“Laird loves duck, a food he knows most folks do not make at home and, as such, is a celebratory dish.”

By Andy Clurfeld 

Elegance doesn’t become every restaurant that opens its doors to the public. But it has been the guiding force behind Restaurant Serenade since its birth in 1996, two years after its owners, James and Nancy Sheridan Laird, met and fell in love in the kitchen of the Ryland Inn and knew that, together, they had what it takes to create the kind of forever-classic Balanchine did by putting mind and body to the music of Tchaikovsky. 

Twenty-five years ago, I did a stage at Ryland for a story I was reporting for the Asbury Park Press. I saw then-sous chef James break concentration only to steal a glance at Nancy, an extern from the CIA who’d left a successful career in finance to pursue a passion for all things culinary. Nancy, laser-focused on learning and little interested in offering comments for my story, only eked out an observation at the end of my stage, by noting how impressed she was by James’ talent and skill, leadership and devotion to serving exquisite food.

As EDGE marks its 10th anniversary, I could think of no finer restaurant to profile in commemoration of that achievement than Restaurant Serenade in Chatham, which has been the scene of thousands of anniversary toasts since the Lairds decided to create a restaurant that brought elegance to every aspect of the dining experience—and made it accessible and welcoming, to all.

It’s a Saturday night, and Serenade is packed. There’s a private party in The Loft, the tables in the dining spaces are taken by couples, by small groups, by the fortunate who’ve scored a babysitter, and the high-tops in the bar are tete-a-tete central. It’s a festive and comfortable scene. It’s also something of a bargain in the highest end of the fine-dining spectrum, with the regular weeknight bill of fare giving way to an across-the-board $73-per-person fixed-price three-course menu. It’s aimed at showcasing, on the busiest night, what

Photos courtesy of Restaurant Serenade

James, the chef, and Nancy, who manages the restaurant and oversees front-of-house operations, made their mission when they opened Serenade 23 years ago this fall: beautiful foods in the Mediterranean style, fresh, seasonal, light of touch and yet deeply layered with flavor. 

Keep the calculations coming by digging into halibut whose sear is capped by a sliver-slice of tomato that melts into the fillet and links it to quenelle-shaped mounds of ratatouille, verdant beans and peas, and the sultry spray of a sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. Very Provencal, very clean, very easy to eat…as was a roasted rack of lamb, bones playfully akimbo, served with pert cylinders of smashed-potato strudel and a crown of broccoli. Here, there was the counterpointing underpinning of piquant chimichurri and smolderingly sweet oven-dried tomatoes, accents at once light and potent. Laird loves duck, a food he knows most folks do not make at home and, as such, is a celebratory dish. He gets his duck from Pennsylvania, riffs on it seasonally, but always follows a low-and-slow roasting dictum for his Saturday night special. On this particular night, he’s taken a honey glaze scented with coriander, cumin and white pepper that tames slightly the richness of the duck and seeps happily into—for one example—risotto.

Photos courtesy of Restaurant Serenade

The Lairds always have been patrons of New Jersey’s farms and food artisans and are quick to name, on the menu and in conversation, those whose produce and products inspire and frame Serenade’s cuisine. It’s no surprise, then, that the pitch-perfect peach cobbler gives top nod to Melick’s Town Farm in the nearby village of Oldwick in Tewksbury Township and that both Nancy and James speak of patriarch George Melick, his wife Norma, and their three now-middle-aged children, Peter, John, and Rebecca, as the prime source for much of the produce they use. If you’re in search of something non-fruit in the finale department, there’s a chocolate tart served warm and made memorable by a pecan crust, or if you cotton to a Southern-style stately cake, the coconut number has a debutante’s posture and a scoop of cantaloupe sorbet, to boot.

At the end of our dinner, James Laird stops by our table. He hasn’t aged a day in the 25 years since we first met at Ryland, but it’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen and spoken with him. I can’t help but noting he’s the human fountain of youth. James insists it’s the food. “It’s just eating well,” he says, then takes note of the local farmers and foragers who are so much a part of the night’s menu. He heads back to the kitchen.

Photos courtesy of Restaurant Serenade

As we leave, the gorgeous and gracious Nancy Laird is saying goodnight to diners. I wait a minute so I can ask about the fabulous orange chairs in the dining room. She smiles broadly, then asks, “Did you see the wallpaper in the women’s room?” I take off for points private. It’s the most amazing splash of color and composition, floral and bold and absolutely fun. Nancy assures me the men’s room has an exciting paper backdrop all its own.

I’m not much for oohing and ahhing over décor in restaurants, but I need to know about this wallpaper. “It’s from Brooklyn,” she says. “Made by Flavor.”

“Flavor?” I repeat. 

“Yes,” Nancy says. “Flavor is the name of the company.”

Of course, it is. Of course, Nancy and James Laird, and Restaurant Serenade, would have wallpaper from Flavor.

An Anniversary Chat

A couple of days after our dinner at Restaurant Serenade, I spoke with Nancy and James Laird by phone to ask them a few questions. Mostly I wanted to know, after marking so many years in a competitive industry, how they keep the magic going.

Photos courtesy of Restaurant Serenade

James: I think we keep the magic by keeping the restaurant fresh. The restaurant is ours, the chef will never leave, but we can change little things to keep it fresh.

Nancy: Wall sconces, for instance. James: Every time we spend a little, we get busier. When I was 18, 20 years old [and cooking in a restaurant] in France, there was a chef who’d been there 27 years, just as dedicated. Nancy and I keep the magic in marriage, as well as the restaurant—we figured out what she’s good at and what I’m good at. 

Nancy: Now we have 35 employees, and we seat 100 to 120 or so, including the bar. These employees mean a lot to us. A lot. 

James: Most are married, with kids, so we feel like we’re responsible for feeding about 100 mouths! They work hard for us.

Photos courtesy of Restaurant Serenade

Nancy: It helps that we have a good marriage. It’s been 23 years for both the marriage and the restaurant. In March 1996, we got married and in October 1996, we opened the restaurant. We knew we wanted to be in this for the long haul. So we didn’t get greedy, we never overbooked the restaurant. 

James: We like what we do; we like to make people happy. I think I’ve become a better person, more humble. 

Nancy: Part of the reason we do this is the community. Most of our friends, we’ve met through this community. We’ve looked at other spaces, but we have a really nice life here. I feel like we were meant to do this restaurant and do it really well. 

James: In my opinion, I’d rather do one, and do it perfectly. You know, we don’t do VIP—every one is treated the same way. Recently, we had a couple come in, a freshman in college and a senior in high school. They were celebrating their six-month anniversary. We went over to them, we gave them more attention than anyone. 

James wants to add one more thing before we sign off. His youthful looks? “It’s love,” he says, as I imagine him glancing at Nancy much as he did the first time I saw him. “Love keeps you young.”

R. Brandon Horner

It is almost 9:00 at night when my wife sits down at our dining room table to begin the homework I assigned that morning. Just to be clear, she’s not a member of my seventh-grade Literature class— she’s a teacher at the same school, and she’s taken it upon herself to complete a project I’ve given my students as we read The Tempest.

I’ve taught the play for over a decade, and each year I try to keep it fresh by working in or swapping out an assignment or two. This year, I ordered a few hundred tiny wooden figures from Amazon and planned to have each student assemble her or his own cast of characters by painting and dressing each one as they are introduced in the play. In my mind, it would be a fun, creative thing for them to do, a lower-stakes assignment that might allow for some of them to earn a high grade during a difficult unit of study. And as we block out scenes, they can have them out on their desks and arrange them as necessary. Something that will distract them when necessary and turn a daunting text into an opportunity for creativity. I don’t want to stifle them.

Fun, right? Just order the figures, give them the general idea, let them run with it.

My wife disagreed. They needed a model, she told me, an exemplar. So, during a free period, I took one of the figures down to the art room and created my own little wooden Prospero. When I showed it to her, she took a moment before she responded.

“That’s nice,” she said. “But maybe I should make the rest.”

She spent hours crafting a set of ten characters that I’d keep on my desk, all for an assignment on a play she’s never taught. The difference between my work and hers was laughable. I had drawn what was supposed to be a cape on my Prospero, coloring it in with a fading purple marker, the colors bleeding sloppily; her Miranda wore a gown with a sheer overlay, her hair in a French braid made from gift wrapping twine.

It did not take long for my students to tell which Horner had made which.

“That’s terrible,” they said, pointing to my Prospero. “Those are Mrs. Horner’s,” pointing to the rest. These are the things that good teachers do, this is the behind-the-scenes work that they often speak of with pride and determination, the long weekend hours spent grading papers, the early mornings they meet with students to offer extra help. The job, when done by the best of us, can only be entirely consuming. My wife takes it to the level where she’s working on assignments for other teacher’s students.

As a middle school teacher married to another middle school teacher (who teaches in the same department, often with the same students), it’s difficult to find a time when we’re not talking or thinking about school. It’s been the setting for our entire lives together; we first met when she interviewed at our school almost ten years ago. Our oldest child just finished his first year in the school’s nursery program. Our classrooms are separated by a short hallway. We’re as entrenched as you can be.

