Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron (English) Paperback Book

Description: Wallflower at the Orgy by Nora Ephron From her Academy Award—nominated screenplays to her bestselling fiction and essays, Nora Ephron is one of America's most gifted, prolific, and versatile writers. In this classic collection of magazine articles, Ephron does what she does best: embrace American culture with love, cynicism, and unmatched wit. From tracking down the beginnings of the self-help movement to dressing down the fashion world's most powerful publication to capturing a glimpse of a legendary movie in the making, these timeless pieces tap into our enduring obsessions with celebrity, food, romance, clothes, entertainment, and sex. Whether casting her ingenious eye on renowned director Mike Nichols, Cosmopolitan magazine founder Helen Gurley Brown—or herself, as she chronicles her own beauty makeover—Ephron deftly weaves her journalistic skill with the intimate style of an essayist and the incomparable talent of a great storyteller. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A bitingly funny, provocative, and revealing look at our foibles, passions, and pasttimes—from one of the most creative minds of our time."Nora Ephron can write about anything better than anybody else can write about anything."—The New York TimesFrom her Academy Award–nominated screenplays to her bestselling fiction and essays, Nora Ephron is one of Americas most gifted, prolific, and versatile writers. In this classic collection of magazine articles, Ephron does what she does best: embrace American culture with love, cynicism, and unmatched wit. From tracking down the beginnings of the self-help movement to dressing down the fashion worlds most powerful publication to capturing a glimpse of a legendary movie in the making, these timeless pieces tap into our enduring obsessions with celebrity, food, romance, clothes, entertainment, and sex. Whether casting her ingenious eye on renowned director Mike Nichols, Cosmopolitan magazine founder Helen Gurley Brown—or herself, as she chronicles her own beauty makeover—Ephron deftly weaves her journalistic skill with the intimate style of an essayist and the incomparable talent of a great storyteller. Author Biography Nora Ephron is also the author of I Feel Bad About My Neck, Crazy Salad, Scribble Scribble, and Heartburn. She received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for When Harry Met Sally…, Silkwood, and Sleepless in Seattle, which she also directed. Her other credits include the films Michael, Youve Got Mail, and the play Imaginary Friends. She lives in New York City with her husband, writer Nicholas Pileggi. Review Praise for Nora Ephron"Funny, shrewd, devastating."—Newsweek "A woman for all seasons, tender and tough in just the right proportions."—The New York Times "Always funny."—Mademoiselle "Pure delight."—Playboy Review Quote Praise for Nora Ephron "Funny, shrewd, devastating." -- Newsweek "A woman for all seasons, tender and tough in just the right proportions." -- The New York Times "Always funny." --Mademoiselle "Pure delight." -- Playboy Excerpt from Book The Food Establishment: Life in the Land of the Rising Souffle (Or Is It the Rising Meringue?) One day, I awoke having had my first in a long series of food anxiety dreams (the way it goes is this: there are eight people coming to dinner in twenty minutes, and I am in an utter panic because I have forgotten to buy the food, plan the menu, set the table, clean the house, and the supermarket is closed). I knew that I had become a victim of the dreaded food obsession syndrome and would have to do something about it. This article is what I did. Incidentally, I anticipated that my interviews on this would be sublime gourmet experiences, with each of my subjects forcing little goodies down my throat. But no. All I got from over twenty interviews were two raw potatoes that were guaranteed by their owner (who kept them in a special burlap bag on her terrace) to be the only potatoes worth eating in all the world. Perhaps they were. I dont know, though; they tasted exactly like the other potatoes Ive had in my life. September 1968 You might have thought theyd have been polite enough not to mention it at all. Or that theyd wait at least until they got through the reception line before starting to discuss it. Or that theyd hold off at least until after they had tasted the food--four tables of it, spread about the four corners of the Four Seasons--and gotten drinks in hand. But people in the Food Establishment are not noted for their manners or their patience, particularly when there is fresh gossip. And none of them had come to the party because of the food. They had come, most of them, because they were associated with the Time-Life Cookbooks, a massive, high-budget venture that has managed to involve nearly everyone who is anyone in the food world. Julia Child was a consultant on the first book. And James Beard had signed on to another. And Paula Peck, who bakes. And Nika Hazelton, who reviews cookbooks for the New York Times Book Review. And M.F.K. Fisher, usually of The New Yorker. And Waverley Root of Paris, France. And Pierre Franey, the former chef of Le Pavillon who is now head chef at Howard Johnsons. And in charge of it all, Michael Field, the birdlike, bespectacled, frenzied gourmet cook and cookbook writer, who stood in the reception line where everyone was beginning to discuss it. Michael was a wreck. A wreck, a wreck, a wreck, as he himself might have put it. Just that morning, the very morning of the party, Craig Claiborne of the New York Times, who had told the Time-Life people he would not be a consultant for their cookbooks even if they paid him a hundred thousand dollars, had ripped the first Time-Life cookbook to shreds and tatters. Merde alors, as Craig himself might have put it, how that man did rip that book to shreds and tatters. He said that the recipes, which were supposed to represent the best of French provincial cooking, were not even provincial. He said that everyone connected with the venture ought to be ashamed of himself. He was rumored to be going about town telling everyone that the picture of the souffle on the front of the cookbook was not even a souffle--it was a meringue! Merde alors! He attacked Julia Child, the hitherto unknockable. He referred to Field, who runs a cooking school and is author of two cookbooks, merely as a "former piano player." Not that Field wasnt a former piano player. But actually identifying him as one--well! "As far as Craig and I are concerned," Field was saying as the reception line went on, "the gauntlet is down." And worst of all--or at least it seemed worst of all that