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People On The Move: Fern Esposito
10/24/2008 - By by Leigh Dana Scheps
COOKING UP A NOVEL
Imagine your mother cannot cook, so you can’t either. You don’t learn how until your mother-in-law teaches you how to conjure up a meal or two. Years later you decide to open up your very own restaurant. Meet Fern Esposito…this happened to her.
“I always wanted to open up my own restaurant,” she says while standing at her kitchen island, laying out gourmet cheeses and crackers. Fern says once she learned to cook, specifically Italian, she was always entertaining guests. “Every single Sunday my in-laws, my mother, and other assorted relatives came for dinner at 2 o’clock.” She gives her husband’s side of the family all the credit for her savory suppers. “My mother never cooked. She was an “English as a second language” teacher. My mother-in-law taught me how to cook. [My husband’s father] taught me how to make homemade pasta.” So, from the bubbling spaghetti sauce on the kitchen stove to the bubbling desire of a newly found passion, Fern decided to open her own restaurant and, ironically, stopped cooking. Who needs to when you have your own restaurant to feed you?
It took 18 months to find the right location in Red Bank. Sogno, which means dream in Italian, opened its doors to the community in 2002; even some celebrities (i.e., forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden) have dined there. Fern and her husband managed the restaurant for 2 years until they sold it, but that short time span created many memories she’ll always laugh about. “It was the first nice Sunday in May, the week before Mother’s Day. There was a historic house on the property of Riverview Hospital…donated to a charter school in Red Bank. They hired a company to move the house, and it got stuck on Broad Street and couldn’t make the turn onto Monmouth. Literally, there’s a giant house stuck in the front of my restaurant. We had to let people in through the back of the restaurant. It was really a lot of fun that day.”
It was a one of many days Fern will never forget because she’s written down all of her restaurant horror stories.
Many friends asked Fern to tell dining table tales, so she thought a book would be the best way to share them. This past winter, “The Door Whore: Confessions of a Restaurant Diva,” a fictional book based on her experiences as a restaurateur, hit book shelves and the internet. But before Fern’s success as a published restaurateur, her biggest success was being closely involved with her children, Shawn and Jennifer, graduates of Holmdel High, class of ’89, and Saint John, class of ’98, respectively. Fern has also been involved in the Holmdel community, chairing the Bayshore Charity Ball for nine years, and volunteering as a picture lady at Village School. She has been involved with numerous organizations throughout Holmdel because she wanted to connect with the community. “I think it’s really good to get to know the [school] teachers, to get to know a lot of people. And it’s good for your child to see that you care and that you’re involved.” She remains involved with her kids, even now that they are adults.
Since the success of her first book, Fern has been working on a second with her daughter, Jennifer. It’s a “how to entertain” book, with personal anecdotes and suggestions on how to fix food when it turns out bad. “Over the years I’ve messed up on everything. It’s good if there is someone to tell you if you’ve messed up, to put salt on that or add a little sugar to your burnt gravy.”
Be sure to look for Fern’s second book when it hits the Holmdel Common’s Barnes & Noble shelves. In the meantime, she’ll be busy cooking up more Italian delights!
STATS
FAVORITE RESTAURANT
Kobe and Moonstruck, in Asbury Park, and Angelica’s, in Sea Bright
FAVORITE MUSICIAN
Andrea Bocelli
FAVORITE MOVIE
Moonstruck
PET PEEVE
liars and whiners
THREE PEOPLE YOU’D LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH
my parents and my husband’s parents and grandparents
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