I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (11 page)

1½ cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup canned pumpkin

1½ cups self-rising flour

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and flour a 9-inch loaf pan. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until blended, then add eggs
and pumpkin. Sift flour with the spices in another bowl, add to pumpkin mixture, mix in walnuts, and pour batter into buttered
pan.

Bake until tester inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and cool
in pan for 10 minutes, then release the edges with a knife and turn onto rack to cool completely.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Of course, a night together didn’t necessarily mean Ethan was mine. But the nine-month lead-up indicated this was not a man
ruled by whims. The stirring display I witnessed on Saturday night betrayed some strong feelings on Ethan’s part. Still, as
dreamy as I felt about what had occurred, I didn’t allow myself to be swept away by fantasies. But when Ethan called on Tuesday
to see what I was up to that evening, I could think of only one thing: I wanted to make him dinner.

I made a tangy risotto with Taleggio cheese and artichoke hearts. Much like love, risotto requires a lot of work and patience.
That was all behind me with Ethan, at least for the moment, and I was ready to put in some vigorous stirs for old times’ sake.

Risotto with Intricately Layered Hearts

4 cups hot chicken broth

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

½ small onion, minced

1 cup arborio or carnaroli rice

¼ cup white wine

1 cup canned artichoke hearts, chopped

½ cup Taleggio, cubed

Salt to taste

Freshly ground pepper

Keep the chicken broth on the stove over medium heat.

In a large sauté pan or Dutch oven, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat and add the onion. Cook until onion is transparent,
about 2 minutes, then add the rice and toast it with the butter and onion until the grains are translucent, about 2 minutes.
Add the wine, stirring constantly until the wine is absorbed, then begin to add the hot chicken broth a ladleful at a time,
stirring until the liquid is absorbed into the rice.

Continue adding the stock and stirring the risotto until it is creamy and the grains are softened but not mushy. Begin to
taste the risotto after about 15 minutes to check the texture, but more likely it will take 20 to 25 minutes of stirring vigilance.
(Heck, you waited nine months for Ethan, what’s another half hour?) If you run out of stock and the risotto needs more cooking,
use water warmed in the pot with the stock.

When you are happy with the texture of the rice, remove it from the heat, add the remaining tablespoon of butter, the artichoke
hearts, and the Taleggio, give it one more stir, test for salt, let it sit for a minute, and serve with freshly ground pepper.

Yield: 2 servings.

I was so excited that this relationship I had craved so long was finally mine that for the first few weeks I could barely
sleep when Ethan was in my bed. I would spring up early in the morning, go straight to the kitchen, and start putting away
the dishes from the previous night. Squeezing all the pots and pans into one cupboard made quite a racket. I apologized for
the noise.

“Actually, I find it comforting,” he told me.

____

Ethan loved
everything having to do with food and being cared for.
Which worked out well, because once we were together I was overcome by a drive to cook beyond anything I had ever known before.
I was jealous of Anne over all the amazing meals she must have made for him. I was haunted by thoughts of them the way other
women might be troubled by visions of complex acrobatics their boyfriend performed in bed with previous girlfriends. Not that
I didn’t worry about that, too. But still, cooking was mine. It relaxed me. It had become, next to Ethan, the most important
thing. It was a way to make sense out of my internal chaos. There is logic and order to cooking. What you put into it has
everything to do with what you get out of it. With love, it’s not so cut-and-dried.

Ethan and I talked a lot about what we were going to eat. While a phone call asking about dinner had been grating to Kit,
for Ethan it was a welcome break from writing. We stayed on the phone and disputed the pros and cons of various dishes for
many hours, all paid for by my employer. Sometimes we’d decide to go out, but more frequently I turned to the computer, called
up
epicurious.com
, and sought out recipes to suit Ethan’s mood. This salmon with lemon-tarragon butter became a simple everyday meal for us,
though it’s impressive enough, when presented on a bed of lentils, to be served to guests.

Tuesday Night Dinner

These recipes serve 2 but can be doubled.

Salmon with Lemon-Tarragon Butter

(Adapted from
epicurious.com
)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Juice and zest of 1 large lemon

Freshly ground pepper

2 salmon fillets

Salt

1½ tablespoons fresh tarragon, minced

In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter with lemon juice and zest, remove from heat.

