting with the family and even the mother might show up. natalie? if you own a home, you may be paying too much in property taxes. we ll tell you how you may be able to lower them. and then later, taking care of your health and well-being by finding the perfect mattress. we ll tell you what you should look for. first, these messages. 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( gasps ) what s in your wallet? wait up! you said you bought a digiorno. but the pizza came with cheesy breadsticks. new digiorno pizza & breadsticks. taste. believe. it s not delivery. it s digiorno. she found the box. maybe cause you left it right on the counter. this morning on today s real estate, slashing your property taxes. according to the national taxpayers association, 60% of homes are overassessed. what can we do to start saving? brick house real estate contributor barbara corcoran has the answer. good to see you. good morning, al. why is this happening? 60% of homes estimated are over-taxed? towns across america hasn t kept pace with what s going on with real estate values. values have jumped down more than 30% nationwide, yet people are being charged based on what their home used to be worth. you don t have to moan about it. you can do something about it. you don t necessarily have to hire an attorney to do this. no, you don t. a lot of people think you need an attorney or professional whose line of business it is. attorneys usually charge anywhere between 10% and 15% of the first two years savings. money out of your pocket. if you re not going to do anything, that s a better course of action than doing nothing at all. first of all, you say you should know how your town assesses your property. the reason for that is every town is different across america. most towns, a great majority of them, do it every three to four years and use the month of june to do the reassessment. you usually have a one-month window to file your reassessment. the idea, if they do it every three to four years, like you say, they ve missed this had whole economic down tls durn. definitely, and then some. even ones that have reassessed recently and know about the economic downturn are very much in need of that tax revenue and they re not quick to do it unless you re asking. once you find out how they do it, you say go to your assessor s office and get something called a property card? all a property card really is, exactly what it sounds like, a log of how the assessor priced your house based on other comparables. if you simply ask for that, even if they say they don t want to show it to you, it s public record and you have a right to see it. do a lot of these assessors offices, do you have to physically go there? larger towns you can go online. sometimes by walking into the office, asking for the card and seeing a blatant mistake on it, you can change it right on the spot. what kind of mistakes are we talking about? the three most common are the easiest ones to find, bedroom count, bathroom count or whether or not your basement has been improved or not. when they say they make a mistake on the number of bedr m bedrooms, how do they make a mistake on bedrooms? what happens, an assessor, when they come into the house usually at a point of sale they often don t go upstairs and do a bedroom count. they go in, based on old information. they don t want to disturb people and often don t go down to the basement. it s easy to take a quick walk through and decide what it is. is there different criteria for what makes a bedroom or certain room of the house? not really. a full bedroom must have a window. if you have a little cubby hole that has no window, that s not a bedroom. check for houses that are currently on the market, similar houses to you. it s so easy to do today. what s wonderful is all that information is online. go to any large website like zillo.com or trulia.com and as long as you re looking for sale prices not ask prices, you can pick up all your neighborhood sa sales and do your own assessment. so you go and you contest your taxes. and they say, sorry, no can do. you re done. is that your last recourse? in many towns, it is the last chance. remember, 30% to 40% of the people who actually do this win. if you don t win and you re still not happy with the results, can you sue your municipality in their small claims court, which everyone knows is for free. what do you recommend as far as looking for help? if somebody says i just feel overwhelmed by this, is there free help out there? the best help in the world comes in the form of information. i think the single best organization out there is national taxpayers union. if you go online it s called ntu.org. they have all the information you ll need to take care of it yourself. can people talk to others who have done it themselves? i m sure you have neighbor that is have done something like this. surprisingly only 2% of americans do this. if you go to a help group where everyone in that help group is doing it nationwide, that s your best shot at help. not a lot of towns are going to be happy with you. i m sorry. i m moving out of my town right away. better you help us than the town. up next, their competition is rough. our next round of semi finalists in our search for top dog. later on, valerie harper has a lot going on these days. she ll tell us all about it. 