THE “RICH PASTRY” MENTIONED IN THE DIVORCE—

There was this Italian pastry. It was opulence out of a scene in Amadeus—the one where Mozart plays for the Grand Duke and the dining room is full of Viennese cakes. It combined the best of northern European pastries and the Italian pastries I’d grown up with. It is a Casatina Palermitana, a small wonder whose name translates to “Little Wedding Cake from Palermo” (which is the capital of Sicily and my maternal grandmother’s maiden name)—and it figured prominently in my second divorce.

While my wife was working as a technologist in the designer garment trade, I was delving into all areas culinary. I was executive chef at a trendy Manhattan restaurant and so I spent a lot of my spare time playing with recipes. And eating.

My grandparents used to call me “Lucullia-face”, which meant that I “made like Lucullus.”Lucullus was a famous Roman statesman and gourmet; I had a sweet tooth. Same thing. And if something seduced my taste buds they stayed seduced.When I first had the rich pastry, I knew I had to one day replicate it.

It was a small, round wonder—two moistened sponge cake layers with cannoli cream inside, topped with vanilla fondant and some candied fruit; but most importantly, it was wrapped along its sides with rich green marzipan. This instant addiction was only available, as far as I knew, in two bakeries in the NY area, and having a couple Casatina Palermitana in the fridge always entailed a voyage by a few subway trains to La Guli in Astoria, or a bike ride to DiRoberti’s in the East Village.

Because marzipan is so expensive, I wasn’t overeager to replicate the dessert. I took my time, “settling” for just buying and eating. However, I eventually came across a user-friendly product in Chinese supermarkets that solved the expensive marzipan problem. For three or four bucks I bought a large can of powdered almond drink, which I played with until I got it right, until I got a useable flavorful final product. This semi-faux marzipan could be made by mixing a little water with egg whites and stirring it into the dry mix. A drop of green food color, and the resulting dense paste was a very viable marzipan substitute.

This discovery was like the philosopher’s stone to me. I was back on the scent of the elusive little pastry. My early experiments were awkward—the moist little three-inch-wide cakes would crumble or the filling and the marzipan would ooze—but I soon got it down. And now I was ready to spring them on the world!

I was having problems with my wife though. And she was having issues with male bosses at work, so my part in our conflict had a legion of boogie men behind it. She was additionally concerned, even though she was in the technology area, that being a little overweight in a fashion firm like Liz Claiborn could endanger her job. So she decided to diet. She asked me to be understanding and to be supportive and I agreed.

But she had once excelled as a student in various baking courses, had a cake decorator’s certificate, and so I highly valued her opinion. I promised her that I would be supportive as she’d requested, but I asked in return that she take one small bite of whatever new dessert I was working on. She agreed.

Several days later she forgot her promise. It was a weekend night and we had visitors, so we went to a Tex-Mex place and everyone had burritos and beers. Now of course this isn’t a dieter’s fare--and she had a second bottle of Tecate to boot. Back at our apartment with the other couple, I proudly presented a tray of four casatinas. My wife, however, rejected the dessert.

I reminded her that she’d promised to try one small bite of my occasional creation, and this only annoyed her. It’s probable that her overly peevish response was fueled by guilt at having broken her diet earlier at dinner. She asked me to just leave her “the hell alone”. And then I made the mistake of whining….

“Okay!” she literally growled at me, “You want me to eat this?!” she bellowed, scooping rather than delicately lifting it off the tray. She proceeded to moosh it into her mouth—deliberately making a mess, the force of the moosh spattering a wall behind her.

“Are you happy now?!” she gurgled angrily. The visitors made their excuses and left. My marriage to her lasted another year or so.

When she found a lawyer and hired him to walk us through the divorce, he required a reason from her. They explored all the normal this-kind-of-cruelty and that kind, and somehow they settled on the key clause in the uncontested divorce:

“…did physically force to eat rich desserts.”