Posts Tagged ‘Freddy Duke’
Saturday, July 13th, 2013
I just drove by the sweetest scene: an elderly couple picnicking in Palisades Park on Ocean Avenue, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Elderly, I say, when they are probably only ten years older than me. I am eternally drawn to the romantic notion of al fresco dining. (Al Fresco sounds like the name of a gangster gunned down while dining in Little Italy, though not necessarily outdoors.)
I have a fantasy of serving meals outdoors to be eaten on a long picnic table with a vintage French tablecloth and beautiful cutlery and cloth napkins. I also have a fantasy of hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, but it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
While I might like the idea of eating outdoors, I hate fighting the elements and the insects. So I never serve a meal outside and don’t really enjoy outdoor dining unless, perhaps, it’s on a screened-in porch. I like a barrier. I will, however, contradict myself and tell you I choose the patio at most restaurants because it can be infinitely more charming. Like, say, at The Ivy. Ivy at The Shore is safer from wind and flying bugs because it’s covered, so that’s the patio I prefer. But the charm of the patio at The Ivy in West Hollywood cannot be beat. (more…)
Tags: cathy mogull, Coleman Farm, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, gourmet picnic baskets, gourmet picnics, Great Food, living in Carpenteria, Outstanding in the Field, Outstanding in the Field dinner at Coleman Farms, Santa Barbara, Shabby Chic design, Summerland Mercantile
Posted in Reviews | 12 Comments »
Saturday, June 29th, 2013
I know him forty years
~ Maurice Duke
I just love the way my day today played out. I woke up to a phone message from my old friend Billy. In the message he said he’s in town visiting his mother who had surgery and is now in rehab in Santa Monica and maybe we can get together later. I called and said we should have lunch. An hour later my husband and I were walking into our little village with Billy. I had called Donna and Wendy, two friends that I knew would love to reconnect with him. Donna managed to show up for a quick hug and kiss. We grabbed a picture to prove it. At lunch, we got caught up on all our gossip. Then we hung out in my house where Billy showered and changed before heading out to a party. We would leave before him to visit old friends of my dad’s for dinner. Beverly and Lou. My father would say about Lou and almost everyone else: “I know him 40 years.” And now I, too, have known Lou and Beverly for 40 years.
During the rest of the afternoon at my house, the phone would occasionally ring and it would be the same names as forty years ago. Here we are in 2013, and it’s the all the same people. I kept putting Billy on the phone with them. (more…)
Tags: BFF's. growing up in Beverly Hills, Billy Hinsche, Donna Jean Freberg, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, I've had the same friends since childhood, Lou and Beverly Wills, Maurice Duke quote "I know him 40 years", Sin Cake recipe
Posted in Recipes | 7 Comments »
Monday, June 17th, 2013
On a recent day, I had lunch in the Palisades with two of my oldest friends, Benjy & David. Another old friend from high school is battling cancer, so we decided she might like to receive flowers. I found her address and we sent them. Later, they kept calling to tell me what a lovely idea that really was. I got texts. I got calls. It was nothing – except, all right, it might have been my idea — but we did it, and instead of that being that, they kept on giving me props. Also, our friend was very touched by the flowers, so, honestly, we were all rewarded, and that should have been the end of it. Only the boys, my boyz, thought they wanted to do something for me. Not sure why, but they did. I got a call one day from Ben.
“David and I were talking and we really want to do something for you.”
“Benny, the texts and calls have been enough. We all sent the flowers. I don’t need anything else.”
“No, too bad, we have an offer — but I know you very well, so I’m not sure you will go for it. Don’t worry, there will be many other offers, but hear this one first.”
“Okay, Benny.”
“The Rolling Stones. I have an extra ticket, Meilani is out of town.” Ben senses my excitement and fear all rolled into one big “WHAT?!!?”
“Look, I know you, Duke. You hate crowds, you hate noise, you hate to stay out late — so give it some thought. You have two days to think about it, but we REALLY want you to come.”
