Dry Eye Syndrome is a growing problem in the United States. And no, there’s nothing fun about it.

By Caleb MacLean

What is it about tears that make them such fertile territory for songwriters? Think, for instance, about how many times you’ve heard the words Don’t Cry as song lyrics: The Four Seasons (“Big Girls Don’t Cry”), Melissa Manchester (“Don’t Cry Out Loud”), Guns n Roses (“Don’t Cry”) and of course the signature song from Evita (“Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”). The irony is that the inability to produce healthy tears can be a sign of a serious medical situation. Indeed, keratoconjunctivitis sicca—better known as Dry Eye Syndrome—affects millions of people each year. Based on data derived from the 2013 National Health & Wellness Survey, the percentage of Americans with dry eye could be as high as 6.8 percent—and the number of cases promises to increase steadily in the near future.

Dry eye syndrome can cause a number of symptoms, including but not limited to foreign body sensation (or a “sandy” feeling in the eyes), excessive tearing, burning, and redness. Blurred vision and eye fatigue can also be worsened with dry eye syndrome.

“The eyes can become dry when the quality or quantity of the tears fails to lubricate the eyes adequately,” explains Dr. Erica O’Lenick, an optometry specialist at the Santamaria Eye Center in Edison. “The tear film has three layers, all of which contribute to keeping the ocular surface healthy. With any disruption of a layer, the inflammation cycle that causes dry eye will begin in a chronic manner.”

Symptoms can be exacerbated by smoking, contact lens wear, heating, and air conditioning, and environmental or hormonal changes. The risk for dry eye syndrome increases with age, and is most prevalent in middle-aged women, adds Dr. O’Lenick.

According to Dr. Joel Confino of The Eye Care and Surgery Center in Westfield, until relatively recently dry eye syndrome was typically treated with artificial teardrops, often of the over-the-counter variety. “Now it’s become a more evolved specialty, with more high-tech solutions available, such as tiny ‘plugs’ to be gently inserted to prevent excessive drainage of much-needed tears,” he says.

Even more advanced solutions are on the horizon, Dr. Confino adds—one being the TrueTear, which was approved by the FDA about a year ago. The device is battery-operated and consists of two tips that are inserted into the upper nose to stimulate tear production. TrueTear will likely be used in conjunction with other treatment options to provide the most comprehensive relief.

Both doctors have noted a steady increase in dry eye cases over the past several years. One explanation is screen time. “Computer overuse is the most common cause of dry eye in young patients today,” says Dr. O’Lenick. “With changes in technology, many people are using their computers for approximately 10 hours or more daily. While on the computer, we often forget simple measures like blinking to continuously keep the eyes lubricated. Decreasing screen time and remembering to take breaks often to blink may help in preventing dry eye discomfort while working.”

Dry eye causes can be traced not only to the tear glands themselves but also to the oil glands in the eye. 

“In fact,” says Dr. Confino, “there are two types of tear glands—those that produce regular tears and those that are responsible to produce the tears that are a reaction to irritation, allergies, or emotions. Paradoxically, at times the dry eye condition will actually stimulate the overproduction of the latter type of tears.”

He says that issues where the oil glands become blocked can also be a factor since healthy eyes need a mix of sufficient tears and oil. This is called evaporative dry eye and it is often found with meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD)—which occurs when the glands that produce the oils for the tear film become clogged and no longer provide the necessary help for the tears to stick to the ocular surface.

When this occurs, the tears evaporate more quickly, causing the eyes to become dry. This is the most common kind of dry eye, points out Dr. O’Lenick, but not the only kind—which is why it is important to see an eye care physician to determine the type of dry eye that you may have.

Other types of dry eye syndrome include aqueous deficient dry eye, which occurs when the body does not produce enough tears. This can be the result of autoimmune diseases such as Sjogren’s syndrome, lupus, or rheumatoid arthritis. Taking certain medications like antihistamines or blood pressure medications may cause a decrease in tear production, too. Systemic diseases, such as diabetes or hypertension, may contribute to dry eye syndrome, as well.

According to Dr. O’Lenick, the treatments for dry eye depends on the cause and type of dryness. Warm compresses and eyelid scrubs are a conservative treatment that may allow the oil glands to better function with evaporative dry eye and MGD. Mild dry eye symptoms may be relieved with the aforementioned over-the-counter artificial tears and ointments. For moderate to severe symptoms, your physician may recommend a prescription eye drop or anti-inflammatory medication.

Patients may also benefit from the use of omega 3 fish oil vitamins to help decrease the inflammation that causes dry eye.

What’s the secret to good eye health? Dr. Confino recommends balancing good nutrition with getting enough rest and also treating the eye as if it were a muscle—“that is, exercising it and caring for it with the same respect as any large muscle in the body.” 

When is it time to see the doctor if you suspect you have some form of dry eye syndrome? As a rule, when symptoms such as tiredness, scratchiness, itchiness, and burning—often accompanied by redness, blurred vision, and sometimes even uncontrollable watering—becomes uncomfortable, but before they reach the point of being unbearable.

“Early detection and management of dry eye is key in preventing symptoms,” Dr. O’Lenick says

Joel Confino’s specialty is cataract surgery. He is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his Ophthalmology residency at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. 

Erica O’Lenick is a graduate of the Pennsylvania College of Optometry. She has experience in pediatric, binocular vision care, ocular disease, and anterior segment care.

Editor’s Note: According to the National Eye Institute, left untreated, dry eye can lead to scarring of the cornea. Some studies have suggested that around 70% of the elderly may suffer from dry eye at one time or another. The condition is especially prevalent in China, where a 2014 article in the Journal of Ophthalmology noted that 17% percent of the population exhibits symptoms.

Trinitas puts the science of “shut-eye” in play.

By Christine Gibbs

Can you recall the moment when you first heard the term sleep hygiene? For those of us who suffer from some form of sleep disorder, the concept couldn’t have come soon enough. From insomnia to sleep apnea, from snoring problems to nodding off at work (or behind the wheel!), the dream of a good night’s sleep is just that—a dream—for upwards of 50 million Americans. Indeed, so much attention has been placed on getting enough sleep in our stress-filled lives that Sleep Medicine is now a recognized medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis and therapy of sleep disorders. For the record, “sleep hygiene” refers to those practices, habits and routines that contribute to a sound sleep.

According to the American Sleep Association (ASA), nearly one in 10 adults in this country suffers from sleep apnea. Around half have a snoring problem. Two in five adults fall asleep during the day when they should be awake, with an alarmingly high 5% reporting that they do so while driving at least once a month. The ASA also attributes between 3% and 5% of obesity to sleep deprivation. Not surprisingly, insomnia tops the chart of sleep issues.

This would explain the growth of the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center at Trinitas, which began with a single bed in a single room. It has now expanded six-fold, with four in-hospital beds at the Elizabeth campus and two more located remotely at the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Cranford. The center is accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Dr. Vipin Garg, who has been the program’s director since 2004, focuses on ensuring that everything in the Trinitas Center is as conducive to comfort, personalization, and privacy as possible. This includes ensuite bathrooms, temperature control, TVs, books, and even “get acquainted” visits prior to the first session. He adds that some patients prefer the hotel ambiance to that of the hospital, finding it to be more relaxing and sleep-inducing, adding “we try to make the center less like a hospital and more like a hotel.” Regardless of the venue, the key for all patients, he says, is to relax beforehand.

SERIOUS BUSINESS

Dr. Garg emphasizes the potential seriousness of many underlying causes of sleep problems. “Some disorders such as sleep apnea and insomnia have high mortality rates,” he says. “Even individuals who go to bed late and get up late have a 10% higher mortality rate than average. And of course, sleep deprivation can have disastrous results in the workplace due to diminished cognition and judgment.”

Some of the issues treatable at the center include sleep apnea, insomnia, restless leg syndrome, snoring, and narcolepsy. No issue goes untreated, however, even the non-life threatening ones, such as oversleeping or teeth grinding.

“We are open 24–7, day and night,” he says. “In fact, sometimes we are as much a ‘wake-up’ center as a sleep center.”

Indeed, at times, the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center is so successful at inducing sleep that it becomes the only place where patients believe they can get a good night’s rest. In such cases, the patient has to be weaned off dependence on sessions at the center by analyzing the reasons for the preference and recommending reasonable changes to the home environment to make it more sleep-friendly.

The Sleep Disorders Center is equipped with all state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment to monitor heart, breathing and muscle activity, as well as specialized equipment such as the BiPAP machine, a non-invasive form of therapy for patients suffering from sleep apnea. Videos are an important tool in sleep analysis and are regularly reviewed with patients to help them understand the source of their sleeplessness.

Currently, a staff of 16 mans the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center, a 2:1 staff-to-patient ratio. Some are respiratory therapists and others are board-certified polysomnographers. One-on-one supervision is provided to accommodate special needs. On average, 30 patients are seen each week. Males with sleep apnea problems account for the majority; insomniacs are predominantly female. Annually, the center treats about 1,200 patients.

According to Nancy Gonzalez, Chief Technologist, the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center is especially proud of its care and support of young sleep-deprived patients. Pediatricians from the surrounding counties frequently refer patients to Trinitas for diagnosis and treatment. Children ranging in age from six months to their teens often present with physical disorders, such as enlarged tonsils/adenoids or sleep apnea. Patients with Down’s syndrome and ADHD have also been treated. In fact, in contrast to most adults, the center’s clinical case studies have revealed that children who are not getting enough sleep at night typically become overactive and agitated during the day, with the unfortunate result that many are misdiagnosed with ADHD.

Along with the very young, many seniors seek solutions at the center for their age-related sleep issues. In general, all patients at the center respond positively to the nurturing staff and comfortable environment. Perhaps the best testament to its reputation is that patients who were treated 10 or 15 years ago, but who suffer a relapse, have confidence enough to return for retreatment.

DOCTOR’S ORDERS 

“Sleep disorders of all kinds and of varying degrees are very curable and reversible,” Dr. Garg states. In fact, this positive prognosis was what attracted him to sleep medicine more than 15 years ago. He sums up the center’s treatment protocol as comparable to the recommendations of most healthy diet and exercise programs. Sleep aids are always reserved as a last resort—he indicates that many of the newest drugs are non-addictive and of significant therapeutic value when carefully prescribed and monitored by a physician. As to specific bedtime rituals and requisites, Dr. Garg offers the following suggestions:

• Leave enough time for 7 to 9 hours of sleep.
• Go to bed at the same hour each night.
• Avoid all caffeine or alcohol.
• Keep the room dark and noise-free without distractions such as TV, computer, etc.
• Be sure to visit the bathroom before going to bed.
• Try some deep breathing exercises (but no aerobic exertion for four hours prior to bedtime).

The goal for all patients is to analyze their sleep behavior in order to develop natural and restorative sleep patterns that will improve overall health and add quality to their personal lives.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

The American Sleep Association has issued the following guidelines for a healthy night’s sleep…

Adult • 7 to 9 hours

Teenager • 8 to 10 hours

Child (6 – 12) • 9 to 12 hours

Child (3 – 5) • 10 to 13 hours*

Child (1 – 2) • 11 to 14 hours*

Infant • 12 to 16 hours*

What’s the right amount of sleep for seniors? It all depends. 

* including nap

SENIOR SLEEPERS

Sleep recommendations for seniors are more difficult to generalize since aging often brings on more physical issues, such as restless leg syndrome, acid reflux, and bladder problems that can affect sleep patterns. It is a common misconception that seniors require less sleep; rather, ideal sleep needs remain relatively constant throughout adulthood (with some person-to-person adjustments). Older adults on the whole often have a harder time with their personal sleep architecture—i.e., falling asleep and/or staying asleep. The recommended amount of sleep for seniors, however, remains the same as for most adults: 7 to 9 hours, even when interrupted.

THESE DREAMS

Do dreams come into play in the analysis of sleep disorders? From a scientific perspective, dream content does not determine the quality of sleep —although it can affect the patient’s condition upon waking. Narcoleptics are among the most frequent “day dreamers.” Whether the dreams are sweet or nightmarish, the physical aspects of the sleep event are no different, even though the acting out behavior upon awakening can be dramatically different (for example when based on traumatic real-life events as with many PTSD cases).

Vipin Garg, MD

Director, Trinitas Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center

908.994.8880

Trinitas branches out to offer convenience and continuity of care.

By Caleb MacLean

If you’ve ever needed to get a simple referral for a special test or treatment, you know that often there is nothing simple about it. Much of the frustration one experiences as a patient in a typical medical practice stems from a lack of communication. In that regard, there is nothing “typical” about the Trinitas Medical Group, where communication, service, and follow-through define the patient experience.

The offices, located in Elizabeth and Clark, are owned by Trinitas, and the physicians and staff are employed by the medical center. In addition to primary care physicians, the Trinitas Medical Group encompasses a wide range of specialty care practices. For the consumer, that translates into a level of convenience that is difficult to find at traditional practices.

“Our primary care patients receive one-on-one personalized treatment and care,” says Nancy DiLiegro, VP of Clinical Operations and Physician Services. “You’re not a number here. Everyone knows you.”

“The sharing of information internally between the practices enables us to interface with the hospital and other services and care providers,” adds Frank Andreola, Director of the Trinitas Medical Group. “So all the paperwork is handled within the practices. If you need one of the ancillary services, we’ll make the call for you and arrange everything. Our staff will make all your appointments for whatever you need.”

Two doctors who have been an integral part of the Trinitas Physicians Practice team are Dr. Vasyl Pidkaminetskiy and Dr. Sergio Baerga. Both appreciate the value of expanding Trinitas’s healthcare services and network of medical professionals beyond the bounds of the flagship hospital in Elizabeth into local communities within Union County. Dr. Pidkaminetskiy (Dr. P to his patients and staff) has worked almost three years in the offices located in Clark, and he is pleased with this unique opportunity to be part of what he calls “a very special group of physicians.”

Dr. Pidkaminetskiy is especially impressed with the community-oriented approach of the practice, as well as the convenience of close contact with his colleagues to expedite immediate consultations and sharing of vital patient information. Patients similarly appreciate the wide range of medical services and treatments provided by Trinitas and the ease with which care can be both delivered and accessed at the various practice offices.

Everyone in the practice network, he adds, is focused on delivering the best possible care and inspiring the utmost patient confidence.

Dr. Baerga, a surgeon in the Clark office, echoed Dr. P’s sentiments, adding that “the wide variety of clients keeps me on my toes, keeps me thinking and keeps me challenged.”

Ask him how his patients feel about the practice and you’ll get a smile. “I hope they feel okay,” he says. “I think I would hear about it from them if they weren’t pleased about coming here!”

Dr. Baerga also says that he enjoys taking his time and not rushing his patients—something that is emphasized throughout the Medical Group: “I like to get to know them and to learn what’s happening in their lives.”

Jazmyn Thomas (pictured right), a current patient of the Medical Group, appreciated Dr. Baerga’s kindness before, during, and after having minor surgery. “He was very supportive,” said the Elizabeth resident. “I called him with questions every day, sometimes more than once, and he never made me feel like I was a bother. Even when he wasn’t in the office, he managed to get back to me right away. He made me feel a lot better about everything, especially because I had never had surgery before.”

According to Dr. Baerga, as a satellite to the main Trinitas campus, the location of the office in Clark offers the opportunity to meet other professionals in other communities, and to treat a wide variety of clientele— including many of whom speak Spanish. “In fact,” he says, “some days I get to practice so much of my Spanish that I have to remind myself to speak English when I get home.”

Dr. Sergio Baerga

The list of services includes general surgery, endocrinology, and hematology-oncology and surgery, gastroenterology, ear-nose-throat, breast health, medical oncology, hematology, and radiation oncology, OBGYN and urology.

The availability of doctors for appointments both in Clark and Elizabeth—as well as the availability of specialists— is something that surprises the group’s new patients.

“If your primary care physician wants you to go for a test or be evaluated by a specialist, we can get you in within a week, if not sooner,” says DiLiegro, who adds that another advantage that the Trinitas Medical Group offers is that it accepts any insurance the hospital does, and vice-versa.

“This is a jewel,” says DiLiegro. “We have quality, boardcertified physicians and a multilingual staff providing efficient and timely care in a very difficult landscape where, frankly, a lot of people with good insurance still can’t get to see a practitioner.” 

