Fear and Love; Diet and Food

Love Yascone with Jonathan Goldsmith at Astral Tequila bottle signing
and a Food collage
These are just some of my repeat meals this year

Fear and Love 

Yes, I realize the irony and the play on my name.  I am only going to talk about my fears with dieting and my love of food and how they get in my way.  I am one of those people who refuse to let my dieting affect my feelings for food.  I love food.  Love and fear can’t be together when I have food.  Unfortunately for me, diet and fear go hand in hand.  Over coming my fear of starting a diet means, for however long, I will be spurning some of my food loves.

Fear and Diet

Days before I start a diet I come up with a plan.  Once that plan is made it takes me days before I start.  

Fear #1 Stickler Love: Once I Start I don’t stop.  

This is especially true when I do low carb or the Keto Diet.  Keto is the highest performing diet I have ever done.  It is better than HCG, low carb, Intermittent Fasting Only, Carbohydrate Addict, Beverly Hills Diet, Sadkins and yes, plant based diets. (Why Keto? I don’t lose muscle and I am never hungry.) Keto is the strictest of all the diets.  Mistakes, at least for me, cannot be made.  Therefore when I start a diet I set a goal and/or a date and I can’t break my diet until that goal/date is reached.  It is because of this I usually start with a plant based diet or Intermittent Fasting if I have a lot of events to attend.

Fear #2 Missing Events and Cool Moments

Yes, it always seems I start my diets the day before some celebrity chef has an event, or there is a major bourbon or tequila tasting, or it is the most beautiful pre-summer day in years and it demands tacos or ramen with friends.  (I know I can make low carb versions but I want to be out enjoying someone else's food.) It is because of fear #2 that I ate tacos at El Taco Luchador three times this week.  It is also the reason my diet plan starts plant based and ends Keto.  I will post a video for my summer diet plan.  (Note: I started my period this week so the Tacos may be because of PMS.)

Fear #3 Failure

Part of success is picking the right diet at the right time and having the right frame of mind.  I am going through a lot these days. Literally I was just interrupted to deal with negative energy again.  It is enough to run out the house and have a nice glass of wine while looking at the river.  So depression causes failure.  If I am losing weight this usually doesn’t happen but sometimes I can also feel isolated when I am on a diet, so it depends.  The worst of the worst, is if a negative outside force comes after me.  Like at this moment.  I am innocently writing you and someone negatively impacts me.  Well, I haven’t started my plan yet.  I should just give up today.  Failure hurts me.  I have major events to go to on Friday and Saturday.  Going to these events looking the same way I look today would also make me feel like a failure.  I need to do a video on this, too.  I fear coming up with plans because once I have a plan I need to start it.  If I don’t start that is a failure.  Worse, if I start and quit due to some reason or other, it is a bigger failure.  The absolute worst failure (and this has happened to me) is being a stickler on a diet for two months and not losing an ounce.  I was suffering on a very strict diet missing Hollywood parties while my sisters went out and I did not lose a pound! The failure never left my heart.  It was an event that colors all my dieting fears.  I have an allergy to sugar substitutes including the natural ones.  I can use sugar alcohols (without a migraine) but, my body will not lose any weight.  I won’t gain but I won’t lose either.  It was a horrible lesson and I reconfirmed the lesson when I made my Keto pound cake.  The cake was wonderful and I did not gain weight but I did not lose either.  Other people don’t have this problem but I do.  It is a built in failure😢, but knowing is half the battle.

Once I start my diet for real I am confident.  I know the goal.  My love for certain foods are ignored.  Although I do look at food porn a lot. So what does food do for my life? Let’s explore.

My Love Of Food

To me, food is art.  Food is the emotion enhancer.  Food is a mood setter.  Food defines the moment, the season, the event and the person.  I happen to be an eclectic individual.  I can be the French woman with the simple frock and a joie de vie.  I can be the Neet who has binged all the episodes of My Hero Academia.  I can also be the woman going club hopping with friends.  I know the clothes I would wear to make each moment picture perfect.  I also know the food I would eat and the alcohol I would drink.  I realized for the longest time I have not been enjoying my summers.  Why? I never took that summer has started let’s have summer food moment.  Yes, I know the saying, “Do we eat to live or live to eat?” To me it is a bullshit phrase to over simplify a great issue.  What is life to YOU? To me life can be art, even the most ugly moments make beautiful pictures.  Food is art and so is the sample size dress I want to fit into.  Do you want to live your life as a function or as art?  Is life a task? Or is life a string of positive and negative emotions telling one kick ass story? I love how food can enhance and change a moment.  

