Stories

What I Wore: A silk beige diagonally checkered shirt that my mother bought when she was 16 from the Beverly Hills General Store [if my mother and I were both 16 at the same time we would have been best friends] and a brown Armani tweed skirt that I have never worn because it is high-waisted and way too big for the only part of my body that is truly tiny, but luckily I was in New York where there are three tailors on every block, one of which was able to pin it for me so that it added two creases that looked as if they were meant to be, and brown Ralph Lauren heels that make me feel confident because the struggle to find the second shoe amongst the insane amount of boxes at the Union Square DSW to this day still makes me feel triumphant.

The Occasion: Opening Night of the second of a rotating cast of “Love, Loss and What I Wore,” an off-Broadway play my two aunts, Nora and Delia Ephron, wrote together. Since the play is all about clothes, I knew I had to dress the part, despite getting off an airplane two hours before the curtain. I packed my best Mad Men inspired outfit freshly pressed so the suitcase could do minimal harm.

Last year I traveled quite a lot and had memorable meals in Houston, Providence, Block Island, Bristol (Rhode Island), and Los Angeles.  When it comes to food, America seems on fire.  Locavore is the new black.  Eating seasonally keeps us connected with nature and ourselves.  "Flavor profile" is now used in ordinary conversation. It's all good.

One of my favorite eating moments last year was, in the scheme of things, a small one, but it made a lasting impression on me.  At Jose Andres' Bazaar, I had his Rojo Canary Island Potatoes.  They are simply prepared.  Small potatoes are boiled in heavily salted water until the water boils away and the potatoes are coated in salt.  Served with a cilantro-parsley dip, they are simple, elegant, and delicious.

What made the dish so memorable was that I could duplicate it at home with excellent results.  Andres goes to great lengths to import his potatoes from the Canary Islands.  I stay closer to home and buy mine at the Palisades and Santa Monica Farmers' Markets.  I discovered that any small-sized potato will do.  To the eye the little salt dusted potatoes look very unimpressive, which makes a first-time eater's response all that more fun to watch.  Their eyes go wide when they taste the salty-sweetness of the potato and they marvel that something so ordinary looking could have such an extraordinary flavor.

When I am at my home on Orcas Island, Washington and away from the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, I morph from a well dressed city slicker to a somewhat cave-like hunter and forager.

At this time of year, I trample around the forests, looking in the ferns with my beady eyes for the first sign of fiddleheads, I watch the crocuses peep up through the ground as the blossom bursts on the apple trees; but most of my cavewoman thoughts are towards the ocean, the icy, clear ocean filled with great big fierce Dungeness crabs.

Catching crabs is my passion. This past winter, the season opened for a few weeks in December and I was out there in my little row boat, freezing rain pelting down, hardly able to find my boeys due to the rough water; my husband watching bewildered through binoculars, from our little cottage; and as I pulled up my traps to see my haul of crabs, I was happier than a child on Christmas morning.

When you’re in love, sometimes you fight. It can be said an altercation or two is inevitable. It is as natural as bugs dying in your bathroom, flowers losing their bloom in the winter, and  food cravings when you're pregnant. Even domesticated animals like cats and dogs do it!

Fighting, arguing, disagreeing or whatever suits the fancy of the debater can be as unpleasant and that is why, after an elongated tête-à-tête was resolved I wanted nothing but a slice of pie à la mode to ease my emotions.

In a city as big as New York, this shouldn’t have been a problem but verbal combat can leave gaping wounds and with vital emotional juices still oozing decision making, never my strong point to begin with, took the rear seat.

We went wandering. Anger aroused, wagers were placed. I bet you can’t find apple pie. I bet I can. We fought some more, in the streets like immature children, found some pie, argued some more, I ate the pie, wretched pre-packaged pie, silent treatment. That didn’t last long. Tears and all the rest before temporary resolution occurred. Circle game.