Given how close we work with one another and how similar our jobs can be, we’re remarkably different teachers. Usually, students have me first, in seventh grade, before my wife teaches them in eighth grade. I do my best to get them ready for her, but one of the things I’ve learned over the years is how we each have different learning priorities when it comes to our students, and that’s okay.

The students ask if we talk about them at home.  Of course we do! The most rewarding of these conversations are when we get excited about passing students to each other. “You’re going to love her,” I say. And often, she does. But our differences as teachers and advisors go far beyond our approach to the arts and crafts of the Tempest figures. There are other times when students who click with me don’t gel with my wife, or when a student will take to the structure of   my wife’s classes more than the loose, conversational tone of mine. I get a kick out of students who throw their weight around a bit—the ones who push back and challenge, who have a bit of an attitude. (I could never imagine being that way in middle school, and so I find it fascinating.) She admires curiosity and earnestness, the ones who embrace the challenge of every assignment, who get excited.

At a teacher’s conference, I once heard an alarming anecdote: that a recent study found that, of all jobs, teaching requires more “critical decisions” than any other profession save one, air traffic controller. And there are times when I’m in the classroom and I feel as if I’m a conductor, leading a  kind of orchestra but without any musical arrangements in front of me, directing and nudging and steering a literature conversation in a way that makes my students want to listen and be heard at the same time. When this goes well, it’s exhilarating and the 50-minute period passes in a moment. But there are days when it doesn’t go well, because of things I can control or things I cannot, and it takes all my energy to keep an honest face because no one spots a fake better than a 13-year- old. On these occasions, I power through, and as soon as the period is over, I walk down the hall to my wife’s room, and she’s nice enough to let me vent for a few minutes.

Being married to another teacher gives our lives an odd quality; it can be isolating. Neither of us knows what it’s like to work 12 months of the year. Last week, we had dinner with friends and I asked the husband what he had done that day. “I went to work,” he said, a little confused by my question. It was a Friday in July. It never would have occurred to me.

Certainly, there are times when we have to put down a dinner table decree and agree to set aside any talk of school. But it never lasts long. We love school! We love the rhythms of the calendar. We love the children. We still believe we are remarkably lucky that money appears in our bank account because we get to talk to them about stories. That we get to do that around each other, to collaborate and bounce ideas off each other, and that we also get to see plainly the differences in our approach to the job—these are perks on top of it all.

Yes,  there are nights when we’re up late preparing for our classes, or for each other’s. But it’s  well worth it. 

Editor’s Note: Brandon Horner teaches middle school English at The Rumson Country Day School along with his wife, Cara. He also serves as Head of Secondary School Placement for RCDS.

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

Grain & Cane Bar and Table • Tuscan Pork Roast

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

Slow-roasted pork roast studded with garlic and savory herbs, finished with pan au jus and served with locally harvested caramelized winter squash and braised greens.

The Thirsty Turtle • Pork Tenderloin Special

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

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

— Chef Rich Crisonio

The Thirsty Turtle • Brownie Sundae

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

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

— Chef Dennis Peralta

The Famished Frog • Mango Guac

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

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

— Chef Ken Raymond

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Sushi Tacos

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

Crispy wonton taco shells—featuring your choice of tuna, salmon, shrimp or crab— with rice, cucumber, red onions, avocado, cilantro and lime juice, topped with spicy mayo.

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Avenue • 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

Garden Grille • Beet & Goat Cheese Salad

304 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD (973) 232-5300 • hgispringfield.hgi.com

Beet and goat cheese salad with mandarin oranges, golden beets, spiced walnuts, arugula, with a red wine vinaigrette.

— Chef Sean Cznadel

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

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

Join us for our “speedy affordable lunches” or dinner. We suggest you try our fresh, never frozen, 18 oz. bone-in Outlaw Ribeye—featuring juicy marbling that is perfectly seasoned and fire-grilled by our expert Grill Masters. Make sure to also try our amazing chicken and seafood dishes, as well.

— Anthony Levy, Managing Partner

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD (973) 467-9095 • outback.com

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

How powerful can a book be?

A book can be the most powerful tool in the cosmos. A book can change lives. A book can be deadly. A book can lead others to make the world a better place. A book can start wars. Don’t take books lightly; weigh them with criticism and experience. Read the good ones. Use the lousy ones to level the bedposts.

Has your Hollywood life helped you to become a better student of the world?

Absolutely. I have always said that I might not have had the most formal education, but movies have helped me to study and to learn about history, politics and the arts. I will be forever grateful for that…I feel very fortunate because I get to study history while I am working. It’s almost better than just sitting in front of a book and having to study it. I do like to do that as well, but when you are learning it the way we do by visiting a lot of historical places, it’s even more fun.

Do your movies make people smarter?

I like the fact that [historical] movies make people smarter…we don’t see that too much in Hollywood these days.

Which role do you identify with the most?

That’s a tough question. It’s almost as if you are asking me which kid is my favorite. I remember Turner & Hooch the most because one thing after another went wrong. Try to make an emotional connection with a dog!

Forrest Gump is my favorite. I find him very inspirational. Why do you think it’s had such an impact on people? He lived at the speed of common sense. I think we’d all love to do that, but Forrest did it every day of his life.

What was it like to know that Toy Story 4 was the last Toy Story, the last time Sheriff Woody would be voiced by you?

It was a lot more emotional than I really thought. You know, when we recorded the last session, the whole creative team was there. It was a historic moment for all of us, and it was a very emotional one, as well.

Do you enjoy doing voiceovers?

I loved to be the voice of Sheriff Woody. He grew so much, and has become a lot deeper and profound than I thought he would ever be. He will always be a part of me now.

What advice do you give young actors?

Act at every opportunity. Be the person in the duck costume if that’s the only role open. 

Editor’s Note: This Q&A was conducted by Suzy Maloy of The Interview People. Suzy writes for several magazines and web sites. Recent interview subjects include Chris Hemsworth, George Clooney, Robert Redford, Don Henley and Goldie Hawn.

Sowing the seeds of outdoor play.

By Sarah Rossbach

Imagine yourself as a grandparent. Perhaps you already are one. It was only natural that the kids grew up, flew away and feathered their own nests. And you settled in nicely to your empty nest. Yet, not entirely empty…every so often, a disruptive, “invasive species” overruns your island of orderly calm: the grandchildren come to visit. While you welcome them,  they do present a challenge…what to do?

Instead of planting them in front of a screen, this is your opportunity to introduce them to the wonders of nature, wonders that will educate, engage, enrich and, ideally, exhaust. You don’t have to be a grandparent, of course. The idea is to exercise a young mind and body. It’s as simple as a walk in the park and —who can tell?—your efforts may start a beautiful relationship with the outdoors, as well as a deep grasp of the nature’s cycles.

If this sounds like a job for Sisyphus, you’re not alone. Educators and researchers have been struggling to strike a balance between indoor technology and outdoor play going on two generations now.  More on that in a moment.

To me, it feels odd and obvious to be writing about the advantages of playing outdoors. My own memories of my grandfather are of walking with him in a dense pine forest, smelling the deep scents, and running at his request to pick up twigs that had fallen to give to him for kindling. Alas, the over-programmed, lesson-filled and electronically addicted lives of today’s children has practically precluded free play and spontaneous outside activities. Indeed, now the concept of playing outdoors has been codified: Nature Play is a formal term used to describe the benefits of unstructured outside activity. Its proponents say that Nature Play enhances the “cognitive, creative, physical, social and emotional development of children.”

Cultivating an interest in (and identification with) nature and its forces may help your young ones discover a new fascination with the birds and bees, bugs and butterflies and their nurturing pollinators. We baby boomers grew up with unchaperoned and impromptu adventures in neighborhood open spaces, catching minnows or tadpoles, and dirt under our nails. Today’s children— granted this is a generalization—are strangers to their natural environment. In fact, they suffer from what child specialists and botanists diagnose as “Plant Blindness”.

Plant Blindness is a real concern. If you introduce a child early-on to how plants and flowers are necessary to our food chain, the well-being of humans, and the health of the planet, over the long run, he or she may discover a passion to work with nature. And there are lots of plant-related jobs waiting to be filled. Professional fields in what are called the growing arts—botany, ecology, horticulture, garden and nursery work—more and more go begging for suitable employees. Last year, 40,000 jobs in the growing arts went unfilled. Many organizations—such as botanical gardens, university agricultural departments, Garden Club of America— have sounded the alarm regarding this fall-off of interest on the part of school-age kids in the growing arts. The ripple effect of this trend is unknown. But it is also unpromising. Environmental stewardship, regardless of your politics, is not something that happens all by itself.

Educators in New Jersey (reminder: we are the Garden State) have prioritized outdoor play for wider-ranging reasons, including socialization, development of motor skills and overall emotional health. Getting students moving out in the air is part of the daily schedule and, in many cases, a component of the curriculum—from grades K through 12.

