Let’s put it right out there: APRIL SEMMEL may be TV’s most unlikely domestic diva. She serves as the fulcrum of FOUR KID FRENZY, the first episode of which aired this May on the Style Network. The parent of four-year-old triplets Andrew,  Ashley and Brianna—and a precocious six-year-old named Brandon—April lives in Robbinsville, New Jersey, with her husband Joel. Their living space is overrun with toys and school projects; kitchen counters overflow with papers, sippy cups, pullups, and juice boxes. The family van is a rolling disaster area.

The Semmels were one of four families featured on a 2009 TV pilot entitled Multiple Mayhem. The series wasn’t picked up, but April and her brood were plucked from obscurity for this Style Network docu-soap. She and Joel have known each other since they were teenagers. That’s good, because the foundation they built together is tested on almost an hourly basis. EDGE caught up with April between her full-time job  running a daycare center and her other fulltime job cooking, cleaning, and wrangling four rambunctious children.

EDGE: What was your reaction when you were told that the Style Network wanted to feature you in your own show?

AS: I was shocked. I have a cluttered house. I have mounds of laundry to do. I’m lucky if I get to vacuum once a week. People ask me, “How could you admit that?” Well, it’s true!

EDGE: Did you see yourself as a TV star?

AS: My cousin did. When my family saw the Multiple Mayhem pilot, they were hysterical, and she said, “You should have your own show.” I started cracking up. Yeah right! And not long after that we got the call.

EDGE: It’s one thing to want to be on TV. It’s another to actually read and sign that release. What was it that convinced you and Joel to open up your lives to a television crew?

AS: Everybody has a private side to them, but I’m pretty much an open book. I felt like I had nothing to hide. Nobody’s perfect, and if anyone exemplifies that idea it would have to be me. Our thought was that this will give the world a look at what it’s really like. We also looked at it as creating a keepsake. We don’t record our life with a video camera, so the idea of someone following us around filming was appealing. Our kids love looking at pictures of themselves, so I figured this would be something they could look back on. So to us, this is about capturing a memory.

EDGE: How do you prepare your kids to be in a television show?

AS: You don’t. This is it, this is us, what you see is what you get. I didn’t want anything phony. We’re not those people who demand their kids act properly in public. They’re kids. That’s the beauty of children. You never know what to expect; you never know what will come out of their mouths. And my kids have no trouble acting like themselves, so you see all the tantrums and the breakdowns.

EDGE: What is one of the plusses of allowing a film crew in your home?

AS: When it’s your life, you don’t think about how interesting or inspiring your story might be. Now there are times when
we’re filming that I do think how, in just getting though the day, we might be inspiring to other people. You don’t realize
how many lives you can touch.

EDGE: What is one of the minuses?

AS: You know those dreams where you go to school and
suddenly you realize you’re naked? Sometimes you have those moments with a film crew in your home.

EDGE: Your family has multiple births on both sides, so you had to be somewhat prepared for coping with the triplets when they arrived. That being said, what were the things that surprised you?

AS: When the triplets were born, I planned to go back to work right away. I soon came to realize that, if I had gone back to work, daycare for Brendan and his three siblings would have cost us sixty-k. Who can do that? It’s impossible! So when you hear people say it doesn’t pay to work, it’s true. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to work. And I’ve always been a workaholic. So that was hard for me.

EDGE: Anything else?

AS: Yes. On the show you see that we live in a townhouse and I’m always like, “Where are they?” They’re on this floor, they’re on that floor. Now I see the beauty of a ranch house, where everything’s on one floor.

EDGE: In Multiple Mayhem, you tried to put the kids on tethers. How did that work out?

AS: The first time we used the “leashes” was Halloween. Oh my God! It was a disaster! One wanted to go to this house, another wanted to go to that house, one wanted to stop and go through the bag. It was hysterical. It was like every comic routine you could think of. Of course, now they put it on themselves, and say, “Look I’m a puppy!”

EDGE: Do they still tend to run in four different directions when you go out?

AS: Yeah, but not as often. They’re explorers. And they’re definitely strong-willed, just like me. Now that the triplets have had a year of daycare, however, they understand rules a little better.

EDGE: Yet we see in this show that the four kids are very different.

AS: Isn’t it amazing how they all have different personalities? Brandon is very advanced and he is very independent. He can do a lot of things on his own. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that he’s only six. Andrew is the inquisitive one. He always has to figure out how something works. He’s always taking something apart and putting it back together. Brianna is the sly one. If she has to do something she doesn’t like, she’ll pretend she’s sleeping, or that she didn’t hear you. Ashley is my little diva princess. She wants it now! What’s great on the show is watching their interactions.

EDGE: When you compare notes with parents of other triplets, how do you find that your experience differs?

AS: When you have a child already, and then you have multiples, I think it’s different. You’ve gone through your anxiety with your first child. You’re more relaxed. When I was pregnant with Brandon, I thought it would be nice to have twins—a girl and a boy—and get it over with. But once he was born I was like, “Thank God there’s just one!” It’s so much work! After that, when we had the sonogram and heard the three heartbeats, Joel and I said, “We can do this.” And we did; we got better at it. We are actually on time more often with four kids than we were when we only had one.

EDGE: What percentage of the child-rearing does Joel contribute?

AS: Raising multiples takes teamwork, but the reality is that in any parenting situation someone ends up giving more—even if it’s 51–49—on any given day. Like, when I have to work on a Saturday and Joel gets all four kids.

EDGE: How much does he age during that one day?

AS: It’s funny. We look at pictures of him from before the triplets were born and I say, “You had a lot more hair!” Even so, Joel looks at other families and just can’t understand those fathers who don’t want to be involved with their kids. He’s fully into it. Do we agree on everything? Absolutely not. Anyone who says they do is lying.

EDGE: A lot of dads draw a line in the sand and say, “I’m just not doing that.” Does that line exist in your home?

AS: I’d say that line was obliterated a long time ago. I don’t think we could survive with that line.

EDGE: What has your experience with fame taught you?

AS: That it’s fleeting. In this economy, we’ve seen people who seemed to have it all lose everything. Being true to yourself, doing what you like to do—that’s the richest reward you can have.

EDGE: Moms will be riveted by Four Kid Frenzy. The question is, what can husbands learn from watching this show?

AS: The importance of teamwork. And also keeping the big picture in mind. Find a way to work with your wife, find balance in your life, and never ever lose sight of what you’re working towards.

A Dozen Dazzling Places to Say ‘I Do’

Toss out your bridal magazines. Delete those online wedding bookmarks. Tell your party planner to take a walk. This is New Jersey! If you’re in the market for an unforgettable wedding, you’re already in the right place. You just have to know where to go. I’m not talking Weird New Jersey here. On the contrary, every venue on this list lends itself wonderfully to traditional ceremonies and receptions. That being said, if you are looking for something simple, special, lo-tech or alternative, you can also count on these places to shine under virtually any circumstances. Finally, don’t fret if you’ve never heard of these nuptial hot spots. Each, in its own way, is one of the state’s best-kept wedding secrets.

The Great Outdoors
These wedding venues take advantage
of New Jersey’s awesome natural beauty.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM
Back-to-nature types love the Mountain Lake House, which offers the ultimate in seclusion and privacy just a few minutes from ritzy Nassau Street in Princeton. Don’t be surprised if Bambi and Thumper join the festivities. Wedding parties are the interlopers on this 90-acre nature preserve; the furry full-time residents merely tolerate their presence.

TAYLOR MADE
Spring and Autumn wedding dates fill up fast at the Taylor-Butler House in historic Middletown. The breathtaking Victorian-Italianate structure sits on five wooded acres and has been lovingly restored to offer eight ornate rooms in which to hold your service and reception.

FARM TEAM
When you’re talking “blast from the past,” there may be no better wedding site in the state than the 1761 Brearly House, which sits in a meadow at the end of a winding, unpaved road in Lawrenceville. The hinges hadn’t even started squeaking on this lovely Georgian brick home when the colonials started taking potshots at the redcoats. Of course, those musket balls wouldn’t have been coming from Brearly. It was a Quaker farmhouse during the Revolution.

TAKE IT TO THE BANK
Before the Cooper River joins the Delaware, it ambles past

the Camden County Boathouse in Pennsauken. It serves as the launching point for some of the state’s finest crew teams. Add them to the people pulling for couples as they recite their vows on the balcony overlooking the river and the natural beauty beyond. It’s like getting married in a Monet painting.

HIGH WATER MARK
No other spot in New Jersey combines sea and sky like the Water Witch Club in Monmouth Hills (above). It offers a sweeping view of the Atlantic Ocean, New York City and Sandy Hook Bay, and is the highest place on the Eastern Seaboard where couples can tie the knot. Nestled in a neighborhood recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Water Witch Club Casino has been in continuous use as a gathering place for performances and celebrations longer than any other in the state.

ANCHORS AWEIGH
For pure firepower, nothing can compete with the battleship New Jersey in Camden. Launched in 1942 and converted to a museum and memorial in 2001, she is the Navy’s most decorated battleship. The New Jersey (aka BB62) has her own events staff to ensure that everything’s shipshape for the nuptials.

ON THE WATERFRONT
If you prefer New York over Philly as your river view, then you’ll want to contact the folks who run the boathouse at Hoboken’s Shipyard Marina. An emerald lawn stretches right to the water’s edge, where guests can arrive by limo, ferry or—for that cousin who still owes you money—PATH train.

Classic Charm
These wedding spots feed the need for timeless tradition

FLOWER POWER
Anyone getting hitched at Liberty Hall in Union (right) will tell you that a rose garden by any other name would not smell
as sweet. There’s just something about an outdoor wedding at this historic site—with its 23 manicured acres and breathtaking architecture—that truly transcends the mere traditional.

HOME JAMES
Catering halls may be off your radar if you’re looking for something beyond the ordinary. However, don’t be too quick
to eschew the James Ward Mansion in Westfield. While it offers the bells and whistles you’d expect from a traditional
wedding spot, it outdoes itself (and the competition) in terms of Old World elegance and sophistication. No smoked-glass
chandeliers here.

THANK HEAVEN
For most soon-to-be-marrieds, it’s an article of faith that the cost and commitment involved in the staging of a glorious
“church wedding” will come in on the steep side. Not so at the Kirkpatrick Chapel in New Brunswick (right). From the
towering candelabras to the chest-rattling pipe-organ music, it’s everything you dream of—only without the religious trappings or the big price tag.

Artful Dodges
A great way to avoid the obvious is to embrace
the creative side of the wedding equation

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM
Looking to class up the in-laws on the big day? Look no further than the Newark Museum, which offers three different venues boasting priceless paintings and sculpture. You deliver the guests and the elegant Engelhard Court, the plush Ballantine House and the beautiful Alice Ransom Dreyfuss Memorial Garden supply the cultured surroundings.

WORK OF ART
Bringing form to your function is a specialty of the Grounds for Sculpture, located at the Seward Johnson Center for the
Arts in Hamilton. A favorite spot for exchanging vows is the Nine Muses by Carlos Dorrien, but with so much to serve as
an artistic backdrop, brides and grooms are encouraged to get creative. EDGE

Globetrotting microbes are keeping New Jersey doctors on their toes.

There are some souvenirs you want to bring back from your travels—local handicrafts, beautiful jewelry—and then there are the ones that you don’t. These range from the inconvenient

(Montezuma’s Revenge) to the catastrophic (raging infections). Thanks to ever-adventurous New Jerseyans and newcomers from developing countries, doctors in the Garden State often find themselves treating patients with unusual, challenging-to-diagnose, and even hard-to-cure diseases. By the time they arrive at Trinitas Regional Medical Center, their condition is typically dire. Sometimes, it’s desperate.

The rundown of rare diseases that doctors are currently fighting in New Jersey includes the tropical maladies with which world travelers are now familiar. Interestingly, these are showing up less frequently. Indeed, one would expect that the incidence of, say, typhoid, malaria, and dengue fever might be on the rise. But Dr. Clark Sherer, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Trinitas, says the number of cases of these tropical diseases has remained low for the 20 years he has worked in infectious diseases.

