Video: Jeffrey Steingarten Interviews Nora Ephron (Sort Of)
When Julie & Julia writer-director Nora Ephron invites Vogue food writer Jeffrey Steingarten to her house to cook, we knew there was bound to be some interesting exchanges between these two scary smart, unintimidatable, and most formidable serious eaters.
Jeffrey doesn't appear as engaged as he does on Iron Chef America, but that could be the editing—or maybe not. The video itself is not as interesting as Jeffrey's article about Nora and the movie, which appears in the August issue of Vogue (unavailable online, of course). The most interesting revelation is in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the piece: "For nearly as long as I can remember, I have envied Nora Ephron." He goes on to write that he has always envied Ephron for "her writing talent and her comic voice."
Jeffrey Steingarten Cooks with Nora Ephron
My favorite Nora sound bites:
On cooking: "I love if you follow the instructions it comes out, which is not true of anything else in my life." (This quote appears in the print version of the story as well.)
On her love of food: "Food, I think, is my favorite thing. When I go somewhere I have no desire whatsoever to see a famous Renaissance painting. I only want to go to the market, and I only want to go to the restaurant. That's all I care about."
That's exactly how I feel.
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7 Comments:
I completely agree about travel. People always look at my husband and I incredulously when they ask "Oooh you just got back from ____! What'd you do?" and we honestly answer "We ate!"
lexophile at 7:07PM on 07/30/09
Is anyone else getting tired of the heavy heavy promotion of Julie & Julia?
It seems like any media that deals with food is tied into the movie, Jeffrey Steingarten's column in Vogue this month is yet another puff piece. I miss his old columns that actually took research and work, like the fantastic column he did on Soft Ice cream. Now we get fluff like an afternoon chatting with a celeb.
Even junk like the Next Food Network Star is tied into Julie and Julia.
(which I will see.. eventually, although I bet the Julia parts are a lot more interesting than the Julie parts)
peekpoke at 7:58PM on 07/30/09
I am a Nora Ephron groupie. Heartburn was stranger than fiction because it was not fiction. She took Carl Bernstein to task and the &%$#@ deserved it. I enjoyed that book and many of her others.
JerzeeTomato at 10:06PM on 07/30/09
Very Very Interesting interview.........
Dazzle White
bunnyolive at 8:58AM on 07/31/09
I'm like Nora. (OK, I enjoy the Renaissance painting and other things too) But at the end of the day, Food is what interests me the most. I'm known to answer people's question about "Where's your favorite place" with some comment about the food, ex. "Oh CR was great, with hot springs, volcanos, nature, but the food wasn't great.) And places with great food, I'm dying to go back (and buy a cookbook and recreate our delicious memories.) Place without, no desire to go back, no matter how everything else is wonderful (which frustrates my husband a lot.)
Because good food recharges me -- my body, and SOUL!
Kitchen Wizard at 12:15PM on 07/31/09
love Steingarden.
Found a super-funny related article:
Prissy Food Blogger hate the movie
haha could have seen that one coming!
'OMEone had to dig waaay too deep on this one.
Funny exerpt:
" One day she made a comment implying a recipe being wrong for roast chicken. I honestly don't remember what it was, but it struck me as being so disrespectful, completely without deference to Julia Child, that I stopped. What the hell did she know about food? Had she even heard of poulet au Bresse? Didn't go back. "
and then they correct this "blogger" oh good article.hungrychristel at 2:29PM on 07/31/09
Amen. That is exactly how I feel about food and cooking too.
Vincci at 12:35AM on 08/05/09