Ricotta pancakes in her honor

So yesterday after work I stopped by the library to pick up a book I had requested, I Remember Nothing.

I read some of it last night, before going to sleep, and finished it on the train this morning, during my commute to work.

A slight book. Only 135 pages, and lots of white space. Short reflections and essays. Funny, mostly lightweight stuff.

But as I walked the eight blocks from the train station to my office (note: the past few days have been wonderfully cool and delightful, and I have been walking as much as possible, enjoying the weather), I was thinking, "It's just so great that Nora Ephron is ahead of me by a few years, letting us all know what it's like to get older. It's like having a funny older sister making me laugh along the way." I was looking forward to her next book.

And then I arrived at work, and turned on the computer, and looked at the news. Nora Ephron had died, at the age of 71.

Like a punch to the stomach.

I am so sorry that she didn't get the chance to enjoy old age. She would have been a wonderful old woman.

She tried to warn us in I Remember Nothing, which ends with two lists: What I Won't Miss and What I Will Miss.

I am going to make her ricotta pancake this weekend, and at some point I'll make Ruthie's Bread and Butter Pudding. I'm also going to take her advice and add extra egg yolks to omelettes and egg salad. (Ephron was the kind of writer who included recipes in her essays.)

A passage from I Remember Nothing:

The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result. I would like to hve come up with something profound, but I haven't. I try to figure out what I really want to do every day. I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing? I aim low. My idea of a perfect day is a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. . . . The other night we were coming up the FDR Drive and Manhattan was doing its fabulous, magical, twinkling thing, and all I could think was how lucky I've been to spend my adult life in New York City. . . .  Sometimes, instead, we go to Los Angeles, where there are hummingbirds, and I love to watch them because they're so busy getting the most out of life.