Dear Readers, due to a technical glitch beyond my control, this blog post did not get sent out on Thanksgiving. So I’m trying it again. Here’s hoping you get it today!
Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Readers. Wishing you and your families the happiest and healthiest holiday ever.
It’s my turn to turn out the dinner for the clan so today I thought I’d say it with pictures.
Hope you enjoy the “What I Did On My Florida Vacation” souvenir photo album.
See you next Sunday and don’t overstuff on the stuffing.
Author’s Note: This is my last post until Sunday, November 18, Dear Readers. I’m heading south towards the sun and will have lots to tell you when I return. So please be patient and don’t forget about me when I’m gone.
Thirty-three years ago, I had the privilege of serving as this fledgling organization’s very first Public Relations Chairman.
How well I remember the little event I organized. Twenty or so women- all friends of Lynn’s- found themselves on the floor of the Mercantile Exchange. Where we were given a tour and duly photographed for the “Society Pages” of the Sun Times and the Tribune.
Wow! What a difference thirty-three years makes. Along with the blood, sweat and tears of practically all of the original gang of twenty.
In loving memory of Lynn, and fired up by the outrage against the scourge of breast cancer, these dynamos attacked the problem head on.
Now the event has grown to over a thousand people. There’s a purse auction as the “amuse bouche.”
And a fabulous speaker as the “entrée.”
Superstars like Maya Rudolph.
(Shown here with Dr. Leonidas Platanias, Director of the Lurie Cancer Center.)
And Diane Keaton.
And last year’s fabulous Kathy Bates.
(Shown here with Terri Lind, Charlene Lieber and Lili Ann Zisook.)
And some thirty-four million dollars later- and an affiliation in 1991 with Northwestern Memorial Hospital- the LSCRF has become a leader in the fight against breast cancer.
On a personal note, let me just add that it’s so much fun for me to catch up with old friends who I don’t get to see throughout the year. Hence there are hugs, laughter and of course, some tears. In short, a wonderful afternoon.
But this year was made even more special because of some serendipity. I just happened to know the guest speaker- Jill Kargman.
For those of you who may not have had the pleasure of her company, let me quote just a little from her c.v.
“A born and bred New Yorker, Jill Kargman age 44, is the creator, writer, producer and star of the scripted comedy, Odd Mom Out in which Ms. Kargman played a satirical version of herself navigating the hilarity of raising children on the upper east side in NYC.
…She is a New York Times best-selling author of multiple books, and her most recent book, a comedic essay collection, Sprinkle Glitter on my Grave, was published in September 2016 by Random House.
…Jill hosts the “Jill Kargman Show” on SiriusXM Stars Channel 109. She recently made an appearance in her first Hollywood studio movie, A Bad Mom’s Christmas.
Ms. Kargman recently underwent a double mastectomy due to CHEK2.”
And she went to summer camp with my kids.
And she single-handedly skewed the entire admissions process when my daughter Natasha applied at boarding schools.
Let me explain.
Jill and her brother Will had gone to Camp Laurel in Readfield, Maine with my kids, Nick and Natasha.
Although little known here in the midwest- where summer camps in Wisconsin rule- Laurel was just so great.
A boys and girls camp combined, it featured not only a huge waterfront where Nick could improve his water skiing chops but a terrific riding program so that Natasha could not only keep up with her equestrian skills but stable her Welsh pony, Napoleon, for the summer.
(Photo by Henry X Arenberg)
(And before you get your jodhpurs in a knot, let me say that trailering Napoleon out to Maine and back was a lot cheaper than paying someone to ride him five times a week for eight weeks. And Natasha loved having him there.)
Helicopter Equine Parent Sidebar: Before sending him off to camp, Natasha wanted to know where the camp vet had gone to medical school. “Natasha,” I said exasperatedly, “I don’t know where the camp doctor went to medical school. You’ll both be fine.”
And they were. For five blissful, bucolic summers, Nick and Natasha (and Napoleon) spent eight exciting weeks amongst the pine forests. They made lots of lifelong friends and developed important life skills like independence, getting along with a peer group and boogie boarding.
Natasha even went one step further during her post camp years. She worked for Laurel as an adult doing administrative stuff in the office.
Jill was three years older than Natasha. She was Jill Kopelman back then- daughter of the famous- and fabulous- Ari and Coco Kopelman of Chanel fame.
(This power duo had to be a hard act to follow but Jill and her brother, Will, have done it in style.)
…Anyhow, after camp, Winnetka Natasha and Manhattan Jill’s paths did not cross.
Until one day in Spring of 1991.
Bill and I were taking Natasha on a trip touring the boarding schools that she thought she might want to attend.
