'nora ephron' on Serious Eats

Nora Ephron, essayist, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, director, and, yes, serious eater, died tonight. You didn't have to know her to realize what a terrible loss this is. Nora was razor sharp, smart, funny, dignified, and generously spirited, not to mention ridiculously talented. And she was a friend of mine; a friend to Serious Eats; a lover of all things food. If we had a Serious Eats flag it would be flying at half-mast tonight. More

"What really blew us all away was the double-baked bread." [Photos: Carey Jones] Ever since I wrote my pastrami story for the New York Times a few years ago, I've wanted to conduct a taste test between Katz's Delicatessen in... More

When Julie & Julia writer-director Nora Ephron invites Vogue food writer Jeffrey Steingarten to her house to cook, we knew there was bound to be some interesting exchanges between these two scary smart, unintimidatable, and most formidable serious eaters. Jeffrey doesn't appear as engaged as he does on Iron Chef America, but that could be the editing—or maybe not. The video itself is not as interesting as Jeffrey's article about Nora and the movie, which appears in the August issue of Vogue (unavailable online, of course). The most interesting revelation is in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the piece: "For nearly as long as I can remember, I have envied Nora Ephron." He goes on to... More

Unlike other recent food film releases, Julie & Julia is not trying to make a statement about rejecting corn syrup or starting a compost pile. As director Nora Ephron said in a preview for food and film bloggers yesterday (it officially opens on August 7), it's about the joy of cooking, eating, and living. And a lot of buttah. The French onion soup appears in a happy montage scene between Julie and Julia. "I've never gone through so much butter before," said food stylist and former Martha Stewart Living food editor Susan Spungen who worked on the film. But her biggest challenge was making cheese look melty on screen. It had to be hot enough to stretch "from the... More

About a month ago I got an email from Nora's assistant, J. J., saying Nora wanted me to be an extra in the movie. How could I say no? In one of the emails, J.J. said something along the lines of "There's no speaking lines for you yet." To me, that meant it was only a matter of time until the brilliant Nora Ephron figured out what words she'd be putting in my mouth. More

And Amy Adams will play Julie Powell, the food bloggerturned-author whose book, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, inspired the flick. And, so you know this tale of food-obsession is in good hands, Nora Ephron will direct. So says Variety.com. [via The Knife]... More

The world of serious sandwiches suffered a terrible loss this week with the death of Al Langer at the ripe (or should I say cured) old age of 94. I got the news in an e-mail from David Sax, a Canadian food writer who is on a mission to save Jewish deli food. Langer and his wife Jean founded Los Angeles' only great Jewish deli in 1947. His pastrami, made to his specifications, was a peppery, smokey ode to Jewish soul food. When I wrote favorably about Langer's pastrami in the New York Times, I was practically stoned by New York deli afficionados the next time I walked into Katz's. They might as well have put a "fatwa" on... More

To me, there are two national treasures in the world of writers who sometimes write about food, and then there are the rest of us. I'm not going to talk about food's poet laureate Calvin Trillin, though I hope Gourmet's new Restaurant issue will have something by him. No, I'm here to celebrate Nora Ephron. She may be best known to some people as a screenwriter (Silkwood) and director (Sleepless in Seattle), but anyone who doesn't know that Nora Ephron is a seemingless effortless, inordinately graceful, and laugh-out-loud-funny essayist should not only read her current best-seller, "I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts About Being a Woman, but also seek out Crazy Salad, a much earlier but just... More