CONFRONTING THE “CLASSICS”

“We’re not seeing more than we’re used to—just a case or two of malaria a year, and a case of dengue fever every few years,” he says.

Dr. Sherer credits the availability of immunizations and preventative medicine with keeping the numbers small. “There are people who go out into the jungle for a week on tour and never get pills to prevent malaria,” he says. “But, if you take the proper precautions regarding vaccinations, food and water, and insect and mosquito control, you can stay healthy.”

When treating some of the rarer cases, like dengue fever and typhoid, the biggest challenge for doctors can be staying abreast of the latest treatments. “Since we see them infrequently, when we make the diagnosis, we have to

familiarize ourselves with any developments in treatment,” Dr. Sherer says. “You don’t feel quite as comfortable dealing with something you only see rarely.”

TB OR NOT TB

Tuberculosis is another disease that people associate with exotic locales. And recently, headlines about drug-resistant strains of TB may have struck fear in people’s hearts. Yet Dr. Sherer says that the incidence of drug-resistant TB is relatively low.

“Tuberculosis has been out there and is still out there, but most of the cases we’re seeing are completely sensitive to treatment,” he maintains.

While the number of cases of TB has grown, Dr. Sherer says there’s little need for the general public to worry. “Most of the cases we’re seeing here are in foreign-born people who are on the younger side. They were exposed in another country where TB is endemic, and later develop active TB.”

BAD BUGS

The most challenging cases the doctors are seeing involve bacterial infections, whether it’s unusual strains of mycobacteria brought back from a trip to a developing country or the homegrown variety of infections that are antibiotic-resistant.

Necrotizing fasciitis—a rapidly spreading infection that can kill off large swaths of soft tissue in a matter of hours— can be especially life-threatening.

“They have to be treated surgically immediately,” says Dr. Morteza Khaladj of The Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine. “We clean and drain the infection. Sometimes we have to remove the bone and large sections of soft tissue. Then patients are treated with IV antibiotics.”

The most troubling new infectious disease—methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)— started right in our own backyard. MRSA began cropping up in hospitals as people with weakened immune systems began to develop

antibiotic-resistant staph infections in the skin, which often spread to surgical wounds, bones, and joints, and even into the major organs. This new strain of Staph infection has grown resistant to many antibiotics. Then a new strain developed—community-acquired MRSA—which can cause skin infections and pneumonia.

“Healthy people are coming into the hospital with overwhelming staph infections, very resistant strains of E. coli and other bacteria—some are resistant to all antibiotics,” Dr. Sherer says. “It’s a big concern—there are not many new antibiotics out there, so our resources are limited in treating some of these infections. MRSA has become a huge issue that we’re dealing with on a daily basis.”

So should you be worried? Most medical experts say that with the proper precautions, you can get through life safely, whether you’re jetting halfway around the world or driving to the local Wawa for a quart of milk.

“I don’t think the average person needs to be concerned,” Dr. Sherer says. “Just follow the CDC’s recommendations regarding the precautions you should take when you travel someplace where you might be at risk, and you should be fine.”

Ecotourism is all the rage. Even in a gray economy, most Americans say they would pay a premium to travel green. Saying and doing, however, can be two very different things.

With America’s green revolution in full swing, being a savvy traveler now means more than merely ferreting out five-star resorts and
three-star prices. For the globally conscious adventurer, the ideal vacation includes an environmentally sustainable destination and, even better, a rental car that runs on renewable fuels. A truly green traveler will encounter the pollution created by the round-trip flight by donating to solar power.

Limiting your planetary impact is a noble goal and worthy challenge. But just how realistic are these goals?

Good intentions aside, defining what constitutes a sustainable destination—and finding the right lodging or tour operator—can be daunting, especially for newcomers to ecotourism. The first hurdle is sorting out the legitimately environmentally conscious travel purveyors from the so-called “greenwashers,” or those companies promoting green credentials to attract customers, but which engage in little or no environmental protection. Fortunately, there are several information sources devoted to socially and environmentally sustainable travel, available online or in bookstores. Trip planners can use these and other resources to come up with a shortlist of potential resorts, hotels, or tour operators.

“These kinds of resources have made environmentally and socially responsible travel easier than people think,” says Martha Honey, President of the Center For Responsible Travel, a Washington, DC nonprofit. “While we’re not quite to the point of one-stop shopping, there is a wealth of information and it’s pretty accessible.”

When vetting hotels, guesthouses, or resorts, suggests Ronald Sanabria, Director of Sustainable Tourism for the Rainforest Alliance, check to see whether they have received environmental certification certificates from third-party organizations.

While there is no overarching international certifying agency, a growing number of countries, U.S. states, and international organizations review the environmental practices of resorts or operators and award certificates. Australia-based Green Globe 21—one of the best known—has certified over 700 properties and organizations worldwide. In searching for lodging in the U.S., look for a stamp from Energy Star, an EPA program that helps hotels and other companies reduce energy use. Many environmentally progressive countries—including Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Kenya— have strong certification programs. Here in America, about 25 state programs also offer certification.

Because resorts or tour operators with a strong environmental commitment are not always certified, it certainly doesn’t hurt to contact intriguing properties directly and inquire about their environmental policies. Try to determine in what ways they contribute to the sustainability of the surrounding community. Start with a few basic questions: How do you reduce waste? How do you conserve water usage? What chemicals do hotel staff use for cleaning or gardening? Do they hire local workers and use local products in the kitchen?

“The answers to these questions should give travelers a sense of the property’s commitment to sustainability,” Honey says. Offering guests the option of passing on towel or sheet changes is now considered the basic minimum environmental policy for hotels. More serious properties have gone further by switching to alternative energy sources or using organic produce in the kitchen.

After finding a suitable green resort or tour operator, some take steps to counter the air pollution created by their transportation. This is the eco-travelers carbon footprint— the amount of carbon dioxide pollution each person is responsible for producing by flying jet-fueled airplanes, driving car rentals, or taking any means of transport using fossil fuels. To help counterbalance the potential environmental impact, a growing number of carbon trading companies calculate how many carbons travelers burn, then collect funds from them and invest them in renewable energy resources to offset the damage.

What’s that compute to on, say, a flight from Newark Airport to Aruba? Climatecare, a UK outfit that specializes in helping travelers and companies offset the carbon pollution they cause, calculates that a couple will burn 1.38 tons of carbon emissions on this trip. The company will then collect the $20.40 needed to create an equivalent amount of clean energy. They invest the funds in wind power, biomass, or other renewable energy projects, usually in the developing world.

Now, if you can find a rental car that runs on electricity, you’ve accomplished something…namely a guilt-free eco escape!

Editor’s Note: Gary Lee won the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism for his coverage of 9/11 in The Washington Post. Fluent in five languages, including Russian, Gary served as the Post’s Moscow Bureau Chief. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his articles about Gorbachev’s Russia.

Starting Points

• INTERNATIONAL ECOTOURISM SOCIETY
  (www.ecotourism.org) promotes sustainable tourism, offers a succinct definition of what ecotourism is about: responsible travel to nature areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of people. It also links to The Travel Green Guide, which includes tips, approved lodging, and tour operators.
• THE RAINFOREST ALLIANCE has compiled a list of hundreds of environmentally responsible properties and operators worldwide. Log onto www.ecoindextourism.org.
• National Geographic Traveler’s ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL. Many country guides published by Lonely Planet include a GreenDex, a quick reference index of sustainable accommodations, and other eco-tips.

Three For Money

These luxury resorts come with impeccable eco-credentials…

Kanantik Reef & Jungle Resort

Set amidst 300 acres of jungle along the southern coast of Belize, this property is a luxurious haven in a sweep of exotic flora and fauna. Guests are housed in 25 Mayan huts with thatched roofs and hardwood floors. A member of the International Ecotourism Society, Kanantik is unflinchingly respectful of the surrounding ecology. No chemical sprays are used on the grounds. A special ecologically sensitive septic system handles waste, and refuse from the kitchen is composted. Meals are made with local organic products. Be advised—there is no shopping or nightlife nearby. But with jaguar-watching in the adjacent Cockscomb Basin, canoeing in the nearby uncharted rivers, 1,300 feet of beach just out the door, and excursions to the ancient Mayan ruins at Xunantunich, who needs modern distractions? The room rate includes meals and some excursions.
877-759-8834 • kanantik.com

Bardessono

Open less than a year, this 62-room Napa Valley property has already become the gold standard for luxury eco-hotels. The spare, low-rise buildings are constructed from walnut laurel bay and other wood salvaged from surrounding Northern California. Solar panels provide much of the electricity used on site. An elaborate system of underwater wells and pumps are used to heat and cool the guestrooms. No
plastic is used on property in order to minimize waste. The environmentally au courant management has even forgone rugs, to cut back on allergens. Bardessono’s Zen-inspired design does allow for creature comforts, including flat-screen televisions, 300-count organic linens, deluxe bath products, a gourmet restaurant, in-room spa treatments, and just about every other perk you’d expect from a five-star destination.
707-204-6000 • bardessono.com

Closer to Home

Just this January, Starwood launched its Element brand right here in the Garden State. The Element
Ewing Hotel is “flawlessly and certifiably state-of-the-art green” according to the property’s opening-day publicity. What exactly does that mean? From the naturally lit lobby to the guest rooms (which feature low-flow fixtures and stylish recycling bins), there is
an impressive balance of energy efficiency and topflight hotel amenities. Eco-friendly materials are used throughout the hotel, right down to the paint and carpeting and the housekeeping staff is armed with an arsenal of green cleaning products. 609-671-0050 • starwoodhotels.com/element.

La Casitas Del Colca

At the end of a dusty road in the rustic Colca valley of southern Peru, this collection of 20 cabins enables guests to experience rich, raw
nature and first-class service all at once. The structures, constructed of local Laja stone and other natural materials, blend seamlessly
into the pristine natural surroundings. Strongly committed to the protection of southern Peru’s delicate ecosystem, the hotel grounds
include an organic garden that supplies the kitchen with most of its fruits and vegetables. Las Casitas del Colca also composts organic waste for the garden and sends wastewater to a treatment plant for purity. The vegetable garden on the grounds is also used to provide produce for the nearby Mission of Sister Antonia soup kitchen. Guests are encouraged to volunteer at the mission. The major draw of the area is the Colca Canyon, located a short drive from the hotel. The 10,725-foot deep gorge offers a front-row seat for some serious condor-watching. That number is correct—it’s twice as deep as the Grand Canyon! The room rate includes all meals. 011-51-1-610-8300 •lascasitasdelcolca.com

According to the Mayan calendar, on December 21, 2012, the world will come to an end. Deep down, no one really buys into this apocalyptic vision. However, it would be nice to think that New Jersey is moving away from impending doom, rather than towards it. So, the question is: Are we?

When out-of-towners think of New Jersey, they tend to picture belching smokestacks, floating medical waste and other less-than-complimentary images. Unfair as that may be, the state does have a reputation for contributing more than its fair share to the world’s pollution problem. More and more, however, we hear that New Jersey is actually a leader in the Green Movement. Everyone, it seems—from cities to businesses to individual citizens—is focused on reducing our collective carbon footprint, protecting our precious resources and promoting sustainability. Granted, there is often a credibility gap between saying you’re green and putting your money where your mouth is. But as this snapshot of “where we are” shows, in many important (and surprising) ways, the Garden State really is living up to its name. Change is never easy, especially when it comes with a price tag. And make no mistake, the initial cost of going green can be steep. Yet slowly but surely, what was once a polarizing issue is becoming a foundational one. The poster child for environmental sustainability no longer sports a beard and sandals. More often than not, it’s a guy like Mike Kerwin. Kerwin is the CEO of the Somerset County Business Partnership and founder of the state’s first Energy Council. He has been at the forefront of leading the effort to make New Jersey green. Whether it’s convincing people to walk, bike, use mass transit, bring their own bags to the grocery store or reuse water bottles, he has been committed to teaching the masses how to live more environmentally friendly. Kerwin himself sees the change. Where he once found himself lecturing people on why it’s important to live green, he now spends a lot of time providing answers to inquisitive New Jerseyans on how to embrace a cleaner, healthier and more environmentally responsible lifestyle. While everyone is still watching their pennies these days, there is a general acceptance that the added cost (and effort) required to achieve these goals is worth it in the long run. “I definitely notice that younger people—starting with my own kids—seem to embrace it,” says Kerwin of going green. “I think it’s going to be a generational shift. I think ultimately there is going to be a demand for some lifestyle changes. And I think the older generation will follow suit. The case has been made that change has to be made.”