A TEAM EFFORT

The Trinitas Medical Group offers a large and growing staff of physicians and providers, including…

Dr. Nazima Abarova, OB/GYN

Dr. Abu Alam, OB/GYN

Traci Alves, NP

Dr. Sergio Baerga, General Surgery

Dr. Gerardo Capo, Oncology/Hematology

Symptom Management

Dr. Michelle A. Cholankeril, Medical Hematology/Oncology

Dr. Ari S. Eckman, Chief, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism

Dr. Clarissa Febles Henson, Chair, Radiation Oncology

Dr. Clyde T. Jacob, OB/GYN

Dr. Eddy Joseph, OB/GYN

Dr. Rachel Kaye, Otolaryngology/Surgery

Dr. Barry Levinson, Hematology/Oncology

Dr. Prakriti Merchant, Gastroenterology

Dr. Boris Pashkover, Otolaryngology/Surgery

Dr. Jack Perrone, OB/GYN

Dr. Vasyl Pidkaminetskiy, Internal Medicine

Dr. Mark Preston, OB/GYN

Dr. Vincent Salerno, Hematology/Oncology

Dr. Adriana Suarez-Ligon, General Surgery

Dr. Richard Tai, OB/GYN

Dr. Oscar Verzosa, Internal Medicine

Dr. Michael Viksjo, Gastroenterology

Midwives:

Carol Rose Trzaska, CNM

Shirley McDuffie, CNM

Chantal Berry, CNM

MaryBeth Weimer, CNM

Editor’s Note: For more information on the Trinitas Medical Group, visit TrinitasMedical.Group or call (732) 499-9160. The Clark Office is located at 67 Westfield Avenue.

And what a character he is. Kenneth Hari is a unique blend of master artist, sculptor, art historian, man-about-the world, and speeding comet. His work hangs in 350 museums worldwide (including the Vatican’s) and his portrait subjects read like a Who’s Who of cultural icons, including Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, Greta Garbo, Marcel Marceau, Helen Keller, James Earl Jones, Gene Kelly, Aaron Copeland, Lauren Bacall, Pablo Casals, Otto Preminger, Isaac Asimov and W.H. Auden, to whom Hari was like a godson. After a lifetime of travel, he now works out of his home in Hopelawn…where his wife, Xiaoyi Liu, cannot (and would not) quiet his talented hand.

Elie Wiesel, 24” x 30”, drawing

Twins, 20″x24″ drawing

Dustin Hoffman, 24″x30″ drawing

Jacqueline, 20″x24″ drawing

Sitarist Ravi Shankar, 24″x30″ drawing

Future Generations, 11″x14″ drawing

Concealment of Erotic Emotion, 24″x30″

James “Amazing” Randi, 24″x30″ drawing

Self-Portrait, age 14, 8″x10″ oil painting

Cynthia, 30″x40″ oil painting

Cynthia and Christopher, 11″x14″ drawing

Christopher, 11″x14″ drawing

Poet Marianne Moore, 20″x24″ drawing

Architect Buckminster Fuller, 24″x30″

Hari with The Pearl Earring, 24″x30″ oil painting

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Tova Navarra, author of the indispensable New Jersey Artists Through Time and the upcoming New Jersey Masters: A Legacy of Visual Arts, in which Kenneth Hari is featured. Hari was born in Perth Amboy, the original epicenter of American Art beginning with portraitist John Watson’s immigration from Scotland to the fledgling colony in 1715. Hari’s father was a drummer in a band, so the family moved frequently; in California he was a classmate of Dustin Hoffman’s and in Key West swam in Tennessee Williams’s pool. A graduate of the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, Hari earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and also worked and studied at Yale and NYU.

Yeah We grow ‘em strong in the Garden State.

By Christine Gibbs

Though it may not always look it, being a teenager these days is some hard work. True, the physical strain of socializing has been diminished by the advent of smartphones, and window-shopping can now be done online, but all that connectivity also means you are tethered to technology and accountable to your peers 24 hours a day. And while it’s never been easier to speak up and stand out, in some respects it’s never been more difficult. The virtual space is getting more and more crowded for young people who want to embrace activism or self-advocacy, and there is a seemingly limitless amount of video on the athletically and artistically talented. And yet, as we witnessed with March for Our Lives, the student-led demonstration in Washington this spring, the cream of the teenage crop always finds its way to the top.

New Jersey has a long history of “terrific teens”—in science, sports, the arts and, more and more, in politics and social movements. Here are 10 (well, technically, 11) we think are worth keeping an eye on…

Facebook

Ziad Ahmed

Ziad, an 18-year old Bangladeshi-American Muslim who is a self-described “activist, public speaker and college student,” hails from Princeton. In 2013, as a high-school freshman, he founded an anti-discrimination organization called Redefy, which defines its mission as “the belief that all hate stems from ignorance and that, through conversation and education, acceptance will prevail.” Ziad has attracted hundreds of students internationally to join the Redefy team. In 2017, he made headlines nationally when he was accepted at Stanford University by writing #BlackLivesMatter 100 times as his essay (although he ultimately chose to attend Yale, where he remains politically and culturally active). Ziad’s many credits include being named a 2017 Global Teen Leader and a High School Trailblazer by MTV, as well as being included among the Business Insider Top 15 Young Prodigies Changing the World. He is a Diana Award winner and a recipient of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations, and has appeared on NBC, BBC and Bloomberg Businessweek. Ziad has been a guest at the White House three times and was personally commended by Barack Obama for his commitment to improving race relations. 

Courtesy of Autumn de Forest

Autumn de Forest 

Autumn’s roots go deep into her hometown of Stone Harbor, beginning with her first exhibit at Ocean Galleries at age 10. Having spent more than half her young life in pursuit of her art, she has been called “one of the most important artists of her generation” by the Walt Disney Company and “a creative genius” by the Discovery Channel. Her imaginative style has often resulted in her being labeled as an abstract artist—prompting comparison of her work at an early age to masters such as Warhol, Pollock, and Picasso. Autumn made history two years ago as the youngest artist to be exhibited at the prestigious Butler Institute of American Art. Yet her work, which often commands commissions in the six figures, has the unique added dimension of reflecting her dedication to helping others through art. She supports numerous charities, including the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and This Bar Saves Lives (a gluten-free snack bar whose proceeds go to help feed hungry children). Her talent, coupled with her humanitarianism, brought her to the attention of the Vatican in 2016, where she was granted a private audience with Pope Francis—at which time she had the opportunity to present him with a special gift of a painting entitled Resurrection.

YouTube

Ethan and Grayson Dolan 

Known by their enthusiastic fans as The Dolan Twins, Ethan and Grayson are a comedy duo from Washington Township in Morris County. They catapulted into social media stardom and, two years ago at age 16, they surpassed 2 million followers on their YouTube channel— by posting video skits of their larger-than-life lives as teenage twins. Since then, Ethan and Grayson have accumulated more than 5 million followers on YouTube and 6 million on Twitter, and launched a nationwide variety-show tour. You can also catch them as correspondents on MTV. If you want to know what cutting-edge “content creators” look like in this day and age, search for TheDolanTwins on YouTube. 

Facebook

Alex Jackman 

August 2nd is World Autism Awareness Day, sponsored by the United Nations. No one is more worthy of recognition as a long-time advocate on behalf of those afflicted with autism than Alexandra Jackman. In 2014, as a freshman at Westfield High School, she wrote and directed the award-winning video, A Teen’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating with People with Autism, which won awards at film festivals throughout the country. In 2016, as a junior, Alex was honored with a Choice Changemaker Award and also a Point of Light Award for her volunteerism in orchestrating special events for teens with special needs. She is an ardent advocate whose mantra is “People are worth the effort!” Alex’s activism does not stop with autism; she also is involved in many anti-bullying campaigns and worked with the Autism Center at Montclair State University to create a curriculum to accompany her film before it was distributed to students internationally. She has authored articles for the Huffington Post among others and managed to find the time to serve as student body president. Alex also founded the Hang Out Club, which promotes inclusivity and embraces special needs students.

The Food Network

Linsey Lam

This past March, 13-year-old Linsey took home the$25,000 prize as the winner of Food Network’s Kid’s Baking Championship. Her appearance competing against a dozen other young chefs was the culmination of years binging on the network’s baking shows in her Closter home. Linsey’s favorite part of baking cakes is creative frosting. The bigger the cake, the better to show off her talents. The show’s dessert challenges—from dessert pizzas to desserts fit for an astronaut—brought out the best in Linsey over a 10-episode arc and made her hands-down the most impressive and creative kid baker in the country.

NBC/Chris Haston

Wé McDonald 

The Paterson teen placed third on NBC’s The Voice last season, attracting as a mentor Alicia Keys. In Wé’s appearances on the program, she entranced millions of viewers each week, rocketing her to the top of the iTunes charts multiple times. Although the experience was intimidating at times, Wé managed to hold her own despite being the youngest performer among the Final Four—and the only female of color (as she is quick to point out). Her rendition of Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama” has been viewed more than 3.5 million times on YouTube.

JRotondo1410

Sydney McLaughlin 

Sydney McLaughlin was cited by Time as one of its 30 Most Influential Teens of 2017. A hurdler and sprinter from Dunellen—who now competes for the University of Kentucky—she holds several world titles for her age group and was named Gatorade National Girls Athlete of the Year for both 2015–16 and 2016–17. As if these accolades were are not enough, Sydney placed third in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2016 United States Olympic Trials, qualifying for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio. There she became the youngest U.S. track and field Olympian since 1972 to reach the semifinals of the 400-meter hurdles

Courtesy of NYO Dancers

Brooke Rotondo 

Brooke is a dedicated performer who has earned high marks in the performing arts as a dancer, model and actress. Last year, at age 15, the Middletown North High School sophomore was selected as a back-up dancer for the Disney star Meredith O’Connor. As a member of the dance group, Brooke performed and modeled at New York Fashion Week, proudly wearing the “Warrior” collection designed by Janelle Funari. Brooke also was a special performing artist at the Carol Galvin Foundation Gala during Fashion Week. At 16, Brooke has been dancing for more than 12 years and excels at hip hop, tap, jazz, modern, and also performs in lyrical and musical theater. She is currently studying ballet with Not Your Ordinary Dancers in Middletown.

Michelle Sidor 

NorthJersey.com called Michelle “North Jersey’s most coveted athlete” as she started her junior year at Saddle River Day School last fall. A cat-quick sharpshooter who isn’t afraid to mix it up in the paint, she became the first Bergen County junior to reach the 2,000-point plateau. With her senior season still ahead, Michelle has already cracked the state’s all-time Top 10 scoring list. Look for her to make headlines in 2019–20 as the freshman star for a major college hoops program.

Rob Davidson

Matthew Whitaker 

Born blind, Matthew began playing piano at the age of three in 2004 on a small Yamaha keyboard in his Hackensack home. Six years later his status as a keyboard prodigy was confirmed when he won Amateur Night at the Apollo. At age 13, Matthew became the youngest talent to be endorsed by the Hammond Organ Company and, at 15, was honored by Yamaha as its youngest Yamaha Piano Artist. Matthew has already made concert appearances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center and The Youth Assembly at the United Nations. His international concerts have taken him to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Last year, at age 16, he performed on the organ at the 35th Annual McDonald’s Gospelfest at the Prudential Center in Newark. Of course, Matthew can still be found behind the organ of the New Hope Baptist Church in his hometown. 

Editor’s Note: Teen power is hardly a modern phenomenon in New Jersey. Trenton’s Edith Mae Savage-Jennings, who passed away last year at the age of 93, met First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and became her pen pal at age 10. Two years later, Edith joined the NAACP as its youngest member. She helped to integrate the Capital Theater in Trenton by refusing to sit in the “blacks-only” balcony when she was 13 and went on to work alongside Dr. Martin Luther King.

The FDA is wary of Vaping. Should you be, too?

By Erik Slagle

Would you knowingly inhale the chemical used to de-ice airplane wings? Or boil antifreeze and breathe in the vapors? Probably not. Yet that’s exactly what people are doing when they “vape.” To healthcare professionals, the greatest danger is the fact that a significant majority of vapers believe they have found a clean, healthy alternative to smoking cigarettes.

Can you blame them? As flavors go, Crème Brulée, Peach and Fruit Medley are infinitely more appealing than, say, nicotine, tar, and filters. That’s one-way makers of e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (aka ENDSs) are trying to convince the public that vaping is safe. Another is by omitting some key information, which could mislead the public and potentially create new smokers from people who would have never considered developing the habit in the first place—including millions of kids.

www.istockphoto.com

“When you pick up one of these devices, you need to be aware of what you’re inhaling into your lungs,” says Dr. Adam Rowen, a Pulmonary Medicine specialist and President of the Trinitas Medical Staff. “It’s an attractive flavoring, yes. But it’s also a combination of substances like nicotine and propylene glycol. We don’t yet know what might be the long-term effects of inhaling them.”

Dr. Rowen points to a recent report from the National Asthma Resource Center showing that vaping can introduce unsafe levels of lead, chromium, manganese, and nickel into the lungs due to the heating of a metal coil, which warms and helps aerosolize the liquid. In addition to the many detrimental health effects—including damage to the liver, immune systems, cardiovascular system, and even the brain—there may be a risk of developing cancer due to repeated exposure.

“Manufacturers may want us to believe that ENDSs don’t contain the volume of carcinogens that tobacco smoke produces,” he says. “But studies like the one by the Asthma Resource Center show these devices still introduce irritants into the airways, which causes coughing and many other bronchial issues.”

There are quite a few “known unknowns” in play here. Propylene glycol, for example, is safe to eat, according to the Food and Drug Administration. It is used as an additive in ice cream and frozen desserts and can be found in small amounts in liquid sweeteners, soda, and whipped dairy products. However, it’s also the primary ingredient in automobile antifreeze and the de-icing foam used on airplanes. Vapers pull atomized propylene glycol into their lungs with each puff.

The FDA has also weighed in on the marketing of e-cigarettes, Juuls, and similar devices as cigarette alternatives: They are not approved smoking cessation products. In point of fact, many ENDSs actually are categorized as tobacco products by the FDA. Patches, gums, and lozenges are still the only approved products that don’t require prescriptions.

For the uninitiated, Juul is just one brand of vaping device, while other brands are sometimes manufactured to look like everyday items, such as flash drives, lipstick tubes, and even flasks. They are easy to conceal and can be charged in a computer’s USB port.

THIN BLUE LINE

In several Union County towns, vaping has become a matter for the police. Detective Michael Dubitsky and Detective Sergeant Matthew Nazzaro of the Cranford Police Department’s Juvenile Bureau have made vaping a primary focus of their education and action initiatives. They host regular presentations for children and parents about the dangers of vaping and have immersed themselves in learning as much about the products and devices as possible. “A Juul starter pack,” Dubitsky explains, “including the device and liquid pods, contains the equivalent of 200 cigarette puffs per pod. That’s more than enough to form an addiction just from the starter pack.”

Dr. Rowen agrees: “These devices can act as gateway drugs to smoking actual tobacco products.” This ease of concealment and operation, combined with enticing flavors (and marketing tactics straight out of the 1950s and ‘60s tobacco-industry playbook), is creating what Nazzaro calls a shifting dynamic on what kids choose to put into their bodies.

“Vaping isn’t a fad,” he insists. “It’s creating a generation of kids addicted to another substance. We thought we were raising the generation that could end smoking, but vaping has created a whole other problem we need to combat.”

A recent study by MonitoringTheFuture.org shows that, while the rate of 8th graders who admitted to smoking cigarettes has dropped from 4.5% in 2014 to less than 2% today, 6.6% of today’s respondents say they’ve vaped. That number rises to 13% among high school sophomores, and one out of every six seniors says they’ve vaped at least once

Zack Martini, a recent high-school graduate from Springfield, saw it firsthand:

“My freshman year, few if any people had vaped. Over the last two to three years, though, I noticed a huge increase at my school. I don’t think people are doing it to be ‘cool’ either. Rather, they’ve become addicted to the high levels of nicotine.”

Detective Sergeant Nazzaro concurs.

“When kids are caught in school before three o’clock with a vape, it’s almost as if they can’t get from one period to another without vaping,” he says. “Nicotine is an addictive stimulant. At a certain point, kids start having heart palpitations because they’ve been vaping, and that’s a real danger.

www.istockphoto.com

LIKE BUTTER

Ever heard of Popcorn Lung? Sounds like something you get at the movies, right? It’s actually the nickname for bronchial obliterans, a condition that damages the smaller airways in the lungs and creates shortness of breath. One of the causes is exposure to diacetyl, a chemical used to give microwave popcorn its rich, buttery flavor. It was once thought to be perfectly safe, but not anymore. The condition was first identified in workers at a microwave popcorn factory. Diacetyl is one of the chemicals to which vapers are exposed.