“Play is really the basis for all learning in early childhood,” says Kellen Kent, Early Childhood & Lower School Division Head at Chatham Day School. “And what better place to play than outside? Whether digging in the Learning Garden and sandbox, climbing and sliding on the playground, or running on a playing field or nature path—exploring the outdoors is how young children strengthen their connection with nature, build gross motor skills, and enhance brain development.”

Getting young teens and ’tweens to put their phones or game controllers down—and venture out into the world for a few minutes every day—is a more complex challenge. Woe is the parent or grandparent who makes the heretical suggestion that a child this age actually venture outside. That is where schools can make a big impact. Preparing students for college and beyond involves more than foundational pieces (reading, writing, math, etc.). The social/emotional component is critical to adolescent development. “For middle-schoolers, outdoor time is really a social activity,” points out Boni Luna, Head of Middle School at Morristown-Beard School. “This is where they develop relationships outside their families and navigate the murky waters of friendships and social exchanges. We have recess a half-hour a day and it’s mandatory to be outside, weather permitting. They play ball, walk around, just clear their heads and gain some internal time so they can reset.” In 6th grade, Luna adds, the students tend to segregate themselves by gender. By 8th grade they are more blended. The school psychologist is often outside at these times to observe the social dynamics.

Gill St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone uses the outdoors as a learning environment to ingrain sustainability and promote collaborative inquiry. The campus encompasses 128-acre Home Winds Farm, which includes a two-acre garden, tree nursery, stream and pond. “The natural features of our campus invite students in all three divisions—lower,  middle and upper—to probe the world around them,” says Noreen Syed, who teaches Science to middle-schoolers and heads up GSB’s STREAMS (sustainability, technology, research, engineering, agriculture, mathematics and service) program. “This space is a gift and a hallmark of our school. That is why we make active efforts to utilize the campus in a variety of ways.”

At the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in New Providence, outdoor time is folded into the formal curriculum as the students get older. “Academically, it’s great for them to explore the world around them,” says Jaclyn Church, who teaches middle school science and also serves as OLP’s Science Coordinator. “They are able to take the information we learn inside outside and make those connections. It’s great for application of the knowledge learned, even on a smaller scale. They can then think abstractly about the info on the larger scale.”

The school is building a greenhouse that will enable students to learn a variety of different concepts and see their work in hydroponics from inside continue. Church is also planning more activities that allow for outdoor play and real-world connections with the science curriculum, such as collecting water from outside and looking at it under a microscope.

“Getting the students outdoors is important for them in so many ways.”

Back to those visiting grandkids (aka invasive species). An adventure in the outdoors will build a life-long connection with nature, as well as deepen the connection between you and your young family members. Regardless of whether the “nurture with nature” approach takes root in your backyard or in a school setting, the goal is for children to gain knowledge, have fun and exercise. And, as a bonus, study after study has shown there’s a benefit to you, too: Gardening appears to be a key to longevity and good health.

Backyard BBQ a la mud

Back in the 1960s, a neighbor wrote a doll cookbook, Mudpies and Other Recipes, a compendium of plant, sand, water and dirt-based concoctions. It was all about entertaining a la mud. From literal SANDwiches to MUDloafs, I, aided by a taciturn, unresponsive sous-chef doll, would create sun-baked foraged feasts.  And I washed my hands after I cooked and ate, instead of before. The book still is available online, but you and your offspring could play Chopped kitchen with a variety of foraged natural materials and see what you come up with on your own. Bon Appetit!

Creating a Foodscape

If you have a backyard garden, a wonderful way to strengthen the connection with nature is to plant edibles with your young guests. Nothing is tastier or healthier than fresh-from-the-garden produce. Create a vegetable patch or plant herbs and vegetables among your flowers. Brie Arthur, author, and horticulturalists, jokingly swears by child labor. She welcomes students and young neighbors to help her plant. She has worked with learning-disabled children and says being engaged in planting and part of a workgroup fosters learning about the growth cycles of plants and a sense of belonging to a group and the world at large. She recommends pairing—or, as she calls it, “foodscaping”—vegetables and herbs with your ornamental plants. An added bonus is that your helpers will want to make a return visit to consume the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor. A caveat is that you need to be organic and avoid chemical pesticides and fertilizers. To learn more, check out Brie’s website: BrieGrows.com.

Welcome Mat

A grown-up project that resonates with all ages is the Butterfly Waystation Project, which is designed to create and protect Monarch habitats and can be incorporated into an existing garden. These beautiful butterflies, which help to pollinate our vegetables, are at risk. (Their population has been dwindling thanks to pesticides and human development.)

Native pollinators, such as milkweed, coneflower and Joe Pye weed, create habitats for larvae and energy sources for butterflies. Once you create a butterfly welcome mat, watch in the summer as the large striped caterpillars feast on the plants and morph into Monarchs. You can go a step further and contact the University of Kansas, which has a worldwide registry and can certify your Monarch-friendly garden. Nothing like helping to save a beautiful species and getting the acknowledgment. too!

We welcome the community to our programs that are designed to educate and inform. Programs are subject to change.

SEMINARS

Visit www.TrinitasRMC.org for seminar listings or check for updates on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/TrinitasRMC.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Health  Services with Women In Mind

Trinitas helps provide women access to vital health services with a focus on preventive measures. These include educational programs and cancer screenings. Programs offered in English and Spanish.

Ask the Pharmacist: Medication Management

Free of charge, by appointment only. Monthly on the 4th Tuesday, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Call (908) 994-5237.

TRINITAS HEALTH FOUNDATION EVENTS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 • 8:00 AM

Annual Golf Classic & Spa Day

Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club, Bedminster, NJ Oasis Day Spa, Bedminster, NJ

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11 • 5:00 PM

Art Show featuring the works of Thomas Wacaster

Designers Gallery, 1049A Raritan Road (Clarkton Center), Clark, NJ

Benefit for Trinitas Health Foundation

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29 • 6:30 PM

Peace Of Mind Event

An Informative Evening with Mariel Hemingway and Journalist Jack Ford

The Park Savoy Estate, Florham Park, NJ

The event will include cocktails and a light supper. Funds raised from this event will benefit the Peace of Mind Campaign, a $4 million campaign to renovate Trinitas’ Department of Behavioral Health and Psychiatry.

For more information about the Foundation or to learn more about its fundraising events, (908) 994-8249 or kboyer@trinitas.org.

Proceeds from these events benefit the patients of Trinitas Regional Medical Center. Making reservations for Foundation events is fast and easy on your American Express, MasterCard, Visa or Discover card.

TCCC SUPPORT GROUPS

Conference Room A or Conference Room B Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center

225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth NJ 07207

Living with Cancer Support Groups

All events take place from 1:00 – 3:00 pm. Call (908) 994-8535 for 2019 schedule

MEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUPS

Sleep Disorders

If you are experiencing problems sleeping, contact the Trinitas Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center in Elizabeth or Cranford at Homewood Suites by Hilton (easy access to the GSP). Both centers are headed by a medical director who is board certified in sleep, internal, pulmonary, and intensive care medicines and is staffed by seven certified sleep technologists.

For further information, call (908) 994-8694 or visit www.njsleepdisorderscenter.org

Narcotics Anonymous

Monday 7:00 – 8:30 pm; Sunday Noon – 2:00 pm; and Sunday 5:00 – 6:30 pm

Jean Grady, Community Liaison, (908) 994-7438 Grassmann Hall, 655 East Jersey St., Elizabeth

Alcoholics Anonymous

Friday 7:30 – 8:45 pm

Jean Grady, Community Liaison, (908) 994-7438 Grassmann Hall, 655 East Jersey St., Elizabeth

HIV Education and Support Program for HIV Positive Patients

Monthly. Call for scheduled dates/times. Judy Lacinak, (908) 994-7605

Early Intervention Program Clinic

655 Livingston St., Monastery Building, 2nd Floor, Elizabeth

Mental Illness Support Group (NAMI) for Spanish Speaking Participants

Monthly, Fourth Friday except for August, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Mike Guglielmino, (908) 994-7275 Martha Silva, NAMI 1-888-803-3413

6 So. Conference Rm., Williamson St. Campus 225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth

TRINITAS CHILDREN’S THERAPY SERVICES

899 Mountain Avenue, Suite 1A, Springfield, NJ (973) 218-6394

“10 Tips…” Workshops

These workshops are appropriate for parents, teachers, or individuals who work with young children. They focus on practical strategies that can be implemented into daily classroom and home routines. All workshops offer suggestions that are appropriate for all children. A special emphasis is placed on children with special needs and those with an Autism diagnosis. Workshops are $15 per class.

September 17, 2019 6:00 – 7:30 pm

10 Tips for Building Attention Skills

October 15, 2019 6:00 – 7:30 pm

10 Tips for Self Help & Adaptive Skills

November 19, 2019  6:00 – 7:30 pm 10 Tips for Looking at Behavior Through a Mental Health Lens

December 10, 2019 6:00 – 7:30 pm

10 Tips – Make & Take Evening (make activities to take back & use in your classroom)

Limited number of registrants.

To register, e-mail your name and courses you would like to attend (include dates) to Kellianne Martin at Kmartin@trinitas.org or by phone at (973) 218-6394 x1000.