I really want to change the moment I am having now.   But to tell the truth diet food is a moment too.  I have had my fill of food. I also know Saturday and Friday are going to be good days.  What my plant based diet shake says about me is that I am in the challenge of my life and I intend to win. 

(I failed horribly, I never started because I started my period, lol.  The cravings were too strong and I just did not need the added stress.  So I will start after Memorial Day. Yes, I will be posting a video on youtube and you can watch my past exploits there too.)

Fat Bomb Soup 

my Favorite Keto Diet Recipes

(If you want to see more of my food follow me on Instagram and YouTube and Snapchat.)

Call It A Work Christmas

The 4 have had a very odd year this year and yet it was not so odd.  It was full of ups and downs, arguments and fights followed by impossible achievements.  This Christmas like this year was very odd.  On paper we had the best Christmas ever!!! It was filled with evening gowns, 100% silk linens and major property acquisitions.  There were no real major fights during the Holidays and we had a beautiful Christmas tree.  We even have great pictures of the four of us together.  On paper everything was perfect.  In the years to come that is how I hope to remember everything.  Off paper was something the world doesn't see.  Everything we did, every present we gave each other, every picture we took, was part of our working Christmas.  Yes, even on Christmas Day, we worked.

The Gifts

We each purchased beautiful dresses for each other.  They look beautiful and we look beautiful in them but every dress we bought was for an ad campaign.  We didn't pick the dresses because we wanted them.  We picked the dresses because we needed them.  Do we love Ralph Lauren? Yes. Would we have made different purchases if these were actual gifts? Yes.  We were so under pressure the entire month of December that we didn't give ourselves a chance to even think.  We each got at least 5-8 great gowns and dresses.  If it were a holiday shopping spree it would have been a fun one.  We would have enjoyed ourselves.  Perspective is everything.  We were panicked.  We wanted a certain look so we didn't go for what we wanted for Christmas.  I look at the rack of clothes in our "war room" and they really are amazing but I can't say they were gifts because they weren't.  If I could do the moment again I would remove the pressure we felt to get things done.  I would have noticed sooner that I am in a store with my beautiful mother and my two beautiful sisters shopping for dresses.  Next year and the years to follow will be working Christmases, too.  I know this because of the type of work we do but I am going to have to learn to change my perspective.  A woman in the grocery store was talking to her sister on the phone.  I over heard her ask her sister if she wanted to go dress shopping.  It was only then that I realized that I had that moment with my sisters already and I missed it! When family works together it is hard sometimes.  We are entertainers, event planners and we host guest from around the world.  Entertainers never take off for holidays, hospitality never takes off for Holidays.  Technically we did not give each other gifts, but we can think of what we did purchase this year as a working gift.

I did however buy silk for each of us.  I had been meaning to for years but silk, even on sale, even with a coupon, is expensive.  I spent well over $300.00.  I think it was closer to $500.00.  I should know but I am trying to avoid becoming depressed.  So why did I buy silk now? It wasn't for Christmas, although my purchase arrived just before Christmas Eve.  I bought it because I am trying my best to avoid a major problem with our hair.  Yea, I know just get a regular satin pillow case and hair cap.  I tried that.  I have used that for years.  Silk is better.  Satin served me well but it was not enough.  Satin keeps hair healthy but it doesn't protect as well as silk.  Oh and just so you know satin is the type of weave of the fabric it is not fabric.  Satin can be any fabric including silk.  I also learned that real silk is sold by the weight not thread count.  Well, to get back to the topic.  Something really bad happened that I don't want to talk about, but the silk was all I could do to help the situation.  I one day I will have the money to get them piles and piles of silk for fun.

The property we bought is a historic building.  It is a building everyone notices when you drive by and we will make it a place people won't forget.  We closed on this building in December which is a great Christmas present for all of us but...this was a lot of work.  Several months of stress and more to come.  Still this was the best moment we had this Holiday Season.  Maybe by New Year's Eve we will take a moment and really celebrate.  Again perspective is everything.   We need to take just 30 minutes and say wow.  Instead we are busy renovating the building and booking guest at our properties and burning the candle at both ends.  I want the 4 to see that they are not just working, but achieving great things.  I just need them to take in that this is Christmas and though everything we did this year was for work, it is still pretty cool.

