Red Magazine - October 1998

Girls and Gossip

Oh, and fabulous, healthy food. These are the ingredients for New York dinner with Gabby Karan and Stefanie Bryn Sacks. Photographs William Abranowicz.

Gabby karan and Stefanie Byrn Sacks. Gabby provides the breezy loft in downtown New York; Stefanie, who’s training to be a vegetarian chef at the Natural Gourmet Cooking School in the city, comes up with the menu. Together they’ve invited 10 of their girlfriends – along with Red photographer William Abranowicz.

Stefanie is passionate about healthy eating, and used the Five Phase Theory of Food to help construct the menu. This eating regime takes each of the five elements – wood, fire, earth, metal and water – and relates different food types to them. For example, carrots correspond to wood, rice to metal, and parsnips to earth. The trick is to balance the elements, or ‘phases’, to create dishes that are not only healthy, but taste fantastic, too. And it works. Even Claudia, one of today’s guests, who grew up on a diet of Steak and who claims to loathe tofu, is blown away by the mushroom pasta rolls – which include, you guessed it, tofu.

Stefanie and Gabby have collaborated over everything, constantly revising menus, colours, even room arrangements. Gabby confesses that she sometimes stays up all night rearranging the furniture in her apartment, none of which is exactly lightweight. ‘I just drag it around,’ she laughs. ‘Goodness knows what the neighbours think.’ On an occasion like this, which is being photographed, she’s been known to add beetroots to a dish if the room needs more colour.

Every few minutes, the doorbell rings and another guest arrives. Gabby’s Jack Russell, Petey, tries to woo them into a game of catch. His chewed-up tennis ball is the only object in the loft that doesn’t fit in with Gabby’s harmonised collection of artefacts – gathered from her travels on photo shoots or holidays. In the end, the ball is hidden from Petey to keep it from landing in the food.

Soon, everyone is sprawled on Gabby’s bed, reading horoscopes and talking about men. ‘Why is it that women always end up discussing men?’ someone wonders. ‘Because,’ comes the reply from across the room, ‘women are usually in one of three states: waiting for a man to call, enjoying a new one, or trying to get over one.’ Petey suddenly gets up and heads to a corner to nap.

Before dinner, the mood gets even girlier when Gabby wheels out a rail of clothes from her mother Donna Karan’s latest collection. Dressing up isn’t usually de rigeur for a girls’ night in, but with the presence of the Red photographer, everyone’s taking the opportunity to glam up. Food is temporarily forgotten as the friends rush to try on the cashmere, velvet, silk and beaded gowns and coats. ‘When we’re together, we usually sit in front of the television, curled up in our pyjamas,’ says Stefanie.

It’s then time t o eat, and the guests help themselves before plonking down around the low table. Gabby and Stefanie have worked hard all day and somehow, out of Gabby’s tiny kitchen, Asian, Indian and Mediterranean dishes have appeared, accumulating on the massive table. Ginger, tomatoes, tofu, tempeh, seaweed and vegetables create and earthy palate and a fragrance that fills the room.

Ironically, as everyone tucks into these wonderful, healthy dishes, the talk turns to junk food. ‘You need it sometimes,’ says Stefanie. ‘Sometimes my body needs a burger. It’s just another kind of balance.’ Gabby agrees: ‘I bought a pint of Haagen-Dazs ice cream the other night and ate it all.’ Looking at the empty plates minutes later, her guests can say the same thing of lunch.