Winter Programs: Oct. 7 – Jan. 20

All programs are offered one time per week, for

45 minutes. These programs are a great alternative to individual therapy. They give children the opportunity to address key developmental areas in structured environments that are more reflective of typical real-life home and school situations.

Call for times and pricing.

SCRIBBLES TO SCRIPT HANDWRITING PROGRAM

An opportunity for children from preschool (prewriting) through elementary (cursive) school to work with an occupational therapist and participate in multi-sensory fine motor, visual-motor, and visual-perceptual activities to learn pre-writing skills, proper letter formation, and

writing within the given lines using the Handwriting Without Tears® program.

SPORTS READINESS

An opportunity for children to work with a physical therapist and have an intro into several fall/winter sports in a non-competitive small group setting.

SOCIAL BUTTERFLIES

An opportunity for children to work with a speech & language therapist and engage in activities to address turn-taking, topic maintenance, appropriate question asking, following non-verbal cues, and using manners.

TYPING WHIZKIDS

An opportunity for children to work with an occupational therapist to learn efficient keyboarding skills, including key location and finger placement, and speed and accuracy.

“The world has changed over the last 10 years. Automotive technology has changed along with it.”

Jim Sawyer

How cool would it be to walk into a car dealership and see something truly revolutionary—an out-of-this-world technology so new that no one had even thought of it a year ago? Well, revolutions don’t happen overnight, at least not in the automotive industry. Improvements in in-car technology tend to be incremental. And thank goodness for that. We are consumers,  not crash-test dummies—we want all the kinks worked out of the new cars we buy before we drive them off the lot, and are willing to wait until they are more or less perfected.

Which is why great leaps forward are few and far between. However…if you take what I like to call the “Rip van Winkle” approach and assess improvements in performance, safety, and design in decade-long chunks, the last 10 years (2009 to 2019) have offered plenty to get excited about. Of course, being human, we now take most of them for granted, but they are well worth appreciating.

Just Around the Corner

Vehicle-to-vehicle networking.  Right now, if the car ahead of you senses an obstacle or impending accident, its sensors can give the driver an extra split-second to react. You, on the other hand—in the “third car”—are out of luck. The future of connectivity will give your car (and others in close proximity) the same warning at the same time.

“This is going to be a big deal,” predicts DCH Audi General Manager Al Kouri, adding that networking technology will also be a game-changer in the development of fully autonomous vehicles.

The fact is that 2009 was a big year for auto tech. Many of the now ”standard” features on 2019 vehicles were just finding their way into showrooms back then. Among the groundbreaking bells and whistles were rear-mounted radar that could detect oncoming traffic when a car shifted into reverse, as well as portable routers that turned vehicles into Wi-Fi hotspots. Live GPS vehicle tracking (for paranoid parents or vigilant business owners) also became widely available. And smaller, lighter turbocharged engines could be found in cars across the MSRP spectrum, boosting power and efficiency—a huge game-changer.

The 2010’s saw a number of other noteworthy changes and improvements, some of which are everywhere now, some which are not and, a few (like sophisticated back-up cameras) that became mandatory in all new cars. In 2010, for instance, Volvo introduced a crash- avoidance system that sensed pedestrians, cyclists and other urban hazards, which it dubbed City Safety. This technology, which has become more important in new cars as more and more people step off curbs while glued to their smartphones, will be a key part of making driverless cars a reality. An autonomous vehicle can do a lot of things, but can it ever replace a human driver who can read and react to what a cyclist or pedestrian or loose pet might do? We shall see.

“Pre-sensing technology has been the most significant improvement,” confirms Al Khouri, General Manager of DCH Millburn Audi in Maplewood. “Safety features used to be about protecting passengers in an accident. Vehicles now assist the driver in avoiding that accident. This has changed the conversations we have in the showroom. It used to be that people wanted to feel how a car drove and handled. Now they want to know all about safety technology. These questions were rarely asked a decade ago. Consumers have done their research and are well-informed.”

Given that car design and technology usually reflect trends in the wider world, it should come as no surprise that many of the game-changing technologies we’ve seen over the last decade are related to our love of electronics. Indeed, the headline news in the auto industry seemed to come from the Consumer Electronics Show every winter. Lasers, sensors, satellite receivers, display screens, sophisticated driver-assist functions, connectivity and more apps than can fit on a smartphone combined to enhance the in-car experience for drivers and passengers.

At the beginning of the decade, the automotive green revolution got important boosts from a couple of noteworthy cars: the Tesla Roadster and Ford Fusion Hybrid (pictured on the previous page). The Tesla was the first truly heart-pounding electric super-vehicle (in that it looked more like a sexy sports car than an appliance on wheels). The Fusion, which hit the road at about the same time, targeted a different segment of the market with the look of an everyday sedan but with the efficiency of a hybrid. Together, these two cars pushed other companies to up their games and convinced a lot of reluctant consumers to consider an environmentally friendlier option when it was time for their next new car.

Do they qualify as great leaps forward? That depends on your definition of great or, perhaps, your definition of leap. The term “Great Leap Forward” was famously adopted by the People’s  Republic of China in the late-1950s to describe an ambitious plan to move from an agrarian to an industrialized society. It turned out to be an economic demolition derby—it was an utter catastrophe. So how ironic that, when car industry experts look back at 2019 years from now, a legitimate great leap forward may have come from China’s neighbor, Taiwan. Last spring, engineering researchers at National Qinghua University announced that they had found a way to potentially double the efficiency of the alkaline fuel cells used to power electric vehicles while reducing manufacturing costs by as much as 90%.

That, my friends, would be a great leap forward!

Near Future

3-D Printed Cars. Not the whole car, of course,  just the parts that make people ooh and aah. Pick your engine and your options, and then go crazy designing the car of your dreams. The functional technology exists already, however, the cost is still prohibitive. But man, just think of the wild stuff we’ll be seeing on the road. The fringe benefit of this technology is that the same 3-D printers will also be able to create parts on demand, drastically reducing repair costs and doing the environment a solid.

Not So Distant Future

Fully autonomous driving should be a reality. Not only will all the kinks be worked out of the technology, but so will various legal issues and (hopefully) any unintended social or cultural consequences. What unintended consequences? Well, in a city like New York, where traffic is bad and parking hideously expensive, self-driving cars might potentially worsen congestion. Why park for $50 during a one-hour meeting or meal when you could “tell” your car to just circle the block? And if the city outlaws this practice, how do cops stop and ticket a driverless car? Interesting, right? Undoubtedly, technology will address this problem, but it won’t happen overnight, as we’ve been led to believe.

Not In Your Lifetime

Flying cars. Well, 1973 came and went, didn’t it? So here’s the deal: You might finally get that long-awaited personal jetpack, but automobiles will remain earthbound. Yes, it’s fun to imagine hovering over the potholes on Rte. 22 on your way to and from work, but no one wants to be in a Rte. 22 fender- bender “at altitude”—or, especially, be driving underneath one!

Trinitas OB/GYN Chair making Elizabeth campus his base of operations.

Erica Otersen

Dr. Abu S. Alam has delivered thousands of babies and provided quality care to countless families, both here and abroad, during a medical career that has stretched across more than four decades. After two-plus years commuting between Elizabeth and his practice in Summit, the Chairman of Obstetrics/Gynecology has decided to close the doors of his longtime office overlooking Springfield Avenue and devote himself entirely to Trinitas.

Born and raised in Bangladesh, Dr. Alam cites his father’s death as his inspiration for a career in healthcare: “Before my father passed, he asked that one of us become a doctor. At sixteen, I was the youngest of seven children and none of my siblings had pursued medicine. It was left to me to fulfill his wishes.”

He embarked on his medical education as a teenager and, in 1972, graduated from Dhaka Medical School. He interned at Louisiana State University, completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York City, and moved to the New Jersey suburbs to build his practice.

Dr. Alam has trekked to Haiti more than 20 times over the years, performing charitable work in the impoverished island nation—often finding himself in clinics with no electricity. His arrival at Trinitas in 2017 gave him an opportunity to connect with the area’s Haitian population. He has also worked tirelessly to secure funds and equipment donations in order to open Nandina General Hospital, a non-profit medical facility in Bangladesh.

It is this dedication to caring that initially led Dr. Alam to Trinitas, which serves a diverse patient population. And, he says, it makes the difficult decision to leave Summit a little easier.

“It will also decrease my commute time and increase time for my patients,” he points out, adding that his first priority—whether in New Jersey or Haiti or Bangladesh—has always been to his patients.

“When I go to bed at night, I know that I’ve given my patients the best care I can.” 

Editor’s Note: Dr. Alam’s efforts have not gone unrecognized. In 2006, he was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which is presented to immigrants who have made significant contributions to America’s heritage.

Moving Trintas forward is a 24/7 job. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gary S. Horan

Quite a bit has changed regarding the healthcare landscape in the decade since EDGE magazine began publication, but to me those  10 years only represent the “second half” of the Trinitas story. It was actually 20 years ago that the final touches were being put on the merger between Elizabeth General Medical Center and St. Elizabeth Hospital to create Trinitas Regional Medical Center, in January of 2000. I came aboard as CEO in the summer of 2001 and, thinking back, I am struck by how my duties and focus, and the hospital itself, have evolved over that time.