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[ female announcer ] ask your rheumatologist about simponi™. just one dose, once a month. not anymore. now it describes everything we choose and buy. eat and drive. well, what if green could be simple again? as simple as say doing the laundry. presenting future friendly from p&g. the products you use every day designed to do one of three simple things: save water, save energy or reduce waste. because when green is user friendly. we can all be future friendly. future friendly from p&g. we can all be future friendly. can you believe how fast kids grow these days? and since 90% of bone strength is developed before adulthood. it s so important that they get enough calcium every day. that s why there s new danonino. danonino! unlike leading kids yogurts, danonino has twice the calcium of milk, ounce per ounce, with vitamin d. so it s power packed for healthy growth. and its rich creamy taste is. yummy! so they can start building strong bones today. for stronger bodies tomorrow. new danonino from dannon. power paed to help kids grow. announcer: today s top dog is brought to you by the makers of zyrtec. love the air. so this morning on today s top dog, round two of our semi finals. last friday, jami became our first finalist, and the dog from pennsylvania is best known as mom s little helper. now it s time to give her competition. we ll take a look at other dogs. bix is first up, named after the jazz musician bix beterbeck. she couldn t master the wind instrument but has pawed her way to piano. that s very good. can you play a little more piano? more piano. piano. more piano. encore? okay. take a bow. up. good boy. very dramatic piano playing. wants a snack for that. there you go. next, this dog is going green, 10-year-old jake is a rotweiler with a soft spot for the environment, helping to keep his park litter free. feed jake he s been a good dog my best friend right through it all if i die before i wake feed jake if i die before i wake feed jake if i die before i wake we need more people to do that. that would be much better. he should have been taking that to the store. he would have made 30 cents right there. our third semi finalists, 15-month-old sammy, this colorado rescue pooch has made it her mission to help her puppy pals find loving homes of their own by going to weekly adoption events and blogging about it online. what? yes. how cool. it s up to you to decide which one should move on to the final round of today s top dog. logon to todayshow.com or text your vote to 622639, one for bix, two for jake, three for sammy. voting continues until thursday noon eastern. increase in 6 months. pete, back it up! 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[ female announcer ] 28 delicious flavors at around 100 calories each. yoplait, it is so good. indulge in new blueberry pie and new red velvet cake. yoplait light. it is so good. good morning. i m lisa robinson. here is a look at some of our top stories. 600 city workers face losing their jobs under the current proposed budget. it includes cuts to nearly every city department. it is all meant to close a $121 million deficit. recreation centers and pools can be shut down while police department state s major loss of the resources, including fox- trot and the marine unit. today the mayor is to announce a new budget plan to that city council that will include some revenue generating ideas that might mean some services will not have to go away. some of the ways could include a beverage tax on every drink except milk, fruit juices and two leaders sodas, and another way making non-profit organizations and churches property-tax is. the clock is winding down of the 2010 session of the general assembly and it means the general frenzy of activity in the state house as lawmakers try to push some last-minute bills through committee. today s final day at work begins at 11:00 and runs until midnight. some prominent bills are increased penalties for sex offenders, authority to crack down on getting violence in schools and proposed tax credit for businesses that don t need to private schools. to read more on the bills, go to our website wbaltv.com and click on politics. now let us take a look at the forecast. things seem to be pretty quiet this monday. fantastic weather over the weekend and for the most part we will keep going today. sunshine this afternoon. probably a few high, thin clouds. temperatures in the upper 60 s to around 70 an average high is 63. not as warm as sunday but still above the mark. tomorrow a chance of a few rainshowers starting late tuesday and often on into wednesday morning and then it will clear up. thursday looks nice. maybe a few more showers on friday before we set up a decent weekend. see you back here at 9:55 a.m. a.m. - are you chronically ill and can t work? are you mentally ill and can t work? are you physically disabled and can t work? then the law firm of disability associates should be working for you. for years, disability associates has been working with our clients to get them the social security benefits that they deserve. don t be just another client at another law firm. - depend on disability associates because social security disability law is all that we do. yes some things get better the more they get together. mmmm. velveeta shells and cheese. the best side of dinner. don t say the word. do not say the word. okay. when you pull into the party store and you re unloading your kids and your 5-year-old joel yells oh, there s the paparazzi, then you know you ve been followed for a while. a busy single mother once jon & kate plus 8 with a different reality show. she s here to talk about dancing with the stars and what s going on in her life now tomorrow on today. coming up this half hour, something we all know a little bit about, or maybe we want to know more about. yeah. basically getting a good night s sleep. how to get a good night s sleep around here. there s never enough sleep. studies show it is the key to overall health, weight loss and well-being. weight loss? yes. i m not a health expert but they say it s true. when it comes to beds, one size does not fit all. consumer reports are out with advice on how to find the perfect mattress and pillow for your sleeping style at a price that won t make you lose any z s. in today s kitchen, banana bread pudding kicked up a notch. that sounds really good. yes. two of new york s top chefs, happen to be brother, are here to show us how to make the classic comfort recipe with butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream. heaven. we re going to attack it. before we attack it, let s find out what the weather is going to be. i like how ann said we re going to attack it! a little violence. but then she kind of calmed it down. let s check your weather and see what s happening. for your weather today, sunshine up and down the eastern seaboard, thunderstorms rumbling through florida, southern texas as well. more wet weather in the pacific northwest with mountain snows in the sierras. tomorrow, more wet weather throughout the plains, mild from the gulf, more rain in southern texas and florida. sunny in new england it looks like a nice start to work week. the problems this morning. you might see a few high, thin clouds. clouds. temperatures this afternoon that s your latest weather. al, thank you so much. coming up next, rest easy. we re going to have some tips, coming up on how to get a good night s sleep. that s coming up next. hi, may i help you? yes, i hear progressive has lots of discounts on car insurance. can i get in on that? are you a safe driver? yes. discount! do you own a home? yes. discount! are you going to buy online? yes! discount! isn t getting discounts great? yes! there s no discount for agreeing with me. yeah, i got carried away. happens to me all the time. helping you save money now, that s progressive. call or click today. diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating. that s me! can i tell you what a difference phillips colon health has made? it s the probiotics. the good bacteria. that gets your colon back in balance. i m good to go! phillips colon health. so kate you were stressed, a lot of junk food on the go and you were. a little irregular, sluggish. my daughter needed activia! so i gave it a try and wow. it works. now she has a spring on her step. i m loving it, every morning. mmmm. avo: help get your system back on track. activia with bifidus regularis helps regulate your digestive system would you recommend activia? i already have. she recommends it. what are you waiting for? singer: activia. what are you waiting for? our chefs learn secrets cookinof italian cooking., like how to blend four artisanal cheeses to create our new creamy fonduta sauce. in our new steak fonduta and grilled chicken fonduta. at olive garden. hundreds of bacteria. the new lysol no-touch hand soap system senses hands and dispenses soap that kills 99.9% of bacteria to help stop the spread of germs. the lysol no-touch hand soap system. never touch a germy soap pump again. explorers, great thinkers. they re the future of america, so let s bring them up right and give them our cheese. kraft singles. the american cheese. to learn to deal with other kids. you know, when they get out here. unbelievable. he has a sienna? i thought we were friends, gary. i really needed the space. you got the same carseat in there, gary. wait right there while daddy puts all this stuff back in the car. when this kind of thing happens, when another parent tries to copy your style, you just have to be the better man. [ male announcer ] meet the family and the new sienna on youtube. toyota. nutri-grain one good decision. can lead to another. made with real fruit and now with more. of the whole grains your body needs. nutri-grain can help you eat better all day. this morning on today s consumer, sleeping your way to better health with the perfect mattress. finding the right bed at the right price could have you tossing and turning. consumer reports senior product editor todd marks has the advice for us this morning on how to fit your style and budget. good morning. good morning. you say it s one of the most popular topic s in consumer reports. aside from car. you don t rate mattresses like television and cars. why not? people are furious at us sometimes. give me the number one. we hear that all the time. the problem is, there is no magic bullet. there s no best mattress type, firmness level for anybody. it s what you find most comfortable. people find that hard to accept. it is but the good news is we ve durability tested mattresses for years. they re all apt to stand up unless you buy an el cheapo. you might find a mattress not comfortable long before they wear out. when is it time to get a new mattress? as you age, would your body becomes more sensitive to pressure points. it s more important to find a mattress that s comfortable. mattress you found comfortable at one point may no longer find that adequate comfort and support. every five to seven years after age 40, you should look at t don t keep a mattress longer than eight years because, again, it s not giving you what you need as your body changes. giving you the support. if you re waking up in pain it s not always the mattress that s the problem. you have to factor in other things first. a lot people think it s the mattress. that s what you hear in all the ads. but it could very well be the pillow. people never put as much oomph in their decision about pillows. if you re a side sleeper, you need a fairly firm pillow. what you really want to do think of yourself standing with good posture. you want your head to be the same. you want your head to be in alignment with shoulders and spine, the same way if you re stand iing up. a side sleeper, fairly firm pillow, sleep on your back, moderately firm but softer, stomach sleeper, you want a soft pillow. a lot of times you get neck aches, backaches, it s not the mattress. you have the good pillow. let s talk about the mattress. where do you start if you decide you need a new one? you decide what am i what kind of mattress do i want? what size? believe it or not, queen is the most popular size and it gives you enormously a lot more room than you would get with a standard full sized bed. five to seven inches. it may not sound a lot, but it really does. then you want to choose the type, you know. inner spring, memory foam. maybe even a