Adam Rowen, MD

Pulmonary Medicine Specialist

Trinitas Regional Medical Center

(908) 289-7600

Editor’s Note: For more information on vaping, visit fda.gov/tobaccoproducts.

At Trinitas Regional Medical Center, you don’t have to. She’s already there.

By Yolanda Navarra Fleming

Belinda DeJesus, a Kenilworth resident who lost her private insurance and went on Medicaid before becoming pregnant, arrived at Trinitas in labor hoping for the best. Which, she says, is exactly what she got.

“I had no idea about the midwives until I got there,” she admits. “But I was very blessed to have such humble, down-to-earth, hardworking, kind, and caring midwives that made my delivery such a pleasant experience that I can’t imagine going elsewhere. It has become such a wondrous memory.”

Lekha Sreekumar, WHNP-C and Chantal Berry, CNM,
WHNP-C enjoy a moment with a newborn.

In the modern world, isn’t giving birth about making memories? If your goal is to experience childbirth with minimum medical invasion, and you’re healthy and free of any medical issues that would require a physician’s attention, the Trinitas team of seven midwives can help make that happen. The hospital is home to the second-longest running midwifery program in New Jersey. Each woman can experience her pregnancy and childbirth in a modern maternity unit with private labor/delivery/recovery rooms, and the most advanced medical technology available. A midwife is in charge of a mother-to-be’s care and labor management.

“On every shift, we have a doctor, a nurse/anesthetist, neonatologist or pediatrician, a resident and a midwife, and we work as a team,” says Carol Rose-Trzaska, OB/Gyn Certified Nurse Midwife, who began her training at Trinitas in 1991 and graduated the State University at Downstate in Brooklyn in 1992. “We have strong midwives here who have more years of healthcare experience than some of the doctors.”

After earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with a specialized graduate degree in Nurse Midwifery, midwives finish training with enough experience to deliver babies, and provide mothers with newborn care, breastfeeding guidance, and routine gynecological care. Shirley McDuffie, who has been a midwife for 25 years, was a Labor and Delivery nurse in 1981 before going back to school to become a Certified Nurse Midwife. Although she had just had her own baby—and new mothers were not considered good returning-student candidates—she defied the odds. Becoming a midwife was that important to her.

“It was that old way of thinking, that you can’t work and go to school and also be a mother,” she recalls. “I cried every day because I had to leave my son, but I finished school and don’t regret it.”

McDuffie’s story is a testament to the common thread of passion for the work of Trinitas midwives, as well as compassion and empathy for their patients. Shanaya Recalde, MSN, RN, CNM, began her career in 2009 and came to Trinitas this past January. It turned out to be an ideal career move.

“I have worked in other hospitals and I think there’s something special happening at Trinitas,” she explains. “The midwives here possess a wealth of knowledge and have been more than happy and willing to share their experiences with me. They have treated me like family. They are constantly seeking new opportunities to learn and grow. They are supportive of patients’ rights and encourage patient autonomy with birth plans and expectations. They are also a driving force behind the mission to help moms successfully breastfeed. There’s tremendous respect for the midwifery services here.”

Shanaya Recalde, CNM, WHNP-C with new mom and infant.

At the root of the team’s success is good communication, not just midwife-to-midwife but midwife-to-mom, too. A variety of languages are spoken in the Trinitas Labor & Delivery Unit. For instance, in addition to her 31 years of experience, Chantal Berry, CNM, WHNP-C—who began at Trinitas in 2013—is fluent in both Haitian Creole and English. Upwards of 40,000 Haitians reside in New Jersey, with the majority living within a half-hour of the hospital. Lekha Sreekumar, WHNP-C, an adjunct faculty member of the Trinitas School of Nursing since 2010 (and a nurse practitioner since 2013), brings 30 years of experience to her job, including the ability to speak Malayalam, Tamil and Arabic. Mothers for whom Polish is the first language can connect with Iwona Lewinski, CNM MS, who recently joined the midwifery team. Like Sreekumar, she has a healthcare résumé three decades long. Spanish translators are also available to patients at all times.

In all likelihood, expectant mothers will get to know more than one midwife from the team, particularly if they visit the Women’s Health Center at 65 Jefferson Avenue or in the OB/GYN office at 240 Williamson St. in Room 503, both in Elizabeth. There the midwives see patients from the beginning of their pregnancies through delivery, and into post-partum care.

“Midwives can prescribe medication, order treatments and tests for the well woman or pregnant patients,” says Rose-Trzaska, who blazed a trail with the first and only independent midwifery practice on Staten Island before coming to Trinitas in 2014. “When it comes to dealing with higher risk patients, we consult with the doctor.”

Dr. Jack Perrone, OB/GYN at Trinitas, counts on the midwives for their expertise and the collaborative efforts among all staff members of the Labor and Delivery Unit of the hospital.

“The midwives have for a long time collaborated with the OB/Gyn physicians to provide outstanding care for our patients,” he says. “The midwives provide our low-risk obstetrical care while the physicians concentrate on higher-risk patients. During a low-risk labor, the midwife will both manage and deliver the baby with the physician present as back-up if the need arises.”

That need occasionally involves the decision for a Caesarean section. Having a C-section is not typically part of a woman’s birthing plan, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. That being said, Trinitas was recently singled out for its low C-section rate (16.9%) by the New Jersey Department of Health and New Jersey Hospital Association. That recognition came as part of a statewide initiative to reduce unnecessary Caesarean sections for the well being of mothers and babies.

Once again, Dr. Perrone points out, it all comes down to communication—in this case, between the doctor and midwife.

“Which carries over to the patient, in avoiding a C-section birth unless medically necessary,” he says.

“Because our Midwifery Services are firmly in place, and have been for decades, our commitment to the natural birthing process is solid. There’s no question that a woman in labor will be able to honor her body’s own timetable and have every opportunity to enjoy her baby’s birth as a family event…without ever being rushed to the finish line for our convenience.” 

ONE MOTHER’S LAMENT

www.istockphoto.com

I still vividly remember becoming part of my couch while watching back-to-back birthing shows on TLC hoping to live vicariously through another pregnant woman who would accomplish my dream of a completely natural (aka no medical intervention) childbirth. Although I’d heard the pain involved would be like nothing else (meaning worse than) I’d ever experienced, I was more afraid of needles. According to the shows I watched, epidurals seemed par for the course, and I’d just have to wait the full nine months to test my own strength. It didn’t matter that the nurses at my hospital repeatedly offered anesthesia; I avoided it anyway—twice in fact, the second time occurring 22 months later with my second child. Still, I regret not having the guidance and nurturing of a midwife.

—Y.N.F.

Shirley McDuffie, CNM with newborn.

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A MIDWIFE?

The Certified Nurse Midwife is a professional care provider—a Registered Nurse (RN) who has graduated from one of more than 30 advanced education programs accredited by the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM). In addition, Certified Nurse Midwifes must pass a national certification examination and meet strict requirements set by state health agencies. Each of the Certified Nurse Midwifes at Trinitas meets and exceeds these requirements. Shirley McDuffie, CNM with newborn.

www.istockphoto.com

WHO’S IN THE ROOM?

Obstetricians and neonatologists are present at all times in the Trinitas Labor & Delivery Unit. The scope of collaboration is determined by a mutually agreed upon plan between the midwife and obstetrician. Even if a physician must assume a lead role in the care of a mother-to-be, the midwife may continue to participate in her physical care, guidance, teaching and support.

THE TEAM

Chantal Berry, CNM, WHNP-C

Shirley McDuffie, CNM

Shanaya Recalde, CNM, WHNP-C

Carol Rose Trzaska, CNM.MS

Lekha Sreekumar, WHNP-C

Marybeth Weimer, CNM

Iwona Lewinski, CNM MS

They provide:

• Comprehensive gynecologic care, including annual well-woman physical and pelvic exams
• Education and counseling in nutrition, exercise, physiological and emotional changes, and sexuality
• Breastfeeding assistance and encouragement
• Assistance in developing a personalized birth plan
• Prenatal care
• Labor support and management

Editor’s Note: To set up an initial screening appointment, call either of the following locations:

Trinitas Physician Practice, OB/GYN

240 Williamson Street

Suite 503

Elizabeth, New Jersey

Monday thru Friday (9 to 4:30)

(908) 282–2000

Women’s Health Center

65 Jefferson Avenue

Elizabeth, New Jersey

Monday thru Thursday (9 to 5)

(908) 994-5500

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

Paragon Tap & Table • Beef Ramen

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

As we constantly introduce new flavors from around the world to our customers at Paragon Tap and Table we have added an Asian inspired Noodle Dish with a touch of the south. Our beef ramen noodle showcases all the characteristics of a traditional ramen but twisted with the smokiness of the smoked beef brisket.

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Wasabi Crusted Filet Mignon

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

We prepare a crusted 8-ounce filet mignon served with gingered spinach, shitake mushrooms, and a tempura onion ring.

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

This original dish has been our signature appetizer for over 20 years. Crispy seasoned sushi rice topped with homemade spicy mayo, marinated tuna, finely chopped onion, scallion, masago caviar, and ginger. Our customers always come back wanting more.

— Chef Momo

The Barge • Cioppino

201 Front Street • PERTH AMBOY

(732) 442-3000 • thebarge.com

Our Cioppino, the signature dish of San Francisco, features a fresh, healthy selection of clams, mussels, shrimp, Maine lobster and Jersey scallops—drizzled in Greek virgin olive oil, with fresh garlic and white wine—over homemade Italian linguini. I know it will become one of your favorite dishes.

— Alex Vosinas Chef/Owner

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • Warm Goat Cheese Salad

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

The warm goat cheese salad with tender greens and a mulled cabernet dressing and toasted pine nuts is a signature appetizer at Luciano’s, where fresh ingredients and personable service in a beautiful Tuscan décor create a fine dining experience. Our menus are seasonally influenced to feature the best of what’s available in the market.

— Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

Morris Tap & Grill • The Monster Burger

500 Route 10 West • RANDOLPH

(973) 891-1776 • morristapandgrill.com

As the leader in the gastropub world in New Jersey, Morris Tap and Grill has been providing creative, quality, fresh certified burgers for over 6 years. Here’s an example of what we do creatively with our burgers, The Monster Burger. Two certified angus beef burgers topped with chorizo sausage, slaw, bacon, cheddar cheese, and a fried egg!

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Garden Grille • Grilled Chicken Paillard

304 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 232-5300 • hgispringfield.hgi.com

Grilled chicken paillard with roasted corn, asparagus, cauliflower, baby arugula and grape tomato, extra virgin olive oil & aged balsamic.

— Chef Sean Cznadel

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

272 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 315-2049 • longhornsteakhouse.com

LongHorn Steakhouse has opened in Springfield, and we are looking forward to meeting all of our future guests! When you visit us, we suggest you try our fresh, never frozen, 18 oz. bone-in Outlaw Ribeye—featuring juicy marbling that is perfectly seasoned and fire-grilled by our expert Grill Masters.

— Anthony Levy, Managing Partner

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 467-9095 • outback.com/locations/nj/springfield

This is the entire staff’s favorite, guests rave about. Bone-in and extra marbled for maximum tenderness, juicy and savory. Seasoned and wood-fired grilled over oak.

— Duff Regan, Managing Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

Hot-out-of-the-oven, crab, avocado and cream cheese rolled up and topped with a mild spicy scallop salad.

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.

Do you own a local restaurant and want to know how your BEST DISH could be featured in our Chef Recommends restaurant guide?

Call us at 908.994.5138

More than ever, home is where the science is.

By Mark Stewart

The construction industry consumes more natural resources than any other industry in the United States. Domestically, it will generate over $1.2 trillion in 2018. The homebuilding sector this year will produce 1.2 million units—more than double the number in 2009, during the depths of the financial crisis. Worldwide, construction projects make up nearly 15 percent of human GDP. Over the next decade, builders will be focused on catching up to the demand for rental housing, with anticipated funding from government sources, while pulling back from retail projects as online shopping continues to eat into brick-and-mortar profits.

That’s a lot to absorb. So much so, in fact, that the facts and figures of the homebuilding industry have tended to obscure the quiet revolution that has been taking place— particularly at the higher end of the market—where a generation of scientific innovation is beginning to bear fruit for the rest of us humble homeowners. Over the next few years, breakthroughs in construction materials and techniques will trickle into the wider market and change the game for architects, builders, and consumers in exciting new ways. And save us all a lot of money.

Folks in the cement industry, for instance, will tell you that modern composites can now be engineered to have strengths rivaling steel and durability that, theoretically, could last for centuries—but which also can be fabricated to look like stone or other natural materials. These products are not only going to impact home exteriors, but are already showing up in interior concrete products, such as walls, floors and kitchen counters.

UNBREAKABLE

One of the more interesting developments in the science of cement is the elusive goal of creating a fracture-proof product. At some point, the weight a cement structure is asked to bear just overwhelms it and it begins to crack. (FYI, every building material has its “breaking point,” including steel). The primary challenge for ensuring fracture resistance is the structure of cement, in which everything in the mix sticks to everything else. That sounds good, but a structural engineer will tell you it’s not. It’s disorganized.

Last December, a team of German biomimeticists announced in Science Advances that they had found a way to reorganize the structure of cement to create fracture resistance at the “nano” level. Biomimetics is a branch of science that is unfamiliar to most of us; it studies and then “mimics” natural phenomenon in ways that can be employed in technical developments. In this case, researchers noticed something curious about sea urchin spines, which are made of an extremely brittle material called calcite. As anyone who’s had a barefoot encounter with a sea urchin knows, their spines are anything but fragile. So what’s going on, and how is that relevant to construction? The urchin’s secret is hidden at the molecular level, where nature has optimized the strength and durability of the spine material by layering it in a highly ordered way, with some molecules serving as a binding agent between the layers. Seashells and bones, the German team also found, often include this intriguing structure, which has evolved over hundreds of millions of years.

The outcome of their initial experiments would be astonishing to anyone who works in construction. The biomimetic cement they developed had a strength measured at 200 megapascals. Steel comes in at 250 megapascals. Care to guess what the number is for cement used in most home building projects? Five.

BYE-BYE BRICKS?

Perhaps one day in the near future, traditional brick-and-mortar may no longer be a thing. But the look of brick and mortar—at many times its strength and a fraction of its cost—is likely to be with us for a long time to come. Right now, in fact, an entirely new generation of insulating bricks has come online. The products offer the appearance of brick but are much thicker, with open spaces filled with insulating material (including polystyrene and perlite). They offer varying degrees of thermal conductivity and also have more construction strength than regular bricks. They essentially replace the insulation that needs to be blown or inserted into interior walls.

Earlier this year, EMPA (the Swiss federal science and technology lab) announced an entirely new material for insulating bricks: Aerogel. If this sounds like something you’d be more likely to find in a running shoe, well, you’re right. Aerogel is an ultra-light porous material that replaces the liquid one typically finds in a gel with a gas. Scientists call it “Frozen Smoke.” It’s actually been around since the 1930s, and recently was incorporated into another homebuilding material, insulating plaster, which has become popular among people renovating historic homes.

Used inside insulating brick, Aerogel’s insulating properties proved to be three times better than perlite bricks and eight times better than regular bricks. In other words, to achieve the same protection against heat and cold as you would using a foot of “Aero-bricks” you’d need to have an eight-foot-thick brick wall. The science is simple: 90% of Aerogel is comprised of stationary nano-bubbles, which prevent the transfer of energy through the movement of air molecules. As an added bonus, the material absorbs almost no moisture, is recyclable and non-combustible. Wow.

But wait. If you’re calling your contractor right now, put down the phone. Aerogel is hideously expensive in homebuilding quantities and won’t be available in insulating bricks for several more years. However, as with all good science, there are already folks working to up production, increase the economy of scale, and bring this product to market as rapidly as possible.

TRYING ON A ONE-PIECE

If a brick home seems too ordinary, you might want to make a little side trip on your next visit to San Francisco. Just outside the city, overlooking the Bay is America’s first composite house. The unique, ultramodern design was fabricated in nine layered fiberglass pieces that simply could not be built using traditional methods and materials. Manufactured by Kreysler & Associates, a leading-edge architectural composite company in California, the curved, two-story residence has been raising eyebrows and winning awards since it was completed in 2010. Company owner Bill Kreysler took on the project to demonstrate how composites could be mainstreamed into architectural design and construction.

