Friday 5ive- January 24, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week. It was a quiet week, not much going on except for work and a quick trip to Wegmans in Brooklyn.

1) Today is Lunar New Year's Eve (otherwise known as Chinese New Year) and Williams-Sonoma has a lovely display in their store in Columbus Circle. Their dishes looked so enticing, if I had the room for them I would have been tempted.

2) I also visited the new Nordstrom store on 57th Street. It is massive, and if you want to catch a glimpse of fashionistas, head over there. There some very stylish people in that store, working and shopping there. The Beauty Floor is huge, and gives Bloomingdale's a run for its money. This display of bathing suits caught my eye as the escalator stopped on the 2nd floor.

I wasn't sure what to make of this next one- is it a vest or a dress? 

3) The Sign of the Week comes from Mel's Burgers, with a nod to Britney Spears.

4) We watched two Oscar-nominated movies this week. First up was The Irishman, starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci and directed by Martin Scorcese. I liked the first hour and the last hour, the hour-and-a-half in-between I found repetitive. They could have cut 90 minutes out of the three-and-a-half hour running time and I would have liked it much better. Joe Pesci was fantastic, and Ray Romano held his own against these veteran actors. 

We also watched Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt both deserve all the accolades they have received for their acting, and I liked Margo Robbie and Margaret Qualley's performances as well. Tarantino really dropped the viewer into 1969 Hollywood, and every detail seemed perfect. My biggest complaint was the gratuitously violent ending. As usual, Tarantino way overdid it, and that ruined the movie for me.  (If you watch it, turn off the movie when the intruders break in. Email me, I'll tell you the ending.) Like his Inglorious Basterds, he rewrites history, but while that type of violence works in a war movie, I found it overkill here- actual overkill. I'm not a fan of violent fairytales. 

5) I read Ronan Farrow's book about his investigations into the Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer's sexual harassment cases, Catch and Kill. He takes the reader step-by-step into working on his investigative reporting on women accusing mega-Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of rape and sex abuse. He and his producer followed leads, and had several woman willing to go on camera and talk about their experiences. Executives at NBC were at first willing to let Farrow investigate, but pressure from Weinstein and his lawyers flowed down to Farrow and his producer and they had to take the story to The New Yorker magazine. It's a riveting read, with corporate intrigue and Eastern European spies, and topical since Weinstein is currently on trial this week in New York City. 

I followed that intense book with a lighter one- Gigi Levangie's upcoming Been There, Married That, about a woman married to a Hollywood producer who decides he wants a divorce. It's a real skewering of Hollywood, and Levangie knows of what she writes as she is the former wife of uber-producer Brian Glazer (Ron Howard's producing partner). It's hilarious and sometimes inappropriate (and not for everybody), but if you watch the Real Housewives of  Orange County, you'll love this. (I don't watch those shows, but I find this book very funny- Levangie has a great sense of humor.) It publishes February 11th. 

We're supposed to get a lot of rain tomorrow, so it's looks like I'll get a lot of reading done (after work on Saturday, that is). Have a great week, all!

Weekend Cooking- The After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

Gigi Levangie Grazer, author of The Starter Wife, has a new novel out now: The After Wife. It tells the story of reality producer Hannah who loses her husband in a hit and run accident. She must rely on her goofy group of friends to help her navigate her grief, while at the same time she gains the ability to talk to the dead.

It doesn't exactly scream 'this is a funny book', but it is. Grazer skewers the Hollywood lifestyle, though the book is set in Santa Monica, and she manages to take the reader from tears to laughter in the space of a few pages.

Hannah's husband John was a chef, so there are a few good food related excerpts, including this one:

"On Saturday mornings, John liked to be at the Farmer's Market on the Third Street Promenade early- before the regular customers, the crowds, the crazies- to show off Ellie to his old chef buddies, smell the fresh produce, bag some grapes, pears, figs, haggle over the price of bison, down oysters perfumed by the Pacific, and grab an espresso.

We'd be eating something amazing tonight. Something with figs. Figs, a brown sauce, a roast guinea hen? Of course, we usually ate something amazing for dinner- even if it were a simple, perfect omelet."

I read this book on my Kindle while on the treadmill,  and several times I burst out into laughter, causing people in the gym to look funny at me. Grazer's book was so good that I stayed on the treadmill longer than usual. (And no, Gigi, I did not fall off, I was very careful.)

I will post a full review of this delightful novel soon. Here is a link to Gigi's website for The After Wife.