Post-Traffic, Bethenny in the City
and on the East End
By Taylor K. Vecsey

(June 29, 2009)    Sitting in traffic for four hours with one accident delay after another making her more than fashionably tardy to a book signing, Bethenny Frankel said, “I felt like I was halfway between Cuba and Florida, and I didn’t know whether to turn back or keep going.”

Durell Godfrey Bethenny Frankel, post-Long Island Expressway traffic, "I felt like I was halfway between Cuba and Florida."

    On the hit Bravo TV series “The Real Housewives of New York City,” Ms. Frankel, the single gal and celebrity natural food chef, is known for her sharp wit, sarcastic, dry humor, and tell-it-like-it-is personality. Her day job, as proprietor of Bethenny Bakes, a line of low-fat and wheat, egg, and dairy-free baked goods, has parlayed into writing books about living a “Naturally Thin” lifestyle.

    A regular on the East End, she made a special midweek rush-hour trip in her pink-and-white Volkswagen Beetle (em­­blaz­oned with her Skinnygirl Margarita mix logo) to stop at the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack on Wed­nesday, where the Parrish Art Museum was holding its business council cocktail party, and Ms. Frankel signed copies of “Naturally Thin,” which has spent several weeks on The New York Times best-seller list.

    While the older, noncable TV-watching crowd wasn’t sure who she was, Ms. Frankel’s fan base certainly runs the spectrum. Many of her fans who went up to her table for an autograph or picture were men. “Men love it because men love to validate the fact that women are insane,” she said on a break. “It makes them feel better about their own lives. It’s a good thing because they’re not going to want to trade you in because every other woman is just as insane as you are.”

    Her time on the East End is a bit different now than it was 20 years ago. At 18, Ms. Frankel was part of the singles’ scene in Westhampton. Danceteria in East Quogue, but formerly of Bridgehampton, was one of her favorite haunts, she recalled.

    “I was probably drinking all the time . . . and having the best time ever,” she said. She’s experienced her fair share of “crappy rental houses,” including one in Sag Harbor that she shared with a boyfriend and five friends.

    Her time in the Hamptons depicted on the show has included staying at her co-star Jill Zarin’s summer house in Water Mill, dancing at benefits, and going to the Hamptons Classic Horse Show in Bridgehampton, where the daughter of another co-star, Countess LuAnn de Lesseps, rides.

    Ms. Frankel has taken a villa at the Montauk Yacht Club this summer, but said she won’t be able to spend much time there because of her book tour and other engagements. “I like to be older. It’s nice to be at the Montauk Yacht Club, alone with my dog, rather than have someone throw up on you!”

    When she’s here, she tries to “disconnect,” she said, by taking walks on the beach near Gurney’s Inn, going to Joni’s for breakfast, and the Hideaway, all in Montauk, where she has been known to order up a Skinnygirl Margarita. Ms. Frankel said her franchise mix will soon be on liquor store shelves nationwide starting Aug. 1, and she expects to sell 100,000 cases.

    A perfect Saturday night on the East End, according to Ms. Frankel, is having dinner at the Palm restaurant in East Hampton with her new beau, Jason Hoppy, a New York City pharmaceutical salesman and real estate agent. She reports she is in love, but “it’s hard to figure out love in the middle of all this.”

    In addition to a national book-signing tour, she just finished her second book, is writing a third, and will start taping the third season of “The Real Housewives” next month.

    “For me, the show has been a complete mirror,” she said, an almost “therapeutic process.” While the show has followed her struggles to balance career and relationships, women continually ask her for advice. “People say, ‘I want to do this,’ and, ‘I have this idea.’ And you know what, you’re going to make some mistakes, you’re going to get a couple bruises, but you need to jump in the ring.”

    She admits to making mistakes. “Don’t make decisions out of fear, particularly in relationships. I’ve done it for years,” she said.

    “That’s what women say to me, ‘You’re our Carrie Bradshaw. We root for you.’ ” Like the iconic “Sex and the City” character, Ms. Frankel has been unlucky in love, while gaining success in her career, all while approaching the big 40.

    Whether she has finally found her Mr. Big and will become an actual housewife remains to be seen — perhaps on the season three premiere.