julia-child

The Weinsteins Dodge a Bullet

cityfile · 08/24/09 01:44PM

Harvey and Bob Weinstein are breathing a sigh of relief today. Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds did better than expected at the box office this weekend, raking in $37.6 million in sales. Not that one good weekend will be enough to lift the studio out of the financial mess it is in. [NYT, THR, WSJ]
• Related: In what may be a first for a movie opening, Inglourious Basterds seems to have benefited by a "crest of tweeting goodwill." [THR]
• Some 48 years after it was first published, Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is now No. 1 on the New York Times' best-seller list. [NYT]
• Has the Glenn Beck brouhaha made advertisers skittish about buying commercial time during political shows in general? [AdAge, Politico]
Jared Kushner's New York Observer is launching a new paper called The Commercial Observer. It's about commercial real estate, naturally. [NYT]
• Magazine newsstand sales continue to suffer, not surprisingly. [AdAge]

Eating & Drinking: Tuesday Edition

cityfile · 08/11/09 03:58PM

• A few new restaurants scheduled open this week or next. [Gothamist]
• Expansions du jour: Michael Psilakis (Anthos, Kefi, Gus & Gabriel) may or may not be looking to launch a Greek food-truck. And Michael Huynh (Bar Bao, Baoguettes) is planning to open O Bao Noodles & Grill on East 53rd St. this fall.
• Bars and restaurants often continue to operate after they file for bankruptcy. That doesn't appear to be the case with Merkato 55, though. [Eater]
• Oprah's diet was destroyed during a visit to NYC last weekend. Of course, potato skins at Planet Hollywood and dessert at Serendipity 3 will do that. [P6]

Julia Child Shocker: The French Chef Was An American Spy!

Seth Abramovitch · 08/14/08 01:55PM

A report released today reveals that Julia Child was one of a long list of American spies in the service of the government during WWII, stealing top secret sauerbraten and wienerschnitzel recipes from the Nazis in a courageous effort to defend our shores against encroaching evils. From Fox News:

Julia Child Was A U.S. Spy

Ryan Tate · 08/14/08 07:14AM

TV chef and cookbook author Julia Child was secretly more awesome than you already thought, because she was part of a very exciting World War II-era U.S. spy ring, government files revealed this morning. It was already known that Child had worked in an administrative capacity for the Office of Strategic Services, the less evil precursor to the CIA. And anyone who knew her biography had to wonder about her long career at various U.S. stations abroad. And about that recipe for "poached secrets."