Month: July 2022

The fastest Alethea Taylor has ever driven is 125 miles per hour, and it was only for a second or so. Alethea is the new executive director of Hour Children. “When I got close to 100 and the car started bucking, it was really scary but exhilarating,” she says. “I stayed at 90, where I felt comfortable.” She’s as new at racecar driving as she is at leading Hour Children, the 35-year-old organization founded by Sister Tesa Fitzgerald that takes incarcerated and formerly incarcerated…

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Vincent Caro didn’t learn to cook the culinary classics of his native Brittany at home. For that, he had to go abroad. To England. Vincent’s the owner of Chez Olivia and Chez Eloise. Vincent, the owner of the newly opened French bistro Chez Olivia, says it’s not as strange as it sounds. He was, after all, in the employ of a French restaurant when he learned the ins and outs of braising the boeuf bourguignon and anointing the coq au vin with Burgundy. Ah, that does make sense.…

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Anna Budinger pulls up on her bicycle, breathless. It’s only a 15-minute ride, but it’s so suffocatingly sultry that she feels as though she has been pedaling through rolling ocean waves. Anna’s the owner of Babs. She opens the door, pulls up the shade, switches on the lights, and Babs springs to life like a puppet on a stage. Babs, which is a half block from Astoria Park on Ditmars Boulevard, has only been open since mid-May, so Anna is still getting used to the routine – and…

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