Results tagged “noraephron”

The New Yorker runs a profile (preview only) of Nora Ephron in advance of Julie & Julia, a film she directed, wrote, and co-produced right here in NYC. In parallel narratives, the movie depicts the lives of chef Julia Child and blogger Julie Powell, who set out a few years ago to circumnavigate every recipe in Child's first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in much the same way a road-weary pilgrim might approach a sacred temple. Valuable life lessons about love and liberation ensue. The New Yorker details a bit about how Meryl Streep filled Child's large shoes (right) for the film, and also a few anecdotes about the famous chef's dining excursions to NYC. "Julia Child ate at Nobu once," Drew Nieporent tells the New Yorker. "She's sitting there, she's looking at the sushi, she goes like this," the restaurateur says, then pretends to pass out. Guess she didn't like the miso-glazed black cod, either. In other news, Slashfood recently ran an interesting post about a Greenpoint warehouse liquidation of vintage culinary props used in the film that took place a few months ago. Julie & Julia hits theaters August 7.

Frank Bruni, the Times’s top restaurant critic, awards the new 2nd Avenue Deli one star today, which isn’t bad considering it is, despite all the history, still a deli. We popped in there for food and photos just before it reopened at its East 33rd Street location and found the sandwiches (pictured) as monumental as ever; a second visit turned up no sign of the free bowl of gribenes (chicken skin fried in chicken fat) that the owner Jeremy Lebewohl had promised free at every table.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Lafayette and Broome in Manhattan, a missing child on Rochester Ave. and President St. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on East 183rd St. and Crotona Ave. in the Bronx.
• A self-admitted alcoholic gave shaky and erratic testimony this afternoon, but was positive that he never would have given his beneficiary a stupid name like "Rafra" in the trial of two men who were accused of plotting to kill homeless drunks for their insurance money.
• Leave off the last "S" for settlement. Mattress retailer "Sleepy's" is coughing up some change from under the mattress.
• Ground Zero was Giuliani's finest hour, but linked illnesses remain a political liability.
• Nora Ephron is now a guest NY Times Op-Ed columnist. CultureGrrl Lee Rosenbaum writes, "Her first column, about her obsession with online Scrabble, appeared yesterday. Next essay topic? Maybe Mah Jongg."
• The price of NYC apartments have surged 23% in the last quarter, to an average of $743,000.
• The price of a first class stamp just rose to 41¢. If you buy Liberty Bell stamps now, they'll remain that price forever.
• Peter Braunstein wanted to skip the whole fake-fireman routine and just kill Anna Wintour.
• Donald Trump's next ratings stunt will be firing his own grandchild, or at least making the big baby cry.

Graphic designers tend to be an even-keeled lot, unless you mess with their precious Futura typeface plans. So at Monday night’s The Art of the Book: Covers With Dave Eggers, Chip Kidd and Milton Glaser, moderated by designer Michael Bierut at the 92nd Street Y, we weren’t surprised that book jacket designer and author Kidd made nice with Panelist Four – a man well into his senior years who boosted the show from the first row.

It's not a deal of Stuy Town proportions, but the sale of the Apthorp building on Broadway between West 78th and 79ths Streets on the Upper West Side is still a big deal. According to the NY Times, Maurice Mann agreed to pay more than $425 million for the building that takes up the entire block (Broadway to West End, 78th to 79th). Mann called it "the greatest trophy building on the Upper West Side." What about the Ansonia? Or all the buildings on Central Park West? Anyway, Mann intends to keep it as a "very high-end rental and to keep it exactly the way it is." The building currently has monthly rental prices of $8,000-$20,000. With prices like that, it's no wonder celebrities and media executives are popular tenants.

Foodies attack the silver screen! In today's Times Arts & Leisure section, the long history and current feast of food in film is given another look. Would there have even been a Big Night if not for the food? In the coming months, Russell Crowe, the first person we think of when the phrase "good taste" coming up, will star as a man who inherits a vineyard and Nora Ephron is working on an adaptation of Julie & Julia, the Julie Powell book that came from her blog. Fast Food Nation has been filmed, too, and, there will be acompetitive eating movie, All You Can Eat, to add some low-to-middle-brow enjoyment to all the wineries and roux.

More and more bizarre details (even more than yesterday) trickle out about suspected fake-firefighter-rapist Peter Braunstein. The freelance writer is belived to have an apartment in Harlem, watching coverage of his crime from a midtown hotel. His father, Alberto Braunstein, continues to feel guilty and apologizes to the woman who was attacked by a man disguised as a firefighter; the police believe it was Braunstein since he worked with her at Women's Wear Daily and has a history of stalking and looking for the spotlight. And following up on yesterday's news that he'd fabricated a story about an ex stalking him to get in PAge Six, he also threatened other women that he'd plant unflattering items about them in Page Six if they turned on him. The Post adds that he lied about his lifestyle, saying he lived with a wealthy woman on Park Avenue but it was really his' mother's place in Kew Gardens: "'It's a two-bedroom, and it's prewar, so it does have oversized rooms, but they don't even have an eat-in kitchen,' a neighbor said." Gothamist hopes that the media attention on Braunstein will lead him to turn himself in sooner or others to alert the police to his whereabouts, because this story doesn't seem to be going anywhere good.

The Hollywood Reporter says that Meryl Streep will be playing the Anna Wintour-inspired devilish boss in the movie of The Devil Wears Prada. Streep has already played another Conde Nast employee, New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, in Adaptation, so we can't wait until she plays Graydon Carter or Jeff Jarvis next (hey, she played a rabbi in Angels in America - she can probably do it!). We think that someone like Lara Flynn Boyle, with aging makeup, would be more physically like Wintour, but these are the movies and Streep can play insane well (see Manchurian Candidate, She-Devil, and Death Becomes Her). Streep does have experience playing people in journalism - she was a thinly veiled Nora Ephron (who wrote for Esquire) in Heartburn.

Just what the world was waiting for! The NY Times reports that Arianna Huffington is starting a celebrity group blog with people like "Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman." Huh. Did Huffington read the Businessweek article about blogs changing business and decide, "It's on"? It'll be called Huffington Post, the NY Times article positions it as a competitor to The Drudge Report, but it seems less that than a celebrity vanity project like, oh, we don't know...maybe like an episode of The Love Boat with more street cred and an ability for readers to comments. Huffington says it's "an affirmation of [blogs'/the blogosphere's] success and will only enrich and strengthen its impact on the national conversation," but Sure, it'll be cool to read what Walter Cronkite thinks, but we fear he'll get bogged down with despamming the system. And don't get us started on wondering if certain celebrities are actually posting or making a minion post for them.

The NY Road Runners Club has its annual Midnight Run in Central Park with costumes, DJ and dancing - you can party AND work on a New Year's resolution of getting more exercise. And there are many different kinds of New Year's celebrated. And how are you spending New Year's? (If you're still looking for ideas, check out NYCNYE, a NYC New Year's Eve guide.)

Lana G, Celebrity Make-Up Artist

Daniel Radosh, Journalist

Cheap flights to London: $199, from Intratours.

The tabs took single women to task this weekend: The Post talks about how there are more single women now than ever in New York (especially in 35- to 44-year-old age bracket) and the Daily News suggests that the key for the Democrats in the next presidential election might be single women.

to feel she's a kindred spirit of sorts. But the jury is still out because of Ephron's increasingly treacly efforts (When Harry Met Sally to You've Got Mail - you do the math)...if there's another Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks pairing in the future, all bets are off.