By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES |
Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:48pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A 300-pound bronze statue of the Lorax, a character from the Dr. Seuss book and hit movie of the same name, has been stolen from the late author’s San Diego estate, police said on Tuesday.

The 3-foot-high statue of the Lorax standing on a tree stump with his arms outstretched was reported missing from the hillside property on Monday morning, San Diego Police Lt. Andra Brown said.

Theodor Geisel, who wrote The Lorax and other best-selling children’s books under the pen-name Dr. Seuss, died in 1991 at the age of 87.

His widow, Audrey, still lives on the estate in the San Diego community of La Jolla.

Brown said police were trying to determine if the theft was related to an animated film made from the book, voiced by Zac Efron and Taylor Swift, that is currently playing in theaters.

“We don’t know if its just a prank because of the recent release of the movie or if someone thinks it’s going to be worth a buck or two because it’s a lot of (metal),” Brown said.

“We’re just hoping that the suspects return it,” she said. “The Geisel family is just asking that it be returned and they don’t want to pursue the matter any further. Which is not to say the police won’t.”

Brown said evidence at the scene suggests that the thieves rolled the statue down the hill to an adjacent property, where it was likely loaded onto a waiting vehicle.

She said the statue was one of two made by Geisel’s stepdaughter. The other was given to a museum.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Tim Gaynor)

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By Cathy Yang

HONG KONG |
Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:35am EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) – New York-born Harlan Goldstein, known to many foodies as the best Western chef in Hong Kong, can thank his mother for his culinary career.

Despairing of her 14-year-old son’s propensity to get mixed up with the wrong crowd, she put him to work in his uncle’s restaurant to keep him out of trouble. He went straight from high school to an apprenticeship arranged by his uncle at the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland.

Now, after 17 years in Hong Kong and 14 months after he had started Gold by Harlan Goldstein in Lan Kwai Fong, Goldstein is opening his second restaurant in Hong Kong next month, a 1940′s style New York steak joint called Strip House.

Goldstein, 51, spoke to Reuters about his ambitions in Hong Kong, his interest in fine wines, and his obsession to become the reigning king of white truffles in the city.

Q: How has your cooking evolved in Hong Kong?

A: “I wanted to create a taste that was welcome by the local community, so I created a dish like red prawn pasta with baby shrimps, garlic, chili, which is like a Har Mein (prawn noodle) from Singapore, which has a good flavor and taste.

“And my sauces are very light and tasty. They’re not over-reduced, so they don’t have a lot of salty flavor, because the Chinese palate is very light, because Cantonese food is freshness, light and cooked simple, so I would say my flavor is very bold, very rich and I work on presentation and taste. You don’t see meat loaf and mashed potatoes on my menu.”

Q: And then the wines come in.

A: “Listen, when you eat you’ve got to have wine, and wine and dine matching is very important. I tend to recommend to the diners that if they’re going to eat these dishes they should drink it with this wine. It’s a perfect match, like a good marriage. I like a lot of Napa wine, and I enjoy Italian wine and Spanish, a little bit less on Burgundy. Burgundy is a really hot trendy wine to drink now, but I haven’t had enough of it to learn. I still need some time.”

Q: So what have you got in your cellar?

A: “We have 580 wines on our list, a lot of the French Burgundies, the Bordeaux wines.”

Q: What about your other passion, the one with white truffles. How did that develop? You’ve got an ad boasting you’re the “New Truffle King in Town”?

A: “Well (chef Umberto) Bombana thinks he’s the truffle king for 13 years here. I started my first year here and for the first year I sold 35 kilos (77 lbs), so I’m trying to take over his throne, and by next year I think I’d be able to do it.”

Q: How are you going to do it?

A: “I’m going to sell a lot more truffles.”

Q: How much more truffles?

A: “Probably 70 kilos. I have about eight specialties that’ll go well with truffles and I shave them at the table, and people enjoy the experience. I have a slow-cooked egg on a brioche, with goose liver sauce; a traditional dish which is scrambled eggs; Italian eggs with shaved white truffles on top. I also have a tagliatelle with white truffles, a slow-cooked veal cheek, braised for 14 hours, and I shave white truffles on top with a puree of cauliflower. These are some of the dishes.”

Q: Do you weigh it at all when serving the white truffles?

A: “No. I understand and I’m more generous. So if I say that I give you four grams, I end up giving you eight. White truffle is a specialty, and I think it’s really, something exotic, so that’s why I concentrate on that.”

Q: The white truffles — how much do they cost?

A: “An average of $40,000 a kilo (2.2 lbs), all the way up to $60,000.”

Q: What else do you want to do?

A: “My ambition is to open five more restaurants, I used to have six, and that’s about the right target for me to keep me very occupied. I have a few new concepts I want to do after Strip House.”

For a TV link got to: link.reuters.com/cyr37s

(Additional reporting by Andy Ho; editing by Elaine Lies and Patricia Reaney)

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LONDON |
Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:23am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) – J.K. Rowling’s best-selling “Harry Potter” novels are available for the first time in ebook format on the new website dedicated to the boy wizard adventures.

