Ethiopian-born designer Gelila Assefa sips champagne in the kitchen of her Beverly Hills home, wearing a flowing leopard-print James Galanos gown, while her fiancé, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, fries up some steaks. Suddenly, flames shoot out of the pan, and Assefa jumps back, protecting her dress. “We’ll see if it’s fireproof,” he jokes, laughing heartily.
Such is the playful dynamic between the couple, each of whom runs a business while raising their children (Oliver, two this month, and Alexander, six months).
“I’m the happiest woman on the planet. I feel like he’s a gift,” says Assefa, 37. The two first met in 1997 in L.A., where she had studied fashion at Trade-Tech College. After she relocated to New York in 2002, Puck arrived, declared his love, and swept her back to L.A. “It was the most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced,” she remembers. “I’m lucky to have him in my life.”
Theirs is a busy life, to be sure. Puck, 57, who also has two boys from a previous marriage, runs a $300-million-a-year food empire that includes the 25-year-old Spago and the hot new steak house Cut, as well as a show on Food Network. He recently made headlines for partnering with the Humane Society on a farm-animal treatment program.
Meanwhile Assefa, who used to design couture gowns, is focusing on her own handbag line, Gelila, which includes simple, classic ostrich clutches and colorful crocodile bags. She takes pains to note that the animals are not killed for their skins but are used as food. “My handbag line is definitely not for a client into labels. I find them vulgar,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t walk around showing my underwear. Logos should be tucked inside.”
Assefa works out of the couple’s five-bedroom home, which houses sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, art by Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, and antiques from L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue in Provence. She plans to open her own store in L.A. this fall. “We all have this energy that needs to be addressed in some creative way,” she says. “The handbag line is manageable, to where I can be a mother to my children. That’s my first responsibility. I still want to use my talents without it being too demanding.” Fiercely proud of her heritage, Assefa also serves on the board of the Ethiopian Children’s Fund.
Puck and Assefa always make time to entertain, holding Sunday brunches on their patio for friends such as Sideways actress Virginia Madsen and Sidney and Joanna Poitier, who are godparents to their sons. Tonight they’re hosting a dinner party for guests including author Jackie Collins, husband and wife actors Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy) and Rebecca Gayheart, designer Monique Lhuillier, and Guess CEO Paul Marciano.
Assefa changes into a J. Mendel dress and Jimmy Choo shoes, finishing the look with her “showstopper” Iradj Moini Swarovski-crystal necklace. “I’m definitely not a girl who runs around in Juicy Couture,” she says. “Not even around my house. Sorry.”
Instead, she has a large collection of vintage Galanos gowns alongside current pieces from Lanvin and Olivier Theyskens. Puck chuckles when she claims she’s not a big shopper: “Not a big shopper, compared to who?” Assefa admits she likes to dress Puck. “I buy all his clothes,” she notes. “I like to keep him in classic colors: gray, black, navy. I think men, in general, should wear those colors.”
Guests gather in the living room as they arrive. Puck has prepared a four-course meal of summer vegetables with Maine lobster, tortelloni with corn, Moroccan-style lamb, and a chocolate dessert shaped like one of Assefa’s bags. Madsen bites into Puck’s famous smoked-salmon pizza. “If you are not having sex, you can have this,” she says with a laugh. “In the morning you won’t have to kick anyone out.”
Wine flows throughout the evening, as does the good-natured banter between Assefa and Puck. She needles him for being unromantic, but he proves her wrong with a nudge. “Sunday morning, he brought me coffee, and there was a jewel box,” she explains. “It was a Martin Katz emerald bracelet.”
Romantic, yes; nostalgic, no. “We always look to the future,” Puck explains. “What are we going to do next? A lot of people, as they get older, they get tired. For me, it’s the opposite. I love what I do, so it’s easy.”
By all indications, the guests are loving his dinner as well. The mood is giddy, as everyone trades travel tips and reads one another’s palms. They raise their glasses to toast the hosts. “Everyone just beams at them to see how happy they are,” Madsen says, smiling. “This is the real fairy tale.”
Rolling Stone magazine should have written the title as “The 100 Greatest American Singers of All Time” since over 90 percent of those in the list are Americans. The magazine’s editors must also have been high on some thing when they prepared the list. How could they rank Michael Jackson 25th? He should have been in the top five, if not #1. But it is good to see that Bob Marley has ranked 19th place.
In the future, our own Teddy Afro has the potential to make such a list, if the Woyanne dictatorship in Ethiopia does not kill him or destroy his spirit.
