“Cooking, like love, should be entered with abandon…” said Sheila Lukins.

        There was anger at the memorial service for Sheila Lukins.  You could feel it sucking up the air in the chapel where her daughters, Molly and Annabel, sought to cool the rage, urging us to focus on a delicious memory of Sheila.

        I recalled how we first met, when a friend we shared invited me to taste her food. As one half of  her 70’s enterprise, The Other Woman, she was catering a party for a bachelor in The Dakota. If you knew her, you’ll guess already that I found her irresistible. She was small with an impact twice as tall, a lush mop of auburn curls and her own unique style of dress, a grownup Eloise, favoring fringed shawls and men’s loosely knotted neck ties - a kind of thrift shop look before the era of celebrity thrift shop dressing. I fell for her charm and style as well as her food.

        The Silver Palate shop on Columbus Avenue was tiny too, like a doll’s house, with roasted beef filets and vegetables to go and jewel-like jars of jams and vinegars and oils in every flavor. A generation of women discovered French cooking with Mastering the Art and Julia Child on television.  That same generation and the next discovered what we cooked could be ethnic, exotic and easier with the books of Sheila and her partner Julee Rosso. The Silver Palate, with its chatty, reassuring side panels of advice and Sheila’s adorable illustrations has sold 2.5 million copies and become one of the top ten best selling cookbooks of all time.

        I recall a hug and the brushing of cheeks at a party in the new back room of the Boat House to celebrate the 25th anniversary edition of The Silver Palate with color illustrations in 2007.

        “Isn’t it amazing,” she said.  “After 25 years.”

        To think that she had almost totally recovered from the cerebral hemorrhage that nearly killed her and left her partially paralyzed in l991.  She struggled back with therapy and then returned to her job as food editor for Parade (where she had replaced Julia Child). Amazingly, in time she was able to go on the road to write and promote Sheila Lukins’ All Round the World Cookbook and later, Celebrate.

        So now to die from a cancer that killed her in just three months. Too young. So fast. Too shocking. Many of us in that crowded funeral parlor, the assembled boldface names of the food world, older than she, normally chatterers, were still stunned.

        Across the country fans talked about their standby chicken Marbella and the famous carrot cake. About the stained and abused Silver Palate New Basics Cookbook.

        Her devoted courtier and friend Morton Goldfein wrote a love letter to her on Huffington Post. He recalled the elegant black-tie party she hosted on a day’s notice in her Dakota apartment for a “holiday parties entertainment” story I was writing for New York in October 1982. I found tearsheets in my files. Goldfein sported a pink pig in his lapel. Sheila’s then husband Richard was confiding his joy: “I knew the Swingles Singers would come back if I held on to my records long enough.” She was a master couturier of the table: “It’s all the wedding loot I thought I would return seventeen years ago and didn’t like, Wedgewood, Tiffany glasses and old silver” mixed with her collection of baskets and vintage lace.

        Sheila believed in a long cocktail prologue and guests were already exchanging addresses as the hired waiter served the green peppercorn pâte. The deep garnet beet puree was spiked with her own blueberry vinegar.  It was such a different time.  Everything was still new.  We were young and each new taste was a momentous discovery.  Irony was not a spice we required. Exactly as Goldfein remembered, Dan Wynn’s panoramic photo of guests surrounding the lace-dressed table - it was the magazine’s centerfold - and Sheila, dramatically in the center, with a staple down the middle of her face. I don’t have access to that wonderful photograph but you can read the original story by clicking here.

        Last week friends who knew her and fans who felt they did wanted to cook something of Sheila’s. On the back page of the memorial program was a recipe for Mother Berta’s famous carrot cake, the Silver Palate classic. Workman Publishing sent it to me so I can share it with you.

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch springform pans.

2. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Add the oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in the walnuts, coconut, carrots, and pineapple.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Set on the center rack of the oven and bake until the edges have pulled away from the sides and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 minutes.

4. Cool on a cake rack for 3 hours. Fill and frost the cake with the cream cheese frosting.
10 to 12 portions

       8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
       6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
      3 cups confectioners’ sugar
      1 teaspoon vanilla extract
      Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)

1. Cream together the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl.

2. Slowly sift in the confectioners’ sugar and continue beating until fully incorporated. The mixture should be free of lumps.

3. Stir in the vanilla, and lemon juice if desired.

(Frosting for a 2-layer cake)