October 28th, 2013
Two different people recommended a seafood shack in the West Village in New York. Two people – it’s a sign. We must try it, I said to my oldest-newest-best-friend. We waited in the predicted long line—something I hate and generally do not engage in. We chatted with out-of-towners and I offered up my favorite food destination, Morandi. Then we were told to grab two seats at the counter. I pointed to my left, a quick celebrity sighting, an offbeat one. Louise Lasser. A former Mrs. Woody Allen. Libbie kept telling me she could NOT be Louise Lasser since she was far too young. We argued back and forth as I stood my ground. Turns out she was talking about the waitress and I was talking about Louise Lasser, eating a dainty kale salad. That’s not what I would order, I thought.
We went for it, ordering too much — partly due to hunger. A few appetizers that sounded southern and perfect. Fried Green Tomatoes, which, honestly, I can never resist. Libbie loves deviled eggs, so an order of those, and a shrimp, crab and avocado cocktail. And of course a lobster roll, at “market price,” which means expensive, $32.00. I had no problem with that, as it might have made it worth the subway trip downtown. Turns out, the deviled eggs were made with sour cream, not mayonnaise. So, after one bite, I put mine down and knew never to order those again. Then, the Fried Green Tomatoes, not great at all. Followed by the lobster sandwich, which was fine but certainly not the best I’d ever had. What a waste, I thought, of ingesting fattening food. What a waste of money. This was off my list, not that it had yet made it on. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Baloud Sud, best food in NYC, Buvette Restaurant New York, Diner restaurant in Brooklyn, Dr. Oz sighting, fredde duke, Freddy Duke, friends forever, Libbie Aroff Lane, Marea Restaurant, Morandi Restaurant New York, Robin Albertelli, traveling with a great friend
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October 11th, 2013
Sorry, Channeling the Food Critic in Me will be on a short hiatus. I’m celebrating a big birthday. In honor of my big day, enjoy the video below. When I landed the national Dial Soap commercial, a day before shooting I got a call from the producer. I was informed I would only be able to wear bathing suit bottoms. No top at all. Topless! I was then assured this would be a closed set. Only the director, producer, cameraman and a a few people from the ad agency. They said I could choose to wear band-aids over my nipples which I was never going to do. I showed up on the set to quite possibly the most amount of people on a sound stage I had ever seen. More than a handful of men from the ad agency and at least fifty to sixty other people, mostly men. I’m not shy, I was fine only wearing the bathing suit bottom. But, then the water pressure was so intense it made my teeny tiny bathing suit bottom fill up and fall off of me. I was suddenly filming in front of an audience in my “birthday suit.” And, no this wasn’t a dream. A few days later the director called me at home asking me out on a date–to which I declined.
I will be eating at Nobu in Malibu. I can already tell you the food is great!!
Tags: big birthdays, closed sets, commercials in the 70s, Dial Soap commercial, filming in my birthday suit, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, Nobu Malibu
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September 21st, 2013
My mother had a lifelong, deep obsession with everything Mexican. I mean, obsessed. Is there a word for it? I looked it up just now and it’s Mexicophile.
We never knew where my mother’s fixation stemmed from. Perhaps, her Texas roots. She was raised on a small farm in Sweetwater. Or, could it have been the Spanish house she was so proud to own? My mother would wax poetic about every detail of my childhood home. The beamed ceilings. She could stare for hours at their beauty. The stained glass window. The tiles in the foyer. The black wrought-iron railing leading up the tiled staircase. The big bay window. Her pepper tree. Even the French doors were, to her, so very Mexican. Trust me, this woman was so proud of her two story, 3,500-square foot Spanish house you might have assumed she was the architect.
She was WAY ahead of her time in this Mexican love because these were the 1950’s and 60’s. Mexican Americans were not as ubiquitous as today, where every other Californian seems to have a Latin background. I just heard on NPR that in the 1700’s the first settlers in Los Angeles were Mexicans. My mom would have been in Mexican heaven, had she stayed in L.A. And, of course, had she not died so young. Today, she’d be all over the immigration law changes. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: California, Evelyn Duke, fredde duke, Freddy Duke, General Rodruguez the cat, Guacamole recipes, Love of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Mexicans, My mom's beloved cat, Ray Gonzalez, Ray Gonzalez Mariachi Band, Spanish homes in Beverly Hills
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September 11th, 2013
When I hear wheels spinning, a grinding sound, and the voices of little boys, I have a Pavlovian reaction — I turn my head and think it’s my own skateboarding child. Only it isn’t. Not for many years now. I knew all the terminology. Doing an ollie. When I took Barnaby to New York, he ollied off of all the Lincoln Center stairs. There’s a kickflip, a nosegrind. Barnaby spent most days at various skate parks on the half–pipe, mega ramp or quarter pipe. On trips, I might pick up a new deck for him as a gift. But then he would still need the hardware, like the trucks and wheels. The joke in our family about Barnaby’s physical activity and fearlessness was that he wasn’t from our family, nervous, not-too-sporty Jews, but from the Winter family (gentile). The Winter kids don’t think twice about jumping off high rocks into water many feet below (or sometimes no water) as only one example.
