Recession Dispatch from…a New Yorker in Santa Monica

As a New Yorker, whenever I travel to California, I’m ever hopeful that I will adopt the effortless, easy happiness of the sunny residents. On my last visit two weeks ago, I wondered if the recession had made its mark the same way it has sent a dark hazy cloud over Manhattan. I stayed with friends, a talented singer-songwriting couple who live in the cozy, creative bungalow community of Santa Monica. They had just landed a very promising project, and living in their hotbed of musical activity, recessionary Manhattan felt far away.

The raw food restaurant next door to the yoga studio I frequented was doing brisk business. From my observation, the Santa Monica crowd thinks nothing of paying $8 for a smoothie or $22 for a yoga class…

Recession-proof Romance

Fancy being swept away by a billionaire? Harlequin is happy to oblige.

Last week while waiting for the subway, I was assaulted.

The attack was purely visual. An onslaught of cheesy posters promoting bodice-rippers wallpapered my train stop. Before I averted my eyes, I saw that the posters were ads for the latest Lifetime movie-of-the-week series, a collection of Nora Roberts romance novels brought to life on the small screen.

Over four million viewers tuned in to the first of the series “Northern Lights” two Saturdays ago, topping Lifetime’s list of 2009 movie premiere ratings. The project stars LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, (who, according to tabloid reports, had an affair during the shoot). Whatever the real temptation of this Lifetime series, the cable network might be on to a recessionary trend. Sales of Harlequin novels are on the upswing—for the fourth quarter of 2008, the publisher reported a rise of at least $3 million. Despite the recession, romance titles as a whole have seen a steady increase in sales, according to Borders Books and Music…

Dip Me in Chocolate – On Not Loving Clara’s Cooking Show

Clara Cannucciari’s online cooking show “Depression Era Cooking with Clara” is an Internet sensation, drawing thousands of viewers across the country who follow recipes from this cute Italian granny’s hardscrabble girlhood. Watching the 93-year old Internet phenom whip up pasta, peas and potatoes in her sparse kitchen on transports me to another place and time. A cold water flat in the 1930s?

Not exactly.

Instead, I find myself fantasizing about the luscious Nigella Lawson dipping her beloved Bounty chocolate bars in the deep fryer in her posh London pad.