A Little Chicken Salad, a Lot of Heart

After months in the NICU, our son Gregory, who had been born prematurely, was finally discharged from Cornell to grow and thrive at home.

Frankly, I was a nervous wreck.

Greg was not completely out of the woods. He came home attached to a monitor to make sure he did not experience any “bradys”—episodes when his heart rate would suddenly drop and he could turn blue. The medical staff took this possibility remarkably in stride. They assured me that if it happened, a little gentle stimulation would usually get him going again. They made this sound perfectly reasonable.

At 12 weeks old, we faced another question: Was Gregory finally ready for his circumcision? Was he big enough? If we waited too long, would the procedure be more painful? This was a baby who had already been poked, prodded, monitored, tested and examined for months. The last thing I wanted to do was subject him to one more unnecessary trauma.

After much deliberation, including consultation with our own parents, who were doctors, we got the all-clear. Medically, Gregory was ready.

But I wasn’t.

I was now facing what seemed to me the insurmountable task of hosting a brit.

Mark and I had just moved to Scarsdale, and with the exception of our real estate broker, we had yet to make a single friend. This did not mean, however, that the brit would be a quiet affair. I knew Mark’s family and their friends from Long Island would not miss the opportunity to wish us well. They would come to what they considered “the country” in droves, bearing toy ponies, blankets and those wonderful wooden toys with GREG painted across them in enormous bubble letters.

Of course they meant well.

But the thought of a room full of men and women—many of them physicians who practiced with Mark’s father—leaning over my tiny premature baby the size of a Cornish hen with mouths full of chopped liver, commenting on the surprisingly impressive size of his schmeckel for a little preemie, or joking that the mohel worked for tips, was more than I could handle.

Hadn’t this little guy suffered enough?

I could already picture my father and father-in-law proudly holding this tiny survivor on a small bed pillow place on their laps while the mohel stuffed wine-soaked gauze into his mouth to prevent him from crying brought me to tears.

For months at Cornell, I had relinquished control of Gregory to an extraordinary team of doctors and nurses. I had trusted them because I had no choice. Now that he was finally home, I wanted to take a little control back.

So, in what I can only describe as an act of Jewish maternal defiance, I made a decision:

There would be no whitefish; no chopped liver; no onions; not even a bagel. There would be no food that looked as though it had been served at every brit since the Book of Exodus.

After three months of monitors, doctors, alarms, medical terminology and wondering what the next crisis might be, chopped liver was one crisis I actually had the power to prevent.

I wanted something fresh. Healthy. Modern.

Perhaps I could not control whether my three-month-old would have a brady, but, I could control the buffet.

There was only one problem: I had just moved to Scarsdale and had absolutely no idea where to find it.

So I drove around town on a mission. Eventually, I found myself in the Golden Horseshoe shopping center, where I discovered a small catering shop called Standing Room Only—SRO. I walked in.

And then, after holding myself together for months, I completely fell apart.

I told Sharon, Jack’s partner at the time, about the previous three months: trying to care for my little two-year-old while spending my days visiting a premature baby in the hospital, never entirely certain whether he would pull through or whether he would come through it all unscathed. I shared how worried I was about my son Josh who had completely reverted back to a high-pitched baby talk, would feel completely abandoned by his mother.

Sharon handed me Kleenex. She listened. At some point she even helped me adjust a completely useless breast pad (never did get any breast milk in), which tells you something about both my condition at the time and the intimacy of our relationship approximately 20 minutes after meeting.

And while I cried, she fed me. Chicken salad. Pasta with mozzarella and basil. Apple cake.

I remember feeling as though I were a little bird who had been starving and suddenly someone had noticed.

By the time I left, there was no question.

“You are catering my son’s brit.”

The following week, SRO arrived with everything beautifully arranged on trays and decorated with their signature flower buds. The food was delicious. The presentation was beautiful.

And Standing Room Only had a customer for life.

Over the years, I came to depend on SRO for parties, holidays and special occasions. I always knew the food would be wonderful and the presentation beautiful—right down to the hummus served in a red pepper surrounded by jicama sticks and other more familiar veggies.

When we renovated our kitchen and were unable to cook for several months, this was long before Uber Eats or the endless meal-delivery services we have today. SRO delivered a perfectly balanced dinner to us every evening.

Eventually, our kitchen was finished and I was finally able to cook again. My sons were not nearly as excited about this development as I was. They made it quite clear that they preferred the grilled salmon, pastas, chicken and mushrooms that had been arriving every night. Apparently, during the renovation, they had become accustomed to a certain standard of living.

But what I loved most was going into Standing Room Only and visiting with Jack and the staff. If Jack wasn’t too busy preparing an order for a party or a shiva—or sitting at his desk by the big window trying to conquer a mountain of paperwork—we would talk. About cooking. The latest Broadway show. Innocent Scarsdale buzz. Children. Life.

Most recently, I brought my grandchildren in to meet Jack on our way back from Community of Play which is located above the store.

Of course, Jack reacted as though they were the two most gorgeous toddlers he had ever laid eyes on. And, we became nostalgic about how quickly the years had passed, and we laughed about Gregory’s rather auspicious introduction to Scarsdale. I wasn’t aware of the fact that Jack was contemplating shuttering his store.

I also reminded Jack—as I always did—that I was one of his very first customers.

I recently read on Facebook how grateful Jack was to have spent the last 35 or so years in Scarsdale and to have been part of this wonderful community.

I am so glad he feels that way.

But I also hope he knows that gratitude goes both ways.

For so many of us, Standing Room Only was never simply a place to order food. Jack and SRO were there for the celebrations and the milestones, the holidays and the ordinary Tuesday nights. They fed us when our kitchens were under construction, when our houses were full of guests, when we were celebrating, and when we were grieving.

And in my case, they were there when I was a terrified young mother who had just brought a very small baby home from the hospital and was trying desperately to believe that everything was finally going to be all right.

Sharon gave me a Kleenex and some chicken salad. Jack and SRO gave me something I didn’t yet know I needed: my first feeling of being taken care of in my new community.

Thirty-five years later, I walked through that same door with my grandchildren.

I hope whoever takes over Jack’s Weaver Street space has his creativity and business sense. But even more, I hope they understand what made Standing Room Only so special.

You can learn how to make good chicken salad. But heart and soul are much harder to replicate.

We will miss you, Jack.