The merger was still fresh when I arrived. By that I mean we were still operating with two separate buildings and two separate organizations, and there was anxiety in Elizabeth—the state’s fourth-largest city— about the prospect of closing one institution down and assimilating it with the other. Would Trinitas have the capacity to serve the community?

That turned out to be a non-issue. The decision to merge proved to be a very appropriate and prescient one. The individuals involved had the insight and vision to see that the healthcare environment was changing. They understood that merging was the way to achieve economies of scale and avoid duplication of equipment and technology. And because of that, Trinitas was able to invest in renovations and expansions that have maximized the impact of the new technologies and protocols that have come along in the years since. The capacity was there because of new treatments and medications, which shorten patient stays or prevent them from having to be admitted at all— advances in healthcare that were developed specifically to reduce hospitalization. The 2000s have been a very dynamic, innovative time in healthcare and the merger enabled us to leverage all of these benefits. It also enabled Trinitas to be more nimble and responsive as times changed.

Now, mergers are fairly commonplace among hospitals. But the idea was new in 2000. And it was accomplished during an era of considerable uncertainty. We had all just “survived” Y2K, which sounds like a small deal, but it was a big one at the time. People were afraid that bank accounts would be erased, traffic lights would stop functioning and planes would fall out of the sky. Even though nothing happened, hospitals had to take these threats seriously. A lot of the time and energy and preparation went into “what-if” scenarios. Then, just a couple of months after I came to Trinitas, the terror attacks of 9/11 occurred. Details of that day are still very fresh in mind. From the top floor and rooftop of the medical center we had a clear view of the World Trade Center. To see it burn and see it fall was incredibly sobering to witness. But I also remember how quickly we were able to react: Our emergency services team assembled quickly and, in coordination with the county and the state, dispatched ambulances to Port Liberte in Jersey City to accept the patients who everyone anticipated coming by ferry from downtown. And there were no patients.  It was a sad thing. All of the professionals were there waiting and nobody came,

If there was any kind of silver lining to that terrible day, it was that we had done a great job fine-tuning our emergency preparedness—and that people took notice. Right after that, I believe we were one of the first hospitals in the state to participate in the biological warfare training exercise by the Department of Defense. That was quite an experience. We had decontamination tents and everybody had to gown up. It was reassuring to know that we would be prepared if that type of attack occurred.  Everybody rose to the occasion—Trinitas staff, the city, the state. The coordination was fantastic. It showed me that people really rise to the occasion in a crisis. And improving our preparedness is something we have continued to do ever since. It’s part of our team-building culture.

Of course, some things I knew would not change. Today, as in 2001, financial viability remains one of my top concerns and challenges. We are still serving a significant charity-care population, a large population of undocumented residents, and a large Medicaid population. And dealing with insurance companies hasn’t gotten easier or less complicated.

Insurance companies—and this goes beyond 20 years—have systematically ratcheted down reimbursement, not just for hospitals but also for doctors. Different plans have come into effect for the consumer during the Obamacare/Affordable Care Act era that were supposed to cover everybody. But as it’s played out, deductibles are very high and the quality of the insurance product is not as robust. People may have seen a reduction in premiums, yet with those savings came a very significant increase in deductibles—which means when they get ill, they can expect to receive big bills at the end of the day.

That forced a lot of doctors to go out of network, which is a very big problem. Two decades ago that was not the case. But in the last four or five years, I feel like I hear more frequently doctors say, “I’m not going to accept any insurance”—in some cases, including Medicare, because the reimbursements are so low. When they see patients out of network, they send them very large bills, and then the patients have to battle that out with their insurance carrier to see how much gets paid. More times than not, only a fraction gets paid and the consumer is left holding the bag for the rest. And then the hospital and the doctor have to deal with them when they struggle to pay.

As a hospital CEO and president, I feel the same anxiety and frustration about our relationship with insurance companies. It’s a difficult one. For instance, it’s increasingly prevalent for insurance companies to deny days to the hospital and deny payments—and the hospital has to go through the hammers of hell to appeal these cases. The thing about it is that, in our appeals, we have an approximately 65% or 70% success rate. That might lead one to believe that the denials are not really looked at from the standpoint of justifiable denials, but a strategy of denying something just to see what happens. It’s an accounting strategy, essentially.

For our part, it’s  wonderful to win a high percentage  of appeals. When we challenge a denial or expedite an approval, we are advocating for our patients and the best outcomes. However, what people don’t realize is that to appeal is very costly to Trinitas. The amount of money we have to set aside to counter and challenge insurance company denials is staggering. This also includes the work we have to do to get certifications and pre-certifications for certain tests and procedures. This delays treatment in many cases, which is very stressful for the patient…who in many cases blames us!

Returning to happier thoughts, I would say that I have seen remarkable strides in quality control over the past two decades. Patient safety has always been at the forefront for Trinitas and all healthcare institutions— making sure your policies, procedures and products are of the highest quality—and that is top-of-mind here every day. In the old days, hospitals tended to operate on a volume-based system. Now it’s a value-based system. The results and outcomes for patients is far more important in the running of a  hospital than it was 20 years ago. You see this reflected in the mergers and acquisitions in healthcare, which have increased dramatically since we did it. Trinitas was one of the first truly successful mergers in the state. And it has certainly stood the test of time from the standpoint of success.

That success has enabled Trinitas to impact the lives of patients far beyond our immediate area. For instance, we are in 80 different locations throughout the state and in every county when it comes to behavioral health. Our presence is well known and our reputation has grown dramatically—people don’t look at us as a single hospital, they look at us as a system. And we are our own system, in that regard. Our Centers of Excellenceextend our reach to a wide audience. We have the professional talent, we have the technology available, and we focus on these areas to ensure that they continue to be Centers of Excellence. Many draw patients from Union County and beyond because we provide services others don’t. And even where others do, we are known for our high-quality patient care and good outcomes.

Take our Wound Care Center, which has three hyperbaric chambers. We get patients from all over the state and the region with complex wounds—often as referrals from other wound centers, because they are having difficulty curing a wound. A few years ago, there was a story in this magazine about a patient who traveled here from Delaware every day for at least 10 weeks. He was originally told that he’d probably lose his leg, and we cured him.

These stories make the dull-but-necessary duties of a hospital CEO bearable. Peter Drucker, the legendary management guru, identified managing a medical center as the most difficult job in the world. You won’t get an argument from me. Trinitas is an incredibly complex organization. Healthcare is very complex. I can probably speak for my peers at other institutions when I say that I would like to spend fewer hours working on issues of regulation and bureaucracy and more time developing new ideas. There are so many new regulations, and often regulations change without much notice. So I often have to shuffle things in order to change quickly to meet those requirements. Obviously, I rely greatly on our compliance people. Compliance is one of the other things, by the way, that has changed over the last 20 years in our industry. It is increasingly a part of everything we do. Not that we have a diminished focus on items such as strategic planning, but with less regulation and bureaucracy, we would have more time to concentrate on more productive things.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering what I enjoy most about my job.

I enjoy the planning process—coming up with new ideas, new concepts, new ways to make sure we are providing the community with what it needs (as opposed to what we need). When we develop initiatives, I try to be “risk-assertive,” which means I like to try new things—more so, perhaps, than many of my colleagues. I believe it is important to take a good risk when it is based on good information and, to certain risks like that to deliver good healthcare and have the community on your side.

I also enjoy seeing where new ideas come from. At Trinitas, they come from every corner of the hospital— doctors, nurses and employees in every department. Management and staff meet on a regular basis and a lot of ideas are generated by those interactions, especially where the work environment is concerned. The people who work here have so many ideas of how to be more productive. Our physicians bring us ideas about new technologies we should consider using. An example of that is electroconvulsive therapy. It’s been around a while but it was something we hadn’t done. Our physician staff has been talking a lot about ECT and I think it’s a program we’ll be going into in 2020. Many ideas come from the management team, of course, and also from the outside community.

My job is to keep things running smoothly at Trinitas because, when everything runs smoothly in a hospital, you can put new ideas into action. Some lead to small improvements, while others turn out to be game- changers. You never know when the next big thing will come across your desk. That’s why I listen to all ideas. No one is shut down.

The dynamic healthcare environment was certainly reflected in the announcement we made just as EDGE was going to press: that Trinitas took the first step toward becoming a part of the Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health network. Our respective Boards signed a Letter of Intent that provides a basic understanding of future governance and details will be determined over the next few months. Should this transaction go through, Trinitas will remain a full-service, Catholic medical center. I see our eventual move into the RWJBarnabas Health system as an extremely positive and exciting development for our institution— one that will give us the resources and opportunities to greatly enhance the already high level of care we provide to our community.

These products should last you 10 years… and then some.

