By John Mariani

       It is easy enough to prove how Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World completely altered the world’s food and gastronomy, but it is also wholly reasonable to claim that his setting foot on the island the natives called Guanahani was the single most transformative event in human history.

       His goal was to sail westward from Spain to find a Spice Route to the Orient—he estimated Japan to be about 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands—and to bring back gold, this, at a time when spices were nearly worth their weight in precious metals.

        As a reward, his Spanish benefactors, Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, said Columbus would be entitled to ten percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity and the option to buy a one-eighth interest in any commercial venture and receive one-eighth of the profits.

       Driven by easterly winds for two-and-a-half months, Columbus spotted a light at two o’clock in the morning of October 12, and upon landing found a tropical Eden, a place “extremely verdant and fertile, with the air agreeable, and probably containing many things of which I am ignorant, not inclining to stay here, but to visit other islands in search of gold.”      

       In every sense, Columbus failed to find what he’d been sent to find, but within a decade that fertility he found was of far more importance. “The Columbian Exchange,” a term coined in 1972 by historian Alfred W. Crosby, was a radical, headlong transformation of the world’s food, land use, wealth and geopolitics.

       America gave scores of new foods to the rest of the world—corn, tomatoes, potatoes, chile peppers, agave, turkey, cocoa, pineapple, squash, vanilla, wild rice, and more. In exchange, Europeans brought to America cattle, chickens, honey bees, bananas, rice, barley, garlic, oats, rye,  and sugarcane.

       He made four voyages and brought back many foods, while those who followed brought more, especially the Spanish in Central and South America. On such an exchange were built colonies and empires, economies and fortunes, with slavery and war the byproducts.      
       Consider European cuisine with white or sweet potatoes, which Antoine-Augustin Parmentier championed in France, creating dinners featuring 20 dishes made from the tuber. Try to imagine Italian cooking without the tomato and pastries without vanilla, cocoa, raspberries and strawberries. What would Indian and East Asian cooking be without the chile pepper?

        By the same token, what would American food be like without wheat for bread or cattle for beef. No southern fried chicken. No honey or sugar.

        Columbus, who never got rich from his exploits, died in 1506, believing himself a failure.  Yet, as the philosopher Santayana wrote, “He gave the world another world.”