OLD DOGS, NEW TRICKS One of the most daunting obstacles to the greening of New Jersey is breaking old habits. The same person who dutifully recycles plastic bags or keeps their tires perfectly inflated may be completely resistant to a resource-preserving technology that simply rubs people the wrong way. Ted Carey knows all too well what it feels like to bump up against logic-defying behavior. His Hillsdale company, C&C Service, markets and installs LaundryPure, a device installed above the washing machine that uses the hydrogen contained in tap water to eliminate the need for hot water and laundry detergent. It saves money. It saves energy. It extends the life of clothing. And from a cost-to-benefit standpoint, the $450 LaundryPure amortizes itself in less than two years. You’d think by now every home would have one, and that Carey would be sipping Mai Tais on some beach overlooking a secluded tropical lagoon. There is just one problem.

“The promise that the unit makes is so great, that there is a natural skepticism,” he says. “Madison Avenue has indoctrinated us to believe that you need bleach and detergent in order to have clean clothes. And when something seems too good to be true, we have a tendency to move away from it.” “We need to give a unit to Oprah,” Carey laughs.

GRIP IT & RIP IT The verdant Hyatt Hills Golf Complex, situated on the borders of Clark and Cranford, was once a condemned brown site. Now it counts among its accolades the NJTA’s Environmental Stewardship Award. Hyatt Hills was reclaimed and transformed into a destination for golfers and their families, with first-rate teaching pros and fine dining.

CAR TALK Perhaps the ultimate test of our willingness to flip the switch on the status quo is the environmentally friendly automobile. America’s car culture is deeply embedded in New Jersey. Look around the next time you’re stuck at a stoplight. Almost everyone is driving something smelly, noisy, big—or some combination of the three. At what point will Garden Staters embrace hybrids like the Prius or Volt, or the batterypowered Leaf? (Note to Nissan: Real men may not drive a car called the Leaf.) The numbers are too premature to draw any lasting conclusions, but what does exist may raise a few eyebrows. Toyota dealerships like the one in Cherry Hill reported that they were having a hard time moving the Prius—and that was before the mother company’s PR nightmare. In 2008, New Jersey ranked 11th in hybrid vehicles sold, with 6,072, despite being the 9th-most populous state. According to the salespeople in Cherry Hill, the vast majority of New Jerseyans are still in love with their SUVs, and have a hard time with the concept of plugging in a car at night. The idea of not being able to go out and just start your car immediately is still viewed as a hassle versus a benefit. Not to mention that there are conversion steps the average home must undergo before it can support a hybrid vehicle.

GROWING PAINS We are what we eat. Countless studies support this old axiom. Although only a small percentage of fruit, vegetables and dairy grown in the Garden State is organic, that number has been rising dramatically as New Jersey consumers are becoming wise to the real cost of food grown with the help of chemicals, or trucked in from thousands of miles away. Business is booming at the state’s beloved produce stands, many of which feature organic goods. Meanwhile, the major grocery chains are devoting more and more space to these products. Some even have organic house brands. All told, sales of organic foods have seen double-digit percentage increases each year for more than a decade, with some years well over 20 percent. It’s a drop in the bucket, of course, but anything that heightens consumers’ awareness of the bigger environmental picture—especially in such personal terms—is a step in the right direction. Stephen McDonald would certainly agree. He founded Applegate Farms, a Bridgewater-based natural foods business, 22 years ago. Back then he and his peers seemed to be fighting a losing battle against that other McDonald’s. Today, Applegate Farms has grown from a niche market in the health-food category to mainstream markets all across the state. McDonald credits the growth of his business and others like it to the fact that New Jersey shoppers are making informed choices about what they feed their families—significantly more informed than even a decade ago. “When you walk into a store you want to understand how it was made, and what’s in it and what is not in it,” he explains, adding that “you can eat less and eat better, and it doesn’t have to cost you any more money. And it’s better for your diet. What excites us is that people are learning and becoming more engaged.”

LEARNED BEHAVIOR

Of course, a major component of changing our longterm relationship with the earth depends on setting a good example for our children. In this regard, New Jersey schools are getting with the plan. Most if not all of the major additions and renovations that have occurred in recent years have embraced some aspect of green sensibility. One of the early trend-setters was the Willow School in Peapack-Gladstone, built from the ground up in 2001. Most of the school was constructed with salvaged and recycled materials. From the wooden beams that hold up the walls to the stonework that graces the steps, much of the physical plant is experiencing a second coming of sorts. Solar pane ls have cut energy bills by as much as 70 percent, while rainwater is recycled in a filtering tank and stored for everything but drinking water. The school even has a lunchtime garden on-site. Head of School Kate Walsh is quick to point out an added benefit to going green: an enhanced learning environment. “There’s sort of a peaceful easiness in our classrooms,” she says. “We keep cool with a lot of natural air and natural light. We don’t have a lot of sickness. It’s a very healthy environment. There are no toxins, so the kids are basically healthy and the energy is really nice. What we teach our children is that they need to be responsible decision-makers as they live in the world.”

FINDING THE RIGHT MIX

Ultimately, the agent for green change in New Jersey will be a mix of common sense and economic survival. As Randall Solomon, Executive Director of the New Jersey Sustainable State Institute at Rutgers, points out, “We want to make sure the foundation of our economy and our standard of living is built on a stable foundation that will last into the future.” As for the Mayans, one might be tempted to say that they could have used a smart guy like Solomon to give them a heads-up when their society began crumbling. Then again, New Jersey might do well to take a hard look back at the lessons learned by that vanished civilization. There are some haunting parallels. Yes, we’ll make it past 2012 all right. But the next time you find yourself complaining about food and water shortages, skyrocketing fuel prices, overbuilding and overpopulation, it might be worth remembering that in responsible, proactive stewardship of the environment lies the key to the future of the state.

Editor’s Note: Zack Burgess is the Assignments Editor for EDGE. He decided to tackle this assignment himself—with assists from architect Bob Kellner and transportation Expert Josh Leinsdorf. For more information on the energySMART program call (866) NJ–SMART.

In 1974, when Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse was a toddler, a young chef named DENNIS FOY opened a restaurant some 3,000 miles from the mecca in Berkeley, California that was setting a new standard for dining in America. Located in Meyersville— thought of in those days as west of nowhere—the Tarragon Tree drew people curious about a way of cooking that was ingredient-focused, seasonal, and dependent on the nearest farmers. Technique was critical but, like Waters and her foraged-food menus, Foy couldn’t, and wouldn’t, write his bill of fare until he’d made the rounds of local farms.

Foy’s philosophy remained the same as he moved Tarragon Tree from Meyersville to Chatham, opened Les Delices in Whippany with his brother, John, and crossed the Hudson to Manhattan, where he widened his audience with Mondrian. There were other restaurants: Toto, Townsquare, casual Shore spots in Bay Head and Point Pleasant Beach, as well as EQ and Dennis Foy in New York, both in partnership
with his wife, Estella Quinones. He often shared his kitchen space, as well as his experience and passion for local fare, with novice chefs—who themselves made serious marks on American cuisine, including the top judge of “Top Chef,” Tom Colicchio, and James Beard Award winners Debbie Ponzek and Craig Shelton. Foy also kicked in his two cents as consulting chef on major restaurants in New Jersey.

Now, after heart surgery and recovery, after a successful series of gallery shows that put the chef’s paintings in the spotlight, Foy’s back full-time in New Jersey. He and Estella last fall bought and re-fashioned the former Lawrenceville Inn, christening it Dennis Foy. This year, the chef and painter added another job to his résumé: student. He’s taking classes at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. ANDREA CLURFELD caught up with him between kitchen shifts and classes

EDGE: For those who don’t know you are the granddaddy of modern American food in New Jersey, talk a bit about your early restaurants

DF: In 1974, when we opened Tarragon Tree in Meyersville, there was a farm nearby where we’d get eggs still warm. That’s what we did— go from this farm to that farm. When we moved Tarragon Tree to Chatham, we kept that focus. In 1978, I also did Les Delices with my brother. Tarragon Tree was a precursor, really, to any modern restaurant in America. Out of that, I built other restaurants that helped to change food in America. It was a great time. The people who came to the restaurants and came through the kitchens were some of the biggest names in food. Critics, chefs. A lot of menus today are written the way I started writing menus back in the 1970s, early 1980s.

EDGE: You gave Tom Colicchio, a Jersey boy, his big break.

DF: Tom was my sous chef at Mondrian. I hired him because I knew him, knew his potential. A lot was happening in those days; I was also opening Toto, in Summit. Still doing Tarragon Tree.

EDGE: And you were hiring Debbie Ponzek and Craig Shelton.

DF: Debbie Ponzek [later the Beard Award-winning chef at Montrachet in New York] did a stage at Tarragon Tree. I just
love her. She’s a great talent, a great person, a great chef. She learned everything, worked hard, and deserves every
bit of her success. Debbie will tell you I drilled her. But she learned how to run a kitchen and how to cook. Craig Shelton[former chef-owner of Ryland Inn, Whitehouse, and anotherBeard Award winner] was a gifted, talented chef. Very bright, well-educated. We all were committed to our belief systems and very devoted to doing it right. I have been very fortunate to always have had a great deal of talent around me.

EDGE: Today, the buzzwords in food are local, sustainable and organic. Does that seem old hat to you?

DF: What’s really wild is that I’m returning to my roots— to what I was doing at Tarragon Tree in 1974. Getting eggs warm from the nest. Finding berries in the woods. Having people bring us things—wild things, berries, mushrooms— because they see what we’re doing. We’ve come full circle. So that is nothing new to me. The seasonality of food always has to be second nature; it has to be a natural reaction. It’s funny to remember this now, but back then, the Frelinghuysen’s used to bring me beefsteak tomatoes from their gardens every summer. My customers just did that, back in Meyersville and Chatham.

EDGE: How are you bringing local farms to your table at Dennis Foy in Lawrenceville today?

DF: The new menu literally is designed to be farm-to-table food. We found a guy who has black honey. Great stuff. We showcase it. Right near us are three farms. Two orchards. I feel almost like I’m back in the pool I first dove into in 1974. I source a lot of my produce through Nature’s Reward, the produce market over on Bridge Avenue in Point Pleasant; I’ve worked with them for years, going back to my places in Bay Head and Point Pleasant. It’s the best. I’ll go out of my way to go there.

EDGE: Have farmers become savvier?

DF: I think they have. There are farmers with serious degrees in agriculture and animal husbandry. New Jersey has some of the top growers. I think that if people become more attuned to what’s happening, the concept of the small farm can be reinvented. You don’t need big spreads. Just the right crops. The bottom line is that the farm-to-table concept is good economy—for both sides.

EDGE: How does all this Jersey bounty influence your cooking?

DF: I buy every day. So it’s basic. Keep it simple, keep it color-coded, keep it organic. It’s like the Depression-era mothers who made the most of their gardens

EDGE: So you think this has legs, that there’s a future to local-sustainable-organic—for the home cook and for restaurants?