“Okay, Ben, two days. Let me think about it, because you know I REALLY want to go, but it’s way out of my comfort zone. Thank you so much for the offer and for understanding me so well.”
Panic set in. (more…)
Tags: Best Hot Chocolate, Best lifelong friends, Dinges Waffle truck in New York, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, stepping out of your comfort zone, The Rolling Stones concert, Trader Vic's
Posted in Reviews | 11 Comments »
Tuesday, June 4th, 2013
For Valentines Day I submitted a story about my wacky parents’ two marriages (both to each other) to the Huffington Post. It was posted, and for a few days hundreds of people clicked the ‘like’ button and wrote comments. It was really fun and rewarding. I was once an actress — we love applause. And the likes are like applause. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fredrica-duke/opposites-attract_1_b_2729063.html
A few weeks later I get a call from someone with a familiar voice. The guy asks if I’m Fredrica Duke and he says he is calling from The Ricki Lake Show. I think it’s my friend Desi playing a prank on me, so I keep saying “Yes, Desi.” He stays with it asking if I am the Fredrica Duke who wrote the piece in the Huffington Post. I say “Yes, Desi,” in a more sarcastic, I-know-who-you-are kind of voice. The man stays calm and says his producer loved my story and would like to have me on the show. I say, “Uh-huh, sure.” Now the guy senses I’m not buying this at all because I clearly think I’m being punked. He offers to have me call him back. I say, “No, go on, tell me more.” He tells me that the story is very compelling and the show would like to have me on as a guest the following week. Would I consider it? (more…)
Tags: AFrame Restaurant, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, La Scala chopped salads, prank phone calls, The new Ricki Lake Show, WAY out of my comfort zone
Posted in Reviews | 13 Comments »
Thursday, April 25th, 2013
What the hell is Happy Hour and why is everyone talking about it? The happiest hour for me is when I eat. But if it means standing around with drinks in your hand, eating from some communal barrel of glop, count me out. I don’t think Happy Hour would have appeal for me even if it were at a restaurant I wanted to go to. It just sounds awful. Or am I a snob?
The other day, I was recommending my new favorite restaurant in L.A., Tar and Roses, to someone who then asked, “Do they have a Happy Hour?” I was baffled by the question. It’s so foreign to me.
And then I got an invitation to join my daughter and her best friend Cody and a bunch of their hot 27-year-old friends for what I thought was dinner. But it wasn’t. It was Happy Hour at some Mexican restaurant’s bar (Marix Tex Mex). And while I think it’s brilliant for young people not yet making big money to be able to eat like that, I just couldn’t do it. I asked for a proper menu. (more…)
Tags: Back in the Day, Best Friends Forever, BFF's, Burrata dishes, Donna Freberg, E Baldi Restaurant Beverly Hills, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, Giorgio Baldi Restaurant, growing up in Beverly Hills, Jane Booke, Jill Franklyn, Lobster Bisque, Old Hamburger Hamlet, RivaBella restaurant, Tar and Roses Restaurant, Zucchini Zircles
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 10th, 2013
Alan,
Thank you for everything. Let me start at the beginning. When I was just a wee thing (well, maybe I’m still a wee thing), at a barely verbal age, you taught me, your puppet, this trick and we took the act on the road, performing it for any visitor.
Alan: What’s 2 + 2?
Fredde: 4.
Alan: What’s 4+4?
Fredde: 8.
Alan: 8+8?
Fredde: 16.
Alan: 16+16?
Fredde: 32.
Alan: 32+32?
Fredde: 64.
