The Transom got off to a prickly start at Tuesday night’s preview of the new Target store in Harlem, attempting to ask Jessica Seinfeld, who writes healthy-for-kids cookbooks, a question about McDonalds. Her publicist jumped in: “We were only going to ask questions about Baby Buggy,” she explained, bizarrely aligning herself with the Transom, who had no idea about this rule, or what a Baby Buggy was. Both the Transom and Ms. Seinfeld gamely attempted to continue to communicate, but it didn’t go so well. (Jerry, for what it’s worth, hung back by the sidelines.) Baby Buggy is a charity, and Ms. Seinfeld has designed a related line of baby paraphernalia for Target. Okay!
Next down the pike were Isabel and Ruben Toledo, who have also created a line for the new store; theirs is fun, summery beachwear, which is more up our alley. “They want a good buy,” Ms. Toledo said of her new Target demographic. “They want something that’s fashionable, and it’s at a good price.”
“And who doesn’t want a good buy? Who doesn’t want a good find?!” Mr. Toledo chimed in with a huge smile, charming us thoroughly. “It’s like when we go to the thrift store or the flea market and want to find that five-dollar gem, that’s the same idea.” They said they were inspired to create an island vibe with the line. “We’re island people, we’re from Cuba,” Mr. Toledo said. “Manhattan’s an island, too!”
We also spoke to Real Housewives’ Bethenny Frankel, whose solo show Bethenny Getting Married? has been a welcome summer reprieve from Housewife drama. Ms. Frankel looked impossibly toned, rested, and happy a mere two and a half months after giving birth to her first child; Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child stopped by to whisper as much in her ear.
We told Ms. Frankel that her show had made us a little concerned that her notoriously spastic dog might not get along with the baby. “Cookie and Bryn are great now. They always were. I always had a feeling—she likes her own people, she just doesn’t like other people, certain people… She works for the CIA, and she’s always on alert.” Ms. Frankel also said she didn’t mind that people ask about her career less now that she’s a mom. “It’s nice-it takes the pressure off of constantly hawking something, you know?”
We next said our hellos to 30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden, designer Tracy Reese and Miss New York Davina Reeves, then wandered into the sparkling new megastore to watch chef Marcus Samuelsson give a cooking demonstration. He made chocolate pancakes, with a fresh-fruit sauce whose ingredients Mr. Samuelsson emphasized he had gotten right there at Target. “You don’t have to go downtown to get it!” he exclaimed. The crowd marveled, and the pancakes were beyond reproach. (We may have had seconds.)
We continued wandering, but paused when we heard a cry of “Ty-SON!” near the junior department. It was PAPER magazine doyenne Kim Hastreiter, opening her arms to receive a hug from model Tyson Beckford, a onetime PAPER cover boy. We noticed lots of furtive cell-phone pictures being taken of Mr. Beckford while he talked to us and others, something we couldn’t help asking about. “It sucks! You can be at dinner, and then somebody’ll be like, ‘Man, I just saw you on Twitter!’… I’ve had food in my mouth, and I’ve been eating, and they don’t care. Whoever invented the camera phone…” he said, menacingly.
We suggested that perhaps Mr. Beckford ought to invest in a cell-phone jammer, like middle schools do. “That’s it, you put it in your pocket and go, doo doo doo! Yeah, that’s a good invention! I’d sell that to all my celebrity friends.”