DF: Absolutely. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how full circle this has come for me. I’m surprised, but not surprised to be realizing that everything old is new again. Look at it this way: If you have your own victory garden, you’re a step ahead. Having that food in your backyard will make you recalibrate your diet in a good way. That could be a big change. Frankly, I don’t think there’s much new that’s going to come down the road for restaurants. Gradual influences, not major changes. It’s great that so many different cultures are coming to America and adding ideas to menus

EDGE: What’s on the menu these days at Dennis Foy?

DF: I’m cooking more simply, but bringing out more flavor in my ingredients. I spent the past year recovering from
heart surgery. I ate fairly well, and I still eat well. But I’m more focused today. I’d love to have, say, two elements on a plate. Two absolutely pristine things. Sea scallops from Point Pleasant with a parsnip cream. Just a touch of a balsamic reduction. That’s it. Pristine, elegant. I’m not doing frou-frou food. I started getting ice cream, the best ice cream, from Jerry Reilly, who runs Halo Farm [in Mercer County]. I taste his ice cream and I’m totally blown away. I’ve been in New Jersey 35 years and I’m still discovering what’s here.

Editor’s Note: Dennis Foy is located at 2691 Main St., Lawrenceville. Telephone: 609. 219. 1900.

“It is Didier now,” says the gentleman in the Hermes tie and dapper suit as he sands, head bowed slightly in our direction, at the foot of our corner table at Chez Catherine. “Not ‘Sir.’ No more. I am Didier.”

Even Didier Jouvenet’s admonishments can flatter. I’ve just addressed him as “Sir” in a quick series of queries at the end of our dinner, and the owner/maitre d’/sommelier of this intimate and pure French restaurant in Westfi eld is insisting on doing away with distance between diner and proprietor. That’s how the old restaurant pros do it, and the veteran of La Grenouille and The Carlyle Hotel in New York is nothing if not the consummate pro. Chez Catherine has been around a long time in its somewhat incongruous home in the bosom of a Best Western motel near the downtown district. But it’s been reinvigorated by the current stewardship of Didier Jouvenet and his wife, Edith. They have secured the services of chef de cuisine C.J. Reycraft to turn out the French classics. There are very few places in New Jersey where brandade de morue and confit of duck and profiteroles are done with textbook care.

If the foamists have their way, or if designer burgers snatch any more menu space—or if yet another Everything-Asian eatery takes hold in a strip mall—restaurants such as Chez Catherine could find themselves on the culinary endangered species list of New Jersey. We shouldn’t let that happen. The Jouvenets and their kitchen crew give us too much reason to let that happen. The dining room may be a touch too pretty-pink, a tad cluttered and close-quartered. Yet the dishes served forth are precise, heartfelt translations of those that once made France the culinary capital of the planet. They merit attention. Brandade de morue, a soul-satisfying mash of housecured salt cod, potatoes and roasted garlic, is given a lick of olive oil to help smooth it on accompanying toasts. If you’ve ever thought fondue was fun, well, Chez Catherine’s brandade offers the same communal dip-in pleasures, with a different and arguably more intriguing base. Risotto, as popular in parts of southern France as it is in northwestern Italy, is given a creamy lift with the addition of mascarpone, which balances the tannic shreds of spinach nicely. Is a shot of truffle oil overkill? Not in the hands of Reycraft, whose deft hand keeps this often-overused condiment in proper check. It’s background here, wisely elusive. But the foie gras is brawny and bold. A hunk of the stuff serves as the centerpiece of a plate with a rash of partners that allow you to enhance the fatty liver in various ways.

There are pert cubes of Grand Marnier gelee, slivers of toasted hazelnuts, a compote of vanilla-laced pineapple and a swirl of pink peppercorn-infused blood orange. No reason to be shy; lap it all up, for all of it works. Skate, splayed gloriously on a wide plate, showed the wing span of an eagle—and the sure hand of a kitchen willing to let an expertly cooked piece of fish stand just about on its own. A little acid from nibs of citrus was all that was needed. Duck confit, plucked from the annals of the classic bistros of southwestern France, didn’t miss either. This is the dish that defines falling-off-the-bone tender, and Chez Catherine’s rendition is the snapshot for a cookery bible. Factor in a scattering of tart, dried cherries for counterpoint, a pile of wild rice for texture and long-braised scallions for sweetness, and you have an air-tight case for respecting tradition. Chez Catherine’s kitchen also knows how to respect lamb. Fat rib-eye chops come cosseted by a chestnut puree and Brussels sprouts—an appropriately (and pleasantly) bitter sideshow to rich meat. The parade of classics doesn’t let up at dessert. How long has it been since you’ve had a proper profiterole? Here, your new best friend, Didier, will pour from a miniature gravy boat a ration of hot chocolate sauce over and around buttery puffs of pastry with an inner prize of vanilla ice cream. The original molten chocolate cake, done to death at chain restaurants everywhere? It’s here in true French fashion, fastidiously made so it tastes of fine dark chocolate, not something insidiously sweet, and served with a scoop of pomegranate ice cream. The best of the finales may have been the lemon tart, with a curd that resonates sour, spooned into a meringue shell and then set astride flecks of Marcona almonds, a thimbleful of lemon verbena-mascarpone sorbet and a flourish of blackberry sorbet. Mon dieu, do the French know balance, or what?

I do wish, however, that the wine list was better balanced. It weighs heavily in favor of the high-priced (way highpriced) standbys, while all but ignoring the highly nuanced, spirited small-producer bottles from the south of France that would sing with Reycraft’s food. If you’re willing to shell out three figures (or four), you can enjoy a solid Burgundy or Bordeaux. But the $60-to-$80 price range is far too thin, lacking in imagination and educational value, for the list to be considered worth a trip. But the food at Chez Catherine is. It makes me hope France’s life at New Jersey’s tables is long lived.

Dress for Dining Success

Gents, Chez Catherine is a place that doesn’t demand jacket and tie, but certainly deserves to be honored by appropriate attire. While a jacket alone will do, the same clothes worn to accomplish household chores will not. Ladies, workout wear is unsuitable here. This is a place where diners should feel inspired to rise to the occasion, even if that occasion is simply dinner out. Clothes worn to mow lawns and shuffle kids to soccer may do you fine at Applebee’s, but not at Chez Catherine. Will you see inappropriately dressed people dining here? Yes. It would be hard to imagine Didier Jouvenet and his crew treating them with any less respect than his properly dressed clients. It’s known as class. Watch and learn.

Editor’s Note: Andy Clurfeld is a former editor of Zagat New Jersey. The longtime food critic for the Asbury Park Press also has been published in Gourmet, Saveur and Town & Country, and on epicurious.com. Don’t miss her Q&A with celebrity chef Dennis Foy on page 40.

A sustainable solution to heating and cooling is right under our feet. But will it pay to ‘Go Geo’ in 2022?

A generation ago, green was a crayon color and sustainable was rarely heard outside a CPA’s office. Nowadays, these words are used to sell products, mobilize activism and promote environmental stewardship. They are flexible, sexy adjectives that pair nicely with more familiar words to create catchy phrases like “going green” and “sustainable energy.” For most homeowners, turning those ideas into meaningful action steps involves junking an ancient HVAC array in favor of a more efficient one. For a forward-thinking few, however, harnessing the constant temperature of the earth to power a geothermal heating and cooling system is the cleaner, greener and more cost-efficient long-term investment.

Traditional HVAC systems (also called air-source heat pumps) pull in the outside air as the exchange medium to regulate indoor temperatures. As we all know, the weather in New Jersey fluctuates throughout the year, so at the extremes of heat and cold, your air-source heat pump has to work harder to keep you comfortable—and puts a bigger dent in your bank account. On the other hand, geothermal heat pumps (GHPs)—alternately referred to as geoexchange, ground-source, earth-coupled or water-source heat pumps—channel the underground temperature into the heating and cooling systems of a home.

Below the frost line in New Jersey, about 4 to 10 feet under the surface, the earth maintains a subterranean temperature of approximately 54° Fahrenheit. With this persistent heat source, geothermal heat pumps can warm your house in the winter, cool your house in the summer, and, if equipped with a desuperheater accessory, even provide hot water to a home—all while using less energy than your standard air-source HVAC.

Geothermal stems from the Greek words “geo” (earth) and “therme” (heat)—heat from the earth. If you’re forming a mental picture of hot springs, deep caves, oceanic vents and molten rock, you’re correct. But, when it comes to a geothermal heat pump in your home, the “geo” in question is, well, dirt.

Modern geothermal technology dates back to the late 19th century, when the world’s first district heating system was implemented in Boise, Idaho. In 1892, Boiseans directed water from the nearby hot springs to provide heat to local establishments. In 1908, homes in Iceland began to use geothermal steam as a heating source; today, 90% of Icelanders use geothermal heat.
During the 20th century, geothermal technology gradually progressed, with innovators constructing geothermal power plants at hot springs and steam fields. In the 1940s, Ohio State University professor Carl Nielsen developed the first residential geothermal heat pump.

From there, however, the technology has done a mostly slow roll. During the energy crisis of the early 1970s, there was a brief spike in interest, but the technology was still wonky and geothermal heat pumps didn’t become popular until a decade or so ago. Now there are roughly 50,000 GHPs installed every year in the US alone.

Can You Dig It?

The first step in installing a geothermal heat pump is to dig a shallow trench and bury a loop of pipes, called a heat exchanger, underground. Once the heat exchanger is in place and connected to the heat pump inside your house, the loop is filled with a fluid, typically a combination of water and antifreeze. During New Jersey winters, the constant underground temperature of 54° is typically warmer than the air aboveground, which averages around 34°. The antifreeze solution in the heat exchanger circulates underground, where it absorbs the earth’s natural heat. The heated solution is then redirected back to the heat pump apparatus in your home, which warms it up another 20° or so and then sends warm air through the ventilation ducts in your house.
During the summer, when New Jersey temps average in the 80s, the same solution in the exchange loop absorbs the heat inside your house, sends the heated solution to lose heat underground and then returns the now-chilled solution to the heat pump to save you from the summer swelter. In this case, heat pump is a bit of a misnomer; the unit is more of an air circulator at this temperature.

When considering a geothermal heat pump, it is helpful to understand your options—for instance, what type of heat exchange loop you want (or need) to install. There are four types of ground-source loops to consider, with three closed-loop options and one open-loop option. Closed-loop systems operate in the same way as I previously described and are the most common type of residential heat exchangers. The three types of closed-loop systems are horizontal loops, vertical loops, and pond/lake loops.
Horizontal loops are typically more cost-effective than other GHP options, because you are digging out into your yard instead of straight down. However, horizontal loops require a decent amount of property to dig the trenches needed for the exchange loop. Once the trenches have been excavated, two pipes are connected and buried—either staggered at 4 and 6 feet deep, or side-by-side at 5 feet deep. Horizontal loops can more easily accommodate difficult geology, like bedrock, since they don’t require deep excavation. Vertical loops are better suited for commercial properties, properties that have limited space or homeowners who wish to minimize soil disturbance. In order to install a vertical loop, holes are drilled two feet apart and down to a depth of 100 feet or more, depending on the residence. Vertical loop installation is the priciest of the GHP options, but it may be necessary for certain properties.
Pond/lake loops make up the last of the popular closed-loop options, and they are a wonderful and relatively inexpensive choice for those with access to a nearby body of water. Pond/lake exchange loops are coiled under at least eight feet of water in order to prevent freezing. This type of system is cost-efficient and effective, however it must meet potentially restrictive criteria regarding the depth, volume, and quality of the water.

The last option is the aforementioned open-loop system. Unlike a closed-loop system, open-loop systems use clean water instead of an antifreeze solution as the heat exchange fluid. This requires a well or an adequate source of clean surface water in order to function properly. As with pond/lake systems, there may be local codes and regulations (for instance, on groundwater discharge) that could inhibit the use of this type of GHP.

Buried Treasure?