waterbed. there are a lot of hybrid models out there. the inner spring is still the main model people buy. today s inner spring mattresses have more high-quality foams, be it resilient latex foam or heat-sensitive memory foam that allows your body to be cradled by it. be careful if you re a hot sleeper, right? if you tend to sweat when you re sleeping. yes, because there s no breathability or a lot less breathability in a memory foam type mattress. if you re a hot sleeper, you might want to think twice. that doesn t mean you can t get a topper that doesn t incorporate a little bit of memory foam. the inner spring is the best seller. does coils coil count is a big myth. there s nothing to that? it s not that there s nothing. all mattresses, except the cheapest ones, are apt to be over-engineered for the job they re asked to perform. you can find a mattress less comfortable sooner than it wears out unless you use have a kid t uses it as a trampoline. mattresses can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. absolutely. we use consultants, people that have been inside industry. for $1,000 list price queen-sized mattress you re getting a lot of bed. start when you re doing your shopping. a number of brands, start at the lower end of the price scale and then work your way up until you find one that s comfortable. then compare products in that same price range. if you start at the top and work your way down, that s a big mistake. you ll find this $10,000 bed. i like that. no. start at the bottom and work your way up. there s no reason to over-spend. is price somewhat negotiable? oh, gosh, it sure is. really? 72% of people who tried haggling for a mattress got a better deal. it s a really weird one of the most profitable products if not the most profitable product. even at department stores? yes. go into a furniture store. they make morme money on mattresses than almost any other product. sales of 50% to 60% are common. never buy a mattress i was shopping, i would never buy a mattress for anything less than 50% off. you say it s most important to test drive a mattress. what are we talking about when you re going to the store, really give it a good test. yes. how long should you lay in it and be comfortable in it? obviously you can t stay there overnight. right. they re going to throw you out. you want to spend five minutes on each side that you sleep. typically on your side, back, maybe your stomach. you need that much time. your body has to relax to be able to determine if you re going to find it comfortable. the good news is when we ve surveyed people and we have our own sleep lab at consumer reports where people did i want to be on that sleep lab. you re hired. we did a preliminary test where th mattresses long term. home there is a very strong correlation between short-term testing and long-term satisfaction, meaning if you find a bed in a store that you like, chances are if you try it out you re going to be happy not all the time, but there s better odds. what if you re not happy? you can, but there s a big urn fat caveat. you look for a company or retailer that offers a comfort exchange program. that s great. but don t expect to haul that mattress back to the store and get your money back. you ll get a replacement bed, usually just one. but you have to pay for shipping and another kind of like a trade-in fee, like a restocking fee. and that fee can be anywhere from 15% of the cost of the mattress to $400. if you re spending a lot of money on a bed you want to have that kind of confidence that you can return it if you re not happy. quickly, brands? brands don t really matter. what s consumer reports favorite top line? we asked people about all kinds of brands. tempurpedic is very popular. 60% said they would buy it again. that s true. but when we did our most recent test we found that 40 some odd percent really liked it but 36% didn t. memory foam is a highly subjective product. you know, again, it s heat sensitive. your body molds into t it s hard to flip and turn. it s very different. if you don t like tempurpedic, but like memory foam, try another one. then they tried the sealy version and they did. sheet counts, does that matter, cotton and all of that? one of the great myths again, thread count, horizontal and vertical number of threads per inch. we found a great sheet from l.l. bean that had a 280 thread count for 100 bucks, it was better than those that had two or three times that amount. we love your work at consumer reports. thank you so much. a show-stopping banana bread we can t wait to sink our teeth into. banana bread pudding, that is. 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[ male announcer ] this week only, save up to $12 on zyrtec® products at zyrtectv.com and in sunday s paper. with new air wick aqua mist. its propellant-free trigger mists fragrances inspired by the freshest places on earth. air wick aqua mist. release the freshness of nature in your home. still haven t tried activia? listen to this story. my problem was occasional irregularity. my commercials didn t convince you? i m definitely a skeptic. actually, my mom convinced me. and i have activia every morning for breakfast. activia definitely helped with my occasional irregularity. help get your system back on track. activia, with bifidus regularis helps regulate your digestive system. chances are someone you trust can recommend activia. activia! and try activia fiber. a delicious blend of cereal, fiber and activia yogurt. special k protein shakes a truly great-tasting breakfast shake. with 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, it s the creamy, delicious way to satisfy. your hunger to help you lose weight. so you can kick the tin can habit. try special k protein shakes today. hi, jay bush and duke here to introduce new bush s black bean fiesta..whoa. you can t tell everyone about new black bean fiesta. but it s perfectly cooked black beans, in a zesty