Mom in the City

"My" month has started off beautifully (and I say "my" because I get double celebrations - Mother's Day and my 35th birthday).

Last night, I had the opportunity to help make (and of course eat!) one of the best meals of my life (and I'm not exaggerating)...

Beth (from Role Mommy and BeyondPr) invited me and several other ladies to a special dinner/demonstration down at Select Italy's Soho Loft which was hosted by Kim Orlando AKA Traveling Mom.  It was an amazing experience primarily because there was so much passion in the room.  I love being around passionate people (and I don't mean those annoying, overly obvious public displays of affection type people passion - get a room!).  Anyway, I digress.  I'm talking about the type of passion where you're enthusiastic about your life and how you live it. 

Some of the people that I had the pleasure of meeting, cooking and eating with were the following:

-Beth Feldman: I really like Beth.  I've liked her since I went to my first Role Mommy event a few years ago.  She's just one of those warm, friendly moms who are so calm even though you know that they have a very full life.  Besides being a wife and mom, she is a co-founder of Role Mommy and recently she started her own business, BeyondPR - an entertainment public relations and talent consulting company.  (Did I mention that she cooked two turkeys and a chicken for Passover?!)

-Kim Orlando: I've never met anyone as passionate about family travel as Kim!  She made me want to get on a plane and go somewhere.  (Which is no small feat - as I tell my husband, "I like to get away with the kids, I just don't like to travel with them" -- in other words, if teleportation was a reality, we'd be traveling all over the world!)  I really hope that her vision for her TravelingMom.com site becomes a reality (we came up with "a tripadvisor for families" being a good goal).  In any event, if you're a mom who likes to travel, I definitely recommend visiting her site and become a part of that community.

-Andrea Sertoli: One of the few men at the event, he is the President of Select Italy.  Select Italy specializes in travel and vacation tours (including family-friendly ones!) to Italy.  Andrea's excitement about his native country (he was born in Rome) is so obvious that it's no surprise that he has been on Travel + Leisure's "A-List" of top travel agents for six years in a row!  (On a side note, a group of my single friends are currently on a European trip.  One emailed me today to say that they loved Italy.  I think that it's a sign that I need to visit Italy!)

In addition to Italian travel, Select Italy also offers cooking show classes down in Soho (like the one I attended).  They are so much fun!  We were able to help prepare some of the food as well as eat it.  There's something really bonding about cooking together.  I had a great time with (mostly) people I had met before and I kept thinking, "this would be such a great thing to do with a bunch of friends...).  It's not cheap (it's $130/person), but the experience is definitely worth saving up for.  At the end, you get a copy of the recipes in case you want to recreate them at home.  (I think that it's okay for me to share the recipes, so let me know if you'd like the recipe(s) for the following: Insalatina con quaglia su cestino di Grana Padano (mixed baby green salad with roasted quail in a Grana Padano cheese basket); Gnudi con salsa di formaggio (home made "Gnudi" pasta with cheese sauce); Pesce al Cartoccio (baked fish with eggplants and tomatoes) and Mousse ai Baci Perugina (Chocolate baci perugina mousse).  

In any event, Select Italy has a class on September 4th that I want to go to.  Mom in the City members, let me know if you'd like to come too - it will be a blast! The show runs from 6:00pm to 9:00pm (but my group got so "caught up" that we didn't leave until around 10). They also do catering and private cooking events if you're interested.

On another note, the chefs, Andrea Tiberi and Francescho Pellecchia of Eatalian Style were excellent!  They were funny, skillful (and adorable!).  Once I heard that Andrea, the head chef, had cooked for the Pope and the President of Italy, I knew that the meal would be wonderful (and I was right!).

There were other great women at the event that I wanted to write about because they are pursuing their passions, BUT this post is getting too long so I'll just link you to their sites: Barbara Jones of One2One Network; Gwendolen Gross, the author of The Other Mother; Rachael Herrscher of Today's Mama; Kelcey Kitner of the mamabird diaries (I met her twice in one week!) and Jeanne Muchnick  of So Little Time.