There are plenty of reasons to invest in a geothermal heat pump for your home. One of the principal arguments in favor of geothermal heat pumps centers on efficiency. Geoexchange is a remarkably green technology. When it comes to HVAC systems, geothermal heat pumps are the most efficient and the most sustainable. By harnessing the constant underground temperature as a source of heat energy, GHPs are particularly steady and sustainable systems in regards to energy consumption. According to the EPA, geothermal heat pumps use 25 to 50% less energy than standard air-source units and can effectively reduce overall energy usage up to 44%—and up to 72% when compared with standard electrical air-conditioning systems. They can also excel in particularly humid areas by enhancing indoor humidity control. Geothermal heat pumps are also quieter, saving you from the gnawing buzz of traditional systems. GHPs typically run at 40-48 decibels, while standard air-source systems can reach over 70 decibels when they kick on.

Geothermal heat pumps also have a longer lifespan than their traditional counterparts and require less maintenance. While a standard HVAC system has an average lifespan of about 15 years, the geothermal ground loop can last up to 60 years; the average lifespan of the indoor component is almost 25. You can also get a 25-year-or-more warranty for your geothermal heat pump, depending on the installer.

So what’s not to like? Well, installing a ground-source loop on your property requires intense digging and/or drilling, depending on the type of loop you plan to install. Not only can installation of an underground loop temporarily tear up your property, but the actual process can take quite a while. Retrofitting a GHP into your residence can take 6 to 8 weeks to fully complete. New installations in ongoing construction can take even longer, considering all the necessary coordination and scheduling with the other contractors. By comparison, an air-source heat pump typically takes less than a week to install. You also need to be aware of the type of soil your house is sitting on. Dense clay soils are the best option for geothermal heating and cooling systems, followed closely by wet, sandy soils. Dry, sandy soils are the worst option due to poor heat transference, so if this is the soil that you have on your property, your GHP may not function as efficiently.
If you live in heavily forested or (like my family) in earthquake-prone areas, you may want to reconsider buying a geothermal heat pump. Dense forestry means that there are lots of roots that could damage the underground exchange loop. Earthquakes can also be a major threat to your heat exchanger. Not only are repair costs expensive, but the hazards of soil contamination with runaway antifreeze solution can create a small environmental catastrophe.

The Long Game

Purchasing and installing a geothermal system will cost you several times more than a traditional air-source unit. The earth-friendly aspect of GHP ownership may be worth a premium to you, as well it should, but even the most ardent fan of green sustainability may choke a little on the price. So the big question is usually When does it pay for itself?
Let’s start with what we know. If you own a 3,000 square-foot house in New Jersey, purchasing and installing a traditional five-ton HVAC system will cost you around $8,000. Unless you love sauna-like heat in the winter and meat-locker AC in summer, your average annual operating expense for an air-source unit will be around $2,000 give or take. By comparison, a GHP unit serving the same home has an average annual operating cost of just over $800, due to minimal energy consumption.

The return on investment (ROI) in energy savings for a geothermal system typically pays back the upfront cost in 5 to 10 years, depending on a number of variables, but mostly on the initial installation expense—which is where the real damage to your wallet is done.

In 2019, horizontal loop installation fees ranged from $12,000 to $25,000 dollars, while vertical loop installation ran anywhere between $16,000 to $30,000. The total cost of a high-quality GHP in a large home could touch $50,000 in a structure where new ductwork and carpentry was necessary. Still, the ROI seemed reasonable for all the good you might do the planet.
Unfortunately, 2019 was a lifetime ago. The cost of everything—labor, materials, electronics, etc.—shot up during the pandemic. Many homeowners had to put their geothermal dreams on hold when they received the bad news that an additional $10,000 or $15,000 would have to be added to the original estimate. Most folks in the industry believe that this is not the new normal; geothermal project costs should come back into line at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Perhaps infrastructure legislation will help homeowners with the costs. Congress already extended a 26% federal tax credit for geothermal home energy efficiency upgrades until the end of 2022 (it will be reduced to 22% in 2023). Certain municipalities offer an “energy-efficient mortgage,” so you should consult your local banks and mortgage companies for information about that. And geothermal installers usually offer low- or no-interest short-term financing.

To be sure, the financial burden of “Going Geo” is not for everyone. Even in the best of times, with the best of terms, embracing geothermal is a long game. Ten years (or more) is a long time to wait to be made whole. However, if you are deeply concerned about climate change and, especially, if you’re the kind of person who wakes up in a cold sweat wondering how in the world you’ll pay your energy bills in 2030 or 2040, why not let the earth help you out a little?
And do the planet a solid in return. EDGE

Editor’s Note: Caleb Szarabajka is a freelance writer with a degree from Berkeley and a keen interest in earth-friendly tech innovations. For more information on geothermal heating and cooling, visit the Geothermal Exchange Organization web site at geoexchange.org.

“Popular” may be one of the iconic songs that Kristin Chenoweth has made her own during a hit-filled stage and screen career, yet it falls far short of describing her standing among musical comedy connoisseurs. It is no exaggeration to say that Chenoweth is one of the most beloved performers in Broadway history. From her Tony-winning performance as Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown to her memorable turn as the good witch Glinda in Wicked—to her portrayal of Mildred, the cranky preacher’s wife in this summer’s joyfully insane Apple TV series Schmigadoon—she has specialized in imbuing her characters with irresistible charm and explosive energy. Can you imagine Kristin Chenoweth sitting quietly on the sidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic? No…and neither could EDGE editor Mark Stewart. Fortunately, he was able to slow Kristin down long enough to chat about her busy 2021 and the just-released holiday album, Happiness Is…Christmas!

EDGE: Can you recall the moment when you were on a stage before an audience and thought, This is for me?

KC: Of course. I was about eight years old and wanted to be a ballerina. I was in a version of The Nutcracker in the Tulsa Ballet and wanted to play one of the mice, but I was too small to fit in any of the costumes. The director said he wanted me to “create” the role of the rabbit. I thought that seemed kind of sketchy. The rabbit just sat there next Clara for all of Act II. It was the second weekend, a Saturday matinee. My family was there. One of the props the sugarplum fairies dance with, a large vine, fell center-stage. It was a pretty big prop. That’s very dangerous for theater and especially for ballerinas. I thought, What would a bunny do? How would it act? So I hopped out, put it in my mouth and hopped back. The audience went crazy. I thought, Hey…I like this feeling! That’s when the bug bit me.

EDGE: Did your parents indulge this desire?

KC: You know, they did. We lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and the nearest town that had anything was Tulsa. My parents were very gracious. They allowed me to take piano lessons at Tulsa University and I studied ballet in Tulsa, as well, where I became a member of the Tulsa Ballet junior dance company. And I sang in church. The first time I sang in church I was little, too, and thought Hey, I like this singing stuff, too. It kind of all happened at once.

EDGE: Florence Birdwell passed away earlier this year. She is someone you’ve mentioned as having played a key role early in your career.

KC: Thanks for asking about her. We had her memorial this October. The only way I know how to describe her is that she was a force—in terms of emotion and technique and knowing how to handle each student in a different way. I was really hard on myself, so I didn’t need somebody else being hard on me. She knew when to be hard on her students and when not to be. Yes, she taught me vocally and technically, but she’s really the one that ingrained in my mind the idea of If you don’t mean what you’re singing, don’t sing it. I still hear her in my head today. And now that’s what I tell my students, at Broadway Boot Camp and other places: “If you don’t mean it, don’t sing it.”

EDGE: I’m thinking of the bunny story in Tulsa and about the idea of creating a role. In the 1999 Broadway revival of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, you played Sally. I saw the original and she wasn’t in it. It must have been an interesting opportunity to create a role that didn’t previously exist. Who in the world knew that Charlie Brown’s little sister would be a show-stopper?

KC: Certainly not me! I remember Michael Mayer saying, “I have a surprise for you but I can’t tell you yet.” I had another offer at the time in Annie Get Your Gun with Bernadette Peters. He said, “Trust me, you’re gonna want to do this.”

EDGE: Why couldn’t he tell you?

KC: Because Charles Schulz was still thinking about whether he wanted to give his permission to [add the Sally character]. Somehow, I knew in my heart I wanted to be in Charlie Brown, I just didn’t know why. I followed my gut and took the job. The first day of rehearsal, we were all asked to sit in chairs, in front of the costumes of the characters we would play. When I got to my chair I saw it was all Sally stuff. I thought, Oh my gosh! I get to create this part! It’s rare that a director trusts someone to do that. And obviously, it was the right decision for me and one of the most fun times in my life.

EDGE: Thinking about Wicked (left) and some of the wonderful roles that followed, do you look back at that decision as a game-changing moment for you?

KC: I look back and think of Michael Mayer’s genius of having the idea and how lucky it was that Charles Schulz said yes to Sally. And what a good idea it was to let us play with all of the different sketches when we were out of town to see which ones really worked, and which didn’t, in front of an audience. And finally, the genius of Andrew Lipa to come to me with a song, “My New Philosophy,” which was so character-driven. It was a great experience, but also one I can never repeat because my life changed overnight. I was lucky to be with my Charlie Brown family, and they with me—there were only six of us—because we were together.

EDGE: Do you still have to audition for roles?

KC: Sometimes I have to audition. Mostly for Broadway I don’t. To be honest, we look for jobs that are “me” or they come to me and say this is a “Kristin part.”

EDGE: How do you know you’re good to go with a role?

KC: If I don’t want to see anyone else playing it, then I know that’s my part. I’ve got to have fun and love the person—even if she’s a nightmare, I’ve got to figure out ways to love her. Sometimes I like to turn a part on its ear and not do what people expect. I think I’ve been successful in that respect; I’ve found my niche.

EDGE: Which, I guess, is how you make it look easy.

KC: That’s a very big compliment and I appreciate it.

EDGE: What’s the most difficult thing you’ve had to do professionally?

KC: Schmigadoon was pretty hard because we had to do an 18-page song in one take, with no cuts. In other words, no mistakes. That was a little scary.

EDGE: Do you have a favorite song, one you never tire of singing?

KC: There’s a song, “Til There Was You,” that Meredith Wilson wrote in the movie of The Music Man, which I did years ago with Matthew Broderick. I never get tired of singing that song. I just think it’s one of the most perfect songs.

EDGE: You’ve played opposite some very impressive men and women on Broadway, people like Andy Karl and Peter Gallagher, whom most people know. What I’m wondering is have you ever worked with someone you knew little or nothing about, and they just blew you away in that first rehearsal?

KC: Everybody blows me away [laughs]. I think about the Andy Karls and the Peter Gallaghers and, goodness, going back in time to Brian D’Arcy James…I’ve just been so lucky. With my leading women. With my leading men. I’m grateful because they have all been very giving. In Promises, Promises I was in a role that no one wanted to see me play because it was more on the dramatic side. Sean Hayes, who is one of my closest friends, held my hand and was like I got you. He’ll always have a special place there for me.

EDGE: Tell me about your upcoming Christmas album. I’ve always wondered, how does an artist pick the songs that “make the cut” and belong together? Are they personal favorites? Are they ones that you feel suit your style? To me it seems like a real hand-wringing decision.

KC: Well said. It can be a hand-wringing experience. I really wanted this album to have a particular feel, like it’s in my DNA, which is why I recorded it in Nashville—not Country, but something with intimacy. I chose each song very carefully. We do a version of “Happiness” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown where we were given permission to rewrite the words about Christmas. That was a big one because of the history for me. I love Kaye Starr so “Man with a Bag” had to be on there. I love Karen Carpenter, so “Merry Christmas, Darling” had to be on there, too. There’s a song that Barbra Streisand sang a long time ago called “Christmas Lullaby” written by Ann Hanson Callaway that had a huge orchestration to it, but I wanted it to be smaller in nature. A wonderful guitarist out of Nashville named Brian Sutton played it so beautifully. There’s a song that Stephen Schwartz wrote called “We Are Light” and as I thought about the feel and the tone of the record, the idea of “light”—of light at the end of the tunnel, of we’re getting there—kept coming up. It’s a Chanukkah song, but it’s so hopeful that I really wanted to have that on there, too, because a lot of people don’t feel that now. The way we end the record is with Peggy Lee’s “My Dear Acquaintance.” With all we’ve been forced to deal with the past couple of years with the pandemic, that song to me is a real standout because it’s like, “here’s to life” in a way. There’s a lot of happiness on this album.

