. Long
before I knew this would be one of her last books, I was taking notes, i.e.
“Never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be
divorced from.
You can’t be friends with people who call after
11 pm.
Anything you think is wrong with your body at
the age of thirty-five, you will be
nostalgic for at the age of forty-five.
At the age of fifty-five you will get a saggy
roll just above your waist… even if you are painfully thin.
The saggy roll just above your waist will be
especially visible from the back and will force you to reevaluate half the
clothes in your closet, especially the white shirts.”
There’s more!
“The empty nest is underrated.
You can order more than one dessert.
You can’t own too many black turtleneck
sweaters.
Overtip.
Never let them know.
There are no secrets.”
And she ends this book with the following:
“I use this bath oil I happen to love. It’s called Dr. Hauschka’s Lemon Bath.
It costs about twenty dollars a bottle, which
is enough for about two weeks of baths if you follow the instructions.
The
instructions say one capful per bath.
But a capful gets you nowhere.
A capful
is not enough. I have known this for a
long time.”
And listen to this!
“ And if the events of the last few years have
taught me anything it’s that I’m going to feel like an idiot if I die tomorrow
and I skimped on bath oil today. So I
use quite a lot of bath oil. More than
you could ever imagine.
After I
take a bath, my bathtub is as dangerous as an oil slick.
But
thanks to the bath oil, I’m as smooth as silk.
I am
going out to buy more, right now.
Goodbye” The End of
this quote…
We, of course, are not going to say “Goodbye.”
We are
going to move on to an even more recent book
I Remember Nothing which was published
in 2010 and which I studied innocently in 2011, just for the following tips
which I will share with you. Gleaning
the best…
Page 65 – “For example, here’s how we cook
steak in our house:
First
you coat the steak in kosher salt. Then
you cook the steak in a very hot frying pan.
When it’s done, you throw a huge pat of butter
on top of it.
That’s it.
And by
the way, I’m not talking about sweet
butter… I’m talking about salted butter.”
Page 67 – “So this is my moment to say what’s
been in my heart for years:
It’s time to put a halt to the egg-white
omelette.
I don’t
want to confuse this with something actually important, like the war in
Afghanistan.
However, I don’t seem to be able to do anything
about the war, but I do have a shot at cutting down consumption of egg-white
omelettes.
You don’t make an omelette by taking OUT the
yolks.
You make one by putting additional yolks
IN.
A really great omelette has two whole eggs and
one extra yolk.
As for egg salad, here’s our recipe:
Boil eighteen eggs, peel them, and send six of
the egg whites to friends in California who think that egg whites matter even
slightly in anyway.
Chop the remaining twelve eggs and six yolks
coarsely with a knife, and add Hellmann’s mayonnaise and salt and pepper to
taste.”
I can
testify personally…this is Yum.
Page 70 – After a long treatise about the well
documented dangers and evils of Teflon coated pans, she says:
“I love Teflon.
I love the no-carb ricotta pancake I invented last year which can be
cooked only on Teflon.”
Here is
the recipe:
Beat one egg, add one-third cup fresh
whole-milk ricotta, and whisk together.
Heat up a Teflon pan until carcinogenic gas is
released into the air.
Spoon
tablespoons of batter into the frying pan and cook about two minutes on one
side, until brown. Carefully flip. Cook for another minute to brown the other
side. Eat with jam! Serves one.”
To tell the truth, much as I have enjoyed these
recipes, reading them, making them, and eating the results, we have to wonder
if this wildly cavalier way with butter and Teflon might not have actually
impacted Nora’s health.
As Ludmila shared the food in her barn, so Norah shared her food with friends and the world.
More to come.
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