Arlene Friedman and The Pasta Sandwich

It’s a shame you don’t really know someone until you’re at her funeral. Arlene Friedman, editorial director of the Doubleday Book Clubs back in the 1990s, died last week at 76. When I think of Arlene, I remember fire-engine red hair, a bright yellow dress, a barking voice, and no filter. If she thought you looked terrible, she told you straight out. She created an electric atmosphere—you never quite knew what she’d say next. In those days, there was a not-always-so-friendly competition between Doubleday Book Club and The Literary Guild and I felt I had to take a side. In spite of the fact that Arlene brought me back to the NY office from Garden City, I was Sam Blum’s girl. This made for chilly relations with Arlene which I regret now. To have navigated safely the choppy waters between the two would've made me a much better sailor in my career today. According to her cousin Arnie, she loved Broadway, particularly “Gypsy.” I should have talked to her more about what I was seeing for The Fireside Theatre. I recognized that she had an uncanny ability to know what would sell to American readers. I should’ve asked her for the secrets to a best seller. Friends today chronicled her rise from secretary to VP in a man’s world. I should’ve begged her to tell me her stories. An agent recalled a buffet table at a book convention at which Arlene, never a slim woman, sighed, “Do you think I could make a pasta sandwich?” I should’ve brought food to her when she was sick. Too late now…a lyric from Burton Lane & Alan Jay Lerner’s film “Royal Wedding” which she no doubt could’ve sung word for word.

Ice Cream Social

September in NYC can be fiendishly hot. Tonight, the only relief I could get was from a chocolate ice cream sandwich, complete with chocolate sprinkles (a gift from my wonderful neighbor Shirley). Grace can't contain herself when I take one of these out of the freezer: she races me to the couch, jumps onto my chest, and gulps down whatever I will spare (and that's not much!). Tonight's ice cream sandwich was the madeleine that brought me back to my seventh birthday party in Weston, Connecticut in 1963. There was no hired entertainment; my mother organized a treasure hunt. Here I am with a few friends (in a blue sailor dress Mom made me), a pink crepe paper centerpiece, party hats and blowers, favors of waxy children's lipstick and pink nail polish, waiting for a simple plate of birthday cake with a scoop of ice cream. Nothing could've given us more pleasure.

John Lennon…Music Maker, Bread Baker

The night before I baked the basic bread recipe from Nick Malgieri’s new baking book, I watched the American Masters’ documentary, “LENNONYC.” The movie is fantastic: vintage color film of the streets, an ageless Central Park, and old subway cars hurtling through dark tunnels. There's John in 1970s high-fashion and of course lots of his post-Beatles music. Interviews with Yoko, producers, publicists, radio DJs, photographers, and fellow musicians are intercut with audio and live footage of John being John--honest, playful, passionate, totally into taking care of baby Sean, including baking bread. Musicians who played with him said in this film that his genius was he could write what he felt--in the simplest, most natural way. In the midst of a life that hurtled him from obscurity to world prominence, he lived the lyric, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."