Each September, for several years, we were lucky enough to score four tickets to the Emmy awards. We have five kids, so the ones interested, took turns dressing up in their finest and joining us that night. It was always exciting, and one year, it was my step-daughter Emma and Barnaby’s turn—to go with Michael (nominated twenty years in a row—not one win) and me. Barnaby, twelve, but looking nine, spent the whole morning out with friends skateboarding, coming back just in the nick of time, that board grinding to a halt in front of the house, Barnaby drenched in sweat. He took a quick shower and put on a suit and was fully out of character. And yet, totally thrilled by the limo ride. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bb the jerk, fearless kids, fredde duke, My son Barnaby on the X Factor, skateboarding, snacks, The Emmy Awards, white rappers, Wild Thingz
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August 30th, 2013
I kept this on the down low. I’m a Duschinsky. Yes, that’s right, if not for a name having too many letters on the marquee in Vaudeville days, I too would have, could have, should have, been–a Duschinsky. A Duschinsky just like my cousins.
And now I was headed to a Duschinsky family reunion. That is what the invitation said. I started to reveal the information to my friends in the weeks and days before. At book club, I announced my plans for the up coming weekend: “I’m a Duschinsky,” I said out of the blue—the way I say most things, no segue necessary. And, this Saturday, there is a HUGE and I do mean HUGE Duschinsky family reunion. “Duschinsky, it’s great,” Donna said. Then she started laughing, “You would have been Fredrica Duschinsky, which sounds like Russian royalty.” Yep, Fredrica Duschinsky would have been a mouthful. We are Hungarian. As my father told me, quite the opposite of royalty, we’re gypsies. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: family reunions, fredde duke, Freddie Duke, Freddy Duke, screenings, Susie Cakes cupcakes from Brentwood
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August 26th, 2013
I admit it. I eavesdrop. I love it, but sometimes I end up a buttinsky. I start chatting with random people in a restaurant, and it’s so transparent that I have been leaning way far over in order to hear it all. One time, in New York, I overheard a first date. They met on Match.com. Two middle-aged people (pushing 70, so maybe not middle age) were having a conversation and the cuckoo bird woman was telling her date she was a princess in some obscure country no one has heard of. I’m not kidding. I wanted her to go to the bathroom so I could tell the guy to make a run for it. And it was SO none of my fucking business. And yet, I continue this pursuit even though the hearing is now diminished in my right ear and I have to be seated just so in order to overhear everything. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: family dinners, Gibby's restaurant St. Sauveur, great Greek restaurants, Lesvos Greek restaurant in St-Sauveur, Milos Montreal, running into friends on vacation
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August 7th, 2013
I just got my car cleaned at the most ghetto car wash. If it weren’t for cars being dried there you would think it was out of business. When you pull up, you see that the gas pumps are pulled out, just stubs left behind, not paved over. In their place, scribbled in pen (not even a Sharpie) on a torn paper sign, “No Gas.” The whole place is in disrepair, completely run down. By the way, best car wash I’ve had in years. The guys working there get in your car with cloths and spray bottles and really have a go.
While standing in the small building where I paid, basically the size of a tollbooth, I was flooded with memories of an old friend. He lived in the alley right behind this car wash for at least thirty years. I called him Charlie. That’s what he told me his name was. Others called him Pierre. “Where is Charlie, the homeless dude?” I asked the curt woman as I handed my credit card over. “You mean Pierre?” “No, I mean Charlie — because I was friends with him and he told me his name was Charlie. I know he told some people to call him Pierre.” She said he moved a few years ago after a big health scare when neighbors and other fans in his hood rushed him to a hospital and he nearly died. “After that, he moved to the Valley.” The Valley??!! I thought but didn’t say. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Car Wash, Crowne Car Wash in Westwood, Dolly Sinatra, Feeding the Homeless, Frank Sinatra, fredde duke, Friending the Homeless, Little Taste of Hoboken Restaurant, Matteo's restaurant
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July 24th, 2013
Shopping for vintage clothes was for me something of an art.
Or maybe a sport. I had a little talent for it. When I was a teenager, I almost exclusively wore antique (what we called it then) dresses. Shirts and coats as well. The only vintage pants I remember buying were those old high-waisted navy sailor pants. Those were so friggin’ bitchin. But they were made of wool and itchy. I was all about the look though, and an itch I could tolerate for the look.
When I started driving, I would head out to a favorite store on Wilshire in that strange hood just before Santa Monica, near Barrington. The Junk Store. A semi-nasty person owned the place and when I tried to purchase my first item there — a black velvet 1940’s coat with big padded shoulders and white, sorry to say, elephant ivory buttons — I was told to go straight home and get a written note from my parents. A lot of parents were coming in complaining about and returning their kids’ purchases. I thought, “WHAT? My mother loves my style and everything I buy and wear. I also make my own money and it’s not my parents’ business.” But I went along with it, and I’m such a goody-goody that I brought back a legitimate note. I could have gone outside and written my own. I’m slow. Everyone went to The Junk Store for the must-have ski sweater and the patchwork quilts. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: amazing crepe recipe, augie duke, Chez Puce creperie from Santa Monica in 1970's, Dining with the Impressionists book, fredde duke, Hidden Treasure in Topanga cyn., shopping for vintage clothes, Syliva's vintage store in 1970's, The Junk Store on Wilshire in early 70's, vintage clothes passed down to next generation, Wasteland
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
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
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
