Illustration: by Kaitlin Brito
I never forget the people who feed me,” Barbra Streisand writes in My Name Is Barbra, her 3-pound, 3-ounce memoir, in which, it is clear, she never forgets anything. Every lens, shot, triumph, gripe, and grudge is preserved for posterity and so, we have learned, is every snack.
Though Streisand’s 970-page tome more than covers her greatest hits — Funny Girl and Yentl, her 50 studio albums, her strained relationship with her mother, and how much she wanted to fuck Marlon Brando (but then declined to do so when presented with several opportunities) — she spills more ink on the various food choices she made over the course of her 50-plus-year career than on absolutely anything else. Food informs her life, her art (Barbra and Fanny Brice, her character in Funny Girl, “both had Jewish mothers who were concerned about food and marrying us off … not necessarily in that order”), and her much-examined psychology. As she explains, “I eat when I’m nervous. (Well, I also eat when I’m not nervous.)”
EGOT Streisand has already won the coveted awards quartet but now, for the first time, we are pleased to bestow her with New York Magazine’s Schnorrer Award for Hungriest Diva. (The name derives from Jerry Robbins’ contention that the peerless Streisand — soft S, like “sand” — “accepts the twelve pages of new material to go in that evening’s performance and pores over them while schnorring part of your sandwich and someone else’s Coke.”) Over pints of McConnell’s Brazilian Coffee ice cream — Barbra’s favorite, much rarer than the supermarket-available Turkish Coffee, and special-ordered from the brand’s Santa Barbara HQ, just as Barbra orders it on the set of The Guilt Trip (2012) — we rounded up every single thing Streisand mentions eating over the course of most of her life, from earliest childhood to the second Clinton inauguration and beyond. We invite you to follow her breadcrumb trail. You can even eat along, since, as Barbra writes, fame or no fame, “No matter who you are, you can only eat one pastrami sandwich at a time.”
NB. Ellipses nearly always hers.
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A great piece of kosher cake (yellow cake, dark-chocolate icing) at Bais Yaakov [27], Barbra’s Catskills Jewish summer camp, whose food was otherwise uninspiring (potatoes “probably from a can” that “tasted fake”). The cake, on the other hand, Barbra has “been searching for ever since ….” The closest she’s come, she later revelas, are “Fischer’s cupcakes.” See also, chocolate blackout cake from Ebinger’s, a German bakery near her apartment building in Brooklyn. (pp. 7, 27)
Cinnamon cookies, made by her grandmother for Hanukkah one year after Barbra, her older brother, and their mother move in with Diana’s parents after the untimely death of her father. (p. 9)
Cod-liver oil, prescribed by Diana Streisand to correct her daughter’s apparent “sickliness,” which was further treated by a “health camp” where, naturally, Barbra develops an allergy to the trees “which later turned into asthma.” (pp. 10-11)
Lap cheong (Chinese sausage), Chinese cabbage, steamed chicken, and egg rolls at Choy’s Chinese restaurant, where Barbra takes a job as a cashier to make money for pink satin toe shoes. Choy’s proprietress, Muriel, became a surrogate mother to Barbra, and ever after, she looks for those “fat, dry” egg rolls wherever she goes, finding them occasionally enough — “hardly anyone makes [them] anymore” — that when she does, she and Jim “sometimes eat three at a time.” (p. 15)
Breyer’s coffee ice cream, eaten from a square box where it sandwiched a central column of cherry vanilla. Despite the “whole pieces of cherry,” Barbra preferred the coffee (a lifelong preference, see also McConnell’s Brazilian Coffee) and would eat the cherry vanilla first and save the coffee for afterward so that would “be the taste that lingered in my mouth.” Regrettably, while in her early days she used to eat “a pint of coffee ice cream whenever I could and still stay skinny as a rail,” she notes that this is no longer the case. (p. 23)
