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On a cold January day last year, I caught a dreadful cold from my darling husband Edward. After breakfast, I decided a Nora Ephron movie marathon was in order.
Clad in my favorite cotton, flannel sickie nightgown with colorful teddy bears on it, warm socks and pink slippers, and with a big box of tissues nearby, I settled into my favorite chair, put my feet up and went through my DVR.
I watched “Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail” and “Julie and Julia.”
Like everyone else in the universe, I was shocked and saddened to learn of Ephron’s death last month at the age of 71. She succumbed to pneumonia brought on by a rare form of leukemia.
Nora was a talented, witty and funny writer whom people called the Dorothy Parker of her generation, only funnier. She loved New York City, cooking, eating, friendship and gossiping.
I’ve seen all of her films and have read her books and magazine essays. I loved her musings in The Huffington Post, especially the culinary ones.
Several years ago, she posted a query about cabbage strudel. She wanted the recipe. Nora confessed she only uses Pepperidge Farm herb crushed stuffing mix with the blue stripe on the top of the bag for her Thanksgiving dinner. "Gee," I thought to myself. "Nora does not make stuffing from scratch. I use the same mix."
I felt a close sisterhood to her because although we never met, I feel I knew her.
Food and wine play an important role in her films. In “Sleepless in Seattle,” Meg Ryan eats lettuce and tomato on whole wheat and orders tea to go “with the bag out” while Tom Hanks downs a burger with Rob Reiner at the Pike Place Market and orders Absolute on the rocks.
Coffee shops and a salute to Zabar’s take center stage in “You’ve Got Mail.” Brinkley, Hanks’ dog, eats pizza and bagels off the street, Ryan can wield a carving set like a professional chef when confronted with a turkey and she severely chastises Hanks for scraping every bit of caviar off the egg salad mold.
Much of “Julie and Julia” takes place in my beloved Paris. Sole Meunierre, beurre blanc, beef bourguignon, a perfect tarte tatin, a rich chocolate cake, steamed lobsters and a boned duck appear in the film.
“When Harry Met Sally” is another favorite. Ryan drives the waitress nuts about salad dressing on the side, vanilla or strawberry ice cream and apple pie in a Jewish deli. She riotously fakes an orgasm surrounded by corned beef on rye as Estelle Reiner says “I’ll have what she’s having.”
In life, I will always have what Nora is having. It is eerie that on the day she died, I wandered into a supermarket and bought two bags of Pepperidge Farm herb crushed stuffing mix.
Cucumber Salad
Ingredients:
6 Israeli cucumbers, peeled and thinly-sliced
1/2 of a large sweet onion, thinly-sliced
Kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Small handful of Italian parsley leaves, snipped with a scissors
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons of vinegar of choice
Directions:
Place all of the ingredients in a large bowl and gently mix to blend well. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour.
Serves four.
The Perfect Egg Salad Sandwich
Ingredients:
8 hard-cooked, extra-large eggs
1 large stalk of celery, finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1-1/2 teaspoons of Hellmann’s mayonnaise
Iceberg lettuce leaves
Jewish rye from the deli
Directions:
Place the eggs in a pot. Cover with cold water, bring to a rapid boil, lower to simmer and cook for exactly 17 minutes.
Using a slotted spoon, place the eggs in a large bowl filled with ice to cool.
Peel the eggs. Slice them using an egg slicer. Break the eggs apart and place them in a container. Add the celery.
Sprinkle the mixture with the salt and pepper and add one heaping teaspoon of the mayonnaise. Mix well before adding in the remaining mayonnaise.
If you make sandwiches Philly style, smear a little mayonnaise on one side of each slice. Spread the egg salad on one side slice, top with the lettuce leaves and close the sandwich. Slice in half. Serve with potato chips and kosher pickles.
Makes four sandwiches.
Note from Phyllis: Nora preferred extra hard-cooked egg yolk in her egg salad. Simply hard cook 10 eggs and give the hard-cooked egg whites to the dog.
The Perfect Root Beer Float
Ingredients:
Iced cold Hires root beer
2 generous scoops of Bassetts vanilla ice cream
Whipped cream
Directions:
Pour enough of the root beer to come up a bit more than halfway in a beer pint glass. Add the ice cream. Top with the whipped cream.
Makes one root beer float.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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