EDGE: You mentioned Karen Carpenter. To my mind, no one made a happy song sound sadder than Karen Carpenter. How do you make her song your own?

KC: First of all, you quit listening to her [laughs] because I will imitate her. But you can’t help take some of the things she did so beautifully and pay homage to her. Karen had a deep voice, with a kind of cry in her voice, you feel her heart and her pain. On my version you get more of I’ll see you soon baby. I’ll be coming your way and it’ll be amazing. But yeah, you’ll hear a little Karen in there because she is the O.G., the original source.

EDGE: You mentioned Schmigadoon. I look at that cast and see a Who’s Who of scene-stealing performers. How did anyone keep a straight face?

KC: We didn’t [laughs]. We had a lot of do-overs.

EDGE: Usually there’s someone in a cast that really gets to you, and it’s not always who the public might think it is.

KC: Alan Cumming was hard because he’s so silly. And Fred Armisen. They just make me laugh. It’s who they are.

EDGE: Did they give you a “Mothers Against the Future” tee shirt when you were done?

KC: No, but I want one! Don’t you think we should have had them printed?

EDGE: That’s the first thing I thought of.

KC: That actually was the first line I read in the script and I thought, Oh, this is epic. You know, these are all my friends in Schmigadoon, people I’ve known forever and just love.

EDGE: Also, I can’t think of anyone other than Martin Short playing the leprechaun. I don’t think Martin could, either.

KC: I know [laughs]. He’s so perfect in every way.

EDGE: And he’s having a little too much fun, I think.

KC: I agree. EDGE

Editor’s Note: Kristin Chenoweth’s new album, Happiness is…Christmas!, was released in October. National Champions hits theaters November 24th. Schmigadoon is available on Apple TV. For more information on Broadway Bootcamp visit kcbbc.com. For more information on Kristin’s Arts & Education Fund, visit officialkristinchenoweth.com.

New Jersey was a state of “firsts” way back in 1921!

Hangar Number One is constructed at the Naval Engineering Station in Lakehurst as a base for military airship development. Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1968, it is one of the few surviving structures of its kind in the world.

The first class of New Jersey State Police officers graduates from training in Sea Girt. Only 81 of the original 116 men selected survive the rigorous three-month course designed by superintendent Norman Schwartzkopf, Sr.

The Newark-based Carrier Engineering Company develops the first AC unit capable of cooling offices, stores and theaters. The company’s Centrifugal Chiller revolutionizes the air conditioning industry.

The State Theatre, designed by architect Thomas Lamb, opens in New Brunswick. Admission is a quarter and the first film screened is White Oak, starring cowboy hero William S. Hart.

New Brunswick stride piano pioneer James P. Johnson records four historic songs—“Harlem Strut,” “Keep Off the Grass,” “Carolina Shout” and “Worried and Lonesome Blues”—that bridge the gap between Ragtime and Jazz.

Atlantic City hosts a Golden Mermaid beauty pageant to attract tourists during Labor Day week. Margaret Gorman of Washington DC is the winner, with audience votes counting for 50% of the final score. A year later, the competition is renamed Miss America.

The first “Million Dollar” prizefight is held in Jersey City between world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and world light heavyweight champ Georges Carpentier. More than 80,000 fans squeeze into a specially constructed arena to watch Dempsey score a fourth-round knockout.

The Port Authority is created to coordinate activity of New Jersey and New York ports, bridges, highways and tunnels. The need for centralized oversight became obvious when military troop movement choked the region’s infrastructure during World War I.

All-American Arthur Loeb leads the Princeton Tigers basketball team into battle in what proves to be their first conference-championship season. Loeb’s 203 successful free throws would stand as a school record for more than four decades.

On October 26th, mental health advocate Jesse Close and journalist Jack Ford will discuss the importance of “Easing the Behavioral Health Stigma” at the Trinitas Health Foundation’s virtual Peace of Mind Event, with proceeds helping Trinitas expand its inpatient unit for adults dually diagnosed with intellectual/developmental disabilities and severe mental illness—New Jersey’s only inpatient facility that cares for these patients. Close, the younger sister of actress Glenn Close, is a writer, photographer and mental health advocate whose own battle with bipolar disorder illustrates the critical need for early diagnosis and treatment. She speaks with great passion and humor on a subject with which she is intimately familiar.

EDGE: Something that friends and family and co-workers have come to understand about people struggling with bipolar disorder is that it manifests a little differently for each individual, and also what works as a treatment now may not work as well a week or a month or a year from now. Has that been your experience?

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Jessie Close: Yes. Just recently, in fact, I have started getting off Lithium and onto another drug. It’s going to take a while. I’m still on my full dose of Lithium so I’m not sure how my psychiatrist is going to pull this off. I didn’t realize that Lithium can be quite dangerous if you “cold turkey” it. Luckily, I’m not doing that.

EDGE: You were diagnosed at 50, having gone more than two decades undiagnosed. How did that continue for so long?

JC: I remember as a teenager being sent to live with my older sister, Tina, while I was on a trip with my parents to Africa—I didn’t do well over there—I said to her, “I’d really like to talk to a psychiatrist.” She said, “Oh, we don’t do that in our family.”

EDGE: Was that a New England thing?

JC: Yeah, yeah. Stiff upper lip, you know. However, I knew there was something wrong. I was born in 1953 and the stories I’ve heard from that era are about people having lobotomies. We weren’t respected as people. We were “crazies.” I’m so happy that so many young people are now getting help sooner than later. Bipolar disorder can hit young men from around 17 years old up, while for women it usually hits us in our 20s, sometimes earlier. I don’t know why that is.

EDGE: Do you think the healthcare system in this country, as currently constructed, is adequately equipped to deal with mental illness?

JC: I would hope so. But we’ve had a running battle for years with our hospital here in Bozeman, Montana, trying to get them to create a mental health unit, and they’re just fighting it and fighting it. If you have Apple TV, you can watch a show Glenn and I did called The Me You Can’t See. It’s done really well. There is a sequence in that show where the hospital rep says, “We want it to be perfect.” My sister pipes up and asks, “How can it be perfect if you haven’t even started?”

EDGE: During the COVID-19 shutdown, a lot of the people who might have noticed someone with a bipolar disorder going off the rails no longer had regular face-to-face contact, where they could check in or intervene. Is that one of the under-told stories of the pandemic?

JC: I think the pandemic has caused a lot more mental illness. I was fortunate that Glenn lives nextdoor so we had each other, and my daughter and older son, Calen, were here. But back in March 2020, when we started to isolate, I found it very difficult to just be in my home.

EDGE: Calen is schizophrenic.

JC: Yes. My eldest son, Calen, was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 18. He went off the rails at 17 and we didn’t know what was happening. We went to McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts and met with the Director of the Psychology Research Lab, Dr. Deborah Levy, who unfortunately has since passed away. She studied our family for four years, took blood and tissue samples, and ran the data through her colleagues at McLean. She was able to show how genetic mental illness really is. She described my mother as a “mosaic” because she had three children without mental illness and then she passed it to me. I had three children and passed it on to Calen in the form of schizophrenia. He went to McLean for two years. He was 19 when he went and 21 when he came home and early intervention helped him enormously. He’s an artist and writer now and he takes his meds—you would never suspect that he has schizophrenia.

EDGE: What event precipitated your finally seeking treatment?

JC: It was after a family gathering in Wyoming, where my parents had a house, and I was about to drive with my daughter back up to Montana and I knew I had to say something. I went to Glenn and said, “I cannot stop thinking about killing myself. It’s this constant, monstrous thing saying kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself.” A week later I was at Belmont.

EDGE: Had you had the benefit of an early intervention, how do you think that would have changed things?

JC: Well, I wouldn’t have had five husbands [laughs] that’s for sure! When I speak at events like Peace of Mind, I ask, “Who in this audience has been married five times?” So far no one has raised their hand.

EDGE: My mother was married five times…but I suspect it was because she was a narcissist. Anyway, going forward now, even if no one raises their hand, at least you can say you know someone!

JC: [laughs] Well, I so wish I had been diagnosed earlier because I know I wouldn’t have had five husbands. I was out of my mind most of the time. I haven’t been with a man since 2004 and I’m very happy about that. I’ve gotten so much done. I’ve had shows with my drawings, I’m getting ready to send a new novel to my agent, I have two photography projects going and I can help with my three grandchildren. I attribute all of that to being on the right medication. But, yeah, I do have very deep regret that I wasn’t diagnosed sooner. I’m pushing 70 for God’s sake.

EDGE: For individuals with a bipolar diagnosis, a common trigger is seeing their siblings have success or just having a good time. Was this something you experienced as Glenn’s entertainment career unfolded?

JC: It wasn’t much of a factor in my case. I saw how hard she works. She has to travel, remember lines—it’s a brutal career. She has done so well because she works her butt off. Glenn is six years older than me and has always been my big sister. I remember like it was yesterday how she would take me up to her room, where she had a blackboard. She taught me how to do the letter “i” and I loved the dot then and I love it now. She was very good to me and continues to be.

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EDGE: You wrote a book entitled Resilience. How do you define that word?

JC: I was resilient because I didn’t commit suicide. I’ve had three attempts; thank goodness they were all thwarted. There is a scene in the book when I was married to my last husband when we were living way out in the boonies in Montana. I’d made a mental note he’d left his handgun on the seat of his truck—he usually kept it locked up. I got drunk and went out and was about to open the door and thought to myself, All three of my children will hear the gun go off and come outside and see me. I just couldn’t do that to them. So my kids “saved” me. Later, in 2004, after that husband fled, I finally went to the hospital and got help. That’s when they started me on Lithium.

EDGE: Beyond getting the right medication, how did that experience change you?

JC: Being around other people with mental illness was so wonderful, because you all speak the same language. It was amazing.

EDGE: When you appear at events like Peace of Mind, what do you want the take-away to be for the audience?

JC: I want to open their eyes to the fact that those of us who are mentally ill are human. We have the same feelings as everybody else…they might just get exaggerated. I want them to laugh, I want them to realize in their gut that, if you treat people with mental illness with love and kindness—and understand that they can get help—that it’s quite amazing how medication gives our brains what they need and turns us around. And if there is someone in the audience who is concerned about a family member, I hope after listening to me they will do something about it. EDGE

Editor’s Note: For more information on Peace of Mind, visit trinitaspeace.givesmart.com. For tickets, call (908) 994–8249. Trinitas operates one of the most highly respected and comprehensive departments of Behavioral Health & Psychiatry in New Jersey. Services are offered along a full continuum of care, with specialized services available for adults, children, adolescents and their families, as well as services for those with various substance use disorders. In addition to operating a 98-bed inpatient facility, the medical center provides almost 200,000 outpatient behavioral health visits annually.

In the world of stroke prevention, the odds are in your favor.

If you found a way to increase your retirement nest egg by 80% with a few tweaks to your investment strategy, you’d drop everything and get on the phone to your broker, wouldn’t you? Or, if you knew that you had an 80% chance of avoiding a serious car accident by altering some of your driving habits, you’d make those changes, too, right? There are no guarantees in life, of course, but when it comes to your health, there are some powerful ways to swing the percentages in your favor.

The problem is that, until you experience these numbers personally—until it’s your life on the line and the changes are ones you have to make—odds and percentages are just numbers. Which means they are easy for busy people to ignore. For me, that changed the day, during a routine physical, that I learned high blood pressure was putting me at real risk for a stroke.
Yocasta Corona (above), a co-worker at Trinitas, is the Stroke Program Coordinator. She deals with life-and-death numbers all day and every one of them tells her something different. Is her favorite number 80? I’m beginning to believe that it is.

“Eighty percent of strokes,” she says, “can be prevented by actions that are 100% within our control. Those are amazingly good odds.”

