For her latest culinary escapade, pays a visit to Ron Ben-Israel for tips on crafting a dessert almost too pretty to eat.
"Elton John’s people just called and asked me to make his birthday cake—what should I do?" says Ron Ben-Israel when he calls to postpone my cake-decorating lesson. For Elton, I let him off the hook. A few weeks later I’m in Ron’s Manhattan loft where he designs and makes voluptuous, witty works of edible art—bowers of flowers, replicas of designer shoes. In the sunny …[Read more]
Florentine master perfumer Lorenzo Villoresi lets Reggie Nadelson in on the secrets of his art—and his city
"Luxury is having something no one else has, "Lorenzo Villoresi says, sounding a bit like a Renaissance prince handing down a proclamation on the nature of things. In his case, the nature of things is in the scent. Come to his atelier in an ancient Florentine palazzo, and Villoresi—one of the last great artisanal perfumers of Europe—will design for you a couture fragrance that no one …[Read more]
Wednesday, 4 August 1993 'I WANTED proper American country antiques, I didn't like faked-up things then. I still don't,' says Eliza Werner, the laconic proprietor of Sage Street Antiques. Her blue eyes peer out coolly from behind tortoiseshell spectacles at the mob frolicking in her shop this steamy Saturday morning, as …[Read more]
…with blue eyes and garbage skills THE BOYS cruise up and down in their cars here all night. They think if they do it often enough, they'll magically get laid,' says Jack, sitting on the porch of the American Hotel, drinking a kir. It's dusk on Main Street. The hotel is just down the road from the Paradise Grill, where …[Read more]
The Independent, August 1993 THE WORLD is slowly arriving in Sag Harbor,' says Detective Thomas Mackey. Over the weekend, I lost my innocence. And met Detective Mackey, a big handsome cop with a red crewcut - red with a blond glint, more like - some poetic rhetoric and tales to tell about the seamy side of Sag Harbor. On …[Read more]
…Among the dirty linen, a tale unfolds The Independent, August 1993 FOR JANE ZLOBEC, winter was always the most wonderful season in Sag Harbor, and there were snowstorms on her birthday every year. 'I was born on 5 December 1927,' she says. 'I remember drifts 6ft high on Main Street …[Read more]
She’s a peripatetic gourmet, an epicurean, and a culinary bon vivant—but she didn’t know how to cook. Until now. In the first column of an ongoing series, Reggie Nadelson seeks help from a real master of the kitchen. Early in the morning the foggy sunlight glints off the Thames through the large …[Read more]
In the Heart of Mayfair, John Saumarez Smith presides over what many consider the best little book shop in the english-speaking world. "Try that," he says, extracting a book from a messy, tempting pile as if he'd been expecting me, though it's months since I've been in London. "I think you might like it," John Saumarez Smith …[Read more]