In her junior year at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Miami artist Jen Stark set out for a semester abroad in Aix-en-Provence with two suitcases full of clothes and no art supplies.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
It's probably a good thing that bad-boy food star Anthony Bourdain isn't hungry. You'd be hard-pressed to find him any gross-out stunt meals at South Beach's Raleigh Hotel.
CELEBRITIES
In the opening scenes of Stop-Loss, the much-awaited second film by Kimberly Peirce, director of 1999's acclaimed Boys Don't Cry, a crew of young U.S. soldiers on the verge of wrapping up their tour of duty in Iraq gets caught in one more bloody shootout.
Southern cooking diva Paula Deen, alone and unplugged in her big country house on Turner Creek, is looking for something to feed you.
Sitting here in the courtyard at Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in the Design District, the place she calls ''Miami's salon,'' artist Michele Oka Doner is giving high priestess.
It's not an exaggeration to say that Kimberly Marrero, a New-York based art advisor, will barely eat or sleep during the torrent of contemporary art that will rain down on Miami this week during Art Basel.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
Elena Arzak has been called the most important female chef in the world. The Madonna of chefs, even. But she seems oblivious to all of her press as she leads you through the elegant streets of this seaside resort on your way to one of her favorite little pintxos, or tapas, bars.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
You can't say Jerry Seinfeld isn't a sport. After all, in May, he donned a fuzzy bee suit and rode a cable off the roof of a hotel in Cannes for the sake of promoting Bee Movie, his first major project beyond stand-up comedy since his legendary sitcom signed off in 1998.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
You've just admitted to rocker Chrissie Hynde that you're a meat eater. Turns out she's not one of the easy-going PETA people who will cut you some slack.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
Brett Ratner, the Miami Beach Cubanito who directs huge box-office hits and hosts such notoriously star-studded parties at his Beverly Hills mansion that he played himself at one of these high-powered schmooze fests in an episode of HBO's Entourage, is pretty confident his new film, Rush Hour 3, will get trashed by the critics.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
Jennifer Lopez wasn't always convinced she wanted to make a movie about Puerto Rican salsa great Héctor Lavoe, says Leon Ichaso, director of El Cantante, the biopic that features Lopez and real-life hubby Marc Anthony tearing up a funky New York in slick disco duds.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
Antonio Banderas, casual in a long-sleeve T and olive cargo pants, is being bad. He is in the middle of a long press day, talking to one reporter after another about his role as the suave (if hairball-hacking) Puss In Boots in Shrek the Third, which opened Friday.
Halle Berry looks flawless even with the harsh noon sun invading her hotel suite. At 40, she can play characters much younger. But genetic blessings and an Oscar in 2002 for Monster's Ball are not enough to help her feel secure in Hollywood.
Lunch with Lydia
Paris Hilton, willowy in a floor-length dress, speaks in a certain sing-song that comes and goes as she munches on fruit at the Shore Club's Ago. She can so speak in that little girl high-pitched thing where everything ends, like, in a question mark? And she can speak straight, punctuating thoughts with periods, her voice a normal grown-up pitch.