Mello-Rolls, commercially produced ice-cream cones that Barbra opines are the best ice-cream cones, and which she would get at the Loew’s Kings Theatre in Flatbush, where she first saw the films Kiss Me Kate (1953) and Guys and Dolls (1955). Mello-Rolls are “flat on top with the ice cream packed inside, all the way down to the bottom of the cone,” which is “very practical” because of “fewer drips.” Barbra has “never seen anything like it before or since.” (23)
Licorice, primarily Good & Plenty, which Barbra describes as like “eating jewelry,” and which she would get, along with two boxes of peanut M&Ms at the movies; but also, “red and green and brown, as well as black” licorice at the Italian candy store in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. (pp. 23, 27)
Charlotte Russe, bought from Schneley’s Jewish bakery, which she’d buy “just because it looked so pretty with that cherry on top.” (p. 27)
Sour green tomatoes, lox, and smoked butterfish, from Besterman’s, the local “appetizing” store (a term used predominantly by Ashkenazi Jews for the variety of spreads, fishes, and delicacies eaten with bagels). The butterfish’s “shiny gold skin” “tasted great.” (p. 27)
Egg creams, which Barbra does not understand the naming of, since “there’s no egg in them.” (An egg cream is a mix of milk, seltzer, and Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup.) Egg or no egg, Barbra prefers these to the malteds (drinks made with malted milk powder, like Ovaltine, mixed with milk, ice cream, or both) Diana Stresiand “always tried” to give her to “fatten [her] up.” (p. 27)
Campbell’s tomato soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches at Malden Bridge summer stock theater as a teenager: “Nothing better!” Also peanut butter and jelly on white. Previously, she had been used to bologna and Velveeta cheese. (p. 29)
Peas with sugar and breadcrumbs at the home of Allan and Anita Miller, actress and acting teacher, who would go on to become lifelong friends (and Allan, her early acting teacher). These peas were “delicious,” and Barbra “can still taste them.” (p. 34)
A chocolate chip, which Barbra chooses to play the part of in one of Allan Miller’s acting classes when asked to select an inanimate object to impersonate. “First I imagined I was put into a hunk of dough along with my fellow chips, being kneaded and shaped into a cookie … pushed around. Then I was placed inside a hot oven. Oh, the agony of it! I began to melt. That was painful. Then suddenly I was taken out into the cold air and, for a moment, I was relieved … the cool air soothed my hot body. But I didn’t realize I would quickly become stiff and solid … misshapen … paralyzed. I couldn’t move. Here I was, stuck on a tray with other cookies, waiting to be eaten … Aaargh!!!!” Barbra “thinks it was one of [her] best pieces of work.” (p. 35)
An egg-salad sandwich, which she throws up due to nerves, before her first professional stage performance, as Lorna in Driftwood “off-off-off-Broadway” shortly after graduating from Erasmus High School. (p. 40)
Sliced lamb from the Automat, which makes Barbra sick and she doesn’t eat lamb for years; she prefers the Automat’s sweet potatoes. (p. 42)
A roast pork sandwich with mayonnaise on white bread, which Barbra gets from the Gentile deli. Sacrilegiously, she prefers these to Jewish delis, which give you “too much meat” and she “couldn’t get [her] mouth around those sandwiches.” (p. 42)
Cottage cheese, eaten out of the container, in acting class, which attracts the notice of Cis Corman, who would become a lifelong friend. (p. 43)
Smoked salmon, potato salad, sliced fruit, and ice cream at Cis and Harvey Corman’s, two more of Barbra’s surrogate parent figures. (p. 44)
A baked potato, very well done, “crispy on the outside and soft inside, just the way I like it,” at the 24-hour Pam Pam, where Barbra goes after opening night of her live act at the Bon Soir, September 9, 1960. The Pam Pam “also had a great medium-rare hamburger.” (p. 61)
“Guggle-muggle,” a concoction made (or invented?) by Diana Streisand of warm chocolate milk with a raw egg, used to fatten Barbra up. Diana attends the second night of Barbra’s Bon Soir set and advises her to drink one because “Your voice isn’t strong enough.” (The New York Times, Barbra notes, called her a “vibrant-voiced gamin [sic].”) (p. 62)