Contributors | Brian Braiker, David Browne, Anthony DeCurtis, David Fricke, Brian Hiatt, Ashley Kahn, Mark Kemp, Alan Light, Austin Scaggs, David Wild, Douglas Wolk
Many foreigners who have come to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and taken part in various road races including the Great Ethiopian Run, an annual international 10km road race, will tell you that it is not just any other race.
Apart from the unique atmosphere created by the mass participation field, which are all clad in the same-coloured T-shirt, the city, which is located at 2400m above sea level, does make both training and running races 5km and upwards a very difficult endurance exercise.
There is little surprise therefore that the winners of the men’s and women’s races in the last seven years of Africa’s largest road race have all been Ethiopian. In fact, Kenyans Nathan Naibei (men’s race in 2005) and Caroline Chepkurui (women’s race in 2006) are the only non-Ethiopians to have earned a top three finish.
This year’s field will again feature a host of young Ethiopian runners hungry to launch themselves onto the international stage and preserve Ethiopian dominance of the race.
Merga, Gebremariam against Farah and Co. – Men’s race
The elite men’s field sees the return of former champions Gebregziabher Gebremariam (2002) and Deriba Merga (2007), a host of young Ethiopians, and perhaps the strongest foreign challenge in the history of the race.
In 2002, Gebremariam, who was coming off his final junior year, beat another then little-known Kenenisa Bekele and Sileshi Sihine in one of the most exciting races in the history of the Great Ethiopian Run. That performance came on the back of a World junior cross country title in Lausanne, Switzerland and a World junior 10,000m title in Kingston, Jamaica.
While his conquests have gone on to collect four Olympic, 10 world championship, and many other major championship medals between them, Gebremariam’s career hasn’t quite lived up to expectation with double silver in the 2004 World Cross Country Championships and an African 10,000m title earlier this year on home soil being his better-known achievements in a five-year senior career.
However, Gebremariam has already proven that he is a force to be reckoned on the domestic circuit with and his three-year experience – he also finished second in 2003, but failed to finish in the top ten in 2001 – could be an advantage against his relatively-younger compatriots.
Like Gebremariam, Deriba Merga, who was the winner in 2006, makes a return to the Great Ethiopian Run. Since his run-away victory two years ago, Merga added an All-African Games half marathon title in 2007; finished fourth in the 2007 World Half Marathon Championships; and was just beaten out of a podium finish in the 2008 Beijing Olympics Marathon by compatriot Tsegaye Kebede.
But Merga is an athlete on form having won the 2008 Aircom New Delhi Half Marathon in India in 59:16, a PB. He will be using the 10km in Addis Ababa as a speed test for a spring Marathon.
Other top Ethiopian challengers include Ayele Abshiro, who beat Kenenisa Bekele at the Seven Hills 15km in Njimegen last Sunday; 2006 runner-up Tadesse Tola; Lille Half Marathon winner Tilahun Mnashu; 2008 Seoul Marathon winner Solomon Molla and his runner-up Chala Lemi; and African 10,000m bronze medallist Eshetu Wondimu.
Unlike previous years, there is no shortage of foreign challengers to the Ethiopian dominance in the Great Ethiopian Run. Leading the foreign challenge is Britain’s European Cross Country Champion Mo Farah. The 26-year old Somali-born runner has given himself the best chance of countering the Ethiopian challenge by spending around six weeks in Addis Ababa to prepare for the race.
“My training is going well,” remarked Britain’s number one distance runner. “Being in Ethiopia among the world’s best runners has been a big experience for me. I am looking forward to competing on Sunday.”
He will be joined by training partners – Swedish steeplechaser Mustafa Mohammed, Frenchman Jean-Marc Leandro – while the presence of Kenyan duo of Gilbert Yego and Raymond Tanui will also make the race another battle between Ethiopia and Kenya.
Tufa the overwhelming favourite in women’s contest
Unlike the competitive men’s field, the women’s field is expected to be dominated by All-African 10,000m champion Mestawet Tufa who is in the form of her life after missing the World 15km record in Njimegen last weekend by just two seconds.
Her strongest challenge is expected to come from Asselefech Mergia, who finished third in last year’s race, but won the New Delhi Half Marathon two weeks ago. Atsede Habtamu, who finished second in last year’s New Delhi Half Marathon and is the second fastest Ethiopian over the Half Marathon, will also be a factor, while last year’s winner Wude Ayalew is another top name in the field.
The foreign challenge comes from the Kenyan duo of Valentine Kipketer and Joyce Kandia.
Kluft, once again, leads VIP Guest List
Three-time world Heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft is back in Ethiopia as a VIP Guest which includes 1987 world 110m silver medalist John Regis, who is now a race director for the British Grand Prix in London (Crystal Palace) and Peter Connerton, race director for the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon, which of course will be Great Ethiopian Run Race Director Haile Gebrselassie’s next full marathon race in January 2009.
