Thank you, Evey Benjamin. Or do I really mean THANKS A LOT, Evey Benjamin.

She looked a little like this, but older. 

My first grown-up job was as a fact-checker at a business magazine, a position I held for five long years. Everyone knows what a fact-checker is, right? The lowliest members of the staff were responsible for making sure every single fact in the publication was correct; I really did put a little dot on top of every word. This was before the internet, so you can only imagine the phone calls and bulging files of documents and visits to the library. If a single mistake slipped through, the fact checker was scolded and shamed, potentially fired. If no mistakes slipped through, the fact checker was completely ignored. Which is to say, you only got attention if you screwed up, a management model that really messes with your head, at least if your head is susceptible to being messed with, as mine most definitely was when I was 22. I've gone back an forth over the years on whether it was a good and necessary messing, or destructive and stunting. I was rather "mellow" before I had this job, and have never been mellow since. The job made me compulsively self-doubtful and tense. Sometimes I'm sorry about that. Sometimes I wish I'd had the job before I went to college because I would have gotten much better grades.

Evey Benjamin was my first boss. She was terrifying and fabulous, a word (I hope) I use sparingly. She was slender, had long Veronica Lake hair, and was about my mother's age but seemed much worldlier and more glamorous. She wore high, skinny heels, silky shirts, heavy masses of jangling jewelry and lots of perfume. This made it possible to both smell and hear her coming from around corners and run to hide,* because every encounter with Evey was potentially disastrous. I just googled her and I couldn't find a single mention, let alone a photograph to prove how gorgeous she was, or that she even existed. She looked like Patricia Clarkson, but more ravishing. Another word I hope I use sparingly.

She looked a lot like this, except slightly older.

The other day I was working on a promotional piece for my book (all I seem to do anymore) on the subject of  hosting a frugal Thanksgiving dinner. I wrote that among the many reasons you should bake your own pecan pie is that frozen pies contain "almost no pecans." Then I thought about that. Was I sure? Was I one hundred percent sure?

What her tutelage wrought.

A cup and a quarter. That's how may pecans there are in an Edwards frozen Georgia pecan pie. And I'm damn glad I checked because that is exactly the amount I put in my own pecan pie. So I guess I really do mean, thank-you Evey Benjamin, wherever you are, because I was THIS close to wrongly impugning the reputation of the Edwards frozen pecan pie and the world would be an ever so slightly worse place if I had. 

On a related subject, I am concerned about my pancetta. It is not as firm as it should be. My sister tested the recipe for me and had a similar problem a year ago, but I dismissed her issues because she was drying her pancetta in a shower stall, which I deemed potentially damp and incorrect. I have never had problems before. I will unwrap the meat today and see what is happening, and then I will continue my tutorial, probably with disclaimers and caveats. My inner Evey Benjamin is very displeased.

*Actually, I'm not sure you could actually smell her perfume around corners. Thanks to Evey Benjamin, I'm unable to take poetic license without a disclaimer. I do know that once I was in a toilet stall when she entered the ladies' room and I thought I'd just wait her out. But she was freshening up her makeup and stood in front of the mirror for 15 minutes while I huddled in the stall, hoping she couldn't identify my shoes. She was that intimidating. I was that timid.