Standing in Union Square; by the chess players sitting in fold out chairs and skateboarders jumping staircases – anytime before 11 a.m. – you can catch rays of sunlight coming down onto the street below between the buildings on Fourteenth and Broadway. It is quite the feel- ing to stand there, the whole city spilling from the mouth of subway entrances. If you’re patient, with closed eyes, allowing the sunlight to warm your face, as the scent of tomatoes, fresh bread, and cheese waft through the air – for a moment, you’ll feel part of something much big- ger. It was here where Mia Ponzi Hamacher told us to meet her.

Mia was preparing a trial run for her new brain child, Yellow Light Sup- per Club. YLSC is a private event, where around 10 guests are invited in her home to take off their shoes, sit in the dining room and enjoy a meal. We met Mia, coffee in hand, and already half of her supplies list met. Mia still needed a few key ingredients, fruits, veggies, flowers and some fresh herbs. We followed her first to the fruit section, rows and rows of Pyrus, Callery, Asian and European Pears. Mia debated a few pears before agreeing on a select few, but not before swapping stories with an older woman about the proper practices in harvesting apples.

Mia grew up in Portland, Oregon – “I lived on the same street as my grandparents, my cousins lived about five minutes away. Family din- ners, not necessarily every week, but it was pretty common. We would go to my grandmother’s house for breakfast on the weekends a lot, and we’d all come over for a big dinner at her house and she would cook gi- ant family style meals. As a little kid, I got started in the kitchen because that was the fun place to be. That’s where the action was, the snacks, the people are happy with you, I realized early on that that was the place for me. I looked forward so much to those events because it meant not only seeing my family – we have a big family – but I knew that if I went down there to help grandma cook, I would also get this one on one time with her that was hard to come by.” Mia stops before the tomato man, wind- ing her way through the crowd to pick up some small Golden Tomatoes, she holds them up to inspect. The light bouncing off their sides makes them look as though they were tiny suns hanging from vines. I ask what the tomatoes are for and Mia replies with a smile, “butter sculpture,” turning around to pay and carry on. After picking out some flowers and gently placing them in her bag, Mia tells us to meet her back at her place in a few hours.