CHAPTER SIX

         Katie had a feeling she would not be granted an interview by either Pelts or Wasserstein,  because investment bankers like neither attention nor questions about their dealings unless it was a chance for Jim Kramer to fawn over them on his CNBC show “Mad Money .” After reporting in to Dobell about the Epstein interview, she called the Miramax office in New York to ask about Harvey Weinstein’s availability and was told that he would be back in the city the following day and would respond to Katie’s request then.
         Katie assumed Weinstein wanted to be in New York for the intense bidding war that would soon begin. He’d had a good working relationship with New York’s editors and writers, invited some on press junkets and gave them prime access to visiting actors in his movies, and those actors always followed Weinstein’s directives.
         He had founded Miramax in 1979 with his brother Bob and executive Corky Burger—the name was a combination of the Weinstein’s parents, Miriam and Max—and at first was a film distribution company for foreign producers, then had hits with Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction,  John Madden’s prestigious Shakespeare in Love, written by British playwright Tom Stoppard, and the movie version of the musical Chicago, which grossed $300 million. Miramax blossomed in the 1990s with independent productions free of Hollywood studios’ interference.
         In June 1993 The Walt Disney Company bought Miramax for $60 million, assuming $40 million in debt, and the contract allowed Weinstein to produce films independently from Disney’s control, while retaining the final say-so on what would be released. Miramax had financial interest in both the highly successful Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
        But by the end of the decade relations with Disney had begun to sour, especially after Weinstein, with Disney’s approval,  financed the disastrous Talk Magazine with Tina Brown, which went under in less than two years. Which did not stop him from wanting to buy New York magazine, though that, too, would need investors beyond his own funding. At the same time he was overseeing Martin Scorsese’s movie Gangs of New York for release the following year.
         Like most Hollywood producers, Weinstein could be ruthless when he needed to be and very generous when he needed something or someone. He also had a reputation for using the casting couch as a means to entice young actresses into his extravagant lifestyle. He had met his second wife Eve Chilton, from a wealthy Boston family, 1986, got her a job at Miramax and married within a year. They had three children , having three children. By 2001 the marriage was on the rocks after rumors of his infidelity began., and they’d divorced three years later. 
         No one Katie spoke with among her colleagues had anything pleasant to say about Weinstein,  and at least two women told her not to do the interview at his hotel, where he was known to appear in nothing but a bathrobe as his form of seduction.
         He was staying at the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue whose guests often included Hollywood actors and filmmakers.  Weinstein always took the same suite, overlooking the street, where he always asked for a massage bed to be set up. When Katie called his room from the house phone it rang nine times before Weinstein answered, snapping only, “Yeah?”
         Katie identified herself and was told to wait a few minutes in the sedate lobby. Weinstein would call the desk phone when he was ready. It was ten o’clock; Katie’s phone rang at ten-twenty.
         “Come on up,” was all he said.
       Katie rang the bell and waited at least another two minutes before Weinstein opened the door. Katie was only slightly surprised to find that he was, indeed, dressed in a terrycloth bathrobe and had just come from the bathroom wiping his face. He was of average height but, with his thick neck, small eyes, balding bullet head and terribly pock-mocked skin he could not escape comparison to a highly unattractive toad, and at the moment, still oiled from his massage, a rather slimy one at that.
         Beside the massage table a young Asian woman was collecting the sheets. A room service cart with the remains of a continental breakfast was in front of the television screen.
         “Do you want me to have them remove the table?” she asked.
         “No, leave it, I want you back tomorrow, same time. Hey, I’m putting the tip on my hotel bill.”
         The masseuse gathered up the rest of her things while Weinstein tapped his foot, barely recognizing Katie’s presence in the room.
         “Okay, you done?” he asked the masseuse. “I have business to conduct, let yourself out. Thank you.”
         Whatever questionable charm Katie was told Weinstein could turn on was not yet evident, but she could see he was not naked under the robe.
         “Sit down,” he said. “Want coffee? I think there’s some left in the pot.”
         “I’m good,” said Katie, taking a seat on one of the two couches in the room. “Mind if I record the interview.”
         “Long as you turn it off when I say I’m off the record.”
         Katie nodded, opened her notepad and pushed the button on the recorder. She always liked to have her subject make the first response.
         “So, you’re here—I’m sorry, what’s your first name? Cathy?”
         “Katie. Katie Cavuto.”
         “McClure’s, right? I almost bought one of your stories, you know.”
         Katie had never heard of that prospect and answered, “No, I didn’t. Mind if I ask which one?”
         “The one about the English spies.”
         “Going After Harry Lime?”
         “Yeah,  that was yours? Good story but it was a little too much like The Russia House movie that came out that year. I passed.”
         “The one with Sean Connery.”
         “Right. From one of the Le Carré books. Good director, Fred Schepisi, almost hired him to do Welcome to Sarajevo. You ever seen that?”
         Katie shook her head.
         “Yeah, very few people did. It bombed. Made less than a million bucks worldwide gross. So what are we talking about here?”
         “Your possibly bidding on New York Magazine.”
         Weinstein shrugged. “I may. All depends on where it looks like the bids are headed. It’s not worth more than $35 million.”