The architects had initially designed a home that referenced the spectacular natural and geographic setting of the property and then spent a year trying to find a home builder who could handle it. No one was able to achieve their vision with traditional materials, so they turned to Kreysler. He scanned the small 1:30 3D model the architects had created and fed the data into a computer program that spit out a mathematical representation of the structure, which was then scaled up 30 times. Technically, the entire shell of the house could have been manufactured in a single piece and helicoptered into place. However, Kreysler could not obtain the permits required to fly it in (how cool would that have been?), so the home was split into nine pieces and trucked to the site—where it was bolted onto the foundation and then covered in a stucco material.

ALL THE HOME THAT’S FIT TO PRINT

What else is on the homebuilding horizon? Hold on to your hat. We’ve been following the progress of 3D printing in this magazine for many years, though primarily for its applications in the medical and lifestyle areas. Enter the wiz kids at MIT. In 2017, they announced that they were developing a system that would enable builders to 3D print the fundamental structure of an entire house faster and cheaper than traditional construction materials.

Think about that for a moment. Every home created this way would be a custom home, only without the custom price. Not only would it enable homebuilders (and homeowners) to achieve an architect’s creative vision down to the tiniest detail, it would create the potential to design homes that would conform to a home site, rather than vice versa.

Unconstrained by the rules of engineering that currently restrict how homes are constructed using standard methods and materials, a 3D printed home could open the door to entirely new kinds of living spaces. And these homes would go up fast. Indeed, a prototype of the system completed a 12-foot domed structure with a 50- foot diameter in just over 12 hours. It was made of foam-insulated concrete and conformed to all of the local building codes. The printer’s prototype, mounted on a tracked vehicle, employed a precision-motion industrial robotic arm, which controlled a construction nozzle (similar to the ones that spray insulation). Unlike traditional 3D printers, where the nozzle is locked into a set structure, the MIT printer was unencumbered and could print anything, anywhere.

That means a home could be constructed to address its specific environment. For instance, walls could have varying degrees of insulation or thickness based on which direction (e.g. north or south) they faced, or be tapered or curved to perform in windy environments. Wiring and plumbing could be pre-inserted into the forms the printer creates. Complex shapes and overhangs that would simply be too costly or too difficult to create with traditional building methods, could be produced from various materials with the push of a button. In a paper published in Science Robotics, the researchers pointed out that the construction industry hasn’t changed in hundreds of years: “Buildings are rectilinear, mostly built from single materials, put together with saws and nails.” Obviously, the scientific community is aiming to change this narrative.

The MIT crew is already working on a new design that will enable the machine to do basic site preparation before the printing begins. In other words, it will be self-sufficient. The result is that homes and buildings created with a 3D printer will be faster, less expensive and safer to produce  And they could conceivably be built anywhere…from Antarctica to the moon to Mars.

CONCRETE IDEAS

What are the concrete folks doing to keep up with their cement brethren? First, let’s understand the difference. Cement is a gray, flour-like powder made of multiple minerals that mixes with water to trigger a chemical process causing it to harden. It is a construction material as opposed to concrete, which is best thought of as a masonry material. Concrete uses cement to bind crushed rocks and stones with sand. The production of concrete, it’s worth noting, releases a huge amount of carbon into the air, which is not good for the environment

Just this past April, researchers in England announced that they had found a way to use graphene to make concrete stronger, more durable and, most importantly, greener. Graphene is a form of carbon notable for its single layer of carbon atoms, which is arranged in a hexagonal lattice pattern. It is almost transparent, yet it is also considered the strongest material in the world. Interestingly, it conducts electricity and can also be levitated by magnets. (Area 51 are you listening?)

Like the Germans with their sea urchin cement, the Brits nano-engineered this breakthrough. Engineers created a technique for introducing graphene atoms into the mix in a way that is low-cost and compatible with large-scale manufacturing that already exists. Which means we could be seeing this concrete product sooner than later. The benefits will hopefully outlast us all. Initial testing showed that the new graphene-reinforced mixture is twice as strong and four times as water-resistant compared to current products. It also reduces the amount of carbon-belching materials used in the production of concrete by about half.

GET SMART

Interested in cutting-edge home tools and accessories? Well, the future is now. These two products transform your smartphone into a next-level “power” tool

Bluetooth Padlock

Download the app and turn your smartphone into a digital key. Available at

masterlock.com.

Heat Seeking Camera

Identify insulating and wiring trouble spots with a camera that plugs into your smartphone. Available at flir.com.

Back in grade school, you learned about New Jersey’s most famous inventions, from Edison’s light bulb and Stevens’ steam locomotive to DuPont’s Teflon and Parker Brothers’ Monopoly board game. Here are a few that probably didn’t make it into your textbook…

SKINS GAME

Band-Aids • New Brunswick

The horrors of World War I heightened America’s appreciation for the importance of sterile wound care. In 1921, Johnson & Johnson debuted Band-Aids, which incorporated an absorbent pad with an adhesive strip. By the mid-1920s, the company marketed them in the familiar tin box. J&J has sold over 100 billion Band-Aids since then. The original idea belonged to one of the company’s cotton buyers, Earle Dickinson. His young wife was plagued by cuts and burns in the kitchen, so Earle simply combined two existing Johnson & Johnson products—sterile gauze and surgical tape—with a removable sheet of protective tape.

FORE THOUGHT

Golf Tee • Maplewood

Methods for raising a golf ball off the ground are as old as the sport itself, but it was not until 1922 that the familiar wooden tee was mass-produced by Dr. William Lowell, a Maplewood dentist. Popularized by top golfers including Walter Hagen, the Reddy Tee (it was stained red) became the industry standard by the end of the decade. Invention of the wooden tee is sometimes credited to a Harvard professor, George Franklin Grant, but he carved them for personal use and never thought of bringing them to market.

GOT MILK?

Bosco • Camden

Bosco chocolate syrup was invented by a Camden pharmacist. The William S. Scull Company, makers of Boscul brand coffee, acquired the rights to the formula in 1928 and called the product Bosco. It was advertised in the 1930s and 1940s as a “milk amplifier.” Bosco was aggressively marketed on television in the 1950s and 1960s and was a major rival of Nestle’s Quik chocolate powder. The color and consistency of the syrup also made it a popular choice for movie blood. Bosco, in fact, was used in the shower scene in Psycho. The Bosco Products company is still located in New Jersey, in Towaco.

NOTORIOUS RGB

Color TV • Camden

On February 5, 1940, at the RCA plant in New Jersey, a group of FCC officials witnessed the first “modern” color television broadcast. Prior to this demonstration, color transmission had to be sent on three different frequencies—one for red, one for green and one for blue—then recombined on the receiving end, which was notoriously difficult. The RCA breakthrough was to simply reverse the process used to separate the colors in the TV camera. Of course, it was anything but simple. It would be another decade before the first color broadcasts were made, by CBS in New York, using its one and only color camera.

SWEET SCIENCE

M&M’s • Newark

Forrest Mars, heir to the Mars candy fortune, was not one to sit still. An entrepreneur and adventurer, he noted during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s that soldiers were gobbling down Smarties, little English chocolates coated with sugar to prevent them from melting. In 1941, Mars received a patent for his own version of the confection and went into production in a factory in the Clinton Hill section of Newark. The M’s in M&M stand for Mars and Murrie; Bruce Murrie, heir to the Hershey’s company, had a 20% stake in the business. Hershey controlled the nation’s chocolate supply during World War II. Today, the company makes more than 2 billion M&M’s each week.

POP CULTURE

Bubble Wrap • Hawthorne

Did you know that bubble wrap started as a decorating product? In 1957, a couple of Passaic County inventors— Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes—were attempting to make 3D wallpaper by creating sheets of trapped air. The idea never caught on, but Fielding realized they had come up with a next-generation packing material and, in 1960, he founded the Sealed Air Corporation. The company trademarked the name Bubble Wrap and, in 2015, announced that it planned to offer a “nonpoppable” version—creating an uproar among its millions of devotees.

BARRIER BREAKER

Antitheft Tag • Livingston

In 1987, Dr. Phillip Anderson, president of Identitech, used amorphous metal made by partner company Allied Signal to create the article surveillance system based on large plastic “tags” that were clamped on to garments and other retail items. The metal strip within the plastic tags vibrated when it passed between magnetic sensors positioned at store exits. Anderson went on to teach Physics at Ramapo College. He retired with over 100 international patents for security devices using amorphous metals.

“The hay-smoked duck that brings art to the science of the senses comes with a silky puree of eggplant and a dab of jammy fig.”

By Andy Clurfeld

OSTERIA RADICI

4 South Main Street, Allentown

Phone: (609) 223.2395 • www.osteriaradici.com

All major credit cards accepted. BYOB. Open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday. Two five-course tasting menus each at $84 per person; a la carte options offered. Reservations accepted.

The leg of duck looks lightly lacquered as if it might crack if I spear it with a fork and prompt a popping sound that would snap me to attention if I weren’t already sitting high on my seat. I’m on alert because the smoky aroma isn’t the beach bonfire kind I’m used to, but something of the field. Is burning waves of grain possible? I can’t wait any longer to figure it out; I dig in.

The duck, hay-smoked as it turns out, tastes like a cross between a confit from Southern France and a subtle version of a spit-roasted bird from China. It doesn’t have that totally melting mouth-feel of confit, nor is there a tinge of stickiness from something cloying. It’s pure duck, cunningly gamey, irresistibly tender and beguilingly layered, infused with the flavor of fire at all levels. It challenges every sense.

It’s the way Randy Forrester cooks, and the result is an intimate, highly personal, provocative cuisine that only can be found at Osteria Radici, the 24-seat restaurant he and his wife, Ally, own and run in one of New Jersey’s smallest burgs, Allentown. Mark it as the capital for instinctive, individualized cooking on your culinary map

all photos courtesy of Osteria Radici

Osteria Radici, ostensibly, is Italian. Regional Italian, to be sure, with menus that change constantly, are tweaked daily and always reflect what’s happening on the Garden State’s farms and in the waters off its shores. For Forrester, that’s not the only jump-off point when he works in the kitchen. The Forresters travel, they read, they forge relationships with food artisans. The chef has cooked in celebrated big-city restaurants alongside big-name personalities, but he’s his own man in this storefront, doing food his way. Forrester, and Radici, remind me of Marc Vetri when the James Beard Award winner was first cooking at Vetri in Philadelphia.

The hay-smoked duck that brings art to the science of the senses comes with a silky puree of eggplant and a dab of jammy fig, which take turns doing a two-step with the star of the show. Follow it with Chinese long lamb sausage and topped with nonna-style ricotta salata, and you’re rolling. Keep it going with malloreddus, a kind of ridged gnocchi Forrester makes from semolina, as in its native Sardinia, and tosses with pork cheeks, shreds of green cabbage and nuggets of mushroom. The dish is inexplicably, delightfully juicy; it practically washes itself down.

Forrester can do stately and elegant, too. Veal loin, thickly sliced, roasted till rosy and stacked on a potage of corn flecked with kernels, is given a couple scoops of aged gorgonzola, whose sharpness bites into tender, dense meat and tames the sweet corn. It’s a genius combination, these three elements I can’t remember ever eating together. By the time I’m onto the olive oil semifreddo with its plush peanut zabaglione and clever pretzel crumble, I also can’t remember feeling slighted that it took me till age 64 to have veal and corn and gorgonzola as an ensemble.

All that, the duck-and-eggplant, beans-and-lamb, pasta- and-pork, veal-and-corn, and semifreddo-zabaglione, is one of Randy Forrester’s new tasting menus; it’s the “Dalla Terre,” the meat menu. There’s also a “Dal Mare,” a seafood-focused menu. You need to do both.

While doubtlessly Forrester’s menus will have evolved, you may this fall be lucky enough to catch the chef taking liberties with New Jersey’s best-anywhere sea scallops by seducing the sultry-sweet hunks with something that resembles a relish— only his is made of the yellow squash variety called gold bar. There’s a tinge of heat from chilies and a swoon from just the right herb, opal basil.

Forrester’s octopus transcends the cephalopod’s continued trendiness. He chars it, then tosses it with red grapes, fried capers and fennel pollen to make a kind of stew that tastes at turns sprightly and fresh and cuddly and warming. That’s some feat.

I may be most charmed, though, by Forrester’s pastas. He tends to focus on just a few ingredients, and coaxes out of them a world of flavor. He winds white anchovies and peperonata through strands of spaghetti, then punctuates the dish with specks of parsley. Nothing is out of balance: There’s not a too-salty, too-sweet, tooanything note about the dish that’s a tribute to the red, white and green in every way. Speaking of speck, the spiced cure of this particular pork proves an intriguing accent to the rich flesh of cobia, which is served on a petite ragout of chicory and green onions. Seeping out from under this splendid dish is a broth worth bottling.

This fish menu is capped by a peach custard that’s as light and frothy as a soufflé and harbors hints of sweet vermouth; it’s finished with finely grated almond. Now that’s how you end a seafood dinner.

You can, if you wish, pick and choose from what’s listed on the two fixed-price menus and order a la carte; all perdish prices are printed on the menu. But don’t do that; at least not your first time at Osteria Radici. 

Randy Forrester has a masterful understanding of all things culinary and is that rare chef who can fuse science with art and make it all taste so, so good. His tasting menus are symphonic, and they flow perfectly. Eat, and learn. And remember you were there at the beginning of a career that will do Allentown, and New Jersey, very proud.

WHO ARE THESE TWO?

Is Randy Forrester the best chef you’ve not yet heard of? Well, if you’re tuned into the James Beard Awards circuit, you likely are aware that little Osteria Radici in Allentown was on the national list of nominees for Outstanding New Restaurant this past year. A 24-seat BYOB from a teeny town in New Jersey usually isn’t a contender for this award. But Osteria Radici, which opened in October 2017, only a few months before the Beard nominees were announced, already had attracted the attention of the culinary cognoscente – and chefs.

Randy and Ally, who grew up in Central Jersey, first met and became friends while students at the Peddie School in Hightstown. They went off to college (she, Wellesley; he, Boston) and, after reconnecting, began dreaming of creating their own restaurant. In the meantime, Randy amassed serious kitchen credentials, working with Scott Conant at L’Empero and Fabio Trabocchi at Fiamma, and, closer to home, The Ryland Inn and Harvest Moon Inn. They chose Allentown to both stay close to family in the Hopewell Valley and to farmers and artisans they’d grown to admire.

Today, Ally is a teacher by day, while Randy does it all from scratch at the restaurant. Both work the five evenings a week—Tuesday through Saturday—that Osteria Radici is open for dinner. They travel widely; last March, for example, during Ally’s school vacation, they went to Umbria with their daughter Giada, now 2. Giada, by the way, already speaks Italian—taught by her father, who speaks it (and cooks it) fluently.

During the 20th Century, if a good idea needed great thinking to be elevated to culture-changing status, the engineers and scientists at Bell Labs in New Jersey were the folks you wanted on the case. The collection of intellectual and creative talent the company assembled in its various Garden State locations was unmatched anyplace at any time, before or since. Their work was documented in decades of press photos… which are now highly prized by collectors around the world.

Physics Mechanic • Whippany • 1952
although the vibration machine seems
perfectly still to the naked eye, the bouncing
ping-pong balls prove otherwise.

Reception Area
Holmdel • 1965

Exterior • Holmdel • 1965
The Bell Labs building in Holmdel was designed by Eero Saarinen and
constructed in 1962. It was recently “re-imagined” as Bell Works by its new
owner. in 2017, the complex was added to
the National Register of Historic Places.

Satellite Dishes • Holmdel • 1960
The dish on the left communicated directly with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California through an Echo I satellite. The odd-looking “horn reflector” dish on the right was due to be mothballed until,
four years later, it detected evidence of the “Big Bang”
for the first time.

Research Library Holmdel • 1967

First Two-Way Radiophone Conversation South Plainfield • 1929
Two Bell Labs engineers recreate the first two-way conversation between an aircraft and the ground at Hadley Field. Prior to this breakthrough, communication was only possible from the ground up. The engineers held an ongoing conversation with guests at a dinner party.

Mountain Avenue Bus • Summit • 1950
Old-time Union County residents will recognize this bus, which carried workers to and from Bell Labs’ Murray Hill headquarters. It followed a route
similar to current-day #986. Bell Labs constructed the building in 1941.

Robert W. Wilson & Arno Penzias Holmdel • 1982
The co-discoverers of the Big Bang are shown in front of the old microwave antenna they used to make their breakthrough in 1964. Wilson (left) and Penzias (right) shared the
Nobel Prize in physics in 1978.

