pampered journalist

lonely hearts consultants convention

2007-10-01T20:26:00.000-07:00

C'mon girls.

Stop being so picky.

So there I was at the Matchmaking Institute's Worldwide Conference in Weehawken, N.J. surrounded by 80 matchmakers and getting the inside scoop on the lucrative Yenta world.

Thanks, but no thanks. I've been married for 26 years.

Did someone say term limits?

Did someone offer me a million bucks to check out the selection?

No comment.

"Never before have so many wallets and purses been open to the idea of finding help for finding love," said one industry analyst.

Here's the whole scoop... from Sunday Styles....and the link to love....

FASHION & STYLE / WEDDINGS & CELEBRATIONS | September 30, 2007
Field Notes: Online Dating Putting You Off? Try a Matchmaker
By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER
One might think that in an age of unparalleled access to potential dates through the Internet, matchmakers would be scraping for business, instead, their business is on an upswing.

Waffles and Chocolate

2007-09-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Antwerp, Belgium:

Or how to gain five pounds in one long weekend:

Belgian waffles.

Belgian chocolate.

Belgian pannenkoeken

How can one little country be stuffed with so many decadent treats? Well, at least the diamonds aren't fattening.

Start with:

The Belgian breakfast buffet at the Park Lane Radisson.

Rich, buttery chocolate croissants and deep chocolate muffins are just the starters, followed by smoked salmon and young Dutch cheese, fresh fruit salad (to sooth your conscience) and another chocolate croissant (or two) for the road. Just promise yourself you'll swim the calories off later in the indoor pool.

Inbetween stops at chocolatiers, don't miss:

Desire de Lille, a waffle and crepe house with a large outdoor garden seating hidden behind the tangle of streets in Antwerp's busy downtown shopping district.
Start with the Kaas Kroketten or Fondue Parmesan, two crabcake-sized mounds of melt- in- your- mouth parmesan cheese inside a crispy crust. What American mozzarella sticks can only aspire to be, but never come close.

Top it off with a crepe dame blanche, a thin pancake topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce and a dollop of fresh whipped cream.

On your way out, stop at Desire de Lille's takeout on the corner for a warm, thick and sugary waffle known as a gaufre de Liege, and some smoutebollen, the Belgian version of donuts.

Wander about town for a while, then on the square by the theater (more importantly, across from Louis Vuitton and Ralph Lauren) take a seat in one of the creamy bucket chairs at
the Guylian Cafe, one of two chocolate cafes run by the Belgian chocolate maker.
Chocolate dips, chocolate shakes, chocolate desserts and chocolate specials fill the menu, and a chocolate bonbon accompanies every warm drink.

Go for the Guylian Surprise, a scoop of their signature chocolate ice cream and whipped cream, chocolate mousse pie and a shot glass of Guylian Praline Cream liqueur.

Waffles are the masterpieces at the Ijssalon Van Dijck, a busy sidewalk cafe in a 15th century building that was the birth house of artist Antoon Van Dijck, further downtown past the Grote market near the Cathedrale. Huge but light, fluffy and freshly cooked, the waffles here come topped with powdered sugar, butter, or fresh whipped cream. The pannenkoeken or pancakes, are also artistic creations. The Normande -- topped with caramelized sliced apples-- is worth breaking a diet. When you are overseas, calories don't count.
Coffee comes with a chocolate treat or a mini muffin on the side. It's also a great spot for people watching.

A few blocks away, on the Korte Gasthuisstraat, pick up some homemade chocolate mussels, chocolate seashells and chocolate diamonds at Chocolatier Burie, an intense experience for all chocoholics. Next door chocolate comes in a Tintin box at Neuhaus. Godiva is just down the block. Follow the line out the door nearby at Goosens, for homemade Belgian pastries.

Closer to DeKeyserLei and the Central train station is Del Rey, another chocolatier and cafe. The homemade chocolates are unrivaled. And real diamonds are a five minute stroll away in Antwerp's famous diamond district.

