I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti (13 page)

Matzo Balls

4 eggs

4 tablespoons light olive oil

4 tablespoons cold seltzer

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon white pepper

1 cup matzo meal

Salt for water

Dill for garnish

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and oil, add the seltzer, salt, and pepper, then gradually whisk in the matzo meal
and continue whisking until thoroughly blended. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 to 30 minutes.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. When the mixture is chilled, roll into balls, using 1 heaping tablespoon for each
matzo ball, as they will expand during cooking. Drop them into the water. Lower the heat and bring the water to a simmer,
then cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Remove the cooked matzo balls from the water and add them to the chicken soup. Serve garnished with some dill snipped with
scissors.

Yield: 14 to 16 servings.

“This is the first seder that’s really my own,” Ethan said as he presided over the Haggadah reading. That text, from Exodus,
got him thinking. “I just don’t like this motif that the Jews think they’re chosen,” he said. The statement was right in line
with Ethan’s lack of faith in himself. How could he believe in the idea of being a member of a race chosen by God when he
had absolutely no grasp of his own potential? As successful as he was, Ethan could have been even more so. His trajectory
was littered with episodes of opportunity knocking and Ethan staying away from the door. When he aspired to be a musician,
he sent a demo tape to Alan McGee, the legendary British producer who discovered Oasis. McGee actually called Ethan, but Ethan
never returned the call. If you don’t know McGee, let’s just say this is up there with wanting to be an animated dinosaur
and ignoring a text from Steven Spielberg. Jann Wenner, legendary editor and founder of
Rolling Stone,
liked the few profiles Ethan had written for the magazine and wanted to offer him a contract. Instead he decided to leave
magazines and get into television, which granted may have been a better place for him, but what I’m trying to say is that
Ethan took no joy in his accomplishments. Stacey, who was rediscovering her faith, took issue with his reading, as did Hank
(who was in the midst of converting). Me, I was just happy to hear I made Ethan a seder he thought of as his own.

We went to Rome for our first trip together, where I introduced him to my favorite restaurants and took him to some of the
better shops, like Ermenegildo Zegna and J. P. Tod’s. Ethan’s style—which included an appalling leather jacket with some kind
of weird belt attachment before I got my hands on him— received some badly needed improvement under my watch, though I’m afraid
I created a bit of a monster on that front. Ethan spent hours in those stores trying to decide between the blue shirt or the
beige or whether to get the shoes in a forty-four or forty-five—neither ever felt right. He pushed my nerves to the limit
when we missed a hard-won lunch reservation at Il Moro because we spent too much time at a boutique where the salesclerk took
enormous interest in outfitting him from head to toe. “I couldn’t help it. He dressed me up like a little doll!” said Ethan,
who bought almost everything he tried on, including the shoes, which eventually proved to be uncomfortable and remained unworn
when they repatriated to the United States.

His reaction to the shoes was no stunner. Comfort was paramount to Ethan—the elusive thing he was constantly searching for
but couldn’t find. It was what I desperately wanted to give him, if I could only figure out a way to do it. “You don’t know
me!” he’d shout in the voice of an angry old curmudgeon whenever I’d try to suggest something I thought might be good for
him, like insoles or shoe trees. No one slept as poorly as he did, no one’s back or neck hurt as much as his. He was alone
in his creaky body.

I brushed cod in butter like Ben-Gay and wrapped it in prosciutto—just the way Ethan dressed his neck on a particularly stressful
visit to his parents’ home in Tucson.

Orthopedic Cod

(Adapted from Nigella Lawson, The New York Times)

It won’t make Ethan’s neck feel any better, but it is delicious.

2 (6- to 8-ounce) cod fillets

3 tablespoons butter, melted

4 slices prosciutto

1 heaping tablespoon chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brush the cod fillets with half the melted butter; wrap each piece in two slices of prosciutto, then brush again with the
remaining butter. Place on a baking sheet lined with foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Serve immediately over
lentils
, with parsley sprinkled on top.

Yield: 2 servings.

He did find some approximation of comfort on the artichoke-hued “shabby chic” sofa I purchased the very day we met. It was
big and soft and enveloping, not to mention a perfect vantage point from which to watch dinner being made. On winter Sunday
afternoons, as the sun was going down, Ethan and I would lie there side by side and listen to music. Early on, he had convinced
me to buy a five-CD changer just like his own and had helped me lug it home and build a new set of shelves to house it. The
sofa was the one thing I had that was just right. He liked it so much that he wanted to get a similar one for himself. This
became the weekend activity for a good part of our relationship. Saturday and Sunday afternoons would find us at Macy’s, Crate
& Barrel, Pottery Barn, or Bloomingdale’s looking for a couch as cozy as mine for Ethan to buy for his own apartment. When
he found one that seemed like a possibility, he would conduct a number of tests. First he’d sit on it; if it proved to be
acceptable for this basic utility, he would lie down on it to confirm that it was of a suitable length. How the arms cradled
his head was a crucial factor for maximum reading and television-viewing pleasure. If the prospective sofa passed all those
tests, I would be beckoned to lie down next to him to see how well we fit on it together. I went along with this exercise,
feigning complicity, but I didn’t like what it represented. I pictured our lives merging, along with our furniture; Ethan
was working on a “separate but equal” scenario. I spent a lot of time on my therapist’s couch talking about Ethan’s sofa shopping.