The seven stories, which have sold an estimated 450 million copies worldwide and spawned a successful eight-film movie franchise, went on sale on Tuesday at the Pottermore site set up by Rowling.

The website’s online store (shop.pottermore.com) is the exclusive retailer of Harry Potter ebooks and digital audio books, which have been launched in English only.

French, Italian, German and Spanish editions are expected in the coming weeks with further languages to follow.

The main Pottermore website is expected to be up and running in early April, several months later than initially anticipated owing to technical problems.

Designers hope to allow readers to explore elements of the Harry Potter world that have not appeared in the books and to interact with the stories and characters.

The free-to-use website, partnered by Sony, is one of several ventures launched by Rowling and her commercial partners to keep the magic of Harry Potter alive and the revenues rolling in.

Rowling, who recently announced she was turning to adult fiction, long resisted allowing the Harry Potter stories to be turned into digital format, but eventually decided that technological progress could not be stopped.

The ebook launch raises questions over copyright infringement for the jealously guarded Potter property, although organizers are using a combination of watermarking techniques to protect against illegal copying.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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By Dorene Internicola

NEW YORK |
Mon Mar 26, 2012 11:31am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – More exercisers are taking their fitness to the air these days, held aloft by technology borrowed from sources as far-flung as the space program and the circus.

Experts say if you adhere to the learning curve, going anti-gravity can be just the thing to relieve overused joints and revitalize an earthbound routine.

Stephen Csolak, fitness manager at a Manhattan branch of Equinox, the national chain of luxury fitness centers, uses an anti-gravity treadmill, called Alter-G, on a range of clients, from marathoners to the morbidly obese.

“You have this bubble around you and you’re floating on top,” he said, describing how the Alter-G, which was developed from NASA technology, uses air pressure to gently lift the user.

“If we remove a percentage of someone’s body weight by altering the effect of gravity, we come up with a lot of different benefits for a lot of different populations,” he said.

So marathoners can train for speed and endurance with reduced risk of injury, older adults can exercise with reduced pressure on their joints and the obese can work out unencumbered by their extra pounds.

“Being on the anti-gravity treadmill allows the obese client to feel their target weight, what they’d feel like if they were 20, 30 or 40 pounds (nine, 14 or 18 kilograms) lighter,” Csolak said.

First lessons on the Alter-G are supervised, he said, and clients get hooked easily because it’s such fun.

“I don’t believe there’s anything like it, other than swimming,” he said. “Swimming’s also a zero-to-minimal impact cardiovascular workout.”

Jessica Matthews, a spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise, said she’s seeing more anti-gravity group fitness classes.

“I think of anti-gravity as anything where you’re physically suspended,” said Matthews, a California-based exercise physiologist.

Offerings range from yoga classes where participants hang from hammocks, to group instruction in executing Cirque du Soleil-style stunts.

“There can definitely be a place for this,” she said. “But in a group setting, when you have 30 to 40 people hanging upside down in a room, safety is key.”

Sabrena Merrill, a Kansas City, Missouri-based fitness expert, has developed a fitness program that uses aerial silks suspended from the ceiling.

She said her goal is to bridge the gap between the performance and fitness worlds.

“Climbing silks, doing foot locks and body wraps twice a week in lieu of resistance or weight training, definitely works the body hard,” Merrill said.

The mechanics of being in the air forces your core to work differently, she explained, but the focus of her workout remains on the basic components of strength, flexibility and endurance.

“Most women can’t imagine doing a pull up,” she said, “But after this training, they will do a pull up. Upper body strength will change.”

Merrill, who trains fitness professionals in the class, agrees that safety is crucial. Clients are screened for pregnancy, high blood pressure and medication.

“We just don’t go very high off the ground, about one foot off the ground for most. And there’s a protective mat underneath,” said Merrill.

She doesn’t contend that the aerial silks workout is superior resistance training, but it might be more fun.

“It’s not better or worse, just different,” she said. “I can’t stress enough the enjoyment of the play. You feel like you’re a circus performer.”

(Reporting by Dorene Internicola; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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BOSTON |
Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:40pm EDT

BOSTON (Reuters) – In order to focus your energy for a presentation, imagine that you had 30 seconds to talk instead of 30 minutes, says Harvard Business Review.

The Management Tip of the Day offers quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review and HBR.org (http:\www.hbr.org). Any opinions expressed are not endorsed by Reuters.

“When you’re giving a presentation and nervousness kicks in, it’s tough to be brief. But, your audience expects you to state your conclusion and stand behind it, not ramble on aimlessly.

You can only do that if you zero in on the purpose. When you prepare for your talk, work backwards. Before you put anything down on paper, know the key message you want your audience to remember.

Ask yourself: If my presentation were 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes, what would I say? Force yourself to summarize your key point. Once you’ve done that, think through what other information you’ll need to support that point.”

Today’s management tip was adapted from “In Presentations, Learn to Say Less” by Ron Ashkenas.

(For the full post, see: here)

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