Conference Room Murray Hill • 1967

Cordless Telephone Holmdel • 1967

Bell Labs Engineers Test New Camera Murray Hill • 1972
Bell Labs introduced the first solid-state color television camera in the early 1970s, replacing the large, cumbersome cameras used in the 1960s. The new technology replaced the vacuum tube and electron beam scanning system with three
tiny image sensors.

The press photos depicted in this edition of local talent were collected by Upper Case Editorial Service. They were originally issued for promotional and informational purposes by Bell Laboratories, Bell Telephone Laboratories, uPi Telephoto, STR, Underwood and Under, NEA and iPs.

The landscape of education in New Jersey is changing to keep pace with the future. 

By Porter Van Dien

Too much? Too soon? A generation ago, many parents voiced concern over the introduction of science and engineering concepts to early education curricula. Now, a generation later, they practically demand it. The acronym that has burrowed its way into the vernacular is STEAM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. It’s not that there are schools out there not teaching these subjects; the STEAM concept refers to an interdisciplinary approach to their instruction.

If you are wondering what happened to STEM, that was STEAM before someone pointed out that folding in the arts might foster the kind of creativity that would make STEM kids more innovative and competitive. It’s kind of a left-brain, right-brain thing, which has generated a fair amount of debate. More on this later (see sidebar).

Wherever you stand on STEM vs. STEAM—as an educator, a parent or prospective employer—the goal is basically the same: The development of worker skills that better meet the demands of the 21st century. These skills go beyond a deeper knowledge of math and science. They include critical thinking, communication and problem-solving. All are essential to success, whether a job is science-related or not. From a top-down standpoint, the focus of STEAM education is to prepare young people to solve real-world problems and implement (or even create) new technologies.

The key part of that last sentence is real-world.

There is a growing acceptance of the fact that our children will be inheriting a planet that is suffering from overpopulation, dwindling resources, food stress, social inequality and poor environmental stewardship. Throw in climate change, if you like. You might quibble with one or two of those challenges (they are, arguably, somewhat endemic to humanity) but the fact is that the next couple of generations are going to face some really complex problems that, hopefully, our kids and grandkids will be able to understand and solve.

That begins with knowing how to ask the right questions, which is a big part of STEAM. One reason the A is in there is that the arts enhance a young person’s powers of observation and understanding of others; most problems are “people problems” on some level, after all. Whether you are just reading the room or attempting to absorb a new culture, you need to work your way through other humans to land at a quality solution. We all have had coworkers who lacked this ability—no matter how brilliant they were, their people skills usually undermined their brilliance. The S in STEAM is equally critical when it comes to formulating the right questions. a thinker who asks questions like a scientist will get to an answer that opens up a broad range of possible solutions. Throw in the T, E and M and that creative thinker will naturally employ what he or she has learned about technology, math and engineering to design, test and construct a great solution.

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Regardless of what you feel qualifies as a STEM- or STEAM-related career, the number of jobs in this category here in the U.S. is likely to rise by 20% or more when the current crop of elementary-school kids hits age 30. That number translates to tens of millions of new, challenging jobs and is second only to healthcare-related careers (which are not entirely unrelated). In fact, relatively few jobs in the 2030s will be unrelated to STEAM. Already, more than half the jobs occupied by “graduates” of STEAM programs are different than the ones they had originally envisioned. Indeed, not everyone can be a software developer, nor should they be. But a working knowledge of coding and web design can take young workers places they never thought of going. Someone who thinks like a scientist or engineer may find fulfillment in a job outside of science or engineering. In other words, STEAM is a mindset—or, if you prefer, a skillset—that encompasses the broadest possible range of job opportunities, as well as entrepreneurship and a spirit of enterprise.

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So where are we in New Jersey on STEM and STEAM? The New Jersey Education Association is behind these programs. All students benefit from them, it states, because they teach independent innovation and allow students to explore greater depth of all of the subjects by utilizing the skills learned. The NJEA has a Technology Committee, which studies the impact of technology on educational programs and reviews technology curricula proposals and initiatives for appropriateness. The committee also makes recommendations for funding related to equipment, personnel, programs and training. Its overarching goal is to ensure that every student in the state achieves a degree of technological literacy.

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The NJEA promotes a number of apps that support a STEAM approach to instruction, including Screencastify and Build with Chrome—both generated by Google—and EDPuzzle, which enables teachers to create lessons by importing videos from anywhere on the Internet and then inserting their own voices to ask students questions SketchUp helps students engage in 3D modeling for building projects, while Scratch functions as a coding tutorial that also encourages students to think creatively and work collaboratively. As for the addition of the arts to make STEM into STEAM, the NJEA created a Soaring with STEAM program, which emphasizes hands-on, cross-curricular learning that is focused on strengthening subjects in high demand for future careers. 

Niche.com, a web site that issues report cards on U.S. schools, recently ranked New Jersey’s top STEM schools. No fewer than 66 received an A+, with the top-ranked school High Tech High in Lincroft. The #7 ranked school is the Union County Magnet High School in Scotch Plains, which Niche.com also ranked the #3 public high school in the state.

Each school, of course, coordinates its STEM/STEAM program differently. The idea, however, is the same—to harness the strengths of the faculty and encourage students to develop critical thinking across the various disciplines. At the early grade-school level, it mostly involves building projects, some of which can be surprisingly complex. Ask a first- or second-grade teacher and they will tell you that their kids are up to whatever the challenge is. Research strongly suggests that kids this age will put a surprising amount of time, effort and thought into projects if they believe it will make them smarter. This is confirmed by children in lower school classrooms through the state on a daily basis.

A STEAM education program can start as soon as children enter a school. That’s the case at The Academy of Our Lady of Peace in New Providence, a PreK through 8 school where each year’s curriculum builds on the ones before it. Jaclyn Church, who teaches middle schoolers at The Academy, appreciates this philosophy, which relies on communication between the teachers.

“We discuss topics and how they can be brought into other subjects,” she explains. “When I have the 7th grade create a zoo to apply different information, the technology teacher has them create websites for their zoo. As I was teaching the 6th grade about space, the language arts teacher read a book on the subject matter and we both worked with the students when they created a space suit as a culmination of both subjects. With communication, a little planning and some flexibility, cross-curricular education can happen pretty easily and can greatly enrich the students’ education.”

“Having started this process at three years old,” Church adds, “we ensure our students are ready to grow these skills. They receive a solid foundation that allows them to succeed in high school and beyond.”

In terms of STEM/STEAM proficiency in high school, the rubber has already met the road by the time students enter 6th, 7th and 8th grades. A study done by Microsoft among college students in STEM-related majors revealed that 4 in 5 had been engaged in STEAM or STEAM programs by the time they reached high school.

One of the goals of STEAM programs is to attract more young women into careers in the tech and science sectors by engaging them early. The earlier the better, in fact. Michael Bernard, Ph.D. chairs the Science Department at Benedictine Academy, an all-girls high school in Elizabeth. He estimates that only around 10 to 15 percent of incoming freshmen are inclined toward the sciences, adding that they tend to stand out from the outset. Dr. Bernard works closely with the art teacher to create cross-curricular interest in anatomy.

“It is incredibly helpful for art students to understand and be familiar with anatomy and musculature to accurately depict subjects in their art pieces,” he says. “Anatomy is open to juniors so that a suitable portfolio might be created in time for college application. Additionally, each quarter of the year requires Biology and Anatomy students to produce a poster project outlining a science problem that needs solving. Two-thirds of the grade for these projects is based on artistry and creativity.”

One of the results of this fusion is that Benedictine is adding a class in Comparative Anatomy, which was initiated by a committee of students that petitioned the principal for more advanced classwork in Anatomy and Physiology. Any teacher will tell you that type of request is one of the big payoffs for an educator. The best, though, is when a science course changes a student’s trajectory.

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“What happened this past year is why I, as a teacher, truly love my job,” explains Dr. Bernard. “One student in Biology was not faring very well—passing, but not by much. Then we started the unit on Genetics and everything changed. For this young lady, homework was a breeze, class participation skyrocketed, and grades went from last place to first. She made a connection with the material, and that made all the difference. Now she wants to be a genetic counselor. Who knew?” Jaclyn Church also has had students explore the medical field because they enjoyed learning about the body systems at The Academy of Our Lady of Peace.

“I also have several who have gone into engineering programs because they liked designing, creating, and working to solve problems, as the students do in our Science and STEM fair.”

Although the goals of STEM/STEAM programs are similar, they are anything but cookie-cutter. How they are designed and what they are called can vary greatly from school to school, both public and private. At Gill St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone, STEAM morphs into STREAMS from grades 4 through 6: sustainability, technology, research, engineering, agriculture, math, and service. “It extends traditional coursework in science with fieldwork that utilizes the natural resources of our campus, explains Irene Mortensen, Director of Studies. “The STREAMS curriculum is ideal for students in this age group, as it encourages them to apply science and engineering skills, as well as classroom learning, in a hands-on, dynamic outdoor environment. The program is designed to foster problem-solving and design thinking. As students move through the program, they apply the field scientist skills and integral research skills practiced in previous years of STREAMS, to complete more comprehensive, interdisciplinary capstone projects.”

Gill St. Bernard’s takes children from pre-k through high school graduation, enabling the faculty to build 14 years worth of science, math and technology skills in the students, immersing them in experiential, in-depth projects that incorporate STEM components, critical and design thinking, along with research. Experiences and coursework vary for students, adds Mortensen, which allows for a personalized profile to take shape for each student.

“Collaboration among teachers is key,” she says, echoing what educators from both private and public schools across the state maintain is the crucial building block to vibrant STEM/STEAM curricula.

Many schools in New Jersey, in an effort to supercharge curricula, have reached out to other schools for ideas on how to beef up their STEM/STEAM offerings. For the most part, schools are willing to compare notes and share ideas, even with “competitors,” notes Jayne Geiger, longtime Head of School at Far Hills Country Day and now at the Rumson Country Day School. She assembled a group of teachers, board trustees and administrators (herself included) to visit other schools in New Jersey with progressive STEM/STEAM programs.

“What we found was that the ‘materials’ for a STEM program at RCDS were actually right in line with these other schools—in some cases a bit ahead—and had been for some time,” she says. “The components of a great STEM/STEAM program already existed in ‘pockets’ that just needed to talk to one another a bit more to become fully integrated. We didn’t have a label for what we were doing. Now we do—and teachers are excited to make these cross-curricular connections”

RCDS had already constructed a state-of-the-art building on campus in 2010 to house science classrooms and labs, along with a fine arts studio, a new library and collaborative meeting spaces. In other words, the physical space already existed. More New Jersey schools have followed suit. Just last year, the Morristown–Beard School cut the ribbon on a 25,000 sq. ft. Math and Science Building, featuring interconnected, interdisciplinary teaching spaces.

“Being physically closer promotes discussion among the teachers and generates meaningful opportunities for students to engage in interdisciplinary risk-taking in a cutting-edge facility,” explains Headmaster Peter J. Caldwell.

The building, he adds, also has its own art gallery. And soon MBS will open a Center for Innovation & Design, where students can collaborate and engage with one another and with faculty to incubate and develop new ideas and products. Students will analyze challenges, deconstruct them, think creatively, tinker, forward new and unconventional ideas, and vet them with their peers.

“If we can do this well, our students’ experience in the Center for Innovation & Design will be organic and will be relevant to the world in which they live and work,” says Darren Burns, head of Morristown–Beard’s Upper School. “I envision their projects as being a way to set themselves apart and get a jump on life beyond MBS.”

Not every school can afford a STEAM building, of course. But one of the consequences (or upsides, if you will) of the increasing focus on these curricula is a new approach to classroom design. Schools dipping into their renovation budgets are now exploring how to create spaces that will encourage students to think and investigate, as well as work in teams. Obviously, certain subjects have specific requirements in terms of layout and equipment. There is a big difference between the must-haves in a chemistry classroom and a robotics lab. In general though, a STEAM-friendly classroom should be flexible and adaptable, where kids can work and plan in close quarters but also be loud and exuberant. In many cases, schools are exploring the three-room concept: a traditional lab space, a traditional classroom and a spacious commons area. These rooms are typically easily accessible to one another, and also offer access to the outdoors (which may come with potential security concerns).

That being said, no matter how cool it is to see a kid’s new tech-friendly classroom, not every parent is all-in with the commitment to a STEM education. There are some children who demonstrate, early on, interests and talents far afield from science, technology, engineering and math. So what if your young one falls into this category? Should he or she still be pushed through these curricula?

The benefits of this type of learning will absolutely pay dividends down the road, says Stephen DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions, a company specializing in innovative applications of artificial intelligence.

“Educating students in STEM subjects, if taught correctly, prepares students for life, regardless of the profession they choose to follow,” he told educators recently at the University of San Diego. “Those subjects teach students how to think critically and how to solve problems—skills that can be used throughout life to help them get through tough times and take advantage of opportunities whenever they appear.”

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Is the A in STEAM really necessary?

A comfort level with technology is certainly an asset for someone who pursues a career in the arts. But is an artistic mind an asset to someone whose future lies in science and technology? Engineers who “wing it” are generally not considered to be assets, but creative thinkers are.

However, a creative mind can’t really be created through STEAM or any other process. You either have it, or you don’t—and if you do, it will find a way to come through. For this reason, there are arts-oriented people who actually oppose the addition of the A in STEAM. They believe that force-feeding an artistic child science, math and engineering may blunt his or her creativity.

Proponents of “the A” point out that, in the broadest terms, the arts develop parts of the brain and personality that give workers an edge in planning and innovation, design and ergonomics, and the ability to engage and communicate with co-workers. The best engineers, they point out, are inherently creative. So why not foster quality from the start?

PUTTING THE ‘S’ IN STEAM

In most educational settings, the S in STEAM/STEM— Science—takes something of a lead role in the implementation of cross-curricular programs. And for good reason: Science is as much a process of thinking as it is a subject. “It’s something that you can incorporate into a lot of different classes,” says Yveslaine Gadzi, who teaches science at the Chatham Day School. For instance, Chatham 6th graders made their own biodome last year, while the 8th graders created a forensic science project with its own crime scene. These involved myriad aspects of technology, math, design, and writing.

“We ensure that all of our students know how to incorporate different problem-solving skills into their work and think progressively,” she explains. “The departments work well together to make sure that kids are taking a ‘STEM approach’ into their classes. They are very well prepared for high school when they leave here.”

Gadzi has taught internationally and in New Jersey public high schools. Over the last decade she confirms that schools have continued to sharpen their focus on STEM/STEAM programs—“that’s true for both public and private…across the board.

What happens when the scientific method goes off the rails?

By Luke Sacher

The fine line between genius and madness, it turns out, isn’t so fine at all. Over the last decade a number of studies have linked people with a high degree of intelligence and creativity to a gene variant associated with psychosis, depression and other mental disorders. That certainly explains a lot. But does it account for the 20th century’s most infamous “mad” scientists? Indeed, can their cruel, misguided scientific experiments and theories be attributed to diseased minds…or was there something else in play? The eight Mad Scientists in these pages do have a few things in common. For example, they all rocketed to the top of their fields as young men (one, in fact, was a rocket scientist). Additionally, each was held in great esteem by his colleagues—some until the bitter end. Alas, each took that fateful first step down the rabbit hole and, in some cases, never came back.

Exactly where and why they went wrong is anyone’s guess. As for their life’s work, however…well, it leaves little to the imagination. 

Upper Case Editorial

Monkey See, Monkey Don’t

Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov

Biologist • 1870–1932

The Good: In the early 1900s, Ivanov—a professor at Kharkov University in current-day Ukraine—perfected artificial insemination for horse breeding. This enabled one stallion to safely and successfully fertilize hundreds of mares, and was hailed as a sensation at the time. Ivanov became a leading light among Eastern European scientists, even as Communism enveloped his home country of Russia. He went on to study the science of hybridization, producing a zebra-donkey, bison-cow and various combinations of rodents and rabbits.

The Mad: During the 1920s, dictator Joseph Stalin became intrigued with a paper Ivanov had presented in the pre-Soviet era at the World Congress of Zoologists, which suggested that humans and primates might one day be hybridized. Stalin ordered Ivanov to start working on a “humanzee” super warrior: “I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.” Ivanov and his son traveled to West Africa, to see if this was actually possible. The experiment was a failure.