I worried, too, whenever he asked me how to make one of his favorite dishes. What would he need me for if he had my sofa and
my recipe for tomato sauce? But Ethan never bought a sofa, and he never learned to cook, at least not while he was with me.

I came so far
with my own cooking while I was with Ethan that I began to prefer it to going out for meals 99 percent of the time. Dining
in restaurants is disappointing more often than not, I have learned. Even in the most celebrated restaurants—
especially
in the most celebrated restaurants. It’s impossible for anything to live up to expectations set so high. There’s chemistry
involved in making a magical night out. Where you are sitting, your mood and that of your date, your rapport with the server,
all these elements are as important as the food, and rarely do they all combine in harmony. Still, when you hit it, it’s so
superb that it’s worth taking the chance and going out every so often. In any case, even this cook needs a break every once
in a while.

Asian food is one cuisine worth leaving the house for because it’s sensational, and as much as I love to cook, you are never
going to find me rolling up raw fish in rice and seaweed or doing much with fish sauce or sesame oil. I stick to Western themes
in my cooking. Ethan’s favorite food, besides anything that I made, was sushi. Back in the late nineties when we were dating,
Nobu was
the
place for Japanese food, but if you weren’t Robert De Niro or Heidi Klum, good luck getting a table at dinner. I had been
there for lunch on my expense account a couple of times and always wanted to take Ethan because I knew he would love it. One
evening when we weren’t getting anywhere with one of our what-to-have-for-dinner conversations, we got it into our heads to
try our luck there. Ethan and I walked in with no reservation, approached the model-look-alike maître d’ at the podium, and
boldly asked if there was a table available. She hesitated a moment, looked into her computer, and announced a sudden cancellation.

We ordered the omakase—a multicourse meal of dishes chosen by the chef—and a bottle of crisp sauvignon blanc. As each delicacy
arrived before us—black miso cod or a piece of the freshest toro—Ethan was overcome with emotions emitted in fits of uncontrollable
laughter. I didn’t know whether to be concerned or pleased (I
was
buying). I ended up feeling a little jealous of those fish: I was never treated to an outburst akin to the one the uni at
Nobu received. I hoped that Ethan’s feelings for me were as deep as the sea our dinner came from, but I wasn’t convinced.

Ethan was with me
for the present, but I wasn’t so clear about our future. I wanted us to be married, but conversations on that subject, which
I began to broach after about a year, were not encouraging. I first confronted him on a day when I learned of fabulous successes
from two of my best friends. Ginia had just been hired by
The New York Times,
and Jen Warren had gotten engaged. I, on the other hand, was still working in a publicity job that I could do with my hands
tied behind my back and dating a guy with a record of long relationships that never made it to the chuppah. That evening Ethan
and I went to dinner at Saul, our favorite local restaurant, where, by no fault of its own, a few of our heavy semiconversations
ended up taking place. As soon as the busboy poured our water, I blurted out that question which … well, if you have to ask
it, you already know the answer:

“What are you thinking about us?”

“I’m not thinking anything,” Ethan said.

Disturbed, and unable to achieve satisfaction from whatever follow-up questions I composed in an effort to ascertain some
idea of our prospects, I ended up weeping into the bread basket while Ethan worried about what the waiter would think.

We went
to Venice for Ethan’s fortieth birthday. In the preceding weeks, I mapped out all the restaurants we would go to and made
reservations. Over fritto misto at the legendary Da Fiore, I decided to give the subject of marriage another go.

“Now that you’re turning forty, don’t you think it’s time to get married?” I asked, sounding like his mother or a concerned
aunt. Ethan looked at me as if I had suggested that this milestone might be a good time to consider a move to Equatorial Guinea.

I spent much of that weekend despondent as we wound our way through the canals in the rain. I cried or sulked through most
of the meals, however delicious.

“What makes you so sure we
won’t
get married?” Ethan asked me as I wept in the customs line at Malpensa Airport after crying for four hours straight on the
train from Venice to Milan. Ever impenetrable, Ethan gave me no signal as to what he was going through, if he was in conflict
over a decision or if he wasn’t “thinking anything.” All I know is that I hate Venice.

I decided to lay off the subject for a few months.

____

On New Year’s Eve
, we opted for a quiet dinner at home. I found a recipe for a salad with mâche, a tiny, nutty leaf Ethan favored. After a
long day of food shopping with no break for lunch, I finally got to the vegetable market; because they carried a pretty sophisticated
selection of greens, it never occurred to me they wouldn’t have what I was looking for.

“If you had called me earlier in the week, I could have ordered it for you,” the proprietor told me.

I wanted to kick myself. How could I have neglected to call ahead for a rare green that was essential to my menu? I tried
another store, and another, but nobody had mâche. I considered getting on the subway and heading to Manhattan, where I certainly
would have found it, but I didn’t have the energy to go that far. Famished and bushed, I settled for some boring Boston lettuce
torn into tiny pieces. Ethan didn’t know the difference, but I was miserable the entire evening. My dinner wasn’t perfect,
and I wanted every dinner to be perfect, especially this one.