Egg-and-lemon soup (avgolemono) and spanakopita at “the Greek place.” Also corned beef and cabbage at “one of those Irish places on Eighth Avenue.” By contrast, Barbra’s first manager (“the only Gentile manager in the business”) takes her to a “fancy restaurant with red-velvet chairs and white tablecloths. That was new.” (p. 65)
Oreos, creme (“that white guck”) removed, which young Barbra carries around as a snack, because “you never know when you’ll want a snack.” Also unsalted pretzels and almonds. She traces this compulsion to the “collective unconscious of European Jews, because what if a pogrom came and you had to get across the border fast? You have to have a little something to eat until you get to the next country.” (p. 80)
Fish that doesn’t smell, the only fish Barbra can eat, because her paternal grandparents owned a fish store, and she can’t forget “the sight and smell of all those dead fish.” (p. 84)
Corned beef, pastrami, pickles, and coleslaw, sent by her soon-to-be first husband, Elliott Gould, with the note, “From the Deli Lama.” (p. 94)
Corn soup (a can of corn plus milk, heated) and corn fritters (corn plus Aunt Jemima pancake mix, fried in Crisco), which she cooks for Elliott Gould in their little apartment. (p. 99)
Swanson’s TV dinners and Sara Lee pound cake, for dinner with Elliott Gould in their apartment. Swanson’s fried chicken was “the height of culinary goodness, as far as I was concerned.” (p. 99)
A chicken sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise, prepared by Funny Girl composer Jule Styne’s English wife, Maggie. “Delicious.” (p. 108)
Cheeseburgers and French fries on her honeymoon with Elliott Gould. Gould takes her to Esalen, the New Age retreat, but there’s no TV in their room, and even worse, no room service. “I was usd to the Catskills, where you could get a pastrami sandwich and at any hour of the day or night,” Barbra says. So they move to a nearby motel, stopping for cheeseburgers at a diner along the way. (p. 144)
Smoked whitefish, an early point of connection with Marvin Hamlisch, whom Barbra meets as a rehearsal pianist on Funny Girl; Marvin knew which deli had the best version (and later, when Barbra is “obsessed with quenelles,” Marvin is “one of the few people who even knew what they were and could recommend a restaurant that served them”). As a composer, Hamlisch would go on to write (among much else) the score and the title song to The Way We Were (for each of which he won the Oscar; Barbra was nominated for her lead performance but lost). (p. 155)
Rice pudding, without raisins, as Barbra prefers it, though it’s harder to find, at a 24-hour diner on Tenth Avenue. (p. 180)
A pastrami sandwich on rye (attempted) at the Hotel Hassler in Rome, where Barbra is sent with Richard Avedon by Vogue for a couture shoot. Room service cannot supply it. (p. 216)
Bouillabaisse in Marseille, where Barbra goes to see Jacques Brel perform, and which she eats after a double-scoop ice-cream cone when her hotel surprises her by preparing it. “The stew tasted very garlicky after the ice cream,” Barbra says, “and something in it definitely didn’t agree with me, because I started throwing up a few hours later.” For ten days, “every burp reminded me of that bouillabaisse.” (p. 217)
Fish and chips and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in London, during rehearsals for the London run of Funny Girl. (p. 219-220)
Seafood on the water with Omar Sharif while filming Funny Girl (the movie version). (p. 248)
Gum, at the 41st Academy Awards in 1968, where Barbra tied for Best Actress (in Funny Girl) with Katharine Hepburn (in The Lion in Winter). “I had to quickly take out my gum and put it on the bottom of my seat, all the while frantically thinking, What the hell am I going to say?” (p. 263)
“Great” vichyssoise, steak Diane, and chocolate soufflé, at the Oak Room at the Plaza, a setting she specifically suggested to Gene Kelly due to the perceived quality of these three food items, and so the two could discuss making Hello, Dolly. (p. 274)