The Ugly: The problem, concluded the Ivanovs, was that they probably had it all backwards. So in 1929, they decided to reverse the process. With the backing of the Soviet Society for Materialist Biologists, they found five Russian women who volunteered to participate in this insane plan. In a final, bizarre twist, the experiment was shut down thanks to pressure from the Ku Klux Klan, which caught wind of the deal before the genetic material could be shipped across the Atlantic. An enraged Stalin concluded that Ivanov was a counter-revolutionary and sentenced him to five years in a Kazakhstan gulag in 1930. Ivanov died there of a stroke in 1932. His obituary was penned by behavioral scientist Ivan Pavlov, of “Pavlov’s Dog” fame.

A Long, Strange Trip

Sidney Gottlieb

Chemist • 1918–1999

The Good: Gottlieb, who received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Cal Tech, had the pedigree of a can-do problem solver. A stutterer from childhood, he went on to earn a master’s degree in Speech Therapy. Born with a club foot and declared 4F during World War II, he nonetheless had a lifelong passion for folk dancing. In 1951, Gottlieb, anxious to serve his country, joined the CIA as leader of the agency’s Technical Services Staff.

The Mad: Two years later, CIA director Allen Dulles appointed Gottlieb to supervise its MKULTRA mind control program, which focused on the application of LSD and psychiatric research to develop “techniques that would crush the human psyche to the point that it would admit anything.” One operation of the program involved dropping doses of LSD into unwitting people’s drinks and observing the effects. Gottlieb and his team mostly targeted prostitutes, drug addicts, petty criminals, prisoners, vagrants and the mentally ill as guinea pigs.

The Ugly: Under Gottlieb’s direction, MKULTRA also ran tests on paid volunteers—including a group of seven who were given LSD for 77 consecutive days. They also spiked the drinks of fellow CIA agents, just for laughs. Gottlieb also supervised the engineering of clandestine lethal poisons and delivery technologies (earning him the nicknames Black Sorcerer and Dirty Trickster). He was the man behind the plots to kill Fidel Castro with a poisoned fountain pen, wetsuit and cigar, as well as an exploding conch shell. Gottlieb retired from the CIA in 1972 and was awarded a Distinguished Intelligence Medal for his two-plus decades of service. In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered almost all records pertaining to MKULTRA to be destroyed.

Russian Academy of Medical Sciences

Fetch Me Another Subject

Sergei Brukhonenko

Biomedical Scientist • 1890–1960

The Good: In 1926, Brukhonenko invented the world’s first practical (albeit crude) heart-lung machine. The Autojektor, developed at the USSR’s Research Institute of Experimental Surgery, paved the way for the first open heart operation performed behind the Iron Curtain, in 1957. He was posthumously awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize, the Soviet equivalent of the Nobel, in 1960.

The Mad: Heart-lung machines sustain life artificially. Ergo, the only logical way to test and prove one is by hooking it up to something alive. In 1939, Brukhonenko conducted a series of experiments on dogs, which were documented in the film Experiments in the Revival of Organisms. You can Google the video, but be warned: It is not dog- or doglover friendly. Brukhonenko removed various body parts and vital organs, and was able to keep his test subjects alive and functioning for hours. Brukhonenko kept pushing the envelope, killing a dog by draining all the blood from its body—and then reviving it by pumping the blood back in. The effect of this procedure on brain function was not measured, although any junior-high science student can make an educated guess as to the outcome.

The Ugly: Brukhonenko’s work was hailed as revolutionary by his supporters; his detractors painted him as a dog-torturing Dr. Frankenstein. Keep in mind that the USSR did not place a high value on human life during the rule of Joseph Stalin—and that the Soviets definitely did not build things to sit idle. Which makes a display at Russia’s Museum of Cardiovascular Surgery especially disquieting. It’s a 1930s Autojektor…designed specifically for humans.

Los Angeles Times

Big Bang

Jack Parsons • Rocket

Scientist • 1914–1952

The Good: On the surface, one could easily envision Jack Parsons—a brilliant young researcher at Cal Tech— as a real-life version of the character played by Jim Parsons on The Big Bang Theory. He went on to co-found the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Aerojet Engineering in Pasadena, and developed the first practical JATO (jet assisted takeoff) engines for the Army Air Corps during World War II.

The Mad: There, the similarity to Sheldon Cooper ends. By night, Parsons practiced black magic. He was convinced that “magical sex energies” were every bit as legitimate a scientific field as the ones he was busy pioneering by day. His mentor was none other than legendary crackpot Aleister Crowley, who created Thelema, a pseudo-Satanic quasi-religion. He was also pals with L. Ron Hubbard. The military contracts with JPL made Parsons a rich man. He purchased a mansion (dubbed The Parsonage), which welcomed witches and warlocks, and hosted science fiction writers, poets and Manhattan Project scientists.

The Ugly: By the late-1940s, The Parsonage had become ground zero for hedonism in Southern California (which is saying something). There were orgies in coffins and attempts to summon sex goddesses from the great beyond, as well as a number of other activities that cannot be printed in this magazine. We know this because the FBI was keeping a close eye on Parsons, suspecting that he might become a threat to national security. And, in fact, his security clearance was eventually rescinded. Parsons kept busy after that as a consultant and pyrotechnician to the movie industry. In 1952, while working with volatile chemicals in his home laboratory, he blew himself up.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Harry Harlow

Behavioral Psychologist • 1905–1981

The Good: Harlow sought the scientific answer to one of the most unscientific existential questions: What is this thing called Love? He based his research on the hypothesis that there’s no stronger bond of love than that between a mother and her child. You may remember from high-school science class Harlow’s studies on rhesus monkey mothers and babies, which he used as models for human beings to obtain objective quantitative data on the nature and agency of love itself. On paper, it was a noble ambition.

The Mad: In practice, it was anything but. Using the scientific method of deduction, Harlow constructed a group of devices engineered to isolate his monkeys from all physical sources of comfort and security, including something called the “Pit of Despair”—a lightless solitary confinement chamber in which baby monkeys were held for up to a year. All of his test subject went mad and never recovered.

The Ugly: Long after these experiments had yielded definitive results, Harlow persisted. In the words of one of his colleagues, he “kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive.” Indeed, why would anyone other than a sociopath seek to construct a mountain of empirical data proving the self-evident truth that torture causes psychosis? And what did any of this have to do with love? The silver lining to this dark cloud was that Harlow’s work helped to spark the Animal Rights movement and the humane treatment of lab animals.

May I Pick Your Brain?

Walter Freeman • 1895-1972

The Good: In 1936, Freeman set out to build on the promising work of a Portuguese neurologist, who had shown that severing nerves in the cerebral cortex could mitigate neural hyperactivity. Freeman performed the same operation on a housewife in Kansas; he and a colleague dubbed it the perfrontal lobotomy. By 1946, Freeman had perfected the 10-minute procedure, performing as many as 25 in a day.

The Mad: Prior to the invention of antipsychotic drugs, and with mental asylums filled to overcapacity, doctors were desperate for therapies. In the 1950s and 1960s, more than 40,000 of Freeman’s “ice-pick” lobotomies were done in the U.S. alone. Ironically, Germany, Japan and the USSR—the era’s global “villains”—banned the procedures as “contrary to the principles of humanity.”

The Ugly: Derided as a showman by other physicians and neurologists, Freeman and his procedure fell out of favor with the medical profession by the 1960s. In 1967, he performed his final lobotomy—the third one on the same chronic patient, who suffered a hemorrhage and died. He was banned from operating ever again.

Let ’Em Eat Bark

Trofim Lysenko

Agronomist &Biologist • 1898–1976

The Good: As a student, Lysenko investigated the effect of temperature variation on life cycles of plants, which led him to consider how to convert winter wheat into spring wheat. He named the process “vernalization.” His experimental research in improved crop yields earned him the support of Joseph Stalin, especially following the loss of productivity resulting from forced collectivization in several regions of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s

The Mad: In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics at the USSR Academy of Sciences. He espoused “soft inheritance”—the hypothesis that an organism can pass on characteristics acquired during its lifetime to its offspring. Rejecting the work of Mendel and Darwin as politically reactionary, Lysenko concocted his own pseudoscientific theories, which he named Lysenkoism. The false biology, tainted by Marxist philosophy, asserted that plants were self-sacrificing— they didn’t die from lack of sunlight or moisture, but altruistically deposited themselves as fertilizer over the growing roots of the next generation. It was a convenient theory for explaining away the famines that killed millions of Soviets.

The Ugly: Dissent from Lysenko’s theories was formally outlawed in 1948. Scientists who refused to denounce Mendel and Darwin were fired from their posts and left destitute. Many hundreds were imprisoned and several were sentenced to death as enemies of the State. Lysenko, meanwhile, played an active role in prolonging the food shortages that killed millions. After China adopted Lysenkoism in the late-1950s, its peasants were reduced to eating tree bark and bird droppings. At least 30 million Chinese starved to death. Ironically, Lysenko’s influence on Soviet agricultural practices was already in rapid decline at this point.

Occasion to Pause

Jose Delgado

Professor of Physiology • 1915–2011

The Good: In 1946, University of Madrid professor Jose Delgado began a fellowship at Yale University to study electrical brain stimulation. His research extended into the 1960s. Delgado developed the Stimoceiver, a device implanted in the brains of cats, monkeys and primates that operated with a remote control. He famously implanted a Stimoceiver in a bull, and then entered the ring in Plaza Del Toro in Cordoba, Spain. He stopped the animal in full charge using the remote.

The Mad: Delgado also wired up more than two dozen human subjects, many of whom were mental patients. His goal was to generate and/or control specific behaviors and emotions (aka mind control). His own words left little doubt as to where these experiments were headed: “We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain.” Unfortunately for Delgado, his device only proved effective in moderating aggressive behaviors.

The Ugly: During the 1970s, Delgado—who, incidentally, was lauded by many of his peers—became an impassioned prophet for a new “psycho-civilized” society. His detractors pointed out that controlling people by radio command might have some fundamental drawbacks, like extinguishing human freedom and integrity. Undaunted, Delgado spoke glowingly of a future when ESB (electrical stimulation of the brain) would produce happier, less destructive and better-balanced people. Assuming we could all figure out how to work the remote.

WAIT…WHAT?

Because most of the research records were shredded, the scope and impact of the MKULTRA program may never be known. Among the supposed participants— both witting and unwitting—were Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unambomber, who volunteered for an MKULTRA study while at Harvard, and author Ken Kesey, who authored One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Robert Hunter, lyricist for the Grateful Dead, was part of an MKULTRA study at Stanford in the early 1960s. And according to the lawyer for Sirhan Sirhan, his client was part of an MKULTRA experiment at the time he assassinated Bobby Kennedy.

Harold Blauer, a former pro tennis player, received a massive injection of the drug MDA while at a mental hospital. He was battling a bout of depression after his divorce. The facility was part of the MKULTRA program. Blauer died after the injection. Thirty-five years later his family was awarded $700,000 in damages from the government.

The most well-known victim of MKULTRA was Dr. Frank Olson, an army scientist working on a CIA weapons program. At a retreat, a group of agents were given LSD without their knowledge; soon after, Olson began suffering from paranoia and had a nervous breakdown. He fell to his death from a New York City hotel room under very suspicious circumstances. Though the CIA never admitted foul play, Olson’s family was handed a check for $750,000.

Photo courtesy of EarlyMornin

WAIT…WHAT?

Unethical and inhumane experiments can’t always be pinned on an individual scientist, mad or otherwise. Indeed, some of the most troubling examples were outgrowths of government programs, our own government included. In the 1800s and early 1900s, the incarcerated and the mentally ill were considered fair game for experimentation in “medical studies” of various diseases, including bubonic plague. Two of the most infamous examples of government-sanctioned mad science were the four-decade Tuskegee syphilis experiment (involving over 300 impoverished African- American men) and, closer to home, the vaccine studies done on mentally disabled children at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island in the 1950s and 1960s. Both ended after being exposed by the press.

In 1950, the U.S. Navy unleashed large quantities of what it thought was a benign bacteria over the city of San Francisco in order to simulate and study a biological warfare attack. Operation Sea Spray sickened a large number of city residents, at least one of whom died. Five years later, the U.S. Army secretly air-dropped 300,000 mosquitos from high altitude over parts of Georgia to see if they could survive to bite humans—and thus become carriers of future biological weapons. This was called Operation Big Buzz. In the 1960s, the New York City subways and Chicago “L” system were infected with harmless bacteria to track how a harmful strain might spread in a biological attack. And you thought the graffiti was annoying.

CORNERSTONE CLUB LUNCHEON

Over 20 people gathered at the recent Cornerstone Club Luncheon to listen to a lecture on Trinitas’ outstanding Behavioral Health program and the upcoming renovations to our inpatient and Psych Emergency Department facilities. 

The Cornerstone Club honors individuals who express their commitment to the future of healthcare by making planned or endowment gifts to the Trinitas Health Foundation. For more information about our Cornerstone Club, please contact Bidisa Rai at  (908) 994-8249 or brai@trinitas.org.

TEENS FOR TEENS HELPING TRINITAS

Members of Teens for Teens of Union County recently donated $26,000 to provide new furnishings for patient rooms for the teens that live at New Point Specialty, the adolescent psychiatry program at Trinitas Regional Medical Center. 

The donation was presented in the form of a check at Trinitas’ 12th Annual Academic Awards Program in June. The New Point Specialty is a 15-bed behavioral residential treatment program for adolescents ages 14 to 18.

The Teens for Teens volunteer organization was formed in 2013 when founder Mitchell Kelly (a high school sophomore at the time) and a few of his friends decided to make a difference in their own community, specifically with teens who were less fortunate. Each year, they hold a Gala reception with a silent auction and teen performances to raise money for various causes. “It was lovely for them to choose Trinitas this year,” said Nadine Brechner, chief development officer and vice president of the Trinitas Health Foundation. “They are a very ambitious and generous bunch.”

COMEDY NIGHT WITH RITA RUDNER

Get ready to laugh until it hurts! Join us on Saturday, November 3, 2018, at Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway, NJ for a Comedy Night featuring comedian RITA RUDNER. 

Rita Rudner is not simply one of America’s top comedians — she’s also a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning television personality, screenwriter, playwright, Broadway dancer, and actress. A house-filling favorite in Las Vegas, where she’s been performing for 14 years, Rudner is beloved for her witty one-liners, which have helped make hers the longest-running solo show in Vegas history — she’s sold more than a million tickets over the course of 2,000+ shows. Now’s your chance to catch this consummate comedian live!

Not only can you catch Rita Rudner Live, but you will also have the chance to stay after the show for dessert and a meet & greet with the comedian herself. Purchase Gold Circle or Orchestra tickets for this special offer. 

Can’t join us but still want to show your support? There are different sponsorship opportunities available, all including your name in the event program.

For ticket information, to register and/or support the event, visit http://trinitasrmc.org/comedy or contact Kim Boyer at kboyer@trinitas.org or (908) 994-8249.

MINETTE’S ANGELS

The recently received $8,300 grant from Minette’s Angels will support the cost of items needed for our breast cancer patients who are undergoing treatment at our breast center.  Grant funds will be used for lymphedema sleeves and gloves, wigs and mastectomy bras and prostheses for our breast cancer patients who are uninsured or underinsured. We anticipate the grant funds will cover the cost of 20 lymphedema sleeves and gloves, 10 wigs, 10 mastectomy bras, and 5 prostheses.  The grant has already helped two patients!

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

Paragon Tap & Table • Beef Ramen

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

As we constantly introduce new flavors from around the world to our customers at Paragon Tap and Table we have added an Asian inspired Noodle Dish with a touch of the south. Our beef ramen noodle showcases all the characteristics of a traditional ramen but twisted with the smokiness of the smoked beef brisket.  

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Wasabi Crusted Filet Mignon 

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

We prepare a crusted 8-ounce filet mignon served with gingered spinach, shitake mushrooms, and a tempura onion ring. 

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

This original dish has been our signature appetizer for over 20 years. Crispy seasoned sushi rice topped with homemade spicy mayo, marinated tuna, finely chopped onion, scallion, masago caviar, and ginger. Our customers always come back wanting more. 

— Chef Momo

The Barge • Cioppino 

201 Front Street • PERTH AMBOY

(732) 442-3000 • thebarge.com

Our Cioppino, the signature dish of San Francisco, features a fresh, healthy selection of clams, mussels, shrimp, Maine lobster and Jersey scallops—drizzled in Greek virgin olive oil, with fresh garlic and white wine—over homemade Italian linguini. I know it will become one of your favorite dishes.    