By Mark Stewart

I recently came across something online called the 10-Year Hoodie, which, as the name suggests, is guaranteed to last 10 years. It launched with a Kickstarter campaign that raised over $1 million dollars in, like, a day or something. My first thought was Wow, I’m definitely in the wrong business. My second thought was Wow, does anyone who wears a hoodie now still want to be wearing one a decade from now? That’s not the point, of course, or the calculation. It’s all about that magic number. There is something irresistible about the number 10—and it makes for a handy benchmark when you are considering investing in a product you’ll be using regularly in the foreseeable future.

In the mid-1970s, I specifically recall deciding that 8- track tapes were the right 10-year music format for me. My logic was flawless: Vinyl scratched too easily and cassettes were always having to be rewound or flipped over. Of course, the CD made all three obsolete within a decade. But for the record, digitized music also crashed the entire music industry within another decade, so ha-ha-ha. You know, in my teens and twenties, 10 years seemed like an eternity. It was half a lifetime or thereabouts. Now pushing 60, I realize that 10 years is more like a pebble glancing off the windshield of a full, rich life. Which reminds me, I think that chip in the windshield of my 19-year-old sedan is about 10 years old now. Probably time to call Safe-Lite. Nah. Let’s see if it gets worse.

I don’t want to make it sound as if I expect to live forever. The next 10 years are probably going to feel like dog years, and who knows what pet I’ll feel like during the 10 years after that. Consequently, my approach to purchasing household items has become a little different than it used to be: In this age of disposable everything, I have started to care about how long the new things I buy are likely to last. If I invest in a major appliance or an up-to-date automobile, I want to make sure that I won’t outlive it and then have to buy it all over again. That goes for a lot of other random stuff—belts, sunglasses, frying pans, pens and most of all hammers, because (don’t ask me how) I actually broke a hammer last year.

It’s an interesting question: How long should something, anything, last? What is a reasonable expectation for, say, a cordless weed-whacker or a panini-press or a desk lamp? And why did I bundle those things into one purchase on Amazon? How long will it be before the new trashcan I’ll be buying for the end of my driveway is itself going to have to be thrown away? (Also, how do you do that? Someone please email me—seriously, I’ve tried to do that five weeks in a row and I think the garbage men are just messing with me at this point.)

I was discussing this whole 10-year thing with a friend and she told me to look up a study done by something called Europa, which lists the household items that you can reasonably expect to last beyond 10 years. The first eight Google pages are about Europa the moon of Jupiter, with many suggesting “we should go there.” Once I found the correct search result, the Europa list was pretty clear: Household items that will absolutely last for 10 years or more include toilets, furnaces, and “appliances attached to the house,” which I took to mean refrigerators, dishwashers and dryers (ahem, Europa obviously didn’t check with me on dryers). This was informative, but not really what I was looking for.

After a little more digging, a bunch of texts and emails, plus a couple of real-live phone calls with people whose opinions I respect, I began to build the core of my list.

Here then is my shopping list of 10 gifts (for yourself or your loved ones) that should last a good 10 years…

A number of respondents pointed out that this would be a good “holiday” story—because there’s nothing more gratifying than spotting a gift you bestowed on a friend or family member that is still in use 10 years later. That’s not a hoodie.

www.istockphoto.com

Swiss Army Knife • You know why the Swiss haven’t lost a war in over 600 years? Neither do I. But the next time around you can be sure that they will be bringing this iconic cutlery into battle. Switzerland began ordering them in the 1890s and since then Swiss Army Knife has become the second answer behind first-place “cheese” and ahead of third-place “the Alps” when Americans are asked, “What is the most famous thing about Switzerland?” I totally just made that up but I’ll bet it’s true. How handy and cool are the multiple gadgets that fold out of the knife? NASA astronauts have made critical repairs with them. Design-wise, the knife is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And, most importantly, MacGyver (but not MacGruber) used Swiss Army Knives all the time to wriggle out of life-and-death situations.

The 10 Year Plan: Victorinox, maker of the Swiss Army Knife, guarantees its product for life from material defects and issues of workmanship. The company will repair or replace it without charge. Oh, and they’re not just bright red anymore. The knives come in multiple configurations and in different colors and case materials—with almost every version priced under $100.

www.istockphoto.com

Cast Iron Skillet • As heavy as it is, the classic cast iron skillet is currently defying the law of gravity. Once a staple in every kitchen, it went into decline during the 1970s as flashier cookware came into vogue. But guess what? Cast iron is cool again and young people are buying it. And even if they end up using it sparingly, as every Three Stooges fan knows it does double-duty as a (bonk!) handy home-defense weapon. You can buy them old or new, pre-seasoned or unseasoned, and they can handle as much heat as you throw at them.

10 Year Plan: Are you kidding? If you take care of cast iron it can last for a century or more. Families have gone to war over who will inherit grandma’s skillet. Cast iron has been in use for direct-flame and oven cooking for 1,500 years. If you buy American, then Lodge is the company you’re looking for. The big ones sell new for under $50, but there’s nothing wrong with an heirloom pan if you find one at the right price. One final note: should you or your intended gift recipient already have a skillet, there are a number of other cast-iron food preparation options, including Le Creuset Dutch ovens, which run around $200 new.

www.istockphoto.com

French Press • Drip coffeemakers are strictly for drips. At least, that’s the general opinion of java aficionados who use a French press. Much of a quality coffee’s flavor is contained in its oils, which are mostly absorbed by paper filters. Coffee grounds in a French press are allowed to steep for several minutes after the boiling water is poured over them, releasing those oils, as well as a little extra flavor contained in the tiny, tiny grounds that squeeze up through the strainer when it’s plunged down. Occasionally, you’ll see bad press for a French press, and it’s likely to be related to the fact that it won’t filter out a molecule in coffee beans called Cafestol, which has been shown in some studies to affect the body’s ability to metabolize cholesterol. So do your homework to make sure this won’t be an issue for you or the recipient of your extremely thoughtful gift.

10 Year Plan: A high-quality glass French Press will last until you drop it. A high-quality steel one—though not as attractive—will easily last 10 years. The part that may need attention from time to time is the screen at the end of the plunger. Buy a good one, keep it clean and dry, and don’t plunge down with all your might. The double-walled polished-steel Frieling is considered by experts to be the Rolls Royce in the category, but at a little over $100 thankfully it’s priced more like a high-end BMW.

www.istockphoto.com

Infinium Space Pen • My wife has been hoarding Amazon rewards points and I think I know why. She plans to cash them in for a seat on Jeff Bezos’s rocket ship as soon as it’s ready for passengers. When that day comes, I am going to buy her an Infinium Space pen. Why someone needs to write while the earth whizzes past at 18,000 miles per hour I don’t know; perhaps she’ll just write me off at that point.

10 Year Plan: Fisher says its Infinium pen is unlikely to run out of ink in the average user’s lifetime. As someone who invariably picks up the only pen in the cup that has run out of ink, I believe $150 is a bargain. Also, the pen is guaranteed to write “anywhere, anytime, always.” (The editor in me thinks they could get rid of “anytime.”)

Tupperware • This is not your mother’s food storage system…okay, yeah, it is. But why mess with a good thing? The aisles of supermarkets,    home goods stores and price clubs are jammed with collections of brand-name plastic food containers—often at temptingly low prices. But none of them come with a lifetime warranty or quality guarantee. It all began with a chemist named Earl Tupper back in the 1940s. He invented flexible, durable, unbreakable containers that wowed department store buyers. Unfortunately, the idea was so new (people mostly used glass containers with loose-fitting lids) that his product bombed at retail. Someone needed to explain and demonstrate what a game-changing product Tupperware was. Enter Brownie Wise, who invented the Tupperware Party— and pioneered a business model that created an income stream for stay-at-home spouses. Today that sales force numbers in the millions.

10 Year Plan: Everything Tupperware makes is built to last a lifetime, or the company will replace it. A couple of best-sellers are the one-touch canister set ($40), which has little windows that let you know when you’re running low on whatever’s inside, and the hamburger-press and keeper set ($34), which is self- explanatory. Everything is more expensive than the flimsy throwaway containers you see in the store, but it’s way, way better and, I’ll say it…weirdly retro.

www.istockphoto.com

L.L. Bean Duck Boots • Speaking of weirdly retro, L.L. Bean has been making the same boot for 100–and-something years now and I would be surprised if they aren’t sold out for 2019 by the time you read this article. I’ve never heard of anyone throwing a pair away. The treated full-grain leather uppers repel rain and snow, while the rubber-treated bottoms make the boots puddle-proof. Each pair is hand-sewn and triple-stitched by folks up in Maine who must undergo six months of training before they let ‘em near a Duck Boot.

The 10 Year Plan: No one wears these every day, but even if you did and the boots failed years from now because of poor material or workmanship, the company would send you a new pair. There are multiple styles for men and women, many with extra performance features, starting around $100.

DeWit Garden Tools • These show up on a lot of “Best Of” lists for a reason: They probably are the best. Certainly, DeWit tools will easily make it to 2029 if they are not lost or stolen. That cannot be said of the less- expensive, mostly Made in China gardening tools at your local hardware store. Like the Lodge skillets, DeWit tools are made of indestructible cast iron. However, they are not manufactured in the USA. The company dates back to 1898 when a Dutch blacksmith named Willem de Wit opened a forge in the village of Kornhorn. Five generations later, Willem’s family is still running the business.

