The Urban League of the Central Carolinas hosted its annual Whitney M. Young Awards Gala at The Omni Hotel on Thursday evening, March 25. The place was packed with the "Who’s Who" of the Charlotte business, social and political community, including mayor Anthony Foxx, former mayor Harvey Gantt and many others. This year’s honorees were Brett Carter, president of Duke Energy; Astrid Chrinos, founder of Diverso Global Strategies; Dr. Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College; and David R. Taylor, president of The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Art + Culture.
Hosted by Rahman Khan of Good Works Media Group, the evening was also a celebration of The National Urban League’s 100th year anniversary. There was great music, fabulous fashion and good networking. But the best part of it all: the ice cream. Yep.
After an elegant dinner of freshly sliced roast beef with au jus and grainy mustard on rolls, jumbo shrimp with bleu cheese and grits, scallops, coconut curry chicken, and vegetable wasabi shooters, one would expect an equally fancy dessert course, right? I mean, we were at The Omni. Well, chocolate tortes and crème brulee be damned. We had ice cream — the simplest, most unexpected, and quite possibly most popular dessert I have ever experienced at such an event.
Now granted, you had the choice of adding flambéed bananas or cherries to it, and you were offered a chocolate shell or a candied cookie tartlet out of which to eat it, but most of us just opted for a plain scoop. In fact, I was so eager to get into the creamy goodness that I attacked my plate with a bit too much aggression and ended up with ice cream all over myself.
As speakers talked on, I kept noticing people’s heads tilting back and over in the direction of the ice cream bar to see if it was still in operation. Seeing that it was, more than a few tiptoed to the back for seconds while others, perhaps too embarrassed to get up, eyed with envy out of the corners of their eyes those who dared to get up in the middle of someone’s award presentation. The people at my table, myself included, unabashedly ventured over for a third serving as if we had never had ice cream before. I’m telling you, the ice cream held the collective attention of attendees all night. People in suits and cocktail dresses were slurping up Haagen Dazs well after dinner and into the night. Those poor, tired chefs.
But hey, nothing like a simple treat to turn adults into children and make the night memorable.
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