•• • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• • Introducing 5 Great New Soups In our Stellar Soup Lineup Corn Chowder & Split Pea Broccoli Cheese & Lima Bean Potato Barley & Cabbage Borscht Tomato Bisque & Mushroom Barley White Bean Chicken Chili & Vegetable Mushroom Barley Tue: Wed: Thu: Fri: Sat: Sun: Also enjoy our daily lineup of fine home-made soups: *1, Matzo Ball • Kreplach • Chicken Noodle Chicken Rice • Diet Cabbage • Vegetarian Chili 4 ; k - All soups available for carry-out in our new heavy-duty reusable containers 1 $3.50 Pint • $6.25 Quart New! $11.95 Half Gallon On the Boardwalk 248.855.6622 Give Them What They Want! •• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• •• PEAROWS q, t z+... we/ A Birmingham Tradition For 25 Years Two Hours Free Parking In The Structure Directly Behind Peabody's Entertainment Friday & Saturday Nights One Lunch Or One Dinner Entry e r 0/ /° OFF' When You Buy A Lunch Or Dinner Of Equal Or Greater Value Valid Mon.-Thurs. • With Coupon • Expires 10/31/02 248.644.5222 34965 Woodward • Just South Of Maple Reservations taken for 8 or more • 35 to 1400 guests • Bar/Bat Mitzvahs • Corporate events 631600 • Seven banquet rooms • Weddings & Showers • Holiday gatherings Modified Kosher Available Lunch served M-F, 10:30am - 2:00pm -$5.75 Call for package rates! 586: 759-6500 Entertainment At The Movies `White Oleander' Author Janet Fitch's highly successful "Oprah Book Club" novel comes to the silver screen with an all-star cast. NAOMI PFEFFERMAN Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles 1117 hen Janet Fitch met Michelle Pfeiffer last year to discuss the film version of her debut novel, White Oleander, Fitch felt like she'd stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone. "It was surreal," the quirky Jewish author said. It was just two years since the 46- year-old writer had been stockpiling rejection letters at her home in Silver Lake, Calif. She hadn't even sold her first short story until she was in her 30s. When Fitch finished 1999's White Oleander — about a teen's rocky jour- ney through foster care — she was thrilled simply to secure a publisher (Little, Brown). Hardly anyone showed up to her early readings of Oleander, which follows young Astrid's struggle after her beautiful, self-absorbed mother, Ingrid (Pfeiffer), murders her lover and goes to prison. Then Oprah Winfrey called, anoth- er surreal moment for Fitch. "She told me she loved the novel and wanted to make it the May 1999 selection for her book club," Fitch said. . The book shot to the top of the best-seller lists, Warner Bros. made a movie offer, and Pfeiffer, Renee Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn signed on to star. During her dinner out with Pfeiffer in the tony L.A. suburb of Brentwood last year, Fitch described how her white-blond, Nordic characters actual- ly reflect her Jewish concerns. She had envisioned the story while attending a 12 step program and search- ing for spirituality a decade ago. Raised in what she calls an "overly assimilated" family in the Koreatown area of L.A., Fitch wanted her daughter to have the solid Jewish identity she lacked. She began lighting Shabbat candles and pondering how one of her favorite books was antithetical to Judaism. The book, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, about a lady-in-waiting to the Heian Empress Teishi in 11th-cen- tury Japan, described a society that emphasized aesthetics, not compassion. "If she came across a person who had been beheaded, she stepped over the body," Fitch said. "But if someone wore mismatched robes, that was heinous. So I began to wonder, 'What if a person like that were forced to live in a crum- my apartment and work a crummy job at the end of the 20th century?' The result was the character of Ingrid." - Film Adaptation Of course, the film tones down Ingrid's viciousness and other elements of Fitch's disturbing but powerful novel, the author is quick to concede. It skips the foster mother who starves 6015 E.Ten Mile Rd.Warren MI (exit Mound Road South from 1-696) www.decarlosbanquets.com Let the whole Be sure to get your wedding picture in the Jewish News. Call Sy Manello with your information at: 248.539.3001 10/11 2002 94 Mazel Toy! Michelle Pfeiffer (Ingrid) and Alison Lohman (Astrid) in "White Oleander" Renee Zellweger and Robin Wright Penn also star.