Alan Peppard

Like the incessant drone of a TV in the background, blogs chatter with wildly contradictory reports about the state of the Jessica Simpson-Tony Romo romance.

For the record, when she showed up to shop at LFT in Victory Park on Wednesday, she spent time in the men's department picking out items from James Perse and RRL. One presumes they weren't for Papa Joe Simpson.

She did manage to buy a few clothing and jewelry items for herself, too.

As fans of the HBO show Entourage know, it is loosely based on the life of movie star Mark Wahlberg and the childhood friends who came with him to Hollywood. (Unlike Mr. Wahlberg, the main character, Vincent Chase, never did prison time.)

When Mr. Wahlberg hit Dallas last week to promote his movie Max Payne , he was rolling with his friend and executive producer Eric Weinstein, the real-life counterpart to the show's character Eric "E" Murphy, played by Kevin Connolly.

Mr. Wahlberg said this was his first return to Dallas since he was here in 2005 shooting scenes at Texas Stadium for the film Invincible.

Like his fictional counterpart, Mr. Wahlberg likes to live well. Tuesday night at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, the former Calvin Klein model loaded up on Alaskan king crab washed down with Shafer cabernet.

Fast-forward two nights and the scene was all foodies in the Mansion dining room. There was no talk of Wall Street or Main Street, just food, food and more food.

Veteran Dallas restaurateur Alberto Lombardi was in for dinner with his wife, Vivian, and they ran into TV personality and famed Frenchman Jacques Pépin, the one-time personal chef to Charles de Gaulle.

Mansion chef John Tesar joined the conversation, and the group ended up chatting until after midnight.

In Dallas last week, music impresario Quincy Jones got to practice the Chinese he picked up last summer while working as an artistic adviser to the Olympics in Beijing.

Tuesday night, after he spoke at SMU's Tate Lecture Series, Quincy craved Chinese food. Royal China Restaurant's chef-owner Kai-Chi Kao had already closed for the night. But he unlocked the doors to accommodate Quincy and his party of 10.

The dumplings and scallion pancakes were big hits with the group, which included Dallas design exec Trisha Wilson and veteran pediatrician Bob Kramer.