Work

We tried to attend family events this year.  Last year I did not attend Christmas dinner and missed most of the Holiday Season.  This year I really wanted to try and be there with everyone for Christmas.  I was looking forward to Aunt Kim's Charity Party.  I missed it.  I wanted to be on time for Aunt Crystal's Christmas dinner.  We were 2 hours late.  I knew Aunt Kim's party was going to be amazing.  I was still searching for dresses with Mom and my sisters for our company ad at 9:00 PM the evening of my Aunt's Party.  I looked like a haggard hobo not a woman looking for dresses for work.  I remembered looking at my phone and saying I'm not going to make it.  Being creative while collaborating with 3 other women takes time.  The pics to Aunt Kim's event were amazing.  We were also late for Christmas dinner.  Why? Because we had someone book our property on Christmas Day.  Our guest arrived in Louisville on Christmas and found they had nowhere to stay.  Since we just purchased a new building this was a much needed booking.  Mom and Faith worked hard to settle our guest in one of our places.  In our family, you dress for Christmas dinner.  We did not.  We arrived looking well, less than what is expected, but we were there and we had fun.

Holiday Season

My husband passed December 13, 2013, Friday the 13th.  This year I wanted to decorate on the 13th to change the emotional charge of the day.  We haven't decorated since 2012.  We did not get a chance to do anything for Christmas on December, 13th this year like I wanted.  I was feeling  down. I felt like I failed.  I was downstairs at 2 am when the doorbell rang.  I didn't answer the door because it couldn't be for me and everyone else was asleep.  I did not know it was my mother's youngest brother, my uncle.  I did not know he brought us a real tree.  I went to bed before dawn.  I called my mother later that morning and she told me Uncle Wayne left us a tree.  The mood at our home had not been good.  It was difficult at best.  When I came downstairs later that afternoon it smelled like Christmas.  Faith who works all day and all night everyday looked happier than she had in months.  The tension was leaving our home.  We had something that we needed but couldn't get for ourselves left at our door step and it changed everything.  My uncle knew what the 13th was and he brought us a tree.  My uncle loved Bryan, too.  We all did.  He was our family.  I believe Bryan knew we felt defeated.  He knew that we really needed to change that day, so he sent my uncle at 2 am.  Thank God! We decorated our tree differently than we normally do but we still love it.  That is our first tree in years.

Perspective

I need to look at my life with new eyes.  Days can be a burden or a learning experience.  Work can be work or a moment to be spent with others.  A beautiful dress is a beautiful dress.  Does it matter that I got it for work? Christmas is Christmas even when we work so hard and we don't take notice.  Christmas happens. Life happens.

My Jedi Mind Trick Diet Part II: Holiday Diet Or Food Fest? Thanksgiving, Christmas And New Years

It is Black Friday many of you have Thanksgiving leftovers you are still eating your way through.  I decided to go my own path and my own way.  I am making up my own rules and this will be the first Thanksgiving I actually lost weight and I mean a lot of weight.  I did not have a Thanksgiving meal yesterday and I loved it.  I am finding my own Jedi way.  To get the back story checkout my blog My Jedi Mind Trick Diet.

I was not sad to miss out on some of my Thanksgiving favorites.  In fact I ate some of my favorites the week before Thanksgiving.  I just feel Thanksgiving never occurs at a good diet moment in my life.  I always end up not happy with having my big meal on the last Thursday of November.  Let's face it we all want to look good during the Holidays and yet Thanksgiving almost guarantees you will spend the Holidays looking less than your dream holiday self.  I would always lament the loss of the last weekend in November.  I would always wish I could have my best food at the beginning of November because it was directly after Halloween and it would allow me to eat whatever I want and go on a diet later.  If Thanksgiving were the day after Halloween I would have most of November to diet/recover.  Unfortunately that's not the way things are.  This year I lost weight on Thanksgiving.  This year I will be my own Jedi.

I am posting video blogs on this page about my inner Jedi, my desire to become my better self and to be truly happy during the holiday season.

Jedi Mind Trick Diet- Losing Weight during the Holidays

Jedi Mind Trick Diet- Losing Weight during the Holidays Part 2

Jedi Mind Trick Diet- Losing Weight during the Holidays Part 3

Jedi Mind Trick Diet- Losing Weight during the Holidays Part 4

NoMo, Executive Chef Salaam And Our Most Magical Food Moment In New York

NoMo
Pic by Joy Yascone

Glenda Yascone (Mom) with Executive Chef Salaam

It was a Tuesday, early afternoon and we were at risk of having a very crappy food day.  Monday we had a "meeting" that lasted about 7 hours.  We worked hard Monday and we were in the midst of deciding if yesterday's meeting would continue today (Tuesday) or if we would be lucky enough to have the day off.  I was in the camp of we aren't going to have to meet today and obviously Faith was too because she found NoMo.  The problem was Joy wasn't sure and she wanted to be ready to do business.  She made things difficult a little.  Mom of course was a total diplomat.  We decided to go eat lunch.  Joy of course was like no we won't be ready.  I was like we wasted 20 minutes arguing already.  We were only going for lunch.  That's what we thought, that's what we intended.  That's not what happened.  We did have lunch, but we also had dinner and then went out to drinks with the Executive Chef Salaam; oh and we had dinner at NOMO Wednesday, too.