— Alex Vosinas Chef/Owner

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • Warm Goat Cheese Salad

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

The warm goat cheese salad with tender greens and a mulled cabernet dressing and toasted pine nuts is a signature appetizer at Luciano’s, where fresh ingredients and personable service in a beautiful Tuscan décor create a fine dining experience. Our menus are seasonally influenced to feature the best of what’s available in the market. 

— Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

Morris Tap & Grill • The Monster Burger

500 Route 10 West • RANDOLPH

(973) 891-1776 • morristapandgrill.com

As the leader in the gastropub world in New Jersey, Morris Tap and grill has been providing creative, quality, fresh certified burgers for over 6 years. Here’s an example of what we do creatively with our burgers, The Monster Burger. Two certified angus beef burgers topped with chorizo sausage, slaw, bacon, cheddar cheese and a fried egg! 

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Garden Grille • Grilled Chicken Paillard

304 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD 

(973) 232-5300  • hgispringfield.hgi.com

Grilled chicken paillard with roasted corn, asparagus, cauliflower, baby arugula and grape tomato, extra virgin olive oil & aged balsamic.

— Chef Sean Cznadel

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

272 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 315-2049 • longhornsteakhouse.com

LongHorn Steakhouse has opened in Springfield, and we are looking forward to meeting all of our future guests! When you visit us, we suggest you try our fresh, never frozen, 18 oz. bone-in Outlaw Ribeye—featuring juicy marbling that is perfectly seasoned and fire-grilled by our expert Grill Masters.  

— Anthony Levy, Managing Partner

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD 

(973) 467-9095 • outback.com/locations/nj/springfield

This is the entire staff’s favorite, guests rave about. Bone-in and extra marbled for maximum tenderness, juicy and savory. Seasoned and wood-fired grilled over oak.

— Duff Regan, Managing Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll 

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

Hot-out-of-the-oven, crab, avocado and cream cheese rolled up and topped with a mild spicy scallop salad.

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.

News, views and insights on maintaining a healthy edge.

Crunch Time 

Do loud eaters make you crazy? Then you may be suffering from Misophonia. A small percentage of people experience a strong fight-or-flight response when they hear lip-smacking, chip-crunching or liquid-gulping sounds. A recent study published in Current Biology looked at 42 individuals—20 of whom were misophonic and 22 of whom were not—who listened to noises ranging from neutral to annoying while they were in an MRI machine. Researchers observed that the 20 misophonics had significant activity in the insular cortex, which links senses and emotions. In most cases, the result was a strong feeling of anger as opposed to disgust, which is how most people respond to eating noises. Fortunately, misophonia is fairly rare, according to Dr. Rodger Goddard, Chief Psychologist at Trinitas. “It’s a problem that usually occurs between the ages of 9 and 13 and is more common in girls, and is believed to involve brain functions and not one’s ears,” he says. There is a Misophonia Foundation, which can provide guidance for people suffering from this difficulty. 

Rodger Goddard, PhD
Chief Psychologist, Trinitas Regional Medical Center Director of Wellness Management Services 908.994.7334

Dr. Goddard adds that getting upset, stressed, anxious or annoyed at a variety of things is common for many of us.  We need to always look at the frequency, duration and intensity of any problem. If we have an emotional difficulty that occurs on a regular basis, lasts for a significant amount of time when it occurs, or is intense in its effect on us, then it is probably time to take action and seek professional help from a doctor or therapist.   

Into the Woods 

Have you planned your annual spring camping adventure yet? If not, perhaps you should. A study conducted at the University of Colorado in Boulder suggests that a weekend in the great outdoors can reset the body clock—a boon to those of us who have trouble waking up in the morning or shaking the wintertime blues. More time spent outside in bright light, and less time exposed to artificial light at night, improved alertness, mood and even strength in a group of volunteers who went on weeklong camping expeditions. The results were almost as good for campers who spent just two days in the great outdoors. This type of activity can be a great boost to one’s health, confirms

Rodger Goddard, PhD
Chief Psychologist, Trinitas Regional Medical Center Director of Wellness Management Services
908.994.7334

Dr. Rodger Goddard, Chief Psychologist for Trinitas. “Paradoxically, there is a psychiatric disorder called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder,” he adds. “Some people, when sunlight is decreased or restricted, become depressed.” Indeed, light—particularly sunlight—plays an important role in our health. In addition to increased exposure to sunlight, the silence, oxygen, social connection and vacation from the technology overload can do wonders for mental health.

Cervical Cancer’s “Racial Divide” 

Since reaching an all-time high in 1991, the number of cancer deaths in the U.S. has come down steadily and is now 25 percent lower than it was a quarter-century ago. That includes cervical cancer deaths, which are now largely preventable with proper screening and regular monitoring. Yet, according to a study by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, the death rate from cervical cancer is higher than previously estimated. Much of the disparity is attributable to high rates among African-American women, who are as likely to die from the disease as someone in a developing country. Their mortality rate from cervical cancer is more than double that of white women. The study did not get into the reason for this disparity, but an article in Gynecologic Oncology suggested that the relationship between income and access is the likely cause. 

But Is It An Organ? 

Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the TV series) lists 78 organs in the human body. Is there a 79th? According to scientists at the University of Limerick in Ireland, the tissue that connects the intestines to the abdominal wall—known as the mesentery—should be considered an organ because it performs a specific body function. Namely, the tissue works as one entity to prevent the intestines from jigging around. Which means you couldn’t survive without it. There is an actual “advantage” to being classified as an organ. It means that medical researchers are likely to pay much more attention to it. In the case of the mesentery, that could translate into progress in the understanding and treatment of abdominal disorders such as Crohn’s disease.

Real-Time Concussion Detector 

With football increasingly in the crosshairs of the medical community, it was only a matter of time before equipment measuring concussions in real-time started finding its way onto the field. A new “smart” mouthguard should be available to players nationwide by 2018. The device, manufactured by Prevent Biometrics, calculates a player’s risk of concussion after a hard hit. That information is sent instantly to coaches, team doctors and parents, who can pull a player out of the game if need be. This is a critical decision—study after study has shown that players who stay on the field after a concussive hit take twice as long to recover compared to those who leave immediately. The mouthguard was developed with the help of the famed Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Kevin Lukenda of Linden Family Medical Associates thinks a computerized Bluetooth mouthguard could be a valuable tool to objectively gauge whether a player is injured and to what degree he may be concussed. “Right now, we depend on referees, coaches, parents, teachers, school physicians and even the student-athletes themselves in the diagnosis of concussions,” Dr. Lukenda points out.

Kevin Lukenda, DO
Chairman, Family Medicine Department
908.925.9309

“Many times these voices go unheard because of the consequence of limiting the student athlete’s ability to play—despite jeopardizing their health. Though there are objective measures to determine a concussion, often times the decision becomes very subjective.”

Early Detection for Autism 

Roughly one in every 100 babies born in the U.S. ends up diagnosed on the autism spectrum between the ages of two and four. According to a study published earlier this year in Nature, brain scans can now detect the origins of autism in the first year of life. Researchers at the University of North Carolina did brain scans on a group of children at high risk of autism (their older siblings were autistic) at 6, 12 and 24 months. The scans showed early differences in the cerebral cortex—which is responsible for high-level functions— in the children who went on to be diagnosed with autism. The study should lead to new tests for autism and, hopefully, opportunities for early behavioral therapies. It also provides a compelling argument against claims that autism is caused by the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine, which is typically given after 12 months of age.

Lucile Esralew, PhD, NADD-CC, CDP
Clinical Administrator for Trinitas CARES and S-COPE
908.966.3033

“The idea that autism is caused by vaccination has been disproved,” conforms Lucille Esralew, PhD, NADD-CC, CDP, the Clinical Administrator for Trinitas’s CARES and S-COPE outreach programs. “There is no credible scientific evidence that link the two.” Until such time as brain scans are widely available, pediatricians can detect signs of autism using the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers-Revised (MCHAT-R) as early as 18 months, while psychologists use the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule—the gold standard for assessment with children beginning as young as age three. “The Autism Diagnostic Inventory (ADI-R),  a comprehensive review of a child’s early social, communication, behavioral and adaptive skills history is also utilized in assessment.” April, adds Dr. Ersalew, has been designated as Autism Awareness Month. 

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

Paragon Tap & Table • Craft Burgers

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

Craft burgers are one of the amazing dishes featured at Paragon Tap & Table. Along with our extensive craft beer and craft cocktail lists, I have created an extensive craft burger section featuring our signature Bacon-Eater which has been featured in USA Today’s top 50 burgers in America. 

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Wasabi Crusted Filet Mignon 

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

We prepare a crusted 8-ounce filet mignon served with gingered spinach, shitake mushrooms, and a tempura onion ring. 

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

This original dish has been our signature appetizer for over 20 years. Crispy seasoned sushi rice topped with homemade spicy mayo, marinated tuna, finely chopped onion, scallion, masago caviar, and ginger. Our customers always come back wanting more. 

— Chef Momo

Publick House • Street Tacos  

899 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-2355 • publickhousenj.com

Our street tacos are part of our happy hour menu at Publick House. Made with fresh ingredients, and changing daily, they are the perfect pairing for a pint of $5 New Jersey craft beer.

— Bernie Goncalves, Owner

The Barge • Cioppino 

201 Front Street • PERTH AMBOY

(732) 442-3000 • thebarge.com

Our Cioppino, the signature dish of San Francisco, features a fresh, healthy selection of clams, mussels, shrimp, Maine lobster and Jersey scallops—drizzled in Greek virgin olive oil, with fresh garlic and white wine—over homemade Italian linguini. I know it will become one of your favorite dishes.    

— Alex Vosinas Chef/Owner

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • Warm Goat Cheese Salad

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

The warm goat cheese salad with tender greens and a mulled cabernet dressing and toasted pine nuts is a signature appetizer at Luciano’s, where fresh ingredients and personable service in a beautiful Tuscan décor create a fine dining experience. Our menus are seasonally influenced to feature the best of what’s available in the market.

 — Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

Morris Tap & Grill • Cut Rigatoni with Chicken Sausage

500 Route 10 West • RANDOLPH

(973) 891-1776 • morristapandgrill.com

With every season at Morris Tap & Grill the menu changes in many ways, but the classics always remain. I like to showcase local and sustainable ingredients keeping it fresh and fun. This pasta is a reflection of just that. Featured here is  Cut Rigatoni with homemade chicken sausage, local broccolini, white beans and finished with garlic herb broth. 

— Eric B LeVine, Chef/Partner

McLynn’s: Social Eatery and Bar • Jersey Breakfast Bar Pie

250 Morris Ave. • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 258-1600 • mclynns.com

Get in the Spirit! Our Jersey Breakfast Bar Pie features potatoes, Taylor ham, cheddar cheese and onions. It doesn’t get more Jersey than that!  

— Mark Houlker, Chef

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD 

(973) 467-9095 • outback.com/locations/nj/springfield

This is entire staff’s favorite, guests rave about.  Bone-in and extra marbled for maximum tenderness, juicy and savory.  Seasoned and wood-fired grilled over oak.

— Duff Regan, Managing Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll 

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

Hot-out-of-the-oven, crab, avocado and cream cheese rolled up and topped with a mild spicy scallop salad.

Galloping Hill Caterers

Galloping Hill Road and Chestnut Street • UNION

(908) 686-2683 • gallopinghillcaterers.com

Galloping Hill Caterers has been an incredible landmark for nearly sixty years. We pride ourselves in delivering “over the top” cuisine, impeccable service and outstanding attention to detail. That is the hallmark of our success! Simply, an unforgettable experience. Pictured here is one of our crepes flambé that really creates lots of excitement!

— George Thomas, Owner

Vine Ripe Markets

430 North Avenue East • WESTFIELD

(908) 233-2424 • vineripemarkets.com

For some, drinking coffee is LIFE! What about cooking with it? Next time you’re making baby lamb chops or a bone-in ribeye, try a coffee rub! Finely grind a rich coffee bean (like espresso or French roast) and blend with EVOO, coarse herbs (like rosemary), salt and pepper. You’ll get a paste-like spice rub perfect for grilling. Slather over the beef or lamb and chill for up to 6 hours before cooking. The results are a fantastic, rich flavor explosion! 

A look back at the Home Alone phenomenon.

By Luke Sacher

Home Alone, the highest grossing live action comedy motion picture in history, is now 27 years old. For those of us who saw it when first released in theaters, that’s half our lives or more ago. Writer/producer John Hughes initially sold his screenplay to Warner Brothers, who flipped it to 20th Century Fox for a tidy profit. Alas, that proved to be one of the most shortsighted decisions in Hollywood history

Against a production budget of $18 million, Home Alone grossed $285.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $190.9 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $476.7 million—a return on investment of 2,650 percent.      

From its release on November 16, 1990, Home Alone was #1 at the box office for 12 straight weeks, and remained in the Top 10 until well past Easter. After nine months in U.S. theaters, it had earned 16 times its debut weekend earnings, and sold nearly 70 million tickets. Worldwide, it was the third-highest grossing picture of all time, behind only Star Wars and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The movie siphoned off so much box office from competing pictures that screenwriter William Goldman coined the verb “Home-Alone’d”—now an industry expression—after receipts for his film Misery (starring Kathy Bates and James Caan) fell short of studio projections

The premise of Home Alone (the McCallister family is jetting to Europe before they realize that eight-year-old Kevin has been forgotten) stretches the limits of credulity. What made the movie was the performance of adorable Macauley Culkin and the misadventures of two bumbling burglars, played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern

“The last 44 pages of Home Alone were written in eight hours,” Hughes once admitted. “All that physical stuff. It was a roll as fast as I could type. I was inside that movie. Anything I did was right. When you get in there, it’s a tremendous feeling because you’re not planning it, it’s just happening. And it’s all subconscious.”

Hughes suggested to director Chris Columbus that they cast Culkin as Kevin after Hughes directed the young actor in Uncle Buck, starring John Candy. After interviewing dozens of other young actors for the part, Columbus finally met with Culkin, and agreed that he was the right choice. By law, Culkin could only work until 10 p.m. This created logistical problems for the crew because of the movie’s many night scenes. On top of that, shooting the live-action stunts was truly nerve wracking

“Every time the stunt guys did one of those stunts it wasn’t funny,” Columbus recalled. “We’d watch it, and I would just pray that the guys were alive.” Stunts were prepared and rehearsed with safety harnesses, but performed without them on camera because of their visibility. CGI technology hadn’t been invented in 1990.

Initial reviews of Home Alone were mixed. Variety remarked on the top-notch performances of its cast. Jeanne Cooper of The Washington Post praised it as pure, unpretentious entertainment. Hal Hinson, also of The Washington Post, lauded Chris Columbus’s direction and Culkin’s acting. Caryn James complained that the film’s first half was “flat and unsurprising” in her New York Times review, but applauded the second half for its old-school slapstick humor and genuine sentimentality. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Home Alone 2.5 out of a possible 4 star rating. He pointed out that Kevin’s booby traps would take a team of special-effects experts to set up and said the plot was “so implausible that it makes it hard to really care about the plight of the kid.” Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly hated the film, giving it a D and scolding it for its “sadistic festival of adult-bashing.”

Fast-forward to 2017. Home Alone is now a holiday staple, often ranked among the best Hollywood Christmas films of all time, including Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story and the Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Hughes admits he was inspired by Capra and his portrayals of honest, everyday Americans prevailing in the world over the no-goodniks. Like Capra, Hughes and director Chris Columbus were meticulous in their casting, and it shows. All these years later, it is difficult to imagine anyone better occupying any of the key roles: Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, Joe Pesci as Harry Lime, Daniel Stern as Marv Merchants, John Heard as Peter McCallister, Catherine O’Hara as Kate McCallister, Roberts Blossom as Old Man Marley, John Candy as Polka King Gus Polinski and Hope Davis as a Paris-Orly Airport receptionist

How did they come to Home Alone? Where did life take them in the years that followed? Where are they now? I thought you’d never ask…

Hughes Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Macaulay Culkin (August 26, 1980) was born and raised in New York City, and began acting at the age of four. Named after Lord Macaulay of India, he is the paternal nephew of actress Bonnie Bedelia (Heart Like a Wheel, Die Hard). In 1989, Culkin appeared in John Hughes’s Uncle Buck and went toe-to-toe with John Candy as dead-panning Miles. After Home Alone, he was hailed as the most successful child actor since Shirley Temple—ranked #2 on both VH1’s 100 Greatest Kid-Stars and E!’s 50 Greatest Child Stars.