Girls Day Out

2007-06-18T20:54:00.001-07:00

Take one Suburban
Eight hot women
Two bottles of vodka
Carrot sticks, pretzels and soy chips
and head East.
And so, with a pit stop in Southampton for a quick round of shopping to satisfy the shop-a-holics and those with spilkes among us, and a bite to eat at 75 Main, we returned -- by popular demand -- for our second annual Girls Day Out at Gurney's Inn and Spa in Montauk
Massages for 60 blissful minutes
Facials for those needed some extra pampering
And booze on the Sun Deck. So what if there were clouds.
The vodka was smooth.
The beach was empty.
The company was excellent.
Even if none of us can remember a darn thing.
So much for turning 50. Or 51.
Age is just a number among friends
Soaking in a steaming Roman bath, schvitzing in the sauna or doing laps in the saltwater pool.
Cap the day with dinner at Nick & Toni's, table #10 please.
Who needs celebrities when the glam girls hit Easthampton?
A round of Valentino martinis for the ladies please... no she's not Joanne Starkey but you're close..
Zucchini chips, pizzas, salads, bronzini.
Topped off with a heavenly semi-freddo and a tartufo cake...
The makings of a perfect day.
Back on the diet tomorrow.

Call me Peter Pan.....or maybe Wendy

2007-05-17T20:24:00.001-07:00

Yes, that is me.
I flew through the air with the greatest of ease... LOL, with a lot of trepidation is more like it.
Before I grabbed the bar I had to climb the 32-foot ladder at I.FLY, a flying trapeze and aerial arts school, quaking all the way.

Once I got up there, I realized there was no other way off that perch. (No way was I going to climb back down that ladder.) So I kicked off my sneakers and flew off, screaming high into the blue sky on my first flying trapeze lesson.

Now that I've mastered swinging and falling into the net, next time I'll hang by my knees, do a flip and rocket over to the other bar. By the way, the only way off the net( LOLOL) was to somersault the 10 feet to the mat below.

The adrenaline rush was incredible! It literally makes you feel like you can do anything!

Just another day in the life of the pampered journalist.

The Great White Way

2007-05-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

It was kind of like clicking the remote. Eight minutes per show. That's all we got. But it was enough time to watch the wedding scene in each of five Broadway shows on a recent evening, enough of a preview to know which shows I'd really like to sit down and watch...

"Prelude to a Kiss" -- closed already.. no loss.
"Pirate Queen" -- a huge extravaganza, well costumed but Irish jigs just don't do it for me
"Drowsy Chaperone" -- worth another trip
"Spamalot" -- A lot of laughs...
"Mamma Mia" -- been there, done that, the music makes the show.

To read more on my life as a professional wedding crasher, here's the story from today's New York Times...

May 13, 2007

Field Notes

And Let’s All Hope for a Long Run

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

DANIELLE BOBISH, a freelance wedding coordinator with a musical-theater background, makes no bones about it: “All weddings technically have a show value to them.”

With the ante for wedding theatrics growing to mythic proportions, Ms. Bobish tries to go beyond the usual array of bridal magazines and television shows for inspiration. That’s one reason she recently decided to take two clients to witness five wedding scenes featured in Broadway shows.

Click here to go to Times Select and read the rest:

And Let’s All Hope for a Long Run - New York Times

Hayes is for Horses

2007-05-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Whoa!
Okay, so I didn't ride Austin the Wonderhorse out on the farm last week. But I did learn alot from Horse Whisperer Tim Hayes and his equestrian clinic. So as soon as I find a stallion.....

Anyway, bottom line: horses are like people. Show 'em love, trust and respect and they'll take you on a fun ride. Otherwise you might just get bucked.

Here's an outtake that landed on the editing floor:

Horses are natural followers, Mr. Hayes said, and seek a leader to look after them and protect them from predators.

“Horses are afraid of only one thing: getting eaten,” he said. “They are not afraid of getting divorced. They are not afraid of low bank accounts.” Once horses know they are safe, they are comfortable and happy.

Here's the rest of the story from The New York Times.

May 13, 2007

Don’t Just Ride Horses, He Says: Get to Know Them

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

Brentwood

TIM HAYES, 62, didn’t get on a horse until he was 48.

He was recently divorced, and vacationing in Idaho, when some friends took him on a trail ride. The champion roping horse he rode was smooth and fast, and Mr. Hayes was hooked.

“Before that time, I thought to be a good rider meant that the person had to know everything,” he said. “I didn’t realize that it was also the horse.”

Mr. Hayes decided to learn more about horses. For the next three years, whenever he had a break from his work in Manhattan as a producer and screenwriter for television commercials, he returned to the cattle ranch.

Cowboys taught him to rope and brand. Comparing himself to Clark Gable’s aging cowboy in “The Misfits,” Mr. Hayes said he was set to go the traditional “rough, tough” route and become a horse breaker. “I was going to be real macho,” Mr. Hayes recalled.

