By Foster Kamer 8/13/12 3:14pm

Beef

huang-vs-saumelsson

No, Chef: Marcus Samuelsson Still Isn’t Over Eddie Huang’s Red Rooster Piece

Back in June, the New York Observer published a piece by Manhattan restaurateur, blogger and soon-to-be-book-author Eddie Huang about Red Rooster chef Marcus Samuelsson, tied to the release of Samuelsson’s memoir, Yes, Chef. In it, Huang took a look at the cultural and culinary implications of Red Rooster, one of Harlem’s most critically hyped (and priciest) dining destinations.

Samuelsson did not take kindly to the piece then. And over a month and a half later, he’s still talking about it. Read More

By Foster Kamer 2/20/12 5:20pm

WATERSHED MOMENTS

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Goldman Sachs Ousted PR Prince Lucas van Praag Gives ‘Accidental’ 37-Minute Interview

Lucas van Praag has been the canny, sharp-tongued, and invincibly shrewd face of Goldman Sachs’ PR department for quite some time. Even when it was recently announced that the press sith was asked to leave the company, his response was as succinct as it was typically witty. Which is why it’s interesting to see—in his waning days at the investment banking superpower—one of the most elusive spokespeople in the world give an ‘accidental’ 37-minute interview as one of his final actions at the gig. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/28/11 10:54pm

a'twitter

La Bloombita.

Meet Rachel Figueroa-Levin, the Soap-Making, Jewryican Stay-at-Home Mom Behind Twitter’s ElBloombito

A few thousand people on Twitter can’t be wrong: The best thing about Hurricane Irene was the appearance among them of @ElBloombito, a sardonic, Spanglish-speaking caricature of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his earnest attempts at becoming fluent in Spanish. (This is actually a typical occurrence at pretty much every press conference, but how many people watch mayoral press conferences on a regular basis?)

The Observer reached out to Rachel Figueroa-Levin, the 25-year-old native New Yorker behind the Twitter feed—she put her main feed in El Bloombito’s bio, never expecting either would become viral smashes—to find out who she was where she got this crazy idea.

Update I: Mayor Bloomberg Responds to El Bloombito >>

Update II: Rachel Figueroa-Levin Responds to Mayor Bloomberg Responding to El Bloombito >>

Like most things on Twitter, it started out as a joke. In an email, she told us, “I live in Inwood with my husband and nine-and-a-half-month-old daughter. I’m a stay-at-home mom and soap maker. We are in the process of buying a co-op in Inwood. (We close early September!) Soap making started as a hobby and turned into a mini business.” What follows is an interview conducted this evening on GChat. (What, you thought we would do a phone interview with an Internet star?) Read More

By Foster Kamer 8/18/11 2:33pm

Q & A

Eliot Spitzer

Q & A: Eliot Spitzer Rates the Ratings Agencies

In this week’s issue of The Observer, we took a look at the ratings rage caused by the recent Standard and Poor’s downgrade on long-term American debt. For the piece, we gave former New York Attorney General, Governor of the State of New York, and CNN host Eliot Spitzer a ring: as someone who dealt with the implications of ratings agencies from the standpoint of a prosecutor, a legislative executive, and as a television host, we figured a talk with Mr. Spitzer may yield at the least, some sharper talking points, and at best, some deep insight into the seemingly existential issue of how they operate. We got both. 
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