10 Year Plan: Everything DeWit makes is guaranteed forever. The family considers its tools “heirlooms.” That may be an overreach—we’re talking about gardening tools, after all—but I like the sustainability component of that word. We buy so much stuff that just gets thrown away, it’s nice to know my $60 planting trowel will still be around years from now after someone has planted me. And for the record, DeWit is sustainability-conscious, too. Their ash handles come from forests certified by the government’s Stewardship Council, which regulates the use of wood and replanting of trees in the Netherlands.

www.istockphoto.com

High-Carbon Steel Scissors • About 25 years ago, I covered the beauty industry for a West Coast business publication. For my first gig, they flew me out to Orange County on short notice and sat me across from Paul Mitchell (yes, that Paul Mitchell) at a business dinner. He was full of information, but honestly, I had no idea who he was, because he introduced himself as John Paul DeJoria (which is his legit name). We talked a lot about the new scissors coming on the market and I was stunned at the cost of a state-of-the-art salon-quality pair. A Japanese company was hawking them for $1,000 a pop and couldn’t make them fast enough.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s a lot of money for something I lose every day.” He didn’t get the joke.

10 Year Plan: So what should you pay for a pair of household shears that will look as good 10 years from now as they do today? Assuming you go with a high- leverage high-carbon steel pair, it should run you $50 or less. There are a number of brands to peruse (Vampire, Shun, Fiskars, Tangkula, Equinox—it’s a long list) and plenty of options in this price range, as different scissors do different things. Decide whether you want them for general use, for the kitchen, for art projects or for cutting fabric. And don’t make the same mistake I did. I once invested in an expensive pair of Kevlar shears thinking they were made of Kevlar. I loved the idea of scissors that could stop a bullet. Then I showed them to a work buddy and he asked when I would ever need to cut Kevlar. Cut Kevlar? Are you kidding me! The moral of the story is read the fine print. Or don’t be an idiot.

www.istockphoto.com

KitchenAid Mixer • A neighbor once said that losing her KitchenAid mixer would be like losing an arm. Being a wise-ass, I asked which of the dozen-or-so attachments laid out on the counter she would screw into her shoulder if that actually happened. “That’s a stupid question,” she responded without missing a beat. “They would all work. That’s the beauty of KitchenAid.” Touché.

10 Year Plan: Did you know that 2018 marked the 100th anniversary of the first stand mixer to carry the KitchenAid name? I’ll bet that mixer is still mixing. If KitchenAid made computers they’d probably put Apple out of business. The buy-in for a basic model is $250 to $300, with professional-grade versions going for twice that price.

www.istockphoto.com

High-Pressure Shower Head • Is there anything more private and personal than buying a showerhead? Okay, there are a lot of things. But if you do your homework, you’ll find a handful that are true difference-makers and come with guarantees that they will still be working a decade from now. High-pressure heads do great things for the mind, body, and pocketbook. A recent survey of shower-takers (now there’s an interesting job) revealed that a powerful stream of water that covers the whole body makes for a more satisfying shower. I’m not sure a survey was required to tease out that fact, but it’s worth adding that high-pressure showerheads also reduce water usage significantly because they utilize air pressure to increase the sensation of water pressure. Most are simple to install and once you tinker a bit with settings they are easy to adjust.

10 Year Plan: Two showerheads that consistently score high in consumer ratings are the handheld model by Yoo.Mee and the standard, screw-on high-pressure head by Wassa. Both work well even when the water pressure is low, and feature silicone jets, which keep mineral deposits from accumulating and blocking the water flow. The Wassa comes with a lifetime guarantee—so technically this is your 10-year buy. Yoo.Me warranties its product for a year. Given that both sell for under $25, your investment either way is minimal. If you want to explore the higher end, there are models that creep into the hundreds, including systems that offer digital control of the length and temperature of your shower.

So there you have it. Ten great gift ideas for yourself or someone else. Gifts that will be used, appreciated and still be around a decade from now. The two takeaways are fairly obvious:

1) the classics are classics for a reason (they last and are often guaranteed to last) and

2) stick with the classics.

Mariah Morgan

A few years ago, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook fame authored a book entitled Lean In. In her book, Sandberg made the point that women in the workplace sometimes hold themselves back by not demanding the credit and respect they deserve. Women who succeed at the highest professional level do indeed face myriad obstacles— both internal and external. By the same token, history has shown us that the individuals who find ways to push past those limits not only achieve great things but serve as inspirations for all who follow. Looking back at 2009, the year the first issue of EDGE rolled off the presses, there was much to inspire, although we still had a long way to go. These nine leaders provided some of the year’s best moments….

January 12 • Brazilian soccer star Marta becomes the first player of either sex to be named FIFA World Player of the Year four years in a row.

Ludovic Péron

The heir to Mia Hamm’s unofficial title as best of the best, Marta burst onto the world soccer scene as a teenager in 2004 when she led Swedish League team Umea IK to the UEFA Women’s Cup championship. At the age of 20, she won her first Player of the Year title. Marta won for the fourth time in 2009 while splitting her time between the Brazilian national team and the Los Angeles Sol, champions of the Women’s Professional Soccer League.

10 Years Later • Marta won a fifth straight Player of the Year award in 2010 and continued her pro career in Sweden through 2016. In 2017, the cat-quick forward joined the Orlando Pride of the National Women’s Soccer League. The following season, Marta won her sixth FIFA World Player of the Year Award, at the age of 32.

January 21 • Hillary Clinton is confirmed as Secretary of State.

The Senate confirmed Clinton by a vote of 94 to 2, making her the first former First Lady to serve in a cabinet position. Yes, it was kind of a consolation prize. But “State” seemed like a great stepping stone to a renewed presidential bid in 2016. What could possibly go wrong?

Corwin Colbert US Dept of Defense

10 Years Later • Clinton used her experience and connections from the Senate Armed Services Committee to coordinate the goals of Defense and State, and to give the civilian arm of government more responsibility for responding to international crises. She and President Obama rarely disagreed and formed a surprisingly effective partnership. By the time 2016 rolled around, however, the political landscape had shifted and Clinton found herself facing Donald Trump in the election. Trump’s “upset” victory meant that America would have to wait for its first female chief executive.

US Dept Homeland Security

January 21 • Janet Napolitano becomes the first woman to be named Homeland Security Secretary. Born in New York and raised in Pittsburgh and then Albuquerque, Napolitano was voted Most Likely to Succeed at her high school graduation in 1975. Following a meteoric law career, she was elected Governor of Arizona and was on the shortlist of VP candidates for John Kerry in 2004. In her first year as Homeland Security chief, Napolitano dealt with the Swine Flu outbreak, the “Underwear Bomber” and a rise in right-wing extremism.

10 Years Later • Napolitano left her post in 2013 to become the first female president of UCal Berkeley. She has led efforts to address sexual violence and harassment, managed tuition costs and improved the food choices available on the 10 campuses, as well as starting a carbon-neutral initiative for the school. However, Napolitano has also taken heat for misleading budget practices. In 2017, she filed a lawsuit against the federal agency she once ran after the Trump administration ended DACA.

Iceland Ministry of Social Issues

February 1 • Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland becomes history’s first openly lesbian prime minister. Sigurðardóttir began her professional life as a flight attendant and was elected to Parliament in 1978 at the age of 36. Over the next three decades, her popularity and approval rating soared. In 2009, following the implosion of Iceland’s banking system, she was asked to lead her country out of economic free fall.

10 Years Later • Sigurðardóttir’s administration restored the economy and put safeguards in place to ensure such a financial calamity could never happen again. She also made Iceland the first Western democracy to ban strip clubs and other businesses that profited from women’s bodies. The nation is now considered the “most feminist” in the world. Sigurðardóttir retired from government life in 2013 and authored the autobiography My Life in 2017.

June 3 • Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, and Beyoncé grab the top four spots on the Forbes 100 list of Highest-Paid Celebrities.

UN Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Big names. Big Money. A big year for female celebrities. Jennifer Aniston also made the Top 10. Jolie earned an Oscar nomination for Changeling; Winfrey was voted America’s favorite TVpersonality in a Harris poll; Madonna wrapped up a world tour and released a Greatest Hits album; Beyoncé performed “At Last” at the Inaugural Ball and was named top female artist of the decade by pretty much everyone.

10 Years Later • The top two slots are still held by women: Taylor Swift and Kylie Jenner. After that, it’s all dudes: Kanye West, soccer star Lionel Messi, musician Ed Sheeran, soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, The Eagles, Dr. Phil McGraw, and boxer Canelo Alvarez. For the record, in 2019 Jolie (44) starred in and co-produced Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil; Winfrey (65) produced the disturbing documentary After Neverland for HBO; Madonna (61) released her 14th studio album, Madame X, which was the nickname Martha Graham gave her as a dance student; Beyoncé (37) voiced the character Nala in The Lion King and sang “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” with Donald Glover on the soundtrack.