Dumplings made of egg whites and turkey that “got dry very quickly under the lights,” on the set of Hello, Dolly, a movie she hated making, and the site of her yearslong feud with co-star Walter Matthau. “I had to keep eating as we talked. Walter had very few lines, but he kept flubbing them, so we had to do the scene over and over again. All that food was making me sick to my stomach, and Walter seemed to be enjoying my discomfort … On my umpteenth bite, I started to choke. At that point I just had had enough, and said, ‘I can’t do this.’ I didn’t scream or raise my voice. I just got up and turned to Gene [Kelly] and told him, ‘I’ll be back when he knows his lines.’” (p. 281)
Hamburgers, with Marlon Brando, on a day trip to the desert years after he told her he would like to “fuck her” and she said “that sounds awful,” because she was “insecure sexually,” but “today would be more adventurous.” (p. 289)
McConnell’s Brazilian Coffee ice cream, “packed into a crisp cone and handed to you at their store in Santa Barbara … By the way, you can’t get McConnell’s ice cream at just any supermarket and this particular flavor is even harder to find,” a memory she recalls fondly when Marlon Brando shows up to a dinner party at Quincy Jones’s weighing “probably 280 pounds” and “told me he was eating a quart of ice cream every night.” Barbra “could relate … I love ice cream, too.” (p. 295)
Vegetarian food, at Deepak Chopra’s retreat in Massachusetts, where Barbra had out-of-body meditation experience that convinced her that reincarnation is real. When she returned home, she had the following experience, which can only be described as the Most Barbra Streisand Thing Ever Committed to Print: “Donna [Karan] and I drove back to New York. When I got to my apartment, I went out on the terrace outside my bedroom to look at the flowers that had been planted in the boxes while I was gone. I had ordered mums in pink and white, but these were rust and yellow! I called the plant place and said, ‘These flowers are the wrong color.’ The man said, ‘Oh, the nursery didn’t have pink and white so we got these.’ I said, ‘well, didn’t it occur to anyone to ask me before you planted these?’ And then I thought, What the hell. It was such an ordeal just to get flowers and potting soil up to the 22nd floor. Besides, I didn’t want to kill the poor things by throwing them out. A couple of weeks later, Cis peeked through the curtains and said, ‘Oh, you changed the flowers.’ I said, ‘What? I never changed them.’ She said, ‘Well, they’re pink and white now.’ I couldn’t believe it. How did rust turn to dusty rose and yellow to white … just what I wanted! I immediately called the plant palace to see if they were a special kind of mum that changes color. ‘No,’ was the answer. Then I called Deepak and asked him, ‘What’s going on? How did those flowers change color?’ He said, ‘Well, you clearly haven’t read the book I gave you.’ ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t had a chance yet.’ ‘Well, look at the chapter about desire.’ So I looked at the book. And sure enough, it was about how desire can manifest change. Had the flowers changed color because I wanted them to? Maybe this was another example of that very quiet but very intense power of the will, the kind of will that I had felt rise up in me when I stood in the doorway of my bedroom as a teenager, wanting to be a famous actress who could afford to have someone else make my bed.” (p. 301)
Brownies with walnuts, on a private plane to England to shoot On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. In the middle of a story about how she met composer/producer/director Richard Baskin, Barbra characteristically digresses: “Shirley [Baskin] brought a box of brownies with her and passed them around on the plane. Oh my God, they were the greatest. They had walnuts in them! Now, I understand why people don’t make brownies with walnuts anymore, because of nut allergies. But brownies without walnuts? What’s the point? If I’m ever given plain ones, I get some walnuts and push a few into each brownie.”
A new paragraph: “Well, for years Shirley told people that I had eaten the whole box of brownies on the plane, which is a complete exaggeration … Although I admit I probably had more than two (maybe six … they were little!) A few years ago, I went to her art opening (she covers objects in beautiful lacquered postage stamps) and we laughed again about whether or not I ate the whole box. She was a lovely lady who lived to be 101.”