day--Craig had chosen the day of the party for his review. Poor Michael. How simply frightful! How humiliating! How delightful! "Why did he have to do it today?" moaned Field to Claibornes close friend, chef Pierre Franey. "Why? Why? Why?" Why indeed? The theories ranged from Gothic to Byzantine. Those given to the historical perspective said that Craig had never had much respect for Michael, and they traced the beginnings of the rift back to 1965, when Claiborne had gone to a restaurant Field was running in East Hampton and given it one measly star. Perhaps, said some. But why include Julia in the blast? Craig had done that, came the reply, because he had never liked Michael and wanted to tell Julia to get out of Fields den of thieves. Perhaps, said still others. But mightnt he also have done it because his friend Franey had signed on as a consultant to the Time-Life Cookbook of Haute Cuisine just a few weeks before, and Craig wanted to tell him to get out of that den of thieves? Perhaps, said others. But it might be even more complicated. Perhaps Craig had done it because he was furious at Michael Fields terrible review in the New York Review of Books of Gloria Bley Millers The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook, which Craig had praised in the Times. Now, while all this was becoming more and more arcane, there were a few who secretly believed that Craig had done the deed because the Time-Life cookbook was as awful as he thought it was. But most of those people were not in the Food Establishment. Things in the Food Establishment are rarely explained that simply. They are never what they seem. People who seem to be friends are not. People who admire each other call each other Old Lemonface and Cranky Craig behind backs. People who tell you they love Julia Child will add in the next breath that of course her husband is a Republican and her orange Bavarian cream recipe just doesnt work. People who tell you Craig Claiborne is a genius will insist he had little or nothing to do with the New York Times Cookbook, which bears his name. People will tell you that Michael Field is delightful but that some people do not take success quite as well as they might. People who claim that Dione Lucas is the most brilliant food technician of all time further claim that when she puts everything together it comes out tasting bland. People who love Paula Peck will go on to tell you--but let one of them tell you. "I love Paula," one of them is saying, "but no one, absolutely no one understands what it is between Paula and monosodium glutamate." Bitchy? Gossipy? Devious? "Its a world of self-generating hysteria," says Nika Hazelton. And those who say the food world is no more ingrown than the theater world and the music world are wrong. The food world is smaller. Much more self-involved. And people in the theater and in music are part of a culture that has been popularly accepted for centuries; people in the food world are riding the crest of a trend that began less than twenty years ago. In the beginning, just about the time the Food Establishment began to earn money and fight with each other and review each others books and say nasty things about each others recipes and feel rotten about each others good fortune, just about that time, there came curry. Some think it was beef Stroganoff, but in fact, beef Stroganoff had nothing to do with it. It began with curry. Curry with fifteen little condiments and Major Greys mango chutney. The year of the curry is an elusive one to pinpoint, but this much is clear: it was before the year of quiche Lorraine, the year of paella, the year of vitello tonnato, the year of boeuf Bourguignon, the year of blanquette de veau, and the year of beef Wellington. It was before Michael stopped playing the piano, before Julia opened LEcole des Trois Gourmandes, and before Craig had left his job as a bartender in Nyack, New York. It was the beginning, and in the beginning there was James Beard and there was curry and that was about all. Historical explanations of the rise of the Food Establishment do not usually begin with curry. They begin with the standard background on the gourmet explosion--background that includes the traveling fighting men of World War Two, the postwar travel boom, and the shortage of domestic help, all of which are said to have combined to drive the housewives of America into the kitchen. This background is well and good, but it leaves out the curry development. In the 1950s, suddenly, no one knew quite why or how, everyone began to serve curry. Dinner parties in fashionable homes featured curried lobster. Dinner parties in middle-income homes featured curried chicken. Dinner parties in frozen-food compartments featured curried rice. And with the arrival of curry, the first fashionable international food, food acquired a chic, a gloss of snobbery it had hitherto possessed only in certain upper-income groups. Hostesses were expected to know that iceberg lettuce was declasse and tunafish casseroles de trop. Lancers sparkling rose and Manischewitz were replaced on the table by Bordeaux. Overnight rumaki had a fling and became a cliche. The American hostess, content serving frozen spinach for her family, learned to make a spinach souffle for her guests. Publication of cookbooks tripled, quadrupled, quintupled; the first cookbook-of-the-month club, the Cookbook Guild, flourished. At the same time, American industry realized that certain members of the food world--like James Beard, whose name began to have a certain celebrity--could help make foods popular. The Frenchs mustard people turned to Beard. The can-opener people turned to Poppy Cannon. Pan American Airways turned to Myra Waldo. The Potato Council turned to Helen McCully. The Northwest Pear Association and the Poultry and Egg Board and the Bourbon Institute besieged food editors for more recipes containing their products. Cookbook authors were retained, at sizable fees, to think of new ways to cook with bananas. Or scallions. Or peanut butter. "You know," one of them would say, looking up from a dinner made during the peanut-butter period, "it woul Details ISBN0553385054 Author Nora Ephron Short Title WALLFLOWER AT THE ORGY Pages 208 Language English ISBN-10 0553385054 ISBN-13 9780553385052 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2007 DEWEY 920.073 Residence US DOI 10.1604/9780553385052 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2007-06-26 NZ Release Date 2007-06-26 US Release Date 2007-06-26 UK Release Date 2007-06-26 Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2007-06-26 Imprint Random House Inc Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:8029940;

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