Dear John Goddard (reporter for the Toronto Star newspaper)
Who does not want to go home after twenty four years to visit a 100-year old father and 70-year old mother? I myself have been out of Ethiopia the same time Kemer left his home country on foot. Luckily I left by plane. However, the return of Kemer at the time when thousands of Oromos have been jailed and on top of that this week Amnesty International’s strong letter accusing Meles Zenawi for jailing Oromo professionals is not accidental. Kemer’s visit is a well orchestrated propaganda for the unelected regime in Ethiopia and I can assure you that many Oromos will see him as a new cadre from Canada.
Interestingly, Mr. Kemer on John Godard piece on Toronto Star (November 18) accused the former Ethiopian regimes for being anti-Oromo. That is a big lie and the writer should not write such slander. The Mengistu regime killed, imprisoned and jailed all who challenged him to take power and for that all Ethiopians were victims and no Oromo was singled out. In fact there were Oromos who joined Mengistu and kill their political enemies — Oromos and others alike.
Kemer has chosen to join the current unelected regime for financial benefit while popular singers like Teddy Afro are languishing in jail for no crime other than singing for reconciliation and peace. Ethiopia has many Oromo heroes. For that you just have to go and see the recent Beijing Olympics and the love these athletes have throughout Ethiopia. Sadly Kemer chose to serve the enemy of Oromos and all Ethiopians — Meles Zenawi.
Tedla Asfaw
New York City
CAIRO, EGYPT (AFP) – EGYPTIAN police have rounded up hundreds of teenage boys in Cairo in a day-long crackdown on sexual harassment.
“We have arrested a large number of boys who were flirting with girls,” Cairo’s police director Faruq Lashin said.
About 400 teenagers, aged between 15 and 17, were arrested on Wednesday and will be brought before a judge, he said.
Police targeted teenagers in front of schools, universities and along the Nile’s banks, he said.
The teenagers were expected to be fined, a police official said.
Women’s rights groups in Egypt have long campaigned against sexual harassment and assault in Cairo, accusing police of ignoring the phenomenon.
On Monday, a Cairo court jailed a teenager for one year for sexually assaulting two women.
Another teenager, a 17 year old, is facing trial on the same charge.
At least 34 men were arrested after they allegedly assaulted women in an affluent Cairo neighbourhood during a Muslim holiday in January.
Such convictions are relatively rare in Egypt, which does not have a law defining sexual harassment, but a court in October sentenced a man to three years in jail for groping a woman.
Women’s rights activists welcomed that ruling and said it was unprecedented in Egypt.
The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR) issued a survey this summer saying 83 per cent of Egyptian women and 98 per cent of foreign women in Egypt had experienced sexual harassment.
The study said only 12 per cent of the 2500 women who reported cases of sexual harassment to ECWR went to the police with their complaint.
Ato GebreMedhin (formerly Aba Paulos), the Woyanne cadre who is posing as patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, is coming to Washington DC in the next few days, according to Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit sources.
The gun-toting fake patriarch is planning to visit the Washington DC Mikael Church and other Ethiopian churches in the area.
It is unconscionable for the priests and board members of the Washington DC Mikael Church to invite this murderous thug as a religious father to their place of worship.
Ato GebreMedhin is not just a Woyanne cadre. He is a murderer. Several years ago, his heavily armed body guards had gunned down a harmless monk right in front of him. During the post-2005 elections, he had ordered churches to close their gates so that protesters who were trying to flee from Meles Zenawi’s death squads could not get in.
Ato GebreMedhin not only should be confronted, but needs to be arrested and turned over to the FBI for his direct involvement in the killing of a poor monk who was attempting to approach him to deliver a complaint.
The U.S. Homeland Security Department should not permit this kind of criminal to enter the country in the first place.
Ethiopian-born designer Gelila Assefa sips champagne in the kitchen of her Beverly Hills home, wearing a flowing leopard-print James Galanos gown, while her fiancé, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, fries up some steaks. Suddenly, flames shoot out of the pan, and Assefa jumps back, protecting her dress. “We’ll see if it’s fireproof,” he jokes, laughing heartily.
Theirs is a busy life, to be sure. Puck, 57, who also has two boys from a previous marriage, runs a $300-million-a-year food empire that includes the 25-year-old Spago and the hot new steak house Cut, as well as a show on Food Network. He recently made headlines for partnering with the Humane Society on a farm-animal treatment program.
Assefa changes into a J. Mendel dress and Jimmy Choo shoes, finishing the look with her “showstopper” Iradj Moini Swarovski-crystal necklace. “I’m definitely not a girl who runs around in Juicy Couture,” she says. “Not even around my house. Sorry.”