‘Drugs take everything from you’: Haledon woman makes a comeback as fine-dining pasta chef
It’s early morning and pasta chef Joyann Demont of Haledon is mixing flour and water in the stainless steel kitchen of the newly opened and ballyhooed Osteria Crescendo in Westwood. Wearing a crisp white chef’s coat, her long dark hair pulled back, Demont works quietly, whisking eggs, pouring salt, kneading dough, flattening the mixture and shaping it into small shells, bow-ties, long strands and large flat noodles.
She makes the prized homemade pasta five days a week — and she couldn’t be happier or more proud.
“I’m working,” said the 28-year-old mother of two. “That’s all that matters.”