After reading a newspaper article about a gentler way of training horses, he began to wonder what the horses felt and thought when riders climbed on their backs. Over the next few years he sought out master horsemen in Colorado and California and studied natural horsemanship, a kinder method of training and riding horses based on mutual trust and respect rather than force.

“It is not just about riding horses,” said Mr. Hayes, who once considered a career in psychiatry. “It is about communicating; it is about helping horses that have problems.” To do that, he had to understand the way horses, who are herd animals, communicate with other horses through body language and touch, he said.

Back in Manhattan, where he lived at the time, he began giving lessons in 1997 at the Chelsea Equestrian Center and worked as a trail guide at Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk on weekends.

Horse owners and riders started calling him for advice. He started making barn calls and giving clinics and lessons. After his mother died in 2003, he decided to change his life, closed his film business, moved to Easthampton full time and became a self-described horse whisperer.

“Natural only means what is natural for horses, not what is natural for people,” Mr. Hayes said on a recent afternoon here, giving a clinic with his 18-year-old quarter horse, Austin the Wonderhorse, for 25 equestrians in the indoor riding barn at Knoll Farm, a horse farm that specializes in dressage. “Most people make horseback riding convenient for themselves without taking into consideration the horse.”

Mr. Hayes said a rider’s relationship with his horse should encompass love, trust and respect.

“A relationship is not just physical; it is mental and emotional,” Mr. Hayes said. “If they don’t have the three things the relationship will not work.”

Horses are natural followers, Mr. Hayes said, and seek a leader to protect them from predators.

“Horses are afraid of only one thing: getting eaten,” he said. Once horses know they are safe, he said, they are comfortable and happy.

The horse trainer also works with riders on their fears, advising them to feel secure before mounting. “It’s a little too late when you get on a horse’s back to find out they won’t stop,” he said.

Gentleness is paramount.

“A fly lands on a horse and it makes him move, right?” Mr. Hayes said, standing in the corral and making Austin turn, trot, canter and gallop at the slightest touch. “I never have to be firmer than a fly.”

Riding is the icing on the cake. “That’s true intimacy between human and horse,” Mr. Hayes said. “It’s like dancing; you want a wonderful partner that you already feel comfortable with.”

The principles of good riding are the same for English-style dressage and Western-style reining, he added.

Mr. Hayes saddled Austin without putting him in crossties. He uses a rope halter instead of a bit, making the horse move by shifting his body weight forward and back, right and left.

Horses, Mr. Hayes said, have qualities like tolerance, patience and kindness that “a lot of us, including me, lost along the way.”

“If I try to be more like a horse, not only will my relationship and my riding get better, but I am going to become a better person, too,” Mr. Hayes said.

The Chocolate Whipped Cream Diet

2007-05-07T20:17:00.000-07:00

Skip the flour, sugar and salt. Toss the carbs.

Guaranteed the pounds will melt off.
But to curb the cravings, and satisfy an insatiable sweet tooth, the secret is
Chocolate Reddi-Wip....

It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It

2007-05-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten. And maybe before. The ditties are for the little kiddies on the PBS series, "Sheira & Loli's Ditty Doodle Works," but the messages are so on target even boomers should watch.

Especially some that I know. Helloooo?

Here's the story from The New York Times...

Sister Acts

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

Amityville

THE life lessons are in the lyrics.

On tone of voice: “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” sing Sheira and Loli, the life-size rag-doll twins starring in “Sheira & Loli’s Dittydoodle Works,” a television series for young children set in a magical music and art factory.

On listening: “Are you not paying attention or is it that you don’t care?” they sing. “How can you be over here when your mind is over there?”

The characters’ voices, catchy tunes and insights are those of the 42-year-old twin sisters Sheira and Leora “Loli” Brayer, who have written 170 songs for the program.

Read the rest of the story by clicking here:

Sister Acts - New York Times

School's Out...For The Springtime

2007-05-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

What's it all about, Alfie?

The tulips are blooming, the pool's still too cold to do laps but colleges are already wrapping up the year. That empty nest I moaned so much about is about to get an egg back. At least temporarily. (Non-refundable, non-exchangable, non-negotiable return ticket is set for Aug. 23... yes, Fall starts early, too) How come $40,000 buys only 8 months of schooling???

Maybe they just think we want 'em home by Mother's Day...

