On May 6, legendary actress, comedian, and EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg (née Caryn Johnson) appeared at 92nd Street Y to promote her new memoir, “Bits and Pieces.” Interviewed before a packed audience at the venue’s Kauffman Auditorium by award-winning playwright, television writer, producer, and novelist Adriana Trigiani, Goldberg opened up about the thing most important to her: family. Specifically, she discussed her memories of her mother Emma and brother Clyde and all they meant to her.

It’s clear that though Goldberg lost her mother and brother in 2010 and 2015, respectively, she still misses, perhaps even grieves, them. She shared that her mother kept an extremely neat home in the Chelsea-Elliott Houses where she grew up, and was an extraordinary person all around. Goldberg’s mother Emma started out as a nurse and pivoted to become one of the first teachers in the nation’s Head Start programs, which prepare children for school. 

“She became one of the great teachers for Head Start for kids,” Goldberg said. “It did amazing things for children.”

She also detailed some of her mother’s struggles, including with mental illness, and how they affected her. 

“I had to go through changes. My mother had a nervous breakdown. I was seven or eight and she disappeared from my life for two years.” Goldberg seemed to draw somewhat of a parallel between this experience with her mother and her own of raising her daughter as a single mom, working long days and often being away to build a career in Hollywood. “I know that most mothers would say let’s wait and it’ll come back around again, but I didn’t think that’s going to happen for me,” Goldberg revealed. 

Her daughter later opened up to her about her feelings around that decision. “My kid said ‘Hey, listen. I know when you left I got more than one pair of shoes. We ate, we did things, we went places. But I missed you.’ I said ‘Well, as strange as this is going to sound, I missed you too.’ And she said, ‘Not enough to stop what you were doing.’”

The advice she received from her mother even helps Goldberg navigate the challenges posed by today’s social media-dominated media landscape. “Social media is meant to f— up your day. Make you feel like you’re not enough. My mother always said, ‘Don’t let people throw you because people want to throw you. They want to make you uncomfortable.’ These people don’t know you and you give them the power to shut you down.”

Goldberg shared that she never attended high school but always believed in herself because of the confidence instilled in her at home. “The upbringing I had gave me the conditioning that I needed to never doubt that I was thinking smartly,” she said. 

As someone who once struggled with addiction, she was quick to add, however, that being “stoned” negatively impacted this otherwise steady self-assuredness.

Trigiani, whose love and respect for the comedian was evident throughout their conversation, called Goldberg her “heroine” and revealed that Goldberg got her through a rough time in her own life. Asked if she was always funny, Goldberg shared that she didn’t believe she was. 

“I don’t think I was funny in high school. But my mother and my brother and my aunt were funny,” she explained. “They were funny in the house, and whatever I have I stole from my mother and my brother and her cousin.” 

Whoopi added that she was entertained, as a child, by their imitations of the dialects from various people found in the environs of their Chelsea neighborhood. “They were doing ‘New York’ and they were irreverent. I wasn’t humorous, but people thought the stuff I was doing was funny so they labeled me as a comic.”

During the conversation, Goldberg displayed one of the best examples of how and why she has held steady as a sought-after celebrity, even after more than 40 years in the business. The famously picky eater did a five-minute long riff on the virtues (none) and flaws (too numerous to count) of food, setting them in the context of everything from candy stores to alien invasions.

Much of the conversation was centered around grief and the grieving process. Goldberg’s grieving process, she shared, was easier because of the relationship she had with her mother and brother while they were alive. She stated that after each died, she kept waiting for a big moment where she would be physically overwhelmed with the weight of it. “But that moment never came,” she said as if still surprised. “I didn’t understand why. And then like two weeks ago, I was like ‘Oh, I know why. It’s because you don’t have to.’ There was nothing left unsaid. They knew I knew how they felt about me. So there is none of that.”

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Lower Manhattan residents, rejoice: affordable supermarket Brooklyn Fare Kitchen & Market just opened at 227 Cherry Street by Pike Street in Two Bridges, right where Pathmark used to be over a decade ago. 

You’ll find the massive, 25,500-square-foot, all-glass storefront at the base of luxury condo One Manhattan Square. Inside, the chain’s largest market ever is filled with both fresh produce and prepared foods, all at pretty decent prices.

“We are beyond thrilled to be opening on the Lower East Side. Not only is it our first store on the East Side of Manhattan, it’s also our largest store to date,” said Moe Issa, Owner and Founder of Brooklyn Fare, in an official statement. “What is even better is that we are providing a much-needed service to the residents of the Lower East Side, and that’s just awesome: to be able to bring great food and grocery items at affordable prices to the neighborhoods in which we serve. That’s what Brooklyn Fare is all about, and that’s why we do what we do.”

In addition to “traditional” grocery store products, you’ll also get to grab a cup of coffee from the on-site cafe, plus freshly made bread, sushi from a specialty counter and tons of frozen food. It’s basically the only market you’ll want to shop at when in the area.

But we don’t really need to sell you on the awesomeness that is Brooklyn Fare. Since first opening in NYC back in 2009, the market has garnered a pretty solid fanbase that has allowed the chain to set up a number of locations in the West Village, Hudson Yards, Lincoln Square and Downtown Brooklyn. 

If you don’t buy your groceries at the various shops, you have at the very least heard about the Michelin-starred restaurant that opened inside the Brooklyn location of the supermarket back in 2009 but now operates from the Hudson Yards address of the company at West 37th Street: Chef’s Table.

The debut of Brooklyn Fare in Two Bridges has been a long time coming: the Pathmark that was operating on site closed back in 2012 after thirty years of business so plenty of neighborhood folks have been complaining about the lack of proper shopping destinations in the area since then. 

It’s taken a lot of time, but we’re happy to see locals’ wishes come true.

* This article was originally published here