Another new paragraph: “Back to the movie and the royal pavilion,” (p. 307)
Peach pie, at the Hamptons home of her The Owl and the Pussycat co-star, George Segal. After a long rant about how much she couldn’t stand the film’s producer, Ray Stark (he wanted her to sing in the movie, about which she said to a journalist, “How many singing prostitutes do you know?”), Barbra “vividly” remembers visiting Segal and his wife, Marion, at their house in the Hamptons for the aforementioned pie. “It was the best I’ve ever tasted, with fresh peaches and homemade whipped cream … not too sweet.” (p. 315)
Appetizer of hearts of palm, then roast duckling, and tapioca for dessert, on a first date with Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, at Casa Brasil on the Upper East Side, where there were no printed menus and only two seatings each evening, so you had to make reservations. Barbra was dismayed at the tapioca. “I hate Jell-O and I couldn’t eat junket (ugh!), but every so often my mother made tapioca, which I loved. But when the tapioca arrived, I was aghast. The normally pearly white beads were bright red, because they had been cooked in red wine. I prefer my tapioca the traditional way, straight from the box. And it should only take a minute to cook (it’s not called Minute Tapioca for nothing!).” (p. 321)
“Little birds with their heads still on and snails in black bean sauce,” with Pierre Trudeau at “my favorite Chinese restaurant, a little five on the corner of Bayard Street and Bowery in Chinatown.” (p. 321)
Moussaka, Persian rice, and chocolate soufflé, at Barbra’s apartment, on yet another date with Pierre Trudeau, who ultimately failed to capture her permanent affections. “I had taken cooking lessons with a Persian woman, but I only had time for a few, so my repertoire was limited … (This was the first, and probably the last, time I cooked a serious meal for somebody.”) (p. 322)
“Delicious lunch of oyster stew,” back at Pierre Trudeau’s official residence. “(He gave me all of his oyster crackers, which made me like him even more.)” (p. 324)
Milk and Mallomars, alongside Pierre Trudeau, for his nightly bedtime snack. Barbra “pulled off the chocolate-covered marshmallow top because I only wanted the graham cracker bottom.” (p. 324)
Knishes with blueberry cheese, “oh my God!,” at Yonah Schimmel’s, while on the campaign trail with Congresswoman Bella Abzug. “I went back there recently, and it wasn’t quite the same … but I guess it’s hard, even for a knish, to live up to your memories.” (p. 351)
“The best salad dressing,” made by her hairstylist Kaye Pownall on the set of The Way We Were. Pownall “used ground sunflower seeds way before they were popular.” (p. 375)
Hoisin spare ribs, in her “tiny galley kitchen that wasn’t conducive to cooking,” in the barn she briefly owned with hairstylist-turned-megalomaniac boyfriend Jon Peters. (p. 415)
Hot chocolate and bagels, on Hanukkah and Christmas morning at 6 a.m, in the same barn. (p. 416)
Cha siu bao, “a steamed bun filled with Cantonese-style roast pork,” one of Barbra’s “favorite things,” at a Chinese restaurant in a hotel in Australia during her 2000 Timeless tour. “I had cha siu bao for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Why not?)” She ate them again soon thereafter at the behest of veteran cinematographer James Wong How, a “sweetheart” who “knew about my obsession and won my heart by bringing me homemade cha siu bao. God, they were delicious.” When the two “weren’t discussing lighting, we were discussing Chinese food.” (p. 423)
“Huge platter of oysters,” at Les Halles in Paris, served “straight off the docks” and which, several hours later, put Barbar “on my knees in the bathroom at the Plaza Athenée, throwing up.” (p. 430)
Sukiyaki dinner, with Francis Ford Coppola, who suggested she title her new album Lazy Afternoon. (p. 434)
Hypothetical “greasy spare ribs,” in a hypothetical restaurant, in a hypothetical situation where hypothetical people interrupt this hypothetical meal because they “see a star,” then “interrupt a conversation with my son to ask for an autograph or try to take a picture in a restaurant.” “Let me be clear. I’m grateful to my fans. They have supported me for decades. But sometimes I just want to finish my spare rib.” (p. 448)
