*Inspired by Nora Ephron’s
MY Life as a Meatloaf
Re-reading
Nora Ephron is a treat, no matter how many times I’ve read her before. She didn’t
blog, per se, but she is called “the original Blogger” by some.
Turns
out that a friend who opened a restaurant named a meatloaf dish after her. It bore
no resemblance to any meatloaf she had made or eaten before, but it was
fantalicious, and people complemented her on this gourmet version of a
down-home lowly staple.
Then
the chef changed, the dish changed, was moved to Tuesday nights only, and
eventually disappeared from the menu. Ephron saw an analogy to her life, and
life in general. You have your day, your heyday, your recognition, the fade out,
and then you’re gone.
Four
years after her death, Ephron still lives, and some meatloaf recipes carry
her name and are still googled daily. But what didn’t quite apply to her life,
turns out, does apply to mine.
I,
too, had a dish named after me.
Long
ago I managed the storefront of a gourmet pastry shop. The owner-chef was a genius,
and while she insisted on never making a down-home cookie (no chocolate-chip)
and never calling a cake a cake (she only made tortes, please!) the cakes, ahmm,
tortes, were as incredible tasting as they were gorgeous. Tasteful in and out.
She
made some classics, but also came up with original concoctions. One of those
she named the Mirka Torte.
It
was not my favorite, but it was up there. Layers of Cake (torte!) speckled with
shavings of dark chocolate and orange rind hugged an orange sabayon cream, a
sort of fluffy custard, and a thin strip of cark chocolate ran in between. It
was light, beautiful, and as it turned out, quite popular.
When
I married she made our wedding cake, and of course it was The Mirka Torte. When
my step-mother asked her why she named this composition after me, the answer
was that it is both a simple and straight-forward, as well as a subtle and
complicated composition. Just like its namesake.
“You
really know Mirka well,” my step-mother said.
Two
years after its debut, and long after we had worked together, I ran into this
cake on a dessert menu at a fancy restaurant. It was still named Mirka Torte.
No one knew why, but that was just fine.
And
then it was gone. Like all ephemeral things, it had its day, and then it
slipped into the night.
Which
is as it should be, to make room for others.
But
for a moment there I had a whiff of the Nora Ephron thing. It was nice.