We walked into this beautiful hotel that houses the beautiful restaurant NOMO and we felt like we were home.  We were greeted by one of the most beautiful, cheerful and inviting staff we ever meet in New York.  We were what we as a family would consider underdressed for our beautiful surroundings.  I personally braced myself for a snob routine but that didn't happen.  This was New York and it was beautiful people New York but they treated us as if we were the Royal Family returning home.  We ordered drinks right away.  At some point we found out we would not be "meeting" today so we relaxed.   Now we were sad.  This was clearly a place we should be having dinner and technically our meeting now setup for tomorrow should occur here, too.  Joy decided to make sure our meeting would end at NOMO and Joy always gets what she wants.  While Joy was sending pics of the place to production the rest of us were trying to plan the night.  We all decided we would split 2 NoMo Wagyu Burgers.  (The burgers were perfect and tasted perfect.  The ketchup for the fries were made in house.  We would come to find out all sauces at NoMo are made in house!)  We noticed this beautiful man in an executive chef jacket.  He was talking to an equally beautiful woman who turned out to be the Marketing Manager.  Faith excused herself to go to the ladies room (apparently she spoke to him on her way out) and while she was gone Chef Salaam made his way to our table.

We all talked as if we had known each other for years.  We had arranged to have dinner with NoMo at 8:30 (we ended up pushing it back to 9:00pm).  We also arranged to meet there again on Wednesday with a producer we knew Chef Salaam should meet.  When we left the restaurant after lunch we were excited.  We began the day at a chain fake French place for breakfast (we did not eat of course) and happened upon the best food day of our lives, but I get ahead of myself.  We spent the rest of the day getting ready for Wednesday's meeting.  This entailed conference calls, bargaining, begging and shopping.  By 8:00 pm we still had not dressed for dinner.  Four women in a loft apartment in SoHo with their dog who has to be walked first and sharing one bathroom! No way in hell we were going to make it there by 8:30.  We almost didn't make it at the rescheduled time of 9:00 pm but I at the last minute went off and walked my ass over there to arrive promptly at 8:59 pm.  Surprisingly they were only 4 minutes behind me.  We knew Chef Salaam wanted us to go with him to The Ship for after dinner drinks and that place is so amazing.  If you want to know a city you have to know the chefs because they know everything!

Okay so we are all at the table.  Each of us have wonderful drinks.  We know from this afternoon there are no misses on this menu.  Our server from lunch gave us the rundown of the food and we knew we wanted, no needed to try everything.  It made it near to impossible to decide.  We ordered the chicken lollipop.  Remember the Teriyaki sauce like all sauces are made in house.  It was amazing! At some point Faith realized we would not be able to decide for ourselves what we wanted to eat.  So she decreed that we should try anything the chef decided for us.  Executive Chef Salaam did not disappoint.  It was a beautiful dream filled with beautiful food in beautiful surroundings.  I could spend all day talking about how wonderful the food was and how it was the best food day I have had in many years; but it would take an eternity to describe this day.  The food and the conversations were full of life.  I must let the pictures speak for themselves.  I will only say that none of us asked for more salt or pepper or sauce and that NEVER happens during a meal with us.  Mom or Joy almost always have an issue but here at NoMo we had the most peaceful and perfect time together.  Of course I our meeting went well on Wednesday.  After getting a rocky start and working a few hours at the loft we moved our "meeting" to NoMo and NoMo provided a relaxing end to a long day.

Please note the pics of the food are of a tasting.  Actual full orders are not pictured here.

Chicken lollipop

Cauliflower

Mini Tacos

Mini Tacos

Tuna Tartare

Kale Caesar

Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe
I also reordered this on Wednesday
it has a beautiful poached egg in the middle.

Branzino
This was so amazing with lobster sauce

Wagyu Flatiron Steak
Heaven on a plate

Their version of an ice cream sandwich is so good

Tapioca Pudding
I forgot the name of this dessert but so good

Another Amazing Dessert

The Lobby of NoMo
shot by Joy

Lobby of NoMo Shot By Joy