And magically Alan, you made me appear to be a genius. Which was a far stretch — because genius, I would never be. You were my very smart older brother and I was your academically-challenged little sister. You carried the heavy burden very early in life of having to take care of me. And, look at the job you did! (more…)
Tags: Alan Duke, Beverly Hills 90210 the original show, Big Brothers, finding a cure for Parkinson's, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, great big brothers, growing up in Beverly Hills in the 60's, little sisters, looking up to big brothers, Magnolia Bakery, Mejii bubble gum, Michael J. Fox cupcakes at Magnolia
Posted in Reviews | 15 Comments »
Tuesday, March 12th, 2013
I’m bold sometimes. Shameless really. I had moved with my kids to Santa Monica, just a few blocks from a coveted, very hard-to-get-into nursery school. Circle of Children. I knew someone (hadn’t seen him in years) that was famous, actually, his wife was the famous one, and I read somewhere that their kid went to this school. I totally used the connection, dropping the name at my interview — without permission — and got myself, or rather my son Barnaby, in. I said I was shameless. A mother’s gotta do what a mother’s gotta do. Not only did I use that connection but I revealed to close friends my secret entree into this “private club” of a preschool, and they got their kids in too.
This place totally catered to celebrities, so much so, that when I met a big-name actress at a party, she told me she pulled her son from the school because of the obsequious manner in which famous parents there, including herself, were treated. And she is really famous, but it sickened her. And there was a hierarchy; we, the not-remotely-famous, were put in the lower, B group, and not with the A-listers. The parents of Barnaby’s group were television actors, or people who created TV shows, and losers like me. Barnaby was an outside kid. Literally, kept outside. Inside, with a roof over their heads, were the name kids. Each morning, I threw on my sweats (confession: I didn’t throw them on, I slept in them), pinned up my hair, applied no makeup and dropped my kid off, having to pass Spielberg, Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks and sometimes Schwarzenegger. Daily. Oy, it was annoying. Your kid is only three or four years old, you can’t just drop him on the corner and say good-bye. You had to park and walk in each day, passing these people like you were on a studio lot. Preschool is not AA, I can break anonymity here. At a certain point each day, the B group got to mix it up with celeb kids, and on one particular day when I went to fetch Barnaby, a teacher pulled me aside. Apparently Barnaby hit the Hanks kid. The teacher had both kids in tow. I looked down at my son and said, “Say you’re sorry to Chester, Barnaby.” “I’m sowwy, Chester.” “Great, let’s go.” I always wanted to get out of there fast. I felt like we were imposters. (more…)
Tags: fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, Libbie Lane clothes, Libbie Lane purses, Pea Soup recipe, preschool, pulling strings to get into schools, schools filled with celebs, treated like a second class citizen because you're not famous in Hollywood
Posted in Recipes | 17 Comments »
Saturday, March 2nd, 2013
Not sure how I got roped into it, but it would be Easter vacation, and I was game to head with a group of friends to a hotel I knew and loved — The Riviera in Palm Springs. My friend Libbie and I hitched a ride. Not really hitched, but, you know, found someone driving there, and asked if they wouldn’t mind dropping us off. I didn’t do freeways, hated driving in general. So there we were. No car. But, at a great hotel with a pool, and that’s all I needed. Well, that and a good turkey sandwich. Or turkey club.
One of the girls’ dads had made all the arrangements and what Libbie and I paid was very low. Oh, by the way, this was a one-bedroom suite with way too many of us.
We parked ourselves on the couches and the rest took the bedroom. All good. We would wake up, drink our Cokes (at least that’s what I drank) and head to the pool. That pool area was a club scene. We girls were hot enough but there were hot girls and guys everywhere. Each lounge chair was taken. We all cared way too much about our tans. Baby oil, often mixed with iodine, and tanning cream was abundant. A sea of aluminum reflectors held under chins nearly blinded you in the already too-bright desert sun. The smell of Coppertone permeated the air. I put in record-breaking hours lying in that hot desert sun. (I now put in record-breaking hours at the dermatologist.) (more…)
Tags: Amazing club sandwiches, baby oil and iodine sun burns, Beverly High friends, coppertone suntan lotion, Diana Boos, easter vacation, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, hot boys during spring break, Libbie Aroff, riviera hotel palm springs, Shula Benjamins, teen girls on wild vacation, very big tans in the 70's
Posted in Reviews | 7 Comments »
Friday, March 1st, 2013
There was one prerequisite for our birthday dinner for Robin. A red leather booth. Where to find one? So few places left with that old Rat Pack-era feel. I still miss them. One of my all-time favorites was Sneaky Pete’s. On the Sunset Strip. It was next door to Whisky A Go-Go, where Duke’s Coffee Shop was until recently. Waitresses were dressed in really short-skirt barmaid outfits. A place where Johnny Carson sometimes sat in on drums with the musicians. How great was that? Good that it’s been closed for a hundred years, or it might make me miss my father too much. I went there with him all the time for steak and a baked potato with tons of butter, sour cream & chives.