On the shopping list this week: popcorn, pretzels, Sprite, steak, pasta, chocolate whipped cream, Bailey's....

Show Time

2007-04-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

I've been on the theater beat lately. Sort of.

First it was off to Radio City Music Hall to meet Melanie Mendez, a former cheerleader from Ronkonkoma who plays Dora the Explorer in the national tour of "Go, Diego, Go!" Backstage I ran into Rosie O'Donnell and her lucky brood, who like me, got to schmooze with the cast face-to-face.

The other night I did a whirlwind tour of Broadway, five shows in one evening! How is that possible? Stay tuned for another upcoming NYT adventure.

Meanwhile, Here's Dora's story:

April 29, 2007

Entertainer

Have Backpack, Will Travel (as Dora)

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

SWINGING from a vine, Melanie Mendez made a grand entrance onstage at Radio City Music Hall. “Hola,” she called out to the uproarious cheers of hundreds of children greeting her appearance as Dora the Explorer, the feisty bilingual cartoon character in “Go, Diego, Go Live! The Great Jaguar Rescue.”

Ms. Mendez, 21, a former cheerleader from Ronkonkoma, jumped into a pretend raft, grabbed a paddle and went singing down the Silly River. Dora was helping her cousin Diego, played by Richie Portela, retrieve Baby Jaguar’s growl from the magic bottle so the animal carnival could start.

This was the second time Ms. Mendez was playing Dora onstage; she first tried out for the part last summer, seeking some auditioning experience before entering her senior year as a musical theater major at Five Towns College in Dix Hills.

To her surprise, she landed the understudy role for four characters, including Dora, in a four-month United Kingdom “Dora the Explorer Live!” tour, a spinoff of the popular interactive television series for preschoolers. Senior year was postponed indefinitely.

To read the rest of the story, click on this link:

Have Backpack, Will Travel (as Dora) - New York Times

Grey's Anatomy

2007-04-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's one of my favorite shows. But it also made great fodder for a recent Sunday Styles story about buying the same clothes as Meredith, Izzie, McDreamy or McSteamy. It even made the opening screen on AOL!!!

Did you know that, just like me, Gabrielle on "Desperate Housewives" is partial to Stuart Weitzman shoes? Bree collects Tupperware but keep me out of the kitchen. The last time I wrote a Tupperware story I was, like, maybe 22. Wanna have a party? Pole dancing is more my speed.

February 25, 2007

'Grey's Anatomy' and Closet

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

AFTER watching an episode of ''Grey's Anatomy,'' Sarah Grace McCandless, 32, a novelist from Washington, went shopping. The $160 Citizens for Humanity jeans that she bought online had a special appeal that wasn't about the label.

''I bought jeans that Meredith was wearing,'' said Ms. McCandless, a self-described pop culture addict, referring to the character Meredith Grey. ''I don't have Meredith's body, but you can order them in different sizes.''

Ms. McCandless also has a pair of the True Religion jeans that Izzie wore, along with brown boots like the pair from Frye worn by Cristina, also characters on ''Grey's Anatomy.''

Ms. Candless shops on SeenON.com (also known as SeenON!), one of a cluster of TV- and movie-themed Web sites offering breathless behind-the-scenes chatter, as well as instant gratification for those with a taste for celebrity style. Fans are now just clicks away from owning not only the clothes and accessories worn by characters on more than 100 television shows and movies, but also the sofas they sit on and the martini glasses they drink from.

Screens big and small are already full of recognizable brands like Coke and Cheerios placed in strategic view, a practice known as explicit product placement. But, until recently, viewers had to work at identifying the shoes or earrings characters wore.

Because of the Internet, the selling of more than 20,000 products that are not easily recognizable or never identified in a script, called shopping-enabled entertainment, is taking off, driven by consumerism and celebrity worship.

To read the rest, click on this link:

'Grey's Anatomy' and Closet - New York Times

Fabled Tales and Fabulous Images

2007-04-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I wrote a book about Great Neck, the town where I was then living.

It's full of stories about the celebrities who also once inhabited the Gold Coast peninsula, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author, who found inspiration for "The Great Gatsby", while living there and the kings of comedy, Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields, Alan King and Andy Kaufman. The composer George M. Cohan, wrote "Yankee Doodle Dandy" while living in Kings Point.

Thanks to my son, Danny, who did all the research, and then some.