We saw Choate and Hotchkiss and Deerfield and Miss Porter’s and Middlesex and Pomfret and then there was Taft.
OMG.
All the boarding schools had magnificent campuses. They ought to. They are better endowed than most universities.
But The Taft School was special.
It seemed bathed in a golden glow, and when a beautiful, long-legged teenaged girl dashed across the lawn shouting, “Oh my God, Natasha! You HAVE to go here!” all objectivity about the school search was lost.
My twelve year old was over the moon. Here was an older girl she knew and admired who was asking her to come to this fabulous place.
Bill and I looked at each other with our hearts in our mouths. We knew that now Taft would be the front runner in Natasha’s affections- no matter how right or wrong it might have been for her.
As it turned out, Natasha did not attend Taft. She happily went to St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island. A better fit for all concerned.
And I told all this to Jill when I was lucky enough to meet her at the Lynn Sage luncheon.
“I haven’t seen you since you were 15,” I said. And then I explained who I was.
Jill had not lost her teenaged her enthusiasm.
“Oh my God! That is so funny! How is Natasha? What is she doing? Send her my love.”
And later, as I sat back and enjoyed Jill’s talk with some proprietorial interest, I was proud and amazed at how clever- and outspoken- she was.
And how brave.
A real credit to her parents, Camp Laurel and The Taft School.
A hard act to follow so I’ll let darling Jill get the last word.
I had the pleasure of dining at Booth One the other night. You know, it’s the old Pump Room in the Ambassador East. Now gussied up and brought into the age moderne by the folks at Lettuce Entertain You.
It even has the old white telephone upon which legends of the stage and screen used to gab. It was the 1940’s version of the iPhone for VIP’s.
In its heyday, these were the types who got to sit in Booth One.
Bogie and Bacall weren’t there on the Monday night that we visited. But things were lively just the same. Kevin Brown, the CEO of Lettuce Entertain You, was on hand.
So was R.J. Melman. He’s son of the famed founder Rich- and now President of LEYE.
(The two work as partners now that the old man has kicked himself upstairs as Chairman.)
So much for the brass. The diners were an interesting mix of young and affluent and old and affluent.
No, Wagner and Wood were A.W.O.L but there was an eighty year old billionaire with his bottle blonde, fifty-something date to add a little je ne sais quoi to the atmosphere.
The dinner itself was delish. I split an order of Beef Wellington and a chicken paillard. The Wellington was so retro- and so good. Made absolutely decadent by its sauceboat of truffle bordelaise sauce. )
The paillard? Safe but serviceable.
And let me add that the Booth One chef really understands his vegetables. My squash and mushroom side – along with the artichoke fritter and baby spinach salad that accompanied my chicken – were superb. Really ooh la la.
The amuse bouche were mini Parker House-like rolls adorned with garlic butter, parmesan cheese and poppy seeds. I ate one. I could have eaten the entire platter. And btw, when I asked for ground pepper for my salad, the waiter brought out a small bowl filled with cracked pepper. I haven’t seen that touch since Chasen’s closed and it was wonderful.
And the desserts were outstanding. I don’t have a sweet tooth and dessert is my least favorite thing but the table’s two selections- the coconut chocolate cake and the nectarine upside down cake- were fabulous.
I had a wonderful evening. But honesty compels me to admit that I miss the Old Pump Room and all its peacock-feathered, turban-wearing, theatrical coffee-pouring glory.
So glam. So NOT politically correct.
And that got me thinking of the other dearly departed French restaurants I used to love.
Hélas, they are adieux, mes amis.
Do you remember L’Epuisette? It was probably my very first encounter with “grown up” fancy French food. I remember trying sole Veronique for the first time there and feeling très audacieux.
It was opened in 1963. I made it there in 1970. And now it’s just a belle memory.
Along with these other French beauties.
Let’s start with the grand dame of them all.
Maxim’s. Opened by Nancy Goldberg at 1300 North Astor Street in 1963.
I made a grand entrance à la Gigi on many a night at many a fête there.
And how I loved their Veal Orloff.
It closed in 1982. I haven’t had Veal Orloff since.
And then there was Biggs at 1150 North Dearborn. It first opened its elegant doors way back in 1954. It was later acquired and renovated by Ray Castro in 1964. Jovan Trboyevic was his Maitre D’. (More about Jovan later.)
It was très elegant. And remember the little individual soufflés?
Are you old enough to remember La Cheminée? Opened by Burton Kallick in 1969 at the site of what used to be La Chaumière, it had a “rustic” French ambience. Back then, when a guy wanted to impress you, he’d take you there- even though you could get a complete dinner for ten dollars
And now let’s welcome back Jovan with two kisses on the lips.
