Anyone lucky enough to have watched Celia Cruz perform live can attest to her magical, infectious force. There was no way to take your eyes off a woman with an energy that was almost supernatural and a voice that thundered with Afro-Cuban soul.
front A little more than a year ago, chef Michael Schwartz, smarting from some of the lows inherent in the roller-coaster restaurant business, took an all-or-nothing gamble on a sparsely populated Miami neighborhood where other restaurateurs had flopped, sparking a bigger fire than even he intended when he opened Michael's Genuine Food & Drink on Northeast 40th Street.
LUNCH WITH LYDIA
Cuban-American rapper Pitbull, who moved around Miami so much when he was a kid that he can rattle off stories about stuff that went down on street corners from Culter Ridge to South Miami, Westchester, West Miami, Little Havana, Wynwood, Carol City and Opa-locka, likes to keep things real.
Steven Bauer, the strapping and goofy Joe from that other 1970s show, ¿Qué Pasa, USA?, has just returned with a second plate of food -- pasta and roast beef -- from the buffet at the Doral Golf Resort, and Elizabeth Peña, his co-star in How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer, is rolling her eyes.
ARTISTS
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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
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.
Audio | Anissa Gathers sings a snippet from Celia Cruz's 'Quimbara'