Stroke awareness—specifically contributing factors such as being overweight, suffering from high blood pressure or having a family history of stroke—have come into sharp focus in recent years. Trinitas has played a critical role in the community education effort on how to recognize the signs of stroke and, perhaps more importantly, how to prevent them in the first place.
“Risk factors like age, sex and ethnicity are uncontrollable risk factors,” Corona points out. “And yet, as much as 80% of strokes can be prevented through lifestyle changes, including improved diet, increased exercise, smoking cessation, and less alcohol consumption.”

One in four people will suffer a stroke event in their lifetime, she adds, citing data from the American Stroke Association.

Blood pressure is the single most controllable contributor to strokes and is the fifth-leading cause of death in the U.S. each year. Managing blood pressure through diet, exercise, and, if necessary, medication can be especially critical for people who may not even realize they are at risk, like me!

After my high blood pressure reading, I decided to focus on supplementing for the vitamin B12 and D deficiencies that my bloodwork revealed. But it wasn’t long before my body sent me a less subtle warning sign: I was in my office and it was almost time to go home when I suddenly felt panicky for no apparent reason. Anxiety runs in my family, so I could have chosen to pass it off as a panic attack. But then, high blood pressure is also a trait many of my elders share. I wasn’t thinking about any of this. Instead, I began having a telepathic conversation with my husband, who was suddenly speaking rather loudly in my head, telling me to stop in to see the doctor before going home.

“I don’t feel well,” I reported to the RN in the employee health office. When she took my blood pressure, her eyes got wide: “Umm…it’s 200 over 95.”

Seconds later, she was marching me down the hall to see a doctor, who prescribed medication. Soon after that I saw a cardiologist and had a series of tests that cleared me of any immediate danger—so long as I take my medication, eat better and exercise.

I still wonder what might have happened had I assumed it was just a panic attack. What if I’d been driving and had a stroke?

Think Fast, Act F.A.S.T.

I think it is worth mentioning that the initial reason I had my BP checked was that another Trinitas staff member had suffered a stroke and I couldn’t stop thinking about her story of survival. Lemons, she insisted, may have made the difference between life and death.

She was washing lemons in her kitchen one afternoon and noticed she was having difficulty grasping them. Her son could tell something was wrong and when she tried to tell him she was fine—that he was overreacting—she was making only incoherent sounds. He wasted no time calling 9-1-1. By the time the paramedics arrived, her face had drooped on the right side, the same side as the hand that couldn’t grip the lemons. Their F.A.S.T. diagnosis confirmed it: She was having a stroke. She made it to the hospital in time, avoiding any serious long-term complications.
F.A.S.T. stands for Face, Arm, Speech, Time. When someone’s face droops, their arm weakens, and they start slurring their speech, it’s time to call 9-1-1.

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“Getting F.A.S.T. care can make the difference between recovery and disability,” Corona says. “Time is especially critical.”
Earlier this year, yet another staff member at Trinitas—in her early 50s with newly diagnosed hypertension —arrived at work with a bad headache. A co-worker noticed she was having difficulty speaking and knew right away something was off. She called for the Rapid Response Team to activate a Code Stroke. Quick care enabled the team to treat her effectively and aggressively, which led to a full recovery.

“She hadn’t had a chance to fill the prescription for blood pressure medication,” says Corona, noting that otherwise the stroke could have been averted. “In addition to her blood pressure, she was also a smoker with a family history of stroke. While that genetic component can’t be controlled, kicking the smoking habit, starting on medication, and taking steps like meditating to de-stress could have all dramatically decreased the odds that she’d be a stroke victim.”

Since my own hypertension diagnosis, I have worked to swing the odds in my favor by making important lifestyle changes. Although I never smoked and am not overweight, I recognize that I’m still at risk. I know my body, but I haven’t always listened carefully enough to what it was trying to tell me. Now I’m doubly conscientious about exercising and paying attention to the signals. I’m also doubly medicated, thanks to the 24-hour monitoring of my blood pressure that indicated numbers that were still too high, even with medication.
Do I consider myself a success story? Absolutely.

And I hope you start taking steps today to become one, too. EDGE

Editor’s Note: Trinitas is recognized as a Primary Stroke Center by the American Heart Association/ American Stroke Association.

History all too often snubbed women who were ready to do battle for recognition of their work. All the more reason, then, for their ever-advancing artistic fortitude. Contemporary women artists are standing their ground—even on the walls. Beverly McCutcheon’s mixed-media collages are sensual “Wallflowers,” as she ironically calls them. Who am I? What’s my name? What is my purpose? Questions leap to the fore of McCutcheon’s passionate style. Each of her portraits serves up a slice of the universal soul. And their truth keeps marching on.

Beverly McCutcheon, a staunch New Jerseyan of East Orange, synthesizes images of women, some floating in their unique environments, others meditating, striving for unmitigated beauty or simply to be seen and heard. A graduate of Fisk University in Tennessee who has studied with artists including Jonathan Talbot, David Driscoll, and Martin Puryear, McCutcheon has exhibited work throughout New Jersey, New York City, and in New Orleans. The mother of two, McCutcheon emanates a powerful force that lodges in human consciousness. So much of the human condition emerges in her complex paintings, sculptures and collages. You can hear incorrigible determination when she says, “I don’t even care if people think my work is good or bad. I’ve GOT to do it anyway!”
—Tova Navarra

The amount of work that goes into creating a realistic movie or television scene, a high-concept music video or a flawless fashion spread is absolutely staggering. The idea may start on a storyboard in Hollywood or on Madison Avenue, but when it comes time to execute, the rubber truly hits the road when the actual shoot begins. Zen Space in Passaic (did you ever dream you’d see those words sharing the same sentence?) is becoming a go-to choice for production companies thanks to the vision of Glenn Schuster, a longtime location scout and manager who transformed a gritty warehouse space on Brighton Avenue into 12,000 square feet of sunny, open loft space—and equipped it with all the extras that make film-crew location managers smile.

“I spent four years, on and off, looking for a wow-factor place that checked all the boxes someone in my business would be looking for,” Schuster says. “An inspiring physical space that’s easy to access, quiet but still close to New York, with parking and all of the amenities I knew a production crew used to working in hectic, stressful environments would appreciate.”

The space features soaring ceilings with hardwood floors and white brick walls, lots of interesting props and furniture and all of the little things (like steamers, wardrobe racks, hair/makeup and green rooms, tables and chairs, an espresso machine) that save time and money and reduce anxiety. The location is versatile, to say the least. That being said, there is plenty of urban grit available for cop shows and hip-hop videos. The projects shot at Zen Space recently include an episode of The Equalizer, starring Queen Latifah, a segment of Nightline, commercials ranging from Roomba to Hershey’s to Dillard’s, and a music video by Meek Mill, whose 20 million Instagram followers eyed his posts from Passaic.

“The Zen Space Studio name comes from the feeling of calmness you get when you walk in, where you know you can relax, and where we are able to say yes to almost anything a client wants,” explains Schuster, who lives nearby in Montclair. “In the short time we’ve been open, we have become an appealing option for everything from small commercial shoots to big-budget projects with A-list talent.”

For more photos visit ZenSpaceStudio.com.

A beginner’s guide to tutoring.

As a New Englander in a small southern liberal arts college, I was intrigued by the small but natural differences in the way my classmates spoke. It wasn’t just “y’all”—in addition to their inflections and accents, there were phrases that I’d never heard before, phrases that made total sense to my peers and none to me. Twenty years later, one of these phrases has stayed with me: when a grade came back in a class, instead of asking “What did you get?” my southern friends asked, “What did you make?”

As in, “What did you make on the Econ midterm?” I loved that. It’s easy to think of a grade as something a teacher “gives” to a student, instead of realizing that a grade, more than anything else, is a product of the student’s creation.

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After two decades as a classroom teacher, I can appreciate even more the symbolism of this phrase, and I make a point to tell my students this quick anecdote at the start of every school year. I think of this distinction often when parents ask me about arranging a tutor for their children. Both as a tutor myself (and as a classroom teacher whose students occasionally need additional help outside the classroom), I’ve come to realize that the best tutoring experiences occur when the student and parent understand that tutoring is not a Band-Aid. Instead, it’s an opportunity for a student to make themselves better, to change both in habit and philosophy. Tutoring is, to riff on the phrase, whatever the student is willing to make of it.

To clarify, there are a lot of kinds of tutors—tutors for academic remediation are the first that come to mind, but there are also tutors who work with students in lower-stakes situations. When a child is doing so well in school that their parents decide to supplement their education with additional support, tutoring becomes less stressful and more engaging—like a piano lesson for an accomplished musician or a training session for a skilled soccer player. There are tutors who help students in non-academic ways as well. (I was once hired by a parent to give “social-awareness” lessons to their child. We covered some basics like how to shake hands, how to look people in the eye, how to make polite conversation, how to write a thank-you note.) Like enrichment tutoring, the stakes are low in these situations. The flip side is a tutoring situation in which the stakes are very high and there is a specific, external goal in mind. Most often this occurs with tutors who specialize in preparing students for certain tests—the SAT, for example—and this kind of tutoring is more formulaic and has a clear end-goal.

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But tutoring when a student is having difficulty in school is the most common kind, and it can be fraught right from the beginning. One of the first questions I’m often asked by parents when their child is struggling in school is: “Do we need to hire a tutor?” Some parents ask this question with a lot of trepidation, as if the answer is a kind of loaded diagnosis. Others ask the question clearly hoping my answer is “yes,” because then at least they’ll have what looks like a way to fix a problem. But hiring a tutor to occupy a weekly hour of a student’s life doesn’t instantly solve an issue, and so the tutoring question is one I have to weigh carefully before I answer. Because tutoring works really well in some situations and not so well in others. Sure, a lot depends on the quality of the tutor—their knowledge and experience and expertise. But there are a number of other factors at play.

In a perfect world, parents don’t have to make this call on their own: their child’s school does the responsible thing: after observing the student for a few weeks and meeting with a team of professionals, the school administration recommends that the child receive some academic help outside of school. Maybe the school even has a team of tutors whom they recommend, seasoned educators who know what they’re doing. And maybe, after a handful of sessions over the course of a few weeks, whatever academic issue the child was having disappears. This is an ideal scenario, but unfortunately, it’s not how it often plays out. In fact, it’s a bit of a fantasy.

Instead, the decision to hire a tutor usually comes in response to pain. Parents see their child struggling at home and it hurts. There is nightly pushback and fighting and exasperation: tears at the kitchen table because they don’t understand how to do their homework, a crumpled test at the bottom of their bookbag. Maybe the child becomes secretive about their performance in school; when their peers talk about their marks on the Spanish quiz or their study plan for the upcoming Math exam, the child clams up. Parents turn to tutoring as a kind of last resort.

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I would hope it doesn’t get to that. Actually, I would hope that every parent would consider hiring a tutor for their child, even if they don’t think they “need to.” Too often, parents rely on non-academic extracurriculars to round out their child’s schedule. Instead of signing a child up for that third sport, why not have them work with an academic tutor who could take them beyond wherever they’re going in the classroom?

A tutor should commit to working with a child regularly, but I would avoid meeting more often than once a week. I have found that 45-minute sessions are best for middle-school and high-school-aged students; anything longer can be a drag. I’m happy to travel to students’ homes to work with them, but I do ask that there is a dedicated and semi-private workspace is made available. Parents certainly want to avoid having their child work with a tutor in the middle of the house, which, depending on the family, can seem like Grand Central Station. Though parents like to “listen in” during a tutoring session, I find that students are less willing to engage if they know that Mom or Dad is listening from the hallway.

There have been a few times when I’ve worked privately with groups of students, particularly when we’ve read the same novel and the session operates as a kind of book club. This can work if the children all know each other and are comfortable with speaking up in front of their peers. Certainly, students benefit from attending another academic experience that mimics a small-sized class. However, though this kind of tutoring can seem beneficial and less intense, I don’t see the individual growth in the participants that’s often found in one-on-one tutoring.