Bagels, Nova lox, cream cheese, peanut butter and jelly, prosciutto, honeydew melon, cheese, fruit, cookies, brownies (with walnuts!), and “usually Chinese food, my favorite,” for dinner, at her recording studio while she was working on Guilty, her 22nd studio album, with Barry Gibb, who asked her to sing each song ten times. “I complied, but singing anything ten times gets kind of boring, so I had to find any excuse to take a break … like food. Whenever I’m intensely concentrating on something, I get hungry. I suppose a therapist would say it’s an anxiety suppressant, but for me it’s more basic. When I’m working, I need food!” (Gibb confirms that they had to “lock her up when the food came, because she always wanted to eat.”) (p. 500)
Homemade cookies with tea and dainty English sandwiches, at her good friends Marilyn and Alan Bergman’s house, where they wrote the songs and lyrics for Yentl. (p. 520)
Pork sandwich with mayonnaise on white bread, at the German deli after taking acting classes in Manhattan, which she brings up out of guilt as she’s writing about Yentl. “It was so goyishe! The yeshiva bucher (kid) in me always felt guilty. But when I was told about a certain commentary in the Talmud, it kind of relieved me. It said, ‘If a Jew is put in prison and forced to eat pork … Enjoy it!’ Now that’s the kind of attitude I can relate to!” (p. 524)
“Ham, salami and more ham, and ham sandwiches on white bread,” at the American Embassy in Prague, while on a scouting trip for Yentl. (p. 538)
Coffee ice cream and Frangelico, with her best friend Cis, to celebrate United Artists producing Yentl (before the company dropped out). (p. 540)
“My daily sandwich of turkey on brown bread with sweet horseradish sauce or Branston pickle … and then tea with scones and clotted cream and mashed fresh strawberries (way better than jam. And no raisins in the scones please!),” during Yentl rewrites with British screenwriter Jack Rosenthal, whose ideas she didn’t always like but he “added a few bits of nice dialogue,” at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge. (p. 542)
Whipped-cream donut, from Wimpy’s or McDonald’s, after puking from nerves on the way to the set of Yentl. (p. 550)
English tea of Cornish pasties, scones, and sweets, brought in for everyone, at around 4 p.m. every day on the set of Yentl. (p. 557)
Scones with fresh strawberries and clotted cream, ordered by Barbra as a “treat for everyone” on a plane to Czechoslovakia to shoot the second half of Yentl, but which were delivered late. “As the pilot was revving up the engines, I called, ‘Stop the plane!’ The scones had arrived but not the cream. We had to wait a bit but finally it was loaded on (and it was worth the wait). Once we were in the air, I walked down the aisle and served everyone.” (p. 550)
“Little pockets of dough, kind of squares like ravioli, but inside they were filled with apricot, and the whole thing was topped with a sauce made of rubbery cheese,” made by a Czech villager who moved out of her home so that Barbra could live closer to set. “I’m not making it sound good, but trust me, it was really delicious.” (p. 562)
Ham-and-cheese croissant, and “all the chocolate covered marzipan I could eat,” on the day Yentl opened. “I went to the Village Theatre in Westwood at noon to make sure the sound was right and the picture was right, and said to myself, That’s all I can do. Then I thought, To hell with my diet!” (p. 578)
“Bread, so good, with fresh, room-temperature sweet butter,” at the Parisian premiere of Yentl. “I just looked through photos from that night. I’m sitting on a dark red velvet banquette with Jeanne Moreau and Charles Azvanour, and I’m the one eating the bread.” (p. 591)
“The most wonderful square pasta with a delicious lemon and caper sauce,” made by Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller during Yentl’s Italian press tour. “I can still taste it now.” (p. 593)
Hypothetical cheese from France and apples from Oregon, in the middle of a haunted description of Chernobyl, told in the sort of very specific detail that Barbra reserves for no other current or past sociopolitical event in the book. “Something happened in Russia, and now we had to worry about eating cheese from France and apples from Oregon, because we were all downwind … Was this the beginning of the end of the world?” Ultimately this obsession with nuclear disarmament got Barbra back onstage singing live for the first time in 20 years to support the election of Democrats. (p. 628)
Whatever she wants, when she’s editing and not directing, “since I don’t have to be concerned about my weight.” (p. 720)
“The last bite of a molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream,” given to composer James Newton Howard, which meant she really liked him. “Before that moment, I’d only give my last bite to my son!” (p. 722)
Tea, with Jacqueline Onassis, then an editor at Doubleday, who approaches Barbra to ask her to write her memoir. (She declines.) (p. 737)
Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews with Steve Ross, the chairman and co-CEO of Time Warner (which included Warner Bros.), who stocked them on Warners’ planes. “Steve and I both loved [them],” Barbra says; they used to eat them as kids in Brooklyn. (p. 757)
Cookies at the Golden Door, the exclusive health spa, where Barbra goes with Ross’s wife, Courtney; she was trying to lose weight, Barbra was trying to gain weight, “but I ended up eating all the cookies she left on her plate and ended up gaining five pounds.” (p. 757)
Can’t remember what, but something, before singing at a private party for the Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney. The host, Barbra’s friend David Foster, convinces her to sing, but she ate too soon before doing so, out of nerves, and approached the microphone “feeling stuffed.” She sings a few bars, freezes, and stops. (p. 779)
According to Rex Reed, a banana, whose peel she threw on the floor, a revelation from an interview during the filming of Color Me Barbra. However! This story is “ridiculous,” because “as anyone who knows me knows … one thing I am is obsessively neat.” Barbra vents to her mother about the whole incident, and is incensed further when her mother asks “Did you throw the peel on the floor?” (p. 800)
“Half a cantaloupe, some chicken soup, and a couple stalks of celery,” gifts from Barbra’s mother, Diana, when Barbra first moved to Manhattan to pursue acting. Diana’s way of showing love was “giving me food.” (p. 802)
Boxes of M&Ms onboard President Clinton’s plane as they fly back to Washington after Virginia Clinton’s funeral. (p. 810)
“Delicious” organic oat biscuits from his own brand, Duchy Originals, sent by King (then Prince) Charles. (p. 817)
Lobster sausage with wild-mushroom risotto at the first Clinton state dinner, which was “delicious,” now that “the new chef had jettisoned all those fancy French dishes for simpler American fare.” (p. 824)
Ben & Jerry’s low-fat Cherry Garcia yogurt, which she recommends to President Clinton in a note that she writes but never sends. (p. 833)
Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or coffee ice cream, which Barbra offers to new love interest James Brolin’s 8-year-old daughter at a Fourth of July barbecue. The daughter declines, explaining, “my mom says it isn’t good for you.” (p. 867)
Two hot dogs with mustard and relish, which she eats after the Fourth of July barbecue; she avoids eating at the event itself because she was “motivated to diet” for James Brolin and besides, “no doubt I would have spilled mustard on my top,” but then things with Jim don’t go well and at home afterward she asks her assistant Renata to make her the hot dogs she missed, plus two coffee ice-cream cones “while I read the latest issue of The Economist. I thought, No more relationships. Back to politics.” (p. 868)
A box of See’s candies (metaphorical), which Barbra describes herself as in her journal, because “you can’t tell if a piece is going to be sweet or salty, soft or crunchy. Will there be an almond or a kumquat inside?” (p. 876)
Smoked salmon with leek crème fraiche, baby blintzes, wonton pillows stuffed with vegetables, sushi, coconut shrimp, pizza, soft-shell crabs, wild mushroom ravioli, grilled vegetables, potatoes au gratin, brownies with and without walnuts, warm chocolate lava cake, fresh berry tarts, profiteroles with vanilla ice cream, coffee ice-cream cones, lemon-meringue tarts, and chocolate bread pudding, served at her wedding to James Brolin. (p. 879)
Potatoes with caviar, added to the wedding menu at the last minute. (p. 882)
Hot chocolate, drunk at her desk between 6:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., while monitoring the stock markets during her day-trading period, 1998-2000. (p. 894)
An ice-cream cone, with Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements, a book Barbra consults while mourning her mother. (p. 902)
“A huge cake with bittersweet chocolate icing,” in celebration of their anniversary, presented to her by James Brolin onstage at a concert in Berlin. (p. 911)
McConnell’s Brazilian Coffee ice cream, which Barbra special orders to eat onscreen with Seth Rogen in The Guilt Trip. “Every day on the set I’d have two scoops on a sugar cone, and of course I’d make one for Seth, and after the scene was shot we still had enough to feed the whole crew for a week.” (p. 917)
Club sandwiches from room service at the Savoy, at 3 a.m. after performing at a concert in Hyde Park in London, “with extra French fries for Renata (which she never got to eat, because she was too busy packing).” (p. 957)