Place salmon skin side down on a broiler pan. Brush with half the butter mixture, season with salt and peper. Broil until
just cooked through, about 20 minutes (there is no need to turn).

Transfer to plates. (Salmon skin will stick to the broiler pan. I always think I should save it to make sushi from this delicacy,
but I never do.) Add tarragon to remaining lemon butter. Spoon over salmon and serve over lentils.

Serves 2.

French Lentil Stew

(Adapted from Nigella Lawson, The New York Times)

1 shallot

1 clove garlic

½ stalk celery

½ carrot, peeled

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup French lentils

½ teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1½ teaspoons salt

Finely chop the shallot, garlic, celery, and carrot. It’s easiest to do them all together in a food processor if you have
one. Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the vegetables and cook until they have
softened (about 5 minutes), then add 3 cups of water, lentils, thyme, bay leaf, and salt. Bring to a steady simmer, then lower
heat. Allow the lentils to cook for 20 to 25 minutes. When they are tender and have absorbed most of the water, they are ready
to serve; if they are still a little tough, add more water and continue to cook until softened.

Serves 2.

Baby Arugula and Avocado Salad

(Adapted from Levana Kirschenbaum)

2 cups baby arugula

1 small head endive

½ avocado

1½ tablespoons olive oil

1½ teaspoons unfiltered apple cider vinegar

½ teaspoon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

Wash and dry arugula. Slice the endive crosswise into ¼-inch strips. Cut the avocado into ½-inch-wide pieces. Toss the
above in a large bowl with the oil and vinegar, then add salt and a few grindings of black pepper.

Serves 2.

Ethan complimented the dinners I made in e-mails sealed with a kiss (SWAK, they’d say in the manner of fourth-grade girls
signing one another’s autograph books; I loved that). He was as enthusiastic about me as he was about my food. In person he’d
compliment my face, saying I had a “cute
punim.
” He was a more affectionate boyfriend than I would have ever dreamed he’d be, and what’s more, he was more than I ever imagined
a boyfriend could be. He was the holy grail of boyfriends, a companion of the opposite sex who was as much fun and as easy
to be with as a girlfriend—even better than a girlfriend because we got to have sex, too. Which I have never been inclined
to do with a girlfriend, no matter how much I adore all of mine and even though I went to Sarah Lawrence, where everyone tells
you you eventually will.

There was no person in the world that I felt happier with than Ethan. He was the most important person in my life; he came
before my friends, he came before my family. He drew me in and away into our own little world. I welcomed the separation.
We had food, we had music, and in bed we had pleasure and laughter in equal measure. Most of all, we had misanthropy. We made
up nasty little scenarios and songs about our relatives and acquaintances, none of which I can share. Trust me, they were
hilarious, even if Ethan and I were the only ones who could understand just how funny they were.

I will never laugh as hard as I did the night I made us too much soup. It was a cold winter Sunday, and I had just purchased
a twelve-quart stockpot. I filled it with chicken and vegetables and herbs and finished it off with noodles and tiny meatballs.
But it was just Ethan and me and those twelve quarts. Being my father’s daughter, I was a little concerned about waste, so
I ate three bowls to Ethan’s two. We were having so much fun at the table that when the phone rang, I didn’t bother to get
up to answer it. Later that evening, I checked the message. It was from Ethan’s friend David, a Manhattanite who happened
to be in the neighborhood with his girlfriend and wanted to stop by. I cursed myself for not picking up the phone. They could
have had some soup!

Later, in bed, Ethan teased me about my fixation over this. We joked that he could take the stockpot, strap it onto a dolly
with bungee cords, and share it with the guys at his MTV writers’ meeting the next day. As he ladled it out to them, he would
enact a law that all of their girlfriends had to sign up for soup duty. “So, Rick, can I put your Ilene down for a potato
leek?” he said in the voice of an old man from Brooklyn. The thought of Ilene Rosenzweig, a newspaper editor and design entrepreneur,
who does have a domestic side but was in no way the
balabusta
I was, making soup for the writers’ meeting had me laughing so hard that I was gasping for breath as tears were pouring out
of my eyes. I kept waking up through the night in hysterics thinking of that line. Ethan awoke to find me doubled over and
clutching my stomach; then he started laughing, too.