         “Why would you want to buy it?”
         “Natural fit with my other companies. Every hand would wash the other.”
         “You didn’t feel you got burned by Talk going under?”
         Weinstein poured himself a half cup of coffee  with cream and sugar and sat down opposite Katie, putting one arm over the couch.
         “Can’t say that was my smartest investment, but I was banking on Tina Brown and her connections to make it work after she left The New Yorker. But the market for magazines was already starting to go soft.”
         “Tell me about it,” said Katie. “There’ll be a lot more going under in the next few years.”
         “How’s McClure’s doing?”
         “Pretty well, all things considered.” She wasn’t going to allow Weinstein to interview her. “But if that’s true about magazines, why take a chance on New York, which is losing money.”
         Weinstein’s hairy legs were spread a bit now.
         “New York’s always been a trophy. It never made much money, not even when Clay Felker (below) ran it. For Murdoch it was just an entrance into New York glamor, which he certainly never got from owning the Post. Did you ever hear how the Post’s ad manager tried to talk the head of Bloomingdale’s into buying space, and the guy told him, ‘You don’t understand: Your readers are my shoplifters.’
         “But Rupert got what he wanted out of New York while he had it. He cares more about TV and movies now. He’s so fuckin’ rich that for him the bottom line for any particular entity isn’t as important as the entry it gives him. Off the record?”
         Katie nodded and shut off the recorder.
         “Murdoch is a schmuck.  A very, very rich schmuck, but he’ll always feel like an intruder from Australia where his ancestors were probably castrating sheep with their teeth for a living.”
         “Back on the record?” asked Katie.
         “Yeah, go ahead.”
         “So you think you could turn New York around financially? It didn’t work with Talk.”
         “Talk was new and took a shitload of start-up money,  but it was already dated when it came out, and Tina never succeeded in making it more than an upscale version of People—which we should all be so lucky to own. New York’s established, a sexier version of The New Yorker. And believe me, Bloomingdale’s has never not bought space in  New York, right from the beginning. I’m pretty confident that with a new mix of stories— a lot more tie-in between Hollywood and Broadway, capitalizing on that connection, as well as by creating the next big trend will make it work. Back in the seventies the magazine did it all the time: one of the cover stories became the movie Stayin’ Alive. Huge hit. The fuckin’ magazine made the Hamptons chic simply by declaring it to be the place artists and celebrities would go for the summer. Before long the artists couldn’t afford to live there anymore. These days it doesn’t have that kind of power anymore because there’s nobody in there pushing for such stories. Now they’re publishing shit like this.”
         He held up two copies of New York he had on the coffee table. The cover story was “10 Suburbs You Can Afford,” the other “Nanny Nightmare.”
         “I want to publish stories that Hollywood will want to make into movies.”
         “And you’ll be the one to make them?” said Katie.
         “Either me or someone who’ll pay me for the rights, yeah. There’s all kinds of ways to leverage a property.”
         Katie admitted it made sense, so she turned to asking about the other potential buyers.
         “What about Epstein?”
         “Off the record, he’s a fuckin’ pervert. He never made a dime on his own and owes everything to Les Wexler, who owns Victoria’s Secret, y’know. Talk about one hand jerking off another.”
         “So you think it’s Wexler’s money behind Epstein bidding for New York? Why wouldn’t he bid under his own name?”
         “Les probably thinks Jeffrey has a lot of friends who would be valuable in such a sale. Jefferey is a macher. You know what that means in Yiddish? A fixer. Leslie wants to remain back behind the curtain. Preferably with some fuckin’ Russian model who doesn’t need any body work.
         “You gotta know that Jeffrey’s just a big party giver. And his parties are big. I’ve been to them. You’ve never seen so much flesh peddling going on. Lots of teenagers going in and out of his mansion and his little island in the Caribbean.”
         “You know this from seeing it yourself?” asked Katie.
         “Of course!” laughed Weinstein. “I go to Jeffrey’s parties, he’s been to mine. Mine are a lot more discreet, however. Jeffrey’s have a lot of indiscreet doors that open and shut all night long.”
         Given Weinstein’s own reputation for casting couch seductions, Katie thought he was deliberately trying to set himself up as  a modest voyeur rather than a rampant predator. 
         “Epstein agreed to be interviewed if I only asked about the New York deal and nothing else.”
         “Of course. Y’know he’s being investigated down in Palm Beach for sex trafficking.”
         “Is that true?”
         Rather than go off the record, Weinstein just snickered and shook his right hand.
         “You think he’ll be convicted?”
         Weinstein flicked his fingers at Katie’s recorder, and she shut it off.
         “Never. Jeremy has more shit in his files on anybody who’s ever been associated with him than the Mafia. He’ll get rapped on the knuckles.”
         “Does he have such material on you?”
         Weinstein shook his head, then laughed. “Hell, I hope not. I’ve got three beautiful young children. Katie, we done here?”
         She followed up with a few New York-related questions, closed her notebook and shut off the recorder.
         “I guess that’s it for now,” she said. “Since this sale will probably be over soon, I’d like to call you back after the winning bidder is announced.”
         “Suit yourself. If I do bid I’m not going to get suckered into a deal way above what the magazine’s worth. I don’t do business out of ego.”
         “What exactly does drive you, Mr. Weinstein?”    
         “I wanna grow up to be Walt Disney. Make a lotta great movies a lotta people wanna see. Simple as that. Buying New York could be very helpful.”
         Katie thought to herself, “This guy’s full of it” and left with a somewhat sweaty handshake.