It was more than three years ago that Eat, Pray, Love, the book about a New York writer getting divorced and traveling the world, dominated the bestseller lists. Just when we thought we had shaken our hate-her-because-we're-jealous feelings for Elizabeth Gilbert (she grew up on a Christmas-tree farm!), the movie version of her story rolls into theaters this weekend and annoys/inspires us all over again.
We'd heard of events being built around the movie's release -- like this three-day event in Miami (overkill if you ask us) -- but a search for tie-ins to Fort Lauderdale came up with nothing -- except a reminder that Elizabeth Gilbert had mentioned Venice of America in the book.
Describing her travel to Bali, the last step in her journey, she wrote (page 238):
"The revival of a dream of a fabled Eden came in the late 1960s, when the Indonesian government decided to reinvent Bali for the international tourist market as "The Island of the Gods," launching a massively successful marketing campaign. The tourists who were lured back to Bali were a fairly high-minded crowd (this was not Fort Lauderdale, after all), and their attention was guided toward the artistic and religious beauty inherent in the Balinese culture."
Guess we won't be seeing Gilbert at the Elbo Room anytime soon!
Well, since we are mere low-minded people down here, we may not get paid to take a year off to write a book or be able to afford the cooking school at the Four Seasons in Bali, but here are some ideas for an Eat, Pray, Love menu of your own.
If you're looking for places to see the film, it's playing at the Regal Cypress Creek on Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, at the the Regal Oakwood 18 in Hollywood, and more. Up in Palm Beach County, some 30 ladies are organizing a meetup outing to see it.