There are plenty of photos, too. See if you can figure out which one is of the house I lived in. Here's a link to buy the book:

Amazon Online Reader : TM Design's Ultimate Book of Great Neck

Happy reading!

wedding crasher

2007-04-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

i'm a professional wedding crasher. and a sucker for a good love story.
fortunately i get paid to find them....
here's the Vows column that appeared in the NYT today:

April 22, 2007

Vows

Bonnie Byalick and Neil Levine

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

WITH the keen eye honed during a 35-year career selling textiles, Neil Levine was flipping through online dating profiles like fabric swatches in 2005, when he noticed a familiar-looking blonde in an off-the-shoulder sweater.

Mr. Levine, 60, a dapper dresser with a passion for Brioni suits, e-mailed Bonnie Anne Byalick, asking if she worked in the garment center.

Ms. Byalick, a personal shopper with her own sense of style, replied that she once owned a clothing boutique in Great Neck, N.Y.

Had she ever lived in Lakeside Towers in Bayside, Queens, Mr. Levine queried back.

Twenty-nine years earlier, Ms. Byalick lived on the 11th floor with her second husband.

“The puzzle was put together,” Mr. Levine said. In those days he lived on the first floor with his first wife and two of his sons, Jed and Todd. He vividly remembered Ms. Byalick, who in the 1970s and ’80s wore flamboyant outfits accessorized with lace gloves, hats and dazzling rhinestones.

“Back in the day, she looked like Madonna, and she dressed like Madonna, and she drove a vintage Rolls-Royce,” said Mr. Levine, who concedes that he is celebrity-obsessed. “Who wouldn’t notice a girl like that?”

To read the rest of this story, click on this link:

Vows-weddings-marriage - New York Times

chocolate for breakfast

2007-04-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

some of the best stories i've written for The New York Times reflect my own passions.
like chocolate. deep, dark, luscious chocolate....

November 10, 2002

Comfort Me With Chocolates

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

THE love affair began just after my 17th birthday. Ensconced in a resort town on the North Sea in Belgium, romance beckoned. Not with the man I met that vacation, though years later he became my husband. With chocolate.

Breakfast there was never cornflakes. Staying at a Belgian cousin's home, I dined on slabs of seductively rich dark chocolate laid across cursty French rolls slathered in creamy butter, accompanied by melt-in-your-mouth chocolate croissants. I was enchanted. Midafternoon at a seaside cafe, I lusted for sumptuous seashells, a confection or a candy of luscious swirls of white, milk and dark chocolate, served with every cup of coffee. At supper I sampled the cheese, then savored thick layers of chocolate sprinkles heaped onto baguettes. I was supposed to be studying French. I learned to adore European chocolate and Belgian cuisine.

Flash forward to Long Island, nearly three decades later, My French is rusty. My passion for chocolate remains strong. But the husband, who for years brought home bars and boxes of fresh Belgian chocolate from frequent business trips abroad, now steadfastly refuses, issuing no-so-cryptic warnings about hips and thighs. Never mind. Long Island has enough chocolatiers for serious chocolate lovers to find sinfully rich, sweet-tooth bliss right in their own backyards.

To read the whole story, click here:

Comfort Me With Chocolates - New York Times

A Bad Hair Life

2007-04-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Curly or straight?

To know me is to know my hair.

This is what I had to say about it in the Styles section of The New York Times:

January 18, 2007

SKIN DEEP; Taming Frizz And Setting Curls Free

By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

GROWING up, I yearned to have lustrous straight hair that I could wear parted in the middle and let swing down my back, like Marcia Brady of ''The Brady Bunch'' or Laurie Partridge of ''The Partridge Family.''

Instead, amid a sea of long, silky-haired classmates, my zigzagging kinky curls were the target of childhood taunts. (It didn't help that my middle name, Claire, rhymed with hair.) Hairdressers hacked away at my unruly mop, unsure how to tame it.

Even after juice cans, hot rollers, hot combs, oversize brushes, irons, baby oil, gels and chemical relaxers, my hair would fight back, bouncing up time and again into Roseanne Roseannadanna frizz.

In recent years, at my pleading, stylists have blown my hair into stick-straight submission, and when I'm unable to get to a salon, I dip into a cupboard full of frizz-taming products that help uncoil my curls and keep me from looking like my cocker spaniel.

Some people have bad-hair days. Until recently I was resigned to a bad-hair life.

Click on the link to read the full story...

SKIN DEEP; Taming Frizz And Setting Curls Free - New York Times