It helps to see tutoring as a temporary experience for a finite amount of time. Both for the tutor and the student, understanding that their work together is not going to last forever can add urgency and meaning to their sessions. If I know I’m only going to meet with a student six times, I can set what I want to accomplish in that time period, and the family has the opportunity to reassess after we’re done. I can focus on the skills that I’m trying to impart, and our sessions are more likely to stay focused on an end goal. One thing I refuse to do as a tutor is to become the homework police. If students are not intrinsically motivated to complete their work, their parents are the parties most effective in creating change—having a stranger’s encouragement doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. This can be difficult for parents who believe that hiring a tutor “takes it off [their] plate.” Above all else, tutors should never complete a student’s work for them. There’s a clear line between supporting a student and covering for them, and in my experience, parents don’t seem to mind crossing it. I even had a parent ask me to log in to their child’s college application portal and complete all the submissions for them, simply because their child refused to do it herself. Tutors should run away from situations like these, as I did.

Sometimes when I’m calculating grades at the end of a marking period, I notice that despite the two-dozen-or-so assessments over the course of a few months, a student will have almost the exact same average as they did in the previous marking period. The answer, of course, is that the student is the same person they were in the fall, and this is not always a bad thing. It’s hard to change. Expecting quick miracles, especially when children are involved, can be a waste of time. Instead, I’ve learned to look for small, incremental improvements; a student whose average goes from 84% to 88%. These are the kinds of changes that parents can expect from good tutors, given the correct circumstances. EDGE

Have you ever noticed how many BAD movies have the word GOOD in the title? That made us wonder… which films rank as the all-time BEST “good” movies?

The Good Earth 1937

Drought and famine push a Chinese farming family to the brink in the film version of Pearl S. Buck’s moving novel. Luise Rainer and Paul Muni portray their characters in heavy makeup, with Rainer winning an Oscar for her unforgettable work as O-Lan. MGM originally wanted to make the movie in China with an all-Chinese cast, but Chiang Kai-shek and his wife got involved in the negotiations and the studio ended up shooting everything in California, with a mix of Asian and American actors.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips 1939

Sam Wood directs Greer Garson and Robert Donat in the story of an English schoolteacher who recalls his tragic romance with a feisty suffragette and endures the horror of the First World War, which annihilates many of his former pupils. Garson charmed audiences on both sides of the ocean, while Donat gave a jaw-dropping performance that earned him an Oscar as Best Actor. Garson was also nominated but lost to Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlet O’Hara that year in Gone with the Wind.

In the Good Old Summertime 1949

Basically the musical version of You’ve Got Mail (and The Shop Around the Corner), this version is set in turn-of-the-century Chicago, with Judy Garland and Van Johnson playing anonymous pen pals who end up working side-by-side in a music store. Sharp-eyed movie buffs will spot a very old Buster Keaton and a very young Liza Minelli in this film.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966

A masterpiece of the Spaghetti Western era, Sergio Leone’s film followed two other successful Clint Eastwood flicks: A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Eastwood (aka The Man with No Name) plays the “Good,” Lee Van Cleef (a Jersey boy!) the “Bad” and Eli Wallach the “Ugly.” Ignored by critics at the time, it later made Time’s list of 100 Greatest Movies.

The Long Goodbye 1973

Elliott Gould stars as detective Philip Marlowe in the motion picture version of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 book, which was moved to 1970s Hollywood. Dan Blocker (TV’s Hoss) was supposed to play one of the leads, but died of a heart attack before filming started. He was replaced by New Jersey-born Sterling Hayden. Jim Bouton and Arnold Schwarzenegger also have small roles in this Robert Altman film. Gould’s acting style proved perfect for the updated version of Chandler’s iconic detective.

The Goodbye Girl 1977

Neil Simon’s romantic comedy was the first to surpass $100 million in ticket sales, thanks to flawless, relatable performances by Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss —playing two flawed entertainers struggling to relate. Simon is generous with his punchlines, which helps 10-year-old Quinn Cummings nearly steal the whole picture.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar 1977

Diane Keaton stars in the film adaptation of Judith Rossner’s sexual thriller, which was inspired by the murder of New Jersey schoolteacher Roseann Quinn. The movie is a lurid snapshot of nightclub life in the 1970s, but all these years later it is still Keaton who steals every scene in what many consider to be her best-ever performance. A trio of future stars—LeVar Burton, Tom Berenger and Richard Gere—got their first quality roles in this flick.

Good Morning, Vietnam 1987

Director Barry Levinson unleashes Robin Williams in one of the funniest movies of the 1980s. Improvising most of his scenes, Williams conveys the absurdity, pain and hypocrisy of America’s strategy in Southeast Asia as Adrian Cronauer, a wacky DJ assigned to the Armed Forces Radio operation in Saigon. Bruno Kirby, Forrest Whitaker, J.T. Walsh, Robert Wuhl and “Uncle Floyd” Vivino are brilliant in supporting roles, while Williams earned a Golden Globe for his unforgettable performance.

GoodFellas 1990

This Martin Scorcese mob epic follows Henry Hill’s rise and fall from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lots of New Jersey actors scored key roles, including Ray Liotta as Henry, Frank Vincent as Billy Batts and Joe Pesci, who absolutely hijacks the movie as Tommy DeVito. Nominated for six Oscars, with Pesci winning Best Supporting Actor.

A Few Good Men 1992

Jack Nicholson is sensational as keg-of-dynamite USMC Colonel Nathan Jessup, with Tom Cruise and Demi Moore playing JAG lawyers lighting his fuse. When Jack blows (“You can’t handle the truth!”) it makes for one of history’s most-quoted lines. Nicholson was nominated for a Supporting Actors Oscar in a movie featuring outstanding performances by Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Pollak, Noah Wylie, J.T. Walsh, Michael DeLorenzo and Christopher Guest.

As Good As It Gets 1997

Jack Nicholson plays a famous author with crippling OCD, who is teased out of his shell by a waitress (Helen Hunt), a neighbor (Greg Kinnear) and Verdell, the neighbor’s dog. The quirky, complex and unpredictable story was a huge hit, grossing more than $300 million worldwide, with Nicholson and Hunt winning Academy Awards and Kinnear earning a Best Supporting nomination.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 1997

Kevin Spacey and John Cusack make for an unlikely pairing in Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of the popular book by John Berendt about the seamy side of life in Savannah, Georgia. Jude Law is very good in one of his first big roles—and yes, that’s James Gandolfini playing a cook—while several real-life characters from the book portray themselves on-screen, including transgender performer Lady Chablis. The movie bombed at the box office but earned a devoted cult following.

Good Will Hunting 1997

The breakthrough movie for both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—who co-wrote and co-starred with Robin Williams—the story follows genius janitor Will Hunting as he comes to terms with his friends, his past and his future. Williams won a Best Supporting Oscar while 20-somethings Damon and Affleck took home statues for their screenplay.

Good Night, and Good Luck 2005

David Strathairn is brilliant as Edward R. Murrow holding the line against Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1953. George Clooney co-wrote and directed the moody, black-and-white film, which also features Patricia Clarkson, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels and Robert Downey, Jr—and a killer soundtrack recorded by Dianne Reeves. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actor, Director and Screenplay. EDGE

Tell me about Jan Levinson, the emotionally complicated sometimes-girlfriend of Michael Scott on The Office. How did you play that character without turning fans against her?

I love that you can see into all those layers. I don’t know that I was trying to walk that line you talk about, but to me, from the minute I said the first line as Jan Levinson I sensed she was very complex. Maybe it was just the lucky combination of the writing of Jan and me playing her.

You just finished your first day on the new season of Dancing with the Stars, didn’t you? How are you feeling?

I’m exhausted, but I feel great. It’s just go, go, go with this show. I haven’t had a day off in two weeks, so I’m like, Okay, so is that the pace? I guess so. Yeah, it’s intense.

How do you know you’re “good to go” when the music starts, as opposed to an acting role? Is it a different mental process?

It is. I had a big “Aha” moment the night before because it’s live television, which is really refreshing and different, something that we don’t get a lot these days. It’s similar to theater in that you have to be on—you have be ready to go when they say go, and you know you’re going to get one chance. With film and television, it’s different in the sense that you have to be ready to go…but you also know that you have time to finesse. Sometimes with film and television, you show up and run through it a couple of times, and it’s out of order, and you have to bring all of your skillsets to prepare your emotional self—where your character is in that moment in time and in the arc of the story and the arc of the evolution of the character.

Also, in television and film, you can really communicate so much through your eyes.

And you have lines, and sometimes you have songs. You have more than one scene to show people who the character is. Here, you have one moment. You have one chance. You have no lines. It’s in this giant universe of lights and explosions, and they’re barely on your face because they’re watching your body. It’s a much bigger, broader stroke that you have to make as a performer. That was a big realization to me.

Fans may remember you from your starring roles in the film Lambada and the TV series Dirty Dancing. I guess Dancing with the Stars was not your first tango.

I started acting professionally at six, and I’d started dancing at five. [When I was younger] I think I would have told you that acting and singing and songwriting were my hobbies, and that I was going to be a ballerina. In my little girl mind, that was what I thought I was going to do. I think Dancing with the Stars is this wonderful opportunity to reawaken my little girl fantasy and dream. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to being a ballerina.

Editor’s Note: This Q&A was conducted by Gerry Strauss. Gerry spent a little more time with Melora and they chatted about her roles on Transparent and The Bold Type, as well as her work as a director on an upcoming documentary based on her friend Paula Cole’s iconic song “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?”

EDGE takes you inside the area’s most creative kitchens.

Grain & Cane Bar and Table • Brisket Poutine

250 Connell Drive • BERKELEY HEIGHTS
(908) 897-1920 • grainandcane.com

A new twist on a classic, our Brisket Poutine is savory fall comfort food in its highest form. Our French fries are hand-cut daily and fried to order, smothered in gravy, topped with melted cheese curd, pickled chiles and brisket that simply melts in your mouth. This dish is ideal for sharing with the table.

— Chef Louis Bayla

The Thirsty Turtle • Pork Tenderloin Special

1-7 South Avenue W. • CRANFORD
(908) 324-4140 • thirstyturtle.com

Our food specials amaze! I work tirelessly to bring you the best weekly meat, fish and pasta specials. Follow us on social media to get all of the most current updates!

— Chef Rich Crisonio

The Thirsty Turtle • Brownie Sundae

186 Columbia Turnpike • FLORHAM PARK
(973) 845-6300 • thirstyturtle.com

Check out our awesome desserts brought to you by our committed staff. The variety amazes as does the taste!

— Chef Dennis Peralta

The Famished Frog • Mango Guac

18 Washington Street • MORRISTOWN
(973) 540-9601 • famishedfrog.com

Our refreshing Mango Guac is sure to bring the taste of the Southwest to Morristown.

— Chef Ken Raymond

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Pork Belly Bao Buns

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE
(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

Tender pork belly, hoisin sauce and pickled cucumber served on a Chinese bun.

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

272 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD
(973) 315-2049 • longhornsteakhouse.com

Join us for our “speedy affordable lunches” or dinner. We suggest you try our fresh, never frozen, 20 oz. bone-in Outlaw Ribeye—featuring juicy marbling that is perfectly seasoned and fire-grilled by our expert Grill Masters. Make sure to also try our amazing chicken and seafood dishes, as well.

— Ed Durina, Managing Partner

Ursino Steakhouse & Tavern • House Carved 16oz New York Strip Steak

1075 Morris Avenue • UNION
(908) 977-9699 • ursinosteakhouse.com

Be it a sizzling filet in the steakhouse or our signature burger in the tavern upstairs, Ursino is sure to please the most selective palates. Our carefully composed menus feature fresh, seasonal ingredients and reflect the passion we put into each and every meal we serve.

Welcome Back!
The restaurants featured in this section are open for business and are serving customers in compliance with state regulations. Many created special items ideal for take-out and delivery and have kept them on the menu—we encourage you to visit them online.
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