First, he opened the eponymous Jovan at 16 East Huron in 1967.
Then in 1972, he opened Le Perroquet on East Walton. It was a temple of French “nouvelle Cuisine.”
And he followed that up in 1979 by starting a club privé, Les Nomades.
The only thing I can remember about it was that Jovan very much frowned on table-hopping. I wasn’t much of a table-hopper but I only went there once or twice.
Another star on the Chicago French culinary scene made histoire gastronomique in 1973.
But he had to go all the way to Wheeling to do it.
That’s when and where Jean Banchet opened Le Français.
So much has been written about this temple to Fine French Food that my raves are detrop. But i must admit that I could only eat there once a year. It was so rich- ooh la la their lobster bisque- that I would have indigestion for a week après.
I know that I’m leaving out so many places that were fabulous. And they don’t exist any more.
LeCoq Au Vin, Maison Lafitte , L’Auberge on Clark, L’Escargot in the Allerton Hotel, Chez Paul.
Quelle Dommage.
I think I’ll let a maestro have the last French word.
…So Dear Readers, I don’t know if you remember that I walk a lot.
I mean alot.
Like everywhere. I regularly walk to the Ogilvie Transportation Center- and that’s a good five miles from my house.
Anything less than that I consider a piece of cake. Barely a stroll.
It’s a cheap gym and as I walk, I think.
I plan new posts, or have “discussions” with certain people in my life. The process actually helps me straighten things out. It sometimes forces me to face up to unpleasant truths or makes me realize that I’m in the wrong and it’s time to take ownership.
I use the time to meditate, too.
Thus I find the whole walking thing very soothing and I do it all year round- unless it’s one of those -9 Chicago winter days.
I know all my routes by heart and I’m kind of on auto-pilot as I traverse the city.
I know all the short cuts, too. If it saves five or ten minutes to cut corners, I do it in a heartbeat.
(Provided it’s not snowing or raining and I have to think about my shoes.)
One of the corners I always cut is at Lakeview Avenue where it meets Fullerton.
I always cross over the intersection and head into the park. It shortens the walk by five minutes for sure and I do it all the time.
Last week, Lincoln Park was still lush with early autumn foliage. The grass was still springy and the leaves had just started to turn. I was walking under a beautiful canopy of fall colors.
But as I walked under one of the tress, I heard a noise.
And as I turned around, I saw that a top branch from said tree had somehow sheared off- it wasn’t even a real windy day- and this branch had crashed to the ground where I had just been walking only a nano second before.
Spoiler Alert: If you are not familiar with this movie’s plot, you’d better skip this post.
But come on! Maybe you didn’t catch the 1937 Janet Gaynor/Fredric March version.
Or maybe you missed the 1954 classic Judy Garland/James Mason edition.
But surely you caught the overblown 1976 Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson iteration.
On second thought, if you missed all three of these, you probably deserve to know what happens in the current Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper re-telling.
In any case, I shall be brief. The movie’s plot- although now focussing on the music scene àla the ’76 version rather than on the Hollywood scene of the earlier versions- is pretty much the same.
Fading older star (B.C.) brings highly-talented newcomer (L.G.) aboard to share his stage- and then his bed. And then his life.
Bad stuff- drugs, booze, pills, public humiliation- happens to him. Good stuff- high-powered agent, make-over, fly back-up dancers- happens to her.
Supportive BFF’s weigh in on their respective life/career journeys. Sam Elliott and a woefully-underused Dave Chappelle for him. Anthony Ramos and a very good (and unrecognizable) Andrew Dice Clay for her.
Bottom Line Movie Revue: Bradley Cooper (who also directed) is a HUNK.
Those turquoise peepers! That fabulous physique, that raspy voice, his on-stage charisma. He is an irresistible magnet to the eye.
Lady G? Sorry, Dear Readers. I have to go rogue now.
Talented? Certainly. Pipes amazing? You bet. Singing chops for days. Her acting ability? Serviceable. Believable. An inspired casting choice. Beyoncé was originally attached to this project and when she failed to pan out, Lady Gaga stepped in.
But- and I’m putting on my flak jacket as I type this, I found her so homely that I couldn’t bear to look at her.
Bradley Cooper disagrees with me. He went to great directing lengths to show her in all her personal glory.
I wasn’t ready for her close-ups, Mr. DeMille.
Yes, yes, I realize that now is not the politically-correct time to call out another woman for her looks.
But I grew up in the era of Monroe and Loren, Hepburn (both of them) Ava Garner, Natalie Wood, Grace Kelly and Vivien Leigh.