July 8 • Angela Merkel succeeds George Bush as the senior G8 leader.

European Peoples Party

Four years after becoming Germany’s first female Chancellor, Merkel presided over the 35th summit of world leaders in Italy. (The G stands for “Group” if you were wondering.) She was the only woman among the G8 leaders, who made progress on issues related to climate change and infrastructure needs in Africa and also endorsed the Global Summit on Nuclear Security, scheduled for the following year in Washington.

10 Years Later • In 2012, Merkel was named by Forbes the #2 Most Powerful Person In The World—the highest-ever ranking for a woman. In 2014, the G8 became the G7 after Russia was expelled for its annexation of Crimea. In 2015, Merkel was named TIME Person of the Year. Near the end of 2018, she announced plans to step down as Chancellor in 2021. In 2019, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard.

Wojciech Migda

August 2 • 39-year-old Catriona Matthew wins golf’s British Open 11 weeks after giving birth to her second child. Despite golf’s long history in Scotland, Matthew was the first Scot to win this tournament. After a so-so opening round, she shot a scorching 67 for the second 18 holes and a 71 the next day to establish a three-stroke lead. On the final day, 2002 champion Karie Webb made a magnificent run at the lead with a 67, but Matthew birdied 13, 14 and 15 to lock up the championship by three strokes. Her daughter, Sophie, had been born on May 16.

10 Years Later • In July 2009, Matthew and her husband, Graeme, narrowly escaped a hotel fire during the Evian Championship in France. He suffered burns on his feet which prevented him from caddying for his wife. The Open victory turned out to be Matthew’s only victory in a “major.” She came close again only once, at the 2013 LPGA Championship, losing to Inbee Park in a three-hole playoff. Matthew’s lone victory on the LPGA Tour after 2009 came in 2011 at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Mexico. 

 August 8 • Sonia Sotomayor becomes the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice

Steve Petteway/
Supreme Court of the United

Following the retirement of Justice David Souter, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by a Senate vote of 68–31. The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor grew up in the Bronx and graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1976. She attended Yale Law School and went to work for Robert Morganthau in the New York District Attorney’s office before becoming a federal judge in 1992. Sotomayor’s ruling in 1994 ended the Major League Baseball strike.

10 Years Later • Sotomayor’s key rulings have involved the upholding of Miranda rights, immigrant rights and rights to privacy in the digital age. She has also forged some interesting alliances, including one with Neil Gorsuch over the defense of due process and law-enforcement overreach. In 2018, Sotomayor published Turning Pages: My Life Story.

October 21 • Nicole Stott participates in the first live Tweet session from outer space.

NASA

The “NASA Tweetup” initiative officially got off the ground in the fall of 2009 when Stott—one of five flight engineers on the mission—and her crewmate Jeff Williams conducted the first live Tweet session from the International Space Station (ISS). Previously, astronaut Tweets were posted on the Internet by NASA. Stott returned to the Kennedy Space Center the following month.

10 Years Later • Stott returned to the ISS on the space shuttle Discovery in 2011. Among the goals of this mission was the delivery of a humanoid robot (aka Robonaut 2). Four years later, in 2015, she announced her retirement after 27 years working for NASA. Stott’s husband, Chris, is an aerospace entrepreneur.

ZBlume

December 12 • Houston becomes the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor, Annise Parker.

Parker, Houston’s City Controller, finished first in a four-way mayoral race on November 11, but fell short of a majority against Gene Locke, Peter Brown and Roy Morales. Brown threw his support behind Parker in the December runoff election, while Locke received the support of two ex-mayors. Parker prevailed by 11,000 votes.

10 Years Later • Parker served three two-year terms, from 2010 to 2016, winning more than 50% of the vote both times. In 2014, she married her long- time partner, Kathy Hubbard, in Palm Springs. In recent years she has been a vocal advocate for women in government and has spoken frankly about the particular abuse female mayors endure from their critics. In 2019, Houston was eclipsed by Chicago as the largest city with an openly gay mayor when it elected Lori Lightfoot.

Mark Stewart 

In the old days, they would have a “triple threat.” Indeed, the two- time Tony winner can sing, he can dance and he can act. But these are not the old days, and the bar is much higher than it used to be in the performing arts—as Butz would be the first to tell you. On the stage and screen, he is both a portrayer and creator of characters large and small, with a well-earned reputation for knocking it out of the park. Now the longtime Maplewood resident has hit his stride as a composer and performer, releasing The Long Haul, a collection of honest, earthy songs written at different stops on a journey that has taken him to the Broadway stage (Rent, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Catch Me If You Can, My Fair Lady) and earned him roles on a pair of groundbreaking TV series (Bloodline on Netflix and Mercy Street on PBS). EDGE editor Mark Stewart was curious how the words and lyrics of The Long Haul fit into the tapestry of Butz’s career as an artist and entertainer. It turns out that those threads run deeper than even his most ardent fans might imagine.

EDGE: The Long Haul is your fourth album, but also in some respects your “first.”

NB: Yeah, it’s the first time I’ve put something out that’s all my original songs. The title says it all…it’s a long, long labor of love. You know, I’ve always written in my downtime— between acting gigs or if I’m on a set and waiting a long time, or when I’m out of town in hotel rooms. It was recorded mostly during the time I was finishing up Bloodline in the Florida Keys. I had a bunch of tunes and I sent them to my friend, Jason Loughlin—a great guitar player, producer, arranger in Williamsburg, Brooklyn— and said, “Hey, man. I think I might have an album here.” He really responded to the songs so we hired a band and got some studio time. It was kind of stop-and-start. I’d get a couple of things recorded, but then a job would take me away and I’d shelve it for a while. This past year I was really busy with My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center. It took over a year-and-a-half to record.

EDGE: Are you one of those guys who can just sit down and bang out a song?

NB: No, I’m not. I must have a thousand ideas for songs on my phone. Going back to college, I‘ve always written songs for my own pleasure. So starting them is easy, but the hard work of actually finishing them is much more difficult. I have friends who are real songwriters. They show up every day and work four to six hours on their songs. I never had that discipline or that kind of time.

EDGE: So why now?

NB: Getting the songs out was about moving past some of the really difficult moments for me during my 40s. It was a tough decade. I lost several family members. It felt good to release it.

EDGE: When I listen to the album I hear more than a little Dr. John. Some Al Green. And some Springsteen.

NB: That’s cool. I’m flattered. I think those are apt comparisons. I really do love Soul music and Blues and Gospel music. I was raised on a lot of that in St. Louis. There is a really rich tradition of Blues in that part of the country. My parents were deeply religious—my father, in particular, listened to a lot of Gospel—and we were in church constantly. So those are the sounds I grew up with and I suppose they’ve always stuck with me. It’s funny you should say Springsteen because now I live in New Jersey and I definitely credit him as a huge influence on me, going back to when I was a kid.

EDGE: I have to ask a Dirty Rotten Scoundrels question…Steve Martin had to fill a screen when he played Ruprecht but you had to fill an entire stage—with John Lithgow a few feet away—how do you rise to that challenge?

NB: No one can really rise to the challenge of John Lithgow. He’s like 6’5” [laughs] so rising to that challenge is like spitting in the wind. You know, in a lot of ways John played the straight main in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He gave me permission to take as much stage as I wanted to. It was a blast. John is one of the most generous, loving, creative, supportive partners anyone could hope for.  You know, I was really intimidated at first to be working with him. I was a was this enormous international celebrity. We’ve remained really dear friends and he has been a touchstone for me.

EDGE: How so?

NB: I go to him so much, just in terms of teaching me how to lead a cast with real grace, how to be super generous. His basic goodness. His workmanlike attitude. How to behave in front of a company. How to do this business over the long haul. How to build a diverse, multimedia career that I didn’t even know I aspired to before I met him. Now I know how valuable that is. He’s just the best. Even putting out this record, in some ways, was inspired by him. This idea that you don’t have to be just a performer, that you can make your own work during the in-between time when you’re waiting for directors and producers to tell you you’ve booked a job.

EDGE: A few years later you were Carl Hanratty, who lives somewhere at the other end of the spectrum from Ruprecht. What did you enjoy about that character?

NB: That was a really incredible experience. And I have to be honest, one that I did not see coming. It fell into my lap. Jack O’Brien, who also directed me in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, sent me the script and said, “I think I’d like to see you do this. What do you think?” I had seen the Spielberg film in which Tom Hanks had played the role. I said, “I just don’t get it. I don’t get why you think of me for this part.”

EDGE: What made you see it his way?

NB: When I got the script I realized that Catch Me If You Can is really the story of a lost kid in search of a surrogate father, and this lonely, middle-aged gumshoe cop really looking for a surrogate son. My dad, who has since passed away, was really ill at the time. I was quite emotional thinking about him. I found the story really, really moving in a way that I didn’t expect to. It was very personal. Sometimes it’s not clear to audiences what draws an actor to something. For me, as an actor, that’s always the way in, the personal, emotional hook. It was a ball. It was a chance for me to do a real character part in