south of the border chipotle sauce with red and green peppers, onion, and crisp corn. a bold new taste. i know. but i want people to think i m a great cook. so hide. delicious! can i have your recipe? your secret is safe with me. hello. new bush s black bean fiesta. and try new texas ranchero, along with our other grillin beans flavors. this morning in today s kitchen, satisfying our sweet teeth with banana bread puding and butterscotch sauce. mmm. chefs of the popular blue ribbon restaurants here in new york city. bromberg brother s blue ribbon cookbook, better home cooking. good morning. good morning. eric, you didn t want to rush right into this. you ve been working on this book about 18 years? just about 18 years. we started out with small restaurant on sullivan street. right. and it s taken us a long road, nine restaurants and now a cookbook. it s a beautiful cookbook. thank you. there are a lot of comfort foods in here and there s nothing more comforting, bruce, than bread pudding. we cook a lot from memories we have when we were growing up and bread pudding, our dad took us down to commander s palace in new orleans many years ago when we were scouting out schools for eric and it stuck with us. now we make our own version. what goes into this? bread, obviously. obviously bread is the main ingredient, but as most desse desserts, we ll start with egg yolks and sugar. does it matter what kind of bread you use in this? it really the general rule is for french cooking that you use pandeme which is a loaf bread. we use baguette, country white bread that s here. we use any crusty white bread. it has to be white bread? well well, if the you can do anything. okay. you re whipping up the egg yolk and sugar. egg yolks and sugar. this is a great job for an electric mixer. so you re not one of those that has to do it by hand? no, no, no. we ll take a vanilla bean, which is this beautiful thing here. we ll scrape the inside of the bean out and put that into the eggs and the sugar. right. then we ll take the bean and we ll put that into this pot of cream. that s all heavy cream in there? exactly. and a little bit of sugar. and the vanilla bean. then we ll whisk this until it s thick and white and we ll combine these two. do you have to be careful about cooking the egg? absolutely. you want to put just a little and then stir it around well and then finish with the rest of it. ah. as soon as that s done, we ll move to pour this through a strainer and then we ll move on to bruce. all right. moving on to bruce now. while eric is straining, we have caramel, sugar and water. we ve brought that up to a slow simmer. careful because you don t want that to burn. you don t want it to burn. this is a rich, amber color. as soon as it gets to the rich amber color, we take our cream. it may splatter a tiny bit. more cream? more cream. bread pudding. and then what we ll do is we ll add our cream in to the caramel and you see you get splatter. you have to be careful. that s pretty hot. the sugar is extremely hot. you have to be a bit careful with it. you can take it off the heat a few minutes and add the cream. once the cream is added and it gets smooth and rich, we re just going to take white chocolate. this is in addition to a butterscotch recipe that we decided softened the recipe a little bit. you ve also cubed up the bread? we have cubed the bread. take the bananas and walnuts and toss them in there. give them a bit of a mix. i m going to add a little more bread on top. okay. we can kind of mix that around. all right. because we re running out of we want to get this in. okay. then the caramel is going to go right over the white chocolate. we pour this in here? this, we pour in just to cover the bread. we ll let that sit overnight. we come back here. yep. then you put this do you put this in the oven? you put it in the oven for about an hoir and a half. it comes out looking like this. we cool it, cut it into portions and scoop ice cream on top. why not? and then you ve got we top it with the beautiful sauce. we re going to try this out in just a little bit. the book is bromberg brother s blue ribbon cookbook. we ll bring the ladies in. we ll be back in a moment. first this is today on nbc. cakathie lee and hoda here. what do you have coming up? let the games begin, baby. we have valerie harper in the house. awesome. looks terrific. we ll have all the buzz over the weekend. so much is going on with tiger and elizabeth taylor, perhaps, being engaged. that s number nine. i have a little interesting tidbit on that. what else, hoda woman? there s a lot. so much. just stay tuned. and it s fun day. they always drink. what? after your local news and weather. good morning. i m lisa robinson. here is a look and one of our top stories. northwest baltimore city police have a homicide case. the victim was found shot to that just before 9:00 a.m. sunday morning in an alley on the 5300 block of denmore avenue. anyone with any information on anyone with any information on this case some people don t notice the difference between meat and mystery when they enter. .the frozen zone is it real chicken? or something else? some chicken nuggets and tenders look like they have mystery meat. with my perdue frozen nuggets, there is no mystery. just real all-white meat, made with 100% natural ingredients, no fillers, no preservatives, and a delicious taste your family will love. perdue frozen chicken. all-white meat. no mystery. welcome back. we are off to a nice, quiet start. it will be a nice afternoon. mostly sunny skies. high temperatures will make it into the opposite the s to around 70. not quite as warm as sunday but still above the average. the clouds will thicken up tomorrow and we will see a chance of a few rain showers starting late tuesday into wednesday morning. much cooler as well, a high of 58 tuesday and backed up to 70 thursday. thank you average joining us. see you back for 11 news at noon. noon.