Elia Aboumrad: A Socialite's Life

As promised, possums, now that it is Friday, the last Friday of this year of our Lord 2006--and that we are lounging in our gastronomic fiefdom, sporting a Sulka dressing gown before a roaring fire that is constantly fed by pages torn from the collected works of Dan Brown, Jonathan Franzen, and Plum Sykes--we bring you photographs from the previous socialite existence of our very own Elia Aboumrad y familia.










We begin with this photograph of Elia and her mother Elia Harfuch. Yes, possums, that appears to be her mother. We thought the same thing, too. Really, the first time we saw it and read the caption, we thought it was Elia's cousin Elia Harfuch, the one whose wedding our Elia catered, and who, it seemed to us, had mysteriously been a bottle blonde only a few months before her wedding. But closer inspection and investigation revealed that it is, indeed, Mama Elia. Apropos of absolutely nothing, we remind you that, as we pointed out in an earlier post (use the handy Blogger-provided tags to find it), Mama Elia is a plastic surgeon.

The photo is from a luncheon organized by the Mexico division of Swarovski, which society rag Casas & Gente, despite pronouncing itself "La Revista Internacional de las Cosas Bellas" (the international magazine of the finer things [in life]), charmingly and repeatedly misspells as "Swarowski." According to the rag's breathless account, the photo is from an "exclusive" luncheon held in 2005 at Le Jardin du Soleil in the Le Cirque Restaurant (yes, possums, that Le Cirque; Sirio Maccioni has extended his empire as far as Mexico City) to introduce Swarovski's spring-summer 2005 collection and sell items to raise funds for the Mexico Vivo Foundation.

Our Elia looks fierce (see, Padma? this is another take on how a dark-haired woman wears yellow). However, she is a little more glammed up than we're accustomed to, and we're not quite sure this Salome-like incarnation is entirely to our liking; we think we prefer her dewy, specs-wearing, heavily accented, chokolett-smearing self. Elia's mother, on the other hand, appears to have washed her hair in the same golden river of peroxide that runs through the heart of Los Angeles, Caracas, New York, Houston, Lima, and Miami. Moreover, the good doctor is not afraid of a floral print, and we commend her for that (we're not in the business of making cracks about people's mothers).












This photograph, also from the glossy pages of Casas & Gente, is from an open house cocktail party at the "gastronomic fiefdom" (we kid you not) of a certain Jaime Hernández--in other words, the opening of an Argentine restaurant in Mexico City. (By the way, we are going to start using that "gastronomic fiefdom" phrase a lot.) The society snap is of our Elia's father, Nicolás Aboumrad, our Elia's sister (we think), Lorraine Aboumrad, and our Elia's mother (ye shall know her by her yellow hair and yellow clothes), Dr. Elia Harfuch de Aboumrad. We're too polite to wolf-whistle, but Elia's sister's a knockout, and the floral-print fearlessness does seem to run in the family.











Finally, we bring you another photograph of Elia's mother, this time at an International Women's Forum cocktail party, once again demonstrating her complete fearlessness in the face of floral patterns. (Uli Herzner, we think you have a very good client waiting for you in Mexico City; perhaps Raggaydy Andy Cohen of Bravo should be the go-between. Come to think of it, why hasn't Bravo had its Project Runway finalists design garments for its Top Chef finalists? No opportunity for cross-promotion is too small, Raggaydy Andy.)

Amuse-Biatch Book Report: Gael Greene

We are reading a memoir by famed New York Magazine restaurant critic Gael Greene, Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess, and we are quite sad to have to report that we are very dissatisfied indeed.

The pedigree and the title seemed promising, but once we got a look at the cover, we knew we were in for trouble. As you can see, it features a souped-up odalisque adorned with every vulgar visual cliché about female sexuality, viz. the papaya, the kiwi, and the pomegranate. These prove prophetic--the entire book is a vulgar cliché.

The back cover carries a blurb from, of all people, gossip columnist Liz Smith: "Gael Greene is the best food writer since the late M.F.K. Fisher. I predict a runaway hit for INSATIABLE, which has all the sex (plus food) that the law will allow. I simply couldn't resist it."

I mean, Liz, honey, we love that fact that you're from Texas and a blonde and a goodtime gal and a 90-something lesbian, but you and good writing, much less food writing, are strangers to each other, as proved by your own effort in the genre, Dishing: Great Dish -- and Dishes -- from America's Most Beloved Gossip Columnist (oy, and the title! I would have gone with something along the lines of Dull as Dishwater or Dull-Ass Dish). A good Texas chili recipe does not make you A.J. Liebling.

It isn't so much what Liz Smith says as that fact that she is saying it that crystallizes what is wrong with Insatiable. The other blurbers are Sirio Maccioni, Tim Zagat, and Bobby Flay. Need we say more? This book is about the gossip of food, the celebrity of food, but fails as gossip and as food writing (though we will give her credit for a few bons mots, such as "soup opera," which we are stealing).

We really wanted to like the book; we swear. We certainly respect Ms. Greene, but the writing is not very good, and the whole book is sloppy, with poor copyediting (a food book that discusses fois gras is enough to bring on both a crise de foi and a crise de foie). We get to hear about her allegedly torrid encounters with Elvis, Clint Eastwood, and Burt Reynolds (and she brags of once seeing an issue of Time Magazine only to realize she had slept with both of the men on the cover). But there's no sensuality, no passion, in her rather limited descriptions. It's just belt-notching, and just as unattractive in a woman as it is in a man.

Trying to give us a bedroom and dining room romp, she makes adultery seem joyless and desperate (which it may very well be), and in the end comes across as an elderly aunt who's a bit of a lush and a perv. Get Helen Mirren or Jeanne Moreau to show her what true sensuality in an older woman looks like.

No one ever had to spell out for us the connection between food and sensuality. Trust us on this one. And here at Amuse-Biatch, we're all in favor of intelligent, empowered women who are in touch with their sexuality. In fact, that's pretty much the only kind of woman we consort with.

However, there's a difference between being a sensualist and being merely slutty. It's the difference between getting it and getting some. Gael Greene admits that she has never found food better than sex. That should come as no surprise. Based on Insatiable, it's clear that, no matter how much she got, she just doesn't get it.