Into the Pines Kitchen contains 200 recipes from 100 contributors, including Pines notables Scott Bromley, Gilbert Parker, and Hal Rubinstein. As a nod to bygone days, the book also features a posthumous contribution from John Whyte, one of the Pines' founders. The book includes original photography of the island from Pines artists William Karam, Mark Lonsbury, and Barbara Sahlman. •More About this Book»
"Drag Queens Can Cook-Recipes to Sync Your Lips Around" is a new cookbook, being sold for a tax deductible $25, created by doctors and life partners Rick Byrd, PhD, and Patrick Fratellone, MD, as a benefit for the Elmer A. Lindsay Memorial Medical Center, the Cherry Grove Doctor's Fund. •Read More»
May 30, 2009 - Cherry Grove and guest performers gave their all, on May 30 at the Grove Hotel's Ice Palace, at "PAWS" & Reflect, the benefit for the Pines Animal Welfare Society, the animal rescue organization, headed by Valerie Perez in the Grove and Lee Frey in the Pines. Panzi and Philomena were Mistresses of Ceremony for the first half, which essentially featured performances by members of the community, and Dame Edith Piro hosted the second half, involving performers associated with the hotel. Throughout the evening, many good wishes went out to Bella, who was to MC, but was taken ill during Memorial Day Weekend, and was still recovering from emergency surgery. DJ Chuck was responsible for music and sound.
Grove Girls with Guitars (G3), consisting of Wendy Lewis, SallyAnn Piacentino Sherri Rase, and newcomer Sue King, gave a pre-show, beginnning with a gentle Beatles number, "Two of Us," in which the musicians shared that they were "on our way back home," and which they capped with a whistled coda. G3's colleague Lana Kelly rejoined the group to sing a rousing "What's Up?" ("Hey! What's going on?"), the Four Non-Blondes song. With guest appearances by Porsche, singing, and Ann Phetamine, dancing in some hefty platform boots, G3 concluded with "These Boots Are Made for Walking." Porsche later concluded the show, pouring out heart and voice in two of her Janis Joplin specialties, "Cry Baby" and, from "Porgy and Bess," "Summertime."
A special guest was Judy Garland tribute artist par excellence Tommy Femia, who started out by singing a number associated with daughter Liza Minnelli, "Come to the Cabaret," paired with Mama Judy's "Swanee (How I love you)." Garland lived again in Tommy's "Trolley Song" and "Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody."
In terrific voice, Brandon Cutrell-host of theater and open mic event "Broadway at the Beach," at the Ice Palace on Monday nights, beginning its fourth season on June 22-brought some of us back to our youth, way before Brandon's birth, singing "Catch a Falling Star," the Perry Como song. He continued with a dulcet "Chasing Cars" ("If I lay here, would you lie with me, and just forget the world"), Snow Patrol's song, and an intense "Being Alive," from Stephen Sondheim's "Company."
Singers in the first half of the evening were Rose Levine, very chic-looking, as made up and coiffed by Ann Phetamine, and enthusiastically belting out "Nothing Can Stop Me Now" and "I'm Riding High," and this writer, singing Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon."
MC Panzi introduced herself with red hot mama Motormouth Maybelle's "Big, Blonde and Beautiful," from "Hairspray," and Philomena waltzed on, telling us, liltingly, about her "Wonderful, Wonderful Day." Dame Edith's offering was a medley of theme songs from favorite television series "Laverne and Shirley," "Facts of Life," "Golden Girls," "Good Times," and "The Jeffersons."
Demi-Tasse fervently declared, "This Time I Know It's for Real," in the Donna Summer song. Coco Love's wonderful number was "You Can Have My Husband (but please don't mess with my man"), the Irma Thomas hit, in Marva Wright's version. Ann Phetamine's steamy and energetic contribution was by Miley Cyrus, averring, "(I just can't wait to) See You Again." Robin Kradles embraced us all with "I Love Being Here with You."
Ruth and Susan Freedner portrayed an emotional Louis Prima and contrastingly deadpan Keely Smith, doing "Somebody Loves Me," "Nothing's Too Good for My Baby," and "Bei Mir Bist du Schoen." Tony Bondi, sporting raingear and twirling a large umbrella, gave us oldie, but goodie "It's Been Raining, Raining in My Heart," from the 1930s-style 1969 musical "Dames at Sea," complete with dance steps. Barbara Hirsch and Linda Dickerman became Sonny and Cher, performing "I Got You, Babe." Charity vamped us with "Hard-Hearted Hannah."
The hotel's Bastard Amber, with antennae and shiny breastplate, managed to find meaning in a lively wordless number. In "Give Me a Chance to Sing Melody," Madonna Manson lamented the plight of the Broadway supporting player, eternally condemned to sing harmony. Logan Hardcore, mistress of perpetual motion, was on hand for a medley that included "Dance 10, Looks 3," from "A Chorus Line," complete with splits, "I Just Wanna Dance," and "Popular," from "Wicked."
Also during the evening, Henry Sterling presented PAWS with a check for $5,100, the proceeds from his Memorial Day Weekend benefit deck sale; Homecoming Queen Urban Sprawl announced that her theme for the Fourth of July Invasion of the Pines would be "Side Show;" and Sofina won more than $400 in the 50-50 raffle.
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