After 50 Years of Pots and Chopins with Husband Arthur, Nela Rubinstein Rolls out Her Own Cookbook

AFTER 50 YEARS OF POTS AND CHOPINS WITH HUSBAND ARTHUR, NELA RUBINSTEIN ROLLS OUT HER OWN COOKBOOK In his 93rd year, nearly blind and an in 95) could hardly overshadow a rela since Chopin because of his wife’s al valid, Arthur Rubinstein, perhaps the tionship that lasted five decades. Ru mond mazurkas [also the name of a most renowned pianist of the modern binstein met Aniela Mlynarski, then an sweet Polish pastry].” Rubinstein him era, left his longtime wife, Nela, for An 18-year-old Polish student, in 1926, and self complained that everyone forgot nabelle Whitestone, a petite blond sec married her six years later. Once he his concerts because they were so retary 50 years his junior. “To get to be did, Nela began winning as many rave busy praising Nela’s equally well- asold as I am,” Rubinstein said, “one reviews as Arthur, delighting their orchestrated postshow suppers. Says must drink a glass of whiskey every countless guests with a movable feast Nela with a laugh, “I think he was a day, smoke a long cigar and chase in homes in Paris, Hollywood, New little jealous.” beautiful girls.” His wife, the maestro York, Geneva and Marbella, Spain. Ar He’d be more jealous now that Nela, complained, “kept telling me what not thur never complained then about 75, has gone public with her talents. to do—don’t eat this, don’t smoke that. what Nela told him to eat. Said restau Nela’s Cookbook has just been pub I wasted up.” rateur George Lang, “It’s just pos lished by Alfred A. Knopf, 37 years af Perhaps. But Rubinstein’s nonage sible that Arthur Rubinstein played ter the publisher’s late wife, Blanche, narian plaint (he died last December at Chopin’s mazurkas better than anyone first encouraged Nela to write it. Its CONTINUED Photographs by Robert Royal 87 Rubinstein began playing the piano at 3, but became a serious artist, he said, only after marrying Nela (with him in their Paris home in 1959). recipes—an eclectic mix of Polish, French and American cooking—have already received generous praise from such friends as Cary Grant and Zubin Mehta, both of whom have sampled her cooking on numerous occasions. Another fan was Princess Grace, who long ago incorporated Nela’s lemon Bavarian cream into her family menus. Grace, a longtime Paris neighbor, served as an eager taster as Nela put her known-by-heart recipes (“I never measured anything”) into publishable form. Now that the book is out, Rubin stein’s widow says with a sigh, “I’ve fi nally done something for myself.” In Marbella, Nela congaed with pals (from Indeed, she lived in Arthur’s shadow left) Countess of Larish, Duchess of Infan for what must have seemed like sever tado and Viscountess of Bahia Honda. al lifetimes. Born in llgovo, Lithuania, Nela was one of five children of Emil Nela met Rubinstein when he per Mlynarski, the illustrious conductor formed in a concert conducted by her of the Warsaw Philharmonic. “There father. Though it was “love at first was music in our house always,” says sight,” she says, Arthur was 21 years Nela, though during World War I she re her senior and “a bachelor with the calls “eating bread that felt like worst reputation as a womanizer.” glue between our teeth.” Then, in bet When he began dating an Italian prin ter times after the war, when Nela’s cess, she married another prominent family was at the center of Poland’s pianist, Mieczyslaw Munz, and moved cultural whirlwind, she helped her fa with him to Cincinnati. Three years lat ther receive such guests as Queen Ma er she returned home to divorce Munz rie of Rumania. and study ballet. Soon Rubinstein CONTINUED “Just seeing the food, I start cooking frantically in my head,” says Nela, shop ping with nephew Artur Gromadzki. came back into her life. With her sister as chaperone, she joined him on a con cert tour of Europe. After they mar ried, Nela says, “I kept meeting all his exes. Many of them even became very good friends.” Arthur traveled widely, while Nela was sometimes house bound in Paris with their children, Eva, now a photographer, and Paul, a stock broker who is himself the author of three cookbooks. Aline, a psychiatrist, and John, the Tony-winning actor, were born in the U.S. in the ’40s. Start ing on two small gas burners in their CONTINUED Lazanki with onions and mushrooms This combination is a great favorite with the whole family, is easy to make, and is especially good for large parties, as it improves with being kept warm. 2 medium onions, chopped very fine 1 tablespoon butter 14 lb. mushrooms, chopped very fine Dash of Maggi extract Pinch of salt 8 oz. very wide egg noodles, broken into squares 1. Cook the egg noodles al dente 2. Sauté the onions in butter until they are soft and golden, then add mushrooms 3. Continue to cook until the juices evaporate. Add the Maggi extract, taste and add salt, if you like, cautiously 4. In a casserole or thick-walled serving dish, combine the cooked noodles with the mush room mixture. Cover and keep warm for 10 min utes or longer. The wait seems to unite the bland noodle taste with the mushrooms’ richness (Serves 6 as a side dish) studio apartment in Montmartre, she seven languages they shared and What does matter is keeping busy. began cooking for the family, working played such games as bridge and pi- Even now with her cookbook in the her way up from scrambled eggs to kieta. Those were the happy years. By stores, Nela rarely relaxes; she is a fa such challenging fare as a flawless 1975 Arthur, because of his weakening vorite guest of such Marbella regulars cheese soufflé. “I was a frustrated art eyesight, was forced to stop perform as the conductor Daniel Barenboim ist,” she says, “and it was my way of ing. The couple began spending most (who says he’s put on pounds as a re creating.” of their time in Marbella, where Arthur sult of her cooking) and Baron Guy de In 1941 she began creating in Holly worked on his memoirs with White Rothschild. But after dancing the sam wood, where the family moved into a stone; their relationship created an un ba till midnight, Nela wakes at nine mansion on five acres. The Rubin comfortable threesome under the Ru for a massage to soothe her arthritis, steins surrounded themselves with binstein roof. But Nela refuses to sur then heads to the local market to buy friends like Katharine Hepburn, Greg render to bitterness. “I don’t want to fresh provisions. Then she spends ory Peck, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, say one nasty word about her,” she most of the day in her white-tiled kitch Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robin says, “or one good word either. I have en, preparing lunch and dinner for her son, all of whom feasted on Nela’s to think about the good times.” In many guests. Among them is her neph clear borscht, pierozkis (Polish tensely loyal to her husband, she is ew, Artur Gromadzki, 29, who doubles turnovers), chicken fricasee Anda- making plans to spread his ashes, now as her assistant. That means he almost lusian-style and crème brûlée. in Switzerland, over a forest in Jerusa always gets to eat her cooking. When Arthur claimed no one else’s cooking lem renamed in his honor. It is rumored Nela is away, the other Artur says, “I could do justice to his postperfor that Arthur left a portion of his sizable eat junk food to remind me what it mance appetite. estate to Whitestone, but Nela has no could be like without her.” When they weren’t settling down to comment. “Money,” she says simply, Written by FRED BERNSTEIN, reported by eat, the Rubinsteins conversed in the “doesn’t matter.” PAMELA ANDRIOTAKIS 92.

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