It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood...For Bagels And Chicken Soup

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Celebrities
Can't Resist

Bob Hope:
Love that
chicken soup.

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"Whenever I get the sniffles, I go over to
he former "Villain of the Year" is
now a cop in New York whose Junior's Deli and get chicken noodle and
mornings wouldn't be the same matzah ball soup," he says. "It keeps me all
clear. That is an old mother's remedy that
without
bagels.
ll
still seems to work."
But skip the fish.
And to think. It all started with produce.
"I start each work day with a bagel and
According to tradition, Eretz Yisrael has
cream cheese," Dennis Franz says.
"But out of respect to the other actors, seven kinds of produce, including oil, wine
and grain.
I keep away from the lox."
Ask anybody today to name a "Jewish"
In 1980, TV Guide named Mr. Franz "Vil-
food and he's not likely
lain of the Year" for his por-
to mention grain.
trayal of Sal Beneditto (a
Grain? When there's
"notorious, selfish, evil
so much chopped liver
man," he says) on "Hill
and borscht and gefilte
Street Blues." He later re-
fish and chicken soup
turned to the show, joining
out there?
the cast in the role of a po-
liceman.
These days, Dennis
Dennis Franz:
Franz stars as Det. Andy
NYPD soup.
Sipowicz on the TV show
that everybody except the
dead are watching, "NYPD
Exactly how that sta-
Blue."
ple,
chicken soup, be-
Mr. Franz, who won the
came identified
1994 Emmy for lead actor
specifically as a Jewish
in a drama series, also be-
food isn't clear, though
lieves in the power of chick-
observers of fine cuisine
en soup.

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believe it started
around the time
of the Borscht
Belt comedians.
What is clear
is that regardless
of religion, race,
ethnic back-
ground, political
leaning or field of expertise, celebrities love
chicken soup.
When he's not entertaining U.S. troops
abroad, or making movies, or playing golf,
Bob Hope can't resist a bowl of the stuff.
"Chicken soup — I love it," he says.
If it's a question of the right thing to do,
the proper thing to do, it's eat chicken soup.
Or so says one of the country's leading ex-
perts on good manners.
Letitia Baldridge is former director of
Tiffany and Co. and White House social sec-
retary from 1961-63, under President John
F. Kennedy.
The author of books on etiquette and style,
including Juggling: The Art of Balancing
Marriage, Motherhood and a Career, and Of
Diamonds and Diplomats (filled with mem-
ories of her years at Tiffany's and the White
House), Ms. Baldridge is, like Mr. Hope, a