My Royal Family 4: Lunch

Sunday, December 6, 2015

We Are All Sisters Happy Holidays

For years now my Aunt Crystal has held her annual Sister To Sister (Click here to read about 2013 party it was a blast) party. It is a party to bring together sisters of all kinds. Blood sisters, In-Law Sisters, Church sisters, Best Friend Sisters, Work Sisters and any other type of "sister" you can think of gather together for the first Saturday in December.

Now our family is very big and I don't think all of Aunt Crystals sisters have ever been at this event at the same time. In fact I know they have not. Now my mom has been there almost every year and so has Aunt Kathy but Aunt Crystal has yet to be lucky enough to have all her sisters attend in the same year. There is Yvonne the oldest, then of course Crystal (the host), Glenda (my mom), Wanda, Lutisha, C.C., Tonya, and Kimberly. They are a party onto themselves and one day I am sure that all will party together. FYI funerals don't count, lol.

Aunt Crystal's party has more to do with building up a sisterhood than being blood sisters. She wants women to come together and eat because that's what families do. She wants us to play games together because that's how families build relationships. She wants us to laugh and dance together because that's how our sisterhood celebrates this life together. In December 2013 I became a widow. Eight months later in August 2014 my Aunt Crystal became a widow, too. It is 2015 and many of the ladies attended a wake before coming to the party. Regardless we all share our lives together.

Sisters are sisters but sometimes your blood sister can't be there for you. At a gathering like this it is okay because you always belong to a sisterhood of women. Sometimes your Aunt is your sister. Sometimes the person who works with your Aunt and that you are meeting for the first time, is your sister. When you enter my Aunts party you know that everyone is a sister period and that is a comfort. It kicks off the holidays and all though we may not know what the future holds, we know today there will be the game Pokeno.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

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.