Gloria Swanson had it EXACTLY right.
In summation, let me say that I like the concert scenes but I never bought the love story. I just couldn’t believe that Jackson Maine could/would ever fall for a drab little wren like Ally.
Lady Gaga. Don’t hate me because you’re not beautiful.
Reader’s Digest used to run a popular series entitled “The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.”
For me, it’s no contest.
My most “unforgettable character” had to be my mother, Lea Roffe.
Hands down.
And this past Tuesday, October 16, would have been my mother’s 94th birthday.
(If she hadn’t deliberately offed herself at the age of 92 – because she was pissed that her driving privileges had been revoked.)
See what I mean? She’s already a character and you probably didn’t even know her.
Unless you were a croupier or a dealer in Las Vegas or at Rivers.
While she was alive, it was hard to be objective about her.
She was a character straight out of grand opera- fiery temper, breath-taking beauty, crack card-player, clever intelligence and wild ambition all mixed up in a tempestuous package of dynamite.
She was jealous and petty, a grudge-holder. Combative and ridiculously competitive.
Une agente provocatrice.
Boy, did she love attention.
The only problem was that she couldn’t tell negative attention from positive attention and she would force you to engage with her by hook or crook.
If she thought she was being ignored for even one minute, she would start making outrageous – and incredibly mean- remarks about friends or family members just to get a rise out of you.
No topic was sacred. And if you did manage to tune out her outrageous pronouncements, she would “up the ante” until at last you were screaming at her. In public, sadly.
A real monster.
Time has not mellowed out my recollections or unhappy memories of the life and death manoàmano struggle in which she and I were engaged.
She never liked me much. I was too argumentative and not pliant enough to bend to her almighty will. My earliest memories are always of this mother/daughter battle royale. But she fought for the fun of it. I fought to keep my identity alive.
And yet…
I can’t help but smile when I think of her.
Now that she’s gone and I don’t have to defend myself any more, I can sit back and remember some of her good traits.
Like how unique she was.
Like how ambitious she was for her children. How she never gave up until she had her way.
How she always thought I could do anything.
And what fun she could be when she was in the right mood and before the demon of mental illness overtook her mind and twisted into her a dark exaggeration of herself.
She loved my brother. And I like to think she would have loved me, too- if she only knew how.
Happy birthday, Mom.
I know wherever you are you’re kicking ass and taking names.
Now here’s the ending I wish that we both could have had.
Yesterday, October 13, was my brother Kenny’s 65th birthday.
Now everyone who knows me knows I love my little brother. I look upon him as my first kid- not a sibling at all. But this came as a big surprise to my mother.
You see when he was born, I was four years old. Up until then, I had been a spoiled and doted-on only child and she was sure that I would be jealous of the new arrival.
Instead I took one look and I was thrilled. I thought they had brought me home the cutest baby chimp ever and I was delighted with my new toy.
He looked just like this.
He even has a chimp’s bow legs. (My dad always used to say that Kenny looked like a horse had run out from under him.)
I dragged him around with me everywhere.
(In the spirit of full disclosure, I remember handing him that stuffed animal. That dog was mine. Kenny never would have picked it up on his own.)
All he ever had in his hand was this.
I can never remember him as a kid when he wasn’t holding a ball of some kind. He used to sleep with his mitt.
(Does he still do this, Mary Lu?)
He was my wing man when I got older, too.
Even as a teenager, he was never the pesky little brother my boyfriends wanted to shoo away.
If they wanted to date me, they had to know Kenny.
(This was not exactly hard duty, because some of them were counselors at Camp Ojibwa and once they discovered that he was a good athlete, they clamored for his services. They pretty much bribed him during the year so they could have him on their team during the ultra competitive Collegiate Week.)
Kenny was my partner in crime. And he never ever used what he knew about me to get in dutch with my mother.
(Although he still maintains he has enough dirt on me to get me grounded today.)
These days however, one is struck with another thing about Kenny.
His appearance.
It never changes.
Well, maybe it has.
For the better.
He looks the same to me as he always did. Preternaturally youthful. And he still loves playing hardball, too. A great combination of heredity and hard work.
But if we both inherited our parents’ “skinny genes,” I sure got cheated in the hair department.
I’ve got ALL the Roffe gray hair.
Kenny doesn’t have one.
It’s a gyp but I love him just the same.
Happy birthday, little brother. Wishing you many, many more years on your field of dreams.
Cheers.
And now, Dear Readers, as my birthday gift to you in honor of Kenny, please watch ALL of this clip. It is one of the funniest shows that EVER appeared on television.
