15 Minutes of Fame on the Installment Plan

Andy Warhol famously stated that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. I'm doing it on the installment plan.

A few years ago I was interviewed as the "domain expert" for a Consumer Affairs TV show in NY. A viewer's father left her a JFK Memorial album as an heirloom and she wanted to know how much it was worth. In this neck of the woods you can find one or two JFK Memorial albums in any weekend round of garage sales so the record wasn't worth more than $1.

I count that as 1 minute of fame.

Just in time for Passover I got a minute of air time on the NYC public radio station discoursing on matzo balls. I'll call that another minute of fame.

The station had asked listeners to post comments about the perfect matzo ball recipe. My post described the years my mother and my aunts searched for the perfect recipe only to discover the perfect recipe on the side of the matzo meal box. The difference between perfect and what my mother made was not the ingredients, but whether the egg whites were separated and beaten and how the meal was mixed. This was information provided by my brother (to whom I defer in all things culinary).

Now perfect is in the eye of the beholder. Gourmet matzo balls, "perfect" matzo balls, are expected to be light with a uniform texture - something like quennels. In my estimation, quennels is divine food, but (also in my estimation) "real" matzo balls are rubbery in the center. Matzo balls with bounce is what I want to eat at seder. I don't want wimpy food. I want food that fights back.

I got an e-mail from the show's producer the next day and a few days later I was on the air reprising my post. I gave full credit to my brother for my purported expertise.

Thirteen more minutes of fame to go.