No one adores a great party more than I do, so I didn’t require much persuasion when my philanthropic friend Jean Shafiroff asked if I could cover a gala masquerade cocktail party and dinner she was co-chairing. It sounded amazing, and it was!
Our hosts were Patricia and Roger Silverstein, at their elegant house in Watermill, a community where, in living memory, there were only potato fields to be seen. This was the fifth year their Silverstein Dream Foundation put on the Hamptons Garden Gala in support of the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation (DRIF).
We all know that in the United States, African Americans are disproportionately affected by diabetes. With 12.1% of us in all cases, twice the percentage of whites, we are also twice as likely to die from type two diabetes.
Michael Henry Adams photos
Rolise Rachel. 
Congenial host Rodger Silverstein greets guest of honor Dr. Camillo Ricordi, director emeritus of the Diabetes Research Institute; director of the Cell Transplant Center; and University of Miami professor of surgery, medicine, biomedical engineering, microbiology, and immunology 
Smiling hosts with the most, Patricia and Roger Silverstein. 
Notoya Green. 
Friends and party co-chairs Patricia Silverstein and Jean Shafiroff,. wore dramatic masks and striking dresses. 
Nicolette Richards. 
Blue Juan Grobler, Fred Mwangaguhunga, and Frank Bruttomesso. 
Rolise Rachel and Charlotte Yerkovich.
Another reason I was happy to attend is the personal gratitude I have for Roger’s parents, Klara and Larry Silverstein (the World Trade Center owners). A thousand years ago, when I worked as a cook and lived in their apartment, they enabled my graduate studies in preservation at Columbia.
After a relaxed cocktail reception with charming guests (and, I’m happy to say, exceptional Cosmopolitans), a delectable dinner ensued with spirited conversation. Everyone around me wondered aloud about the future of government medical research, versus what all agreed was the growing importance of privately raised resources.
During a brief program, the Silversteins each related, with evident heartfelt emotion, how their foundation and support of medical research was prompted by Patricia Silverstein’s sister’s experience as a diabetic. They characterized their generous advocacy as “doing all we can, to support the Diabetes Research Institute’s mission to offer meaningful progress and bring hope to those affected by this disease — to one day soon, discover a biological cure!”
The music soared, the stars came out, and, at evening’s end, for every possible reason, we left feeling happy and hopeful.