Peggy had gone last week to Dan Tana’s, the dimly lit, checkered-tablecloth, celeb- oriented Italian in West Hollywood. Libbie thought it was perfect for the Robin dinner. Since I never went to Dan Tana’s much back in the day, it would be a nostalgia-free zone – no memories with my dad to weigh me down. Still, I spent the rest of the week toying with the idea of changing restaurants. Many texts and phone calls back and forth between the girls. Robin said she would be just fine if we all met at Nate n’ Al’s, the Beverly Hills deli we all grew up in, but some of us just couldn’t envision a birthday celebration there. So, I never cancelled the reservation — and here is how retro Dan Tana’s is: they never called “to confirm.” (more…)
Tags: Best Girlfriend dinners, Dan Tana's Restaurant, Food in the 70's, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, growing up in Beverly Hills, I want the 70's back!!!, Lawry's Restaurant, Ma Maison, Red Leather Booth's, retro restaurants Los Angeles, Scandia Restaurant
Posted in Recipes | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 14th, 2013
A random chick asked me to share a two-bedroom bungalow half a block from the beach on a Venice walk street. The year was 1979. There wasn’t much else going on. I was living in my friend’s kitchen that had I converted to a very small bedroom by simply hanging a Japanese print curtain next to the refrigerator. It was pretty ghetto. But it was easy reaching from my bed for a can of Tab, and I had a six-pack-a-day habit. Anyway, I can’t resist the beach, so I said yes. Problem was, I didn’t know this girl all that well. And soon learned there would be no chicks staying-up-all-night-in-PJ’s laughing. Turns out, she was a full-blown groupie. And an alcoholic. She spent her nights at a recording studio with some band that shared her in the late night hours. Most of her days were spent cleaning the recording studio. Not for money, just because she was a fan. My roommate was never home to pay her rent on time. And if she were home, she would start a fight to get out of paying the rent. Fun times.
I would spend hours listening to a new artist, Elvis Costello, and the song, “Watching the Detectives,” which I would play along with on my drum practice pad outside on the patio. It was a sorry little existence. I never felt safe alone at night, and I was pretty sure my big cat Cosmo, who went missing for hours at a time, had joined a gang. Some nights, I would go with my friend Pam to little bars and joints on the strand, Cosmo trailing behind us. Cosmo wore a scarf the way dogs did in that era, which means I put the scarf on him. He didn’t wake up in the morning and say, “Hey, I think I’ll sport this great red scarf today.” Cosmo would wait outside those little bars for us and then follow me home. By the way, I never drank, so I’m not sure what we were even doing in those joints. Something to get us out of the house, I guess. Most days I wore stars on my face. Sometimes I carried a wand. A combination of vintage and punk clothes was my wardrobe. I was very colorful. Speaking of colorful, the roomie once told me this story. Actually I had heard this story for years, I just didn’t know I was now living with a “famous” person. Or is infamous the better word. (more…)
Tags: Beef Su Chow at Ah Fongs in Beverly Hills, Beef Su Chow recipe by Pauli Moss, Chinese food, delusional director and personal assistants, famous groupies, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, living in Venice on walk streets in the 70's, wearing stars on my face
Posted in Recipes | 13 Comments »
