I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti Read online

  Ethan’s mother, like me, had been a woman with a firm belief in the importance of cooking to please your man. Sadly, by the time I met her, she was suffering from dementia, which struck her at an unfairly early age. But, wanting to get to know the mother of the man I loved, I spent a good deal of time with her alone on those visits. We took long walks together and even managed to make each other laugh with harsh critiques of the neighbor’s gardens. Ethan and his dad would hang back at the house, watching the French Open or Carnal Knowledge on TV, the latter of which I found somewhat disturbing when I walked in on the last few moments.

  Ethan, wanting to show me the person his mother was in her prime, shared a copy of her favorite cookbook, Thoughts for Buffets. In the margins she had written notes about her husband’s reaction to each dish: “Allen liked!” they said, or, “Less salt next time!” I chuckled at her simple prefeminist housewife inclinations, but I had no reason to. I was cut from the very same cloth.

  When we got home from our first trip together, to Iowa for his sister’s fortieth birthday, I asked Ethan if he loved me. He replied in the affirmative without any dithering. From then on, he would tell me he loved me unprompted. Still, I don’t know if it was me, or the fact that it took so long to win him, or the one night a week he insisted on spending at his own apartment, but somehow I never stopped feeling that I was one meal away from Ethan’s love. I like to joke that I went to the Ethan Binder School of Cooking, because in my inexhaustible drive to please him, I ran myself into the ground pulling off gastronomic feats I might not otherwise have tried.

  At Passover I made Ethan a seder, taking two days off from work to prepare the many traditional dishes from scratch. This one nearly broke me. Done in after the first day of cooking, I got testy with Ethan. “Your religion hates women!” I barked when I greeted him at the door that evening.

  Ethan, who didn’t do well with confrontation, got defensive: “I didn’t ask you to do it!” It’s true, he hadn’t, but I had to get angry at someone. Being familiar with the Old Testament, I knew it was best not to take it out on Yahweh. Ethan rebounded well from my wrath, showing up with roses in hand when it came time for the actual event.

  I rolled matzo balls and dropped them in the homemade chicken broth that had simmered all day on the stove; chopped apples into tiny slivers and toasted and ground walnuts for the haroseth; grated fresh horseradish by hand to sprinkle on top. I used Ethan’s mother’s brisket recipe, which, like my previous boyfriend’s mother’s recipe, contained onion soup mix as well as chili sauce. That’s what I made, and it was perfectly fine, but I’m going to spare you the Lipton and Heinz and provide instead this wonderful sweet-and-sour brisket (which does include Coca-Cola) from Levana Kirschenbaum, Jen Warren’s kosher cooking guru. Sometimes I go with Jen to her classes. Levana prides herself on the simplicity of her recipes. “If this is difficult, then nothing is easy,” she says. She’s a witty and engaging teacher, and even this shiksa picks up a handy hint or two when I’m there—like how to make preserved lemons (put them in a jar with salt and store them for three weeks). Unable to avoid throwing in a bit of my own culture, I made broccoli di rape—it’s not an herb, but it can be bitter when not prepared correctly.

  A Seder for Nonbelievers

  Levana Kirschenbaum’s Sweet-and-Sour Brisket

  1 medium onion, peeled and quartered

  1 (2-inch) piece ginger, peeled

  6 large garlic cloves, peeled

  ½ cup Dijon mustard

  ½ cup red wine

  ½ cup Coca-Cola

  ½ cup ketchup

  ¼ cup honey

  ¼ cup cider vinegar

  ¼ cup soy sauce

  ½ cup olive oil

  1 teaspoon ground cloves

  1 tablespoon coarsely ground pepper

  1 (6- to 7-pound) first-cut brisket

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  Combine onion, ginger, garlic, and mustard in a food processor until smooth. Add the remaining marinade ingredients and process a few more seconds.

  Place the brisket in a pan just large enough to fit the meat, then pour the marinade over it, cover tightly with foil, and bake for 2 hours. After 2 hours, turn the brisket and bake uncovered for 1 more hour.

  Remove brisket to a cutting board and tent with foil. Strain pan liquids into a small saucepan over medium heat and reduce to about 2 cups. When the brisket has cooled slightly, slice it thin and pour gravy over it. Pass additional gravy at the table.

  Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

  Broccoli di Rape

  2 pounds broccoli di rape (or broccoli rabe or whatever your vegetable purveyor calls it)

  Salt

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  2 cloves garlic, minced

  1/8 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

  Place a large pot of water over high heat. Arrange a large bowl with water and ice. Trim the tough stalks from the broccoli, and when the water begins to simmer, add salt and then the broccoli. Blanch for 3 minutes (to remove some of the bitterness), then drain and place in the ice bath.

  Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, then add the garlic and hot pepper. When the garlic is golden, drain the broccoli, squeeze out the excess water, and add it to the skillet. Lower the heat and cook for about 10 minutes for crunchy broccoli, 20 minutes for soft; add a little water to the pan if it gets too dry.

  Serves 6.

  Chicken Soup

  The components of a good chicken soup are very flexible, and variations of this recipe will probably work out fine.

  2 to 3 pounds any combination of chicken parts, or 1 whole chicken, even the gizzards

  1 medium white onion, peeled and cut in half

  2 celery stalks (if they have leaves, keep them)

  2 carrots, peeled and cut in half

  1 parsnip, peeled and quartered

  ¼ cup parsley

  ¼ cup dill

  2 tablespoons salt

  Dill for garnish

  Place all ingredients in an 8-quart stockpot, add about 3 quarts of water (enough to cover and then some), turn the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil. When the water is boiling, use a strainer to skim the foam that rises to the top. Keep the soup at a slow simmer and cook for 1 hour.

  Strain all the solids; you can use the chicken for chicken salad, or you can remove the fat, cut the meat into little pieces, and serve in the soup with the matzo balls if you are in the mood for something heartier. Garnish each bowl with a little dill snipped with scissors.

  You could make this same soup and, instead of matzo balls, drop in the meatballs. No need to brown them; let them cook in the broth and do the same with 1 cup of egg noodles 10 minutes before serving.

  Yield: 8 to 10 servings.

  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 theplace 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.