Nora Ephron

Let us not forget that long before Nora Ephron became a force in Hollywood as the writer and/or director of gems such as ``Sleepless in Seattle," ``You've Got Mail," and ``When Harry Met Sally . . ." -- with its famous scene of Meg Ryan faking an orgasm in a restaurant -- she often wrote about food.

Furthermore, let us remember that her popular novel-turned-movie ``Heartburn" was not just a thinly veiled portrait of her failed marriage to journalist Carl Bernstein but also a medley of recipes.

Even her new book of essays, ``I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman," with its witty ruminations about aging, has a chapter on her heroic quest to find the delectable cabbage strudel consumed in her youth.

So it's not surprising that Ephron's recent visit to Boston revolves at least in part around food.

On a lovely fall day, Ephron is walking through the Public Garden near the ``Make Way for Ducklings" statues and recalling how she adored ``Ducklings" author Robert McCloskey's story about the doughnut machine that wouldn't stop making doughnuts. ``I just loved `Homer Price' as a kid," she says. ``I must have read it, I don't know, a hundred times, the way you love books when you're a kid in a way that is almost like no other reading experience."

Ephron, 65, is wearing black from head to toe: jacket, pants, stockings, and shoes. Black, she says, is God's gift to women. The only thing not completely black is a black-and-white scarf curled around her neck -- a body part she famously abhors, due in part to a faintly visible scar from an operation. ``It always looks good to break up the black because all we want to wear is black," she says. ``Black being the new black."

And then there's her algae-hued purse, bought for $200 on eBay. Technically ``sea foam" is the color, she explains. ``It's either a stolen Balenciaga bag for which I paid a fantastic bargain price or a knockoff for which I paid too much."

Ephron has a hate-hate relationship with purses -- their cost, their care, and their inner detritus. ``Le sac, c'est moi," she writes. ``What's in your purse?" she asks and interrupts the content list to inquire, ``Do you have a tea bag?" Apparently, hers usually contains one.

Today, however, the Balenciaga is in ``fantastic" shape. ``I have a camera just in case something exciting happens. A lot of loose change. And lint. The essential ingredient of any bag is lint." She pulls out a piece of paper and unfolds it. ``This is a note to my sister Delia from someone who came to my book signing which I promised I would show her." She pulls out another scrap. ``This is my boarding pass from Sunday. Los Angeles/Dulles. I need this really badly in case the clock winds back and I need to get on the plane again."

Ephron does have a real back-in-time mission in mind: She wants to lunch at the Ritz-Carlton. While attending Wellesley College in the 1960s, she and her visiting mother would always have ``fabulous" crab-salad sandwiches there. The sandwich alas, is no longer on the menu. But when she asked the hotel about it the night before, the staff promised they could reproduce it for her. She remains dubious.

In the cafe, Ephron analyzes the menu with a harsh eye. ``I take all menus personally. Because this could be my last meal. I'm very conscious of the fact that at any moment, things could get worse."

When her crab-salad sandwich arrives, Ephron pulls the bread open for a closer look. The sandwich of her memory, she says, ``did not have an avocado in it. Nor did it have corn. This is not it. But it might taste good, right?"

She takes a bite. ``Not it. But that's OK." She sighs.

Ephron's book has a chapter of one-liners titled ``What I Wished I'd Known." They include: ``There's no point in making pie crust from scratch" and ``You can order more than one dessert." She really believes this, she insists. ``I think it is important to have more than one dessert and not feel that you must choose between them. Lemon or chocolate is one of the major dilemmas of life."

Thus, she orders the strawberry charlotte and the chocolate praline crunch. ``You just have a bite of both of them," she explains. Indeed, when the desserts, gorgeously arranged, arrive, she takes only a forkful of each, pronouncing the chocolate good. ``One of the things you absolutely learn when you get to be this age is that you'd better seize the day," she says.

It isn't hard to imagine that the other Ritz diners, seeing the sumptuous desserts and hearing Ephron's one-liners, are telling the waiter: ``I'll have what she's having."