Columnist Muriel Stevens: A product too lovely to eat

Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2004 | 8:22 a.m.

Breaking new ground ... Open just two months, Edible Arrangements at 3754 E. Flamingo Road (at Sandhill Road) already has a loyal following which can't resist the marvelous, flowerlike, fresh fruit arrangements.

Talk about timing! With the whole country counting carbs or calories, these elegant, freshly made fruit creations are the ideal gift for any occasion.

The Las Vegas franchise of Connecticut-based Edible Arrangements was acquired by Stuart and Josie Dean upon the urging of their daughter -- and managing partner -- Rachel Kraft. As Josie tells it, her 18 years with Ethel M Chocolates honed her marketing skills, and she sensed that Las Vegas would embrace this delicious concept.

Edible Arrangements offers about a dozen basket designs in various sizes and prices. All are beautiful. Sweetheart Bouquets are a strawberry lover's dream come true -- massed berries, chocolate-dipped or natural -- offered in three sizes; Blooming Daisies has daisy-cut pineapple slices, strawberries, grapes and cantaloupe; Fudge Delight includes a jar of fudge in a variety of flavors as the centerpiece for the fruit basket.

Order a basket before 1 p.m. and it will be delivered the same day. Only a few baskets are on display in the store, but there is a full-color brochure that shows each basket in all its glory. Edible Arrangements is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Arrangements can be made for Sunday morning pickup (no delivery Sunday). A delivery fee is $8, with a few exceptions.

To view the entire collection visit www.ediblearrangements.com or call 433-2491.

Fashion statements: I've stopped subscribing to some of the fashion magazines I once thought I couldn't live without. W is always good for a chuckle, but how does one read this oversized, overblown mag? Being a contortionist would help, but I'm not. I once tore out all of the advertising pages to make reading the remaining pages easier. It was easier, but boring.

I continue to subscribe to Vogue even though it, too, is a heavyweight. It does have Jeffrey Steingarten's esoteric food column, a most entertaining treatise about his rarefied dining adventures. Elle, Lucky, and other style-setters are OK, yet my favorite is not a monthly publication -- it is the magazine-like Fashions of the Times, a seasonal glossy section that comes with the Sunday New York Times.

It's stylish, witty and frequently nostalgic. Part 2 of the 2004 Spring issue includes a piece about "Divine Dotage," independent women who marched to their own drummers: Film star Mary Boland, Boston Brahmin Millicent Fenwick, England's Queen Mother, sculptor Louise Nevelson and Teddy Roosevelt's clotheshorse daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Wonderful characters, all. The fashions run the gamut from outrageous to "I could wear that," but it is the writing I so adore.

"Figures of Speech" by Patricia Marx includes this about a regular Las Vegas scene-maker -- "Hilton Heights: the state of being brain-dead and having zero body fat while being kept alive by a huge trust fund, as in 'is that a mannequin, or is she in Hilton Heights?' "