Around the time of shooting Home Alone, Culkin became close friends with pop icon Michael Jackson and appeared in Jackson’s “Black or White” music video. When Jackson stood trial accused of sexual abuse, Culkin testified on his behalf, and reported he had slept in Jackson’s bedroom on countless occasions. He explained that Jackson’s bedroom was arranged over two floors, and that Jackson had never sexually molested him or touched him in any improper way. Culkin referred to the allegations as “absolutely ridiculous

In 1991, Culkin hosted Saturday Night Live and starred in  Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992. In 1993, while a student at the School of American Ballet, he danced the title role in a filmed version of The Nutcracker, staged by Peter Martins from George Balanchine’s 1954 New York City Ballet production. Culkin retired from acting in 1994 and married actress Rachel Miner in 1998, but the marriage broke up and they were divorced in 2002. He dated actress Mila Kunis for several years and they remain friends.

Photo by Judy Clements-Turner

Culkin returned to acting in his mid-20s with generally good reviews, including a hilarious appearance on Will and Grace as an immature lawyer. He also did voice-over work. In 2010, he appeared alongside actors Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, and Jon Cryer in a tribute to the late John Hughes. He also fronted a band called The Pizza Underground, a Lou Reed/Velvet Underground parody-tribute group. In 2015, Culkin starred in a dark and brilliant five-minute YouTube video as a troubled Uber driver complaining about the impact of a traumatic childhood episode when his family left him at home and he had to defend himself against a pair of criminals.

John Hughes (February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009) was born in Lansing, Michigan. He grew up in Grosse Pointe, a toney Detroit suburb, and in Northbrook, IL, outside Chicago. His experiences in Northbrook and at Glenbrook North High School became the grist for many of his movies, as well as his literary satire

“I grew up in a neighborhood that was mostly girls and old people,” he told an interviewer. “There weren’t any boys my age, so I spent a lot of time by myself, imagining things. And every time we would get established somewhere, we would move. Life just started to get good in seventh grade, and then we moved to Chicago. I ended up in a really big high school, and I didn’t know anybody. But then The Beatles came along…changed my whole life. And then Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home came out and really changed me. Thursday I was one person, and Friday I was another. My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso—because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.”

After dropping out of the University of Arizona in 1969, Hughes began selling jokes to comedians, including Henny Youngman, Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. He worked in advertising and became the youngest Creative Director in the history of Leo Burnett Worldwide. His work often took him to New York, where he got to know the folks at National Lampoon and began writing for the magazine (secretly) on the side. His story “Vacation ’58” was the basis for the hit 1983 movie National Lampoon’s Vacation. That script, plus the one for Mr. Mom, earned Hughes a three-picture deal with Universal Studios. He went on to direct a string of popular films set around upper middle-class American high schools, including Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty In Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. He also directed Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Uncle Buck before Home Alone. Hughes also authored screenplays for Maid in Manhattan, Drillbit Taylor and the Beethoven films.

Hughes was deeply shaken by the death of John Candy (below) in 1994 and pulled back from the movie business. He suffered a heart attack on West 55th in New York in 2009 and died at the age of 59.

Hughes Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Hughes Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Catherine O’Hara (March 4, 1954) started her career in 1974 in her hometown of Toronto as a cast member of the legendary Second City comedy ensemble. She was an understudy for Gilda Radner until Radner joined the founding cast of Saturday Night Live. Two years later, Second City created the sketch comedy show SCTV, with O’Hara as a regular performer. In 1981, when SCTV was between network deals, she was hired to replace Ann Risley when Saturday Night Live was being revamped. However, she quit the show without ever appearing on air, and returned to SCTV when it signed with NBC. Her position at SNL was filled by longtime friend Robin Duke.

O’Hara’s work at SCTV brought her fame in Canada and the US as both an actress and writer, winning an Emmy for outstanding writing and two nominations for comedy performance. She made her feature film debut in Double Negative, which co-starred SCTV regulars John Candy, Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared in a number of supporting roles, including Martin Scorcese’s After Hours and Nora Ephron’s Heartburn with Meryl Streep. Her most memorable cinematic roles were in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and, of course, Home Alone and its sequel. O’Hara also starred in four of Christopher Guest’s “mockumentaries”—three of which earned her awards and nominations: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. Her role in the 2010 HBO biopic Temple Grandin earned her three major nominations, including a Primetime Emmy and Screen Actors Guild award.

Courtsey Canadian Broadcast Company

O’Hara is currently starring alongside fellow SCTV alum Eugene Levy and his son, Daniel, on the CBC comedy/satire Schitt’s Creek—a runaway favorite of Netflix viewers. She won Canadian Screen Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2016 and 2017 as the washed-up soap star Moira Rose

Hughes Entertainment/20th Century Fox

John Heard (March 7, 1945 -July 21, 2017) was born in Washington, D.C. to John Matthew Sr. and Helen Heard.

He attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Catholic University of America in D.C., planning initially to be a drama teacher. By the early 1970s, Heard was earning critical acclaim for his acting and by the end of the decade his stage work in New York earned him roles in movies and on television. His early films include Cutter’s Way, Cat People and C.H.U.D., in which he co-starred with future Home Alone cast member Daniel Stern. In 1988, about the time he was cast in Home Alone, Heard was in three hit films: The Milagro Beanfield War, Big and Beaches.

See our interview with John Heard on page 87.

Hughes Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Joe Pesci (February 9, 1943) was born in Newark and raised in neighboring Belleville. He was acting by the age of four and by age 10 was a regular on a TV program called Startime Kids, which also featured Connie Francis. Pesci knew Frankie Valli and Tommy DeVito growing up and, in 1959, introduced them to songwriter Bob Gaudio, leading to the formation of The Four Seasons. In the 1960s, he began his own musical career, playing guitar for several bands, including Joey Dee and the Starlighters (he was replaced by Jimi Hendrix!). In 1968, Pesci released an album of contemporary pop hit cover songs titled Little Joe Sure Can Sing! as Joe Ritchie. Later, he and Frank Vincent put together a music/comedy act that caught the eye of Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorcese, who were casting Raging Bull. Pesci and Vincent both earned starring roles, with Pesci snagging an Oscar nomination.

Prior to his side-splitting portrayal of Harry Lime in Home Alone, Pesci appeared in a number films, including Easy Money, Once Upon a Time in America, Lethal Weapon and Goodfellas, which was released five weeks before Home Alone. Pesci won the Best Supporting Oscar for Goodfellas, during which he stomped Vincent’s character to death in one of the most enduring scenes in the annals of mob movies.

Photo by Yausser

Pesci continued to shine in both dramatic and comedic roles after Home Alone. He had memorable performances in JFK, My Cousin Vinny, Home Alone II, The Public Eye, Casino and The Super. By the late-1990s, the starring roles being offered to Pesci tended to be in low-brow or low-quality pictures, so in 1999 he decided to take a hiatus from the cinema and stage to revive and pursue his musical career

Hughes Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Daniel Stern (August 28, 1957) was born in Bethesda, Maryland, where he caught the acting bug as a teenager. He starred in several high-school productions and applied for a job as a lighting engineer for a Shakespeare Festival in Washington. Instead, he was hired as a walk-on in a production of The Taming of the Shrew, starring Glenn Close. Stern dropped out of high school in his senior year and soon moved to New York, where he found parts in Off Broadway and Broadway productions, including True West with Gary Sinise

In 1979, Stern made his film debut as Cyril in Breaking Away and had a small part in Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories a year later. His breakthrough role came in 1981 as “Shrevie” Schreiber, the obsessive-compulsive record collector, in Barry Levinson’s Diner. In 1985, he appeared in Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters and in 1988 he began a six-season run as the adult voice of Kevin Arnold in The Wonders Years. After playing Murchens in Home Alone, Stern played Phil Berquist in City Slickers and City Slickers II and directed the baseball film Rookie of the Year. Recently, Stern played nuclear physicist Glen Babbit in 15 episodes of the critically acclaimed series Manhattan, about the building of the atomic bomb during World War II. He also directed two episodes.

Courtesy of Mingle Media TV

Stern is an accomplished fine artist, particularly in bronze sculpture. He has created works for public art projects in San Diego, Pasadena, Palm Desert, Temple City and Agoura Hills, as well as many private commissions, gallery exhibitions and art fairs. He is currently an artist in residence at Studio Channel Islands Art Center in Camarillo, California. His brother is television writer David M. Stern, and his son is California State Senator Henry Stern.

Hughes Entertainment/ 20th Century Fox

Roberts Blossom (March 25, 1924 – July 8, 2011), who played Old Man Marley—Kevin’s next door neighbor in Home Alone—was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Robert, was Athletic Director at Yale. Blossom grew up in Cleveland and attended Harvard for a year before enlisting in World War II. After the war, he found his way into acting and earned high praise from critics during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s—winning an Obie in each decade. Blossom worked steadily on and off Broadway, as well as appearing in numerous television series and soap operas, in which he often played villains

Beginning in his 40s, Blossom began playing eccentric and cantankerous old oddballs on the silver screen, with roles in Slaughterhouse Five, The Great Gatsby, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Escape from Alcatraz, Doc Hollywood, Christine, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Quick and The Dead

Hughes Entertainment/ 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Chris Columbus (September 10, 1958) was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania and raised in the Ohio town of Champion. He attended New York University’s film school at the Tisch School of the Arts, where he was classmates with writer/director Charlie Kaufman and actor Alec Baldwin. Columbus neglected to renew his scholarship after his freshman year and had to work a factory job back home to afford his sophomore year tuition. In between shifts he worked on his first screenplay, which would become the hit movie Gremlins. Steven Spielberg optioned it and also hired Columbus as a screenwriter. He wrote two more scripts for Spielberg—The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes—and made his directorial debut in 1987, with the teen comedy Adventures in Babysitting. John Hughes wanted Columbus to direct National Lampoon’s Vacation, but Columbus didn’t see eye-to-eye with Chevy Chase and did not get the job. Hughes saw to it that Columbus was on Home Alone.

After Home Alone, Columbus directed a dozen more movies, including Home Alone II, Mrs. Doubtfire, Stepmom, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Pixels. In 1995, he founded 1492 Pictures and produced Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Help, for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

Photo by Nightscream

Like Hughes, Columbus embraced the ethos of directors like Frank Capra. “I can understand the validity of showing people the ugliness of the world,” he once said, “but I also think there is a place for movies to leave people with a sense of hope. If your film isn’t going to do that, I just don’t think it’s worth making.”  

The not-so-funny side of Home Alone

By Sarah Rossbach

One September day, when my near-twin children were entering high school, I ran into a distressed, grief-stricken acquaintance at the local farm market. In tears, the normally perky, upbeat woman shared that her youngest had just left for college. She was an empty-nester and life as a mother was over. While her child was adjusting to the freedom and challenges of college life, she was mourning the end of family dinners, high-school tennis matches, and a house full of laughing teenagers. One look at the abandoned bedroom, the discarded racket and lunch box and it was too much to bear. Now retired from her role/job as an active parent, she had contracted a full-blown case of Empty Nest Syndrome: The helicopter parent had landed with a lonely thud and an empty tank. 

Fast-forward a few years. My husband and I dropped off our two at their respective New England colleges—as luck would have it—a day apart. In spite of loving our children dearly, I was determined to avoid my acquaintance’s pitfall. I reminded my spouse that we’d had a lot of fun before we had children and suggested viewing their absence as a sort of second honeymoon. He didn’t quite carry me over the threshold, but we found that being home alone together gave us more quality time for each other. While we weren’t exactly celebrating that we were “free at last,” we took solace that the kids were in college, a parenting job well-done.

Everyone has “helpful” suggestions on parenting, but how does one deal with un-parenting—losing one’s identity as a mom or dad, being on one’s own and becoming a temporarily child-free individual or couple? Wikipedia describes the Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS) as a “feeling of grief and loneliness parents may feel when their children leave home for the first time, such as to live on their own or to attend a college or university.” It is not a clinical condition, yet its symptoms can range from depression and loss of purpose to stress and anxiety about the child. Of course, for some, the departure of a “difficult” child may not come soon enough.

COPING

My father had a saying about his kids: “If you’re going to raise eagles, you have to let them fly.”  The message (I think) was his rationalization as he sadly watched us go in different directions, as well as being his way to encourage and inspire us: that separation from one’s parents was a key inaugural element to launch one’s life journey. 

I reached out to Dr. Rodger Goddard for some advice to parents whose eagles have flown the coop. Dr. Goddard is Chief Psychologist and Director of Wellness Management Services at Trinitas Regional Medical Center. (Wellness Management Services provides presentations, programs and consultation to help corporations and schools achieve their key goals.) Empty Nest Syndrome (ENS) is extremely common, he points out. In fact, as many as 30% of all Baby Boomers may experience this syndrome.  

“The range of experiences that a parent may have are extremely varied,” he explains. “A child may have moved only a block away or to the other side of the country. A child or parent may not blink an eye or one may experience very intense emotional swings during this transition. A significant number of parents struggle with ENS. The classic symptoms range from feelings of loss, depression and meaninglessness to high anxiety and intense worry.”

Dr. Goddard offers a number of strategies that can help alleviate this potentially painful and difficult time. There are two key areas that parents can work on to build skills to help get through this challenging life transition…

IMPROVE THE RELATIONSHIP

First, focus on finding ways to positively change your relationship with your child. Your child is likely to have very mixed feelings about the separation: torn between wanting to still feel protected, loved and secure, while rejecting being treated like a child. This may send a parent very mixed messages, resulting in a parent being torn between giving advice, criticism and help, and feeling mistreated and pushed away.  

Second, it is important to find a balance of contact during this time. While you want to avoid suffocating your child and giving him or her the message that they are incapable of being on their own, your child still needs your help. Figure out with your child the best form and frequency of contact; text, email, phone, visits. Avoid being too invasive at this time. This would send the message that your child cannot manage on his or her own. Yet too much distance would communicate to your child that you disapprove of their separation and independence, potentially implying you are withdrawing your love and support because they have a new place to live, a new job, a new partner, and so on. It is critical to show support and love during the transition into college, and beyond, as it can be extremely scary and anxiety-filled for a child dealing with separating from the family. In short, you may be most effective when you encourage independence, yet still show your intense love and support, and provide advice and direction when needed. Remember to not distance yourself too much no matter how much upset, anxiety, relief or sadness you are feeling in order to create a good balance. Your child needs you to be in the dual role of both a guiding, advice-giving parent and a supportive, affirming, accepting friend in the background. 

OPPORTUNITY FOR  SELF-CARE & GROWTH

You have devoted your whole life to nurturing this beautiful child and are likely to experience a loss of meaning and purpose when your child is separating. It is a wonderful time to devote yourself to something new. According to Dr. Goddard, a good antidote to the loss of meaning and purpose is to use this time to build your self-esteem and explore new meaning in your life. Supporting yourself begins with using techniques to control your anxious, worried thoughts. Learn to be calm, practice deep breathing exercises all day long.  Focus on rational thoughts and be more active. Use the time to do a life review to clarify the mission and purpose of your life and find new directions to focus what you have to give the world. 

HOME AGAIN

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention at this point that, having coped reasonably well with ENS, my husband and I are now faced with another challenge about which you’ve probably read or heard. As of this writing, my eagles have both come home to roost and are part of the Boomerang Generation. Parenting has become trickier, as you’re all cooped up again and you, as parent, are dealing with young adults who have tasted and enjoyed their own independence. This issue is complex. Life is much more challenging now, it is more difficult to find a job than in the past and renting or buying on one’s own is more expensive than ever. For example, my kids are working full-time, but can afford only to live at home for now. 

So Empty Nesters, you may want to hold off on converting those freed-up bedrooms into home offices or man caves. 

NOT-SO-EMPTY NEST

Somewhere around a one-third of 18-to-34-year-olds are living at home with their parents, due, in part, to financial challenges. Dr. Rodger Goddard offers these thoughts to Boomerang parents: 

• Today, children are less mature, independent and self-reliant compared to earlier times. This may potentially be a result of Baby Boomers being overly supportive, indulging and spoiling their children, compared to past generations. As a result, many of those in their 20s are like teenagers and those in their 30s are like those in their 20s.
• Children returning home and living with their parents can be very difficult for both parent and child. Parents are likely to want to parent the same way they did for the last 20-30 years. As the child has been away from home for the college years, anger and resentment can arise in the boomerang child who feels independent and resents being treated like a kid.  

It is best for everyone that the relationship evolves. For all to live happily under the same roof, it is critical that there is a working structure in place, that all understand their responsibilities: chores, rent, behavior and so on.  So all need to agree on a set of guiding rules: who does what, when and where. A written agreement concerning key issues—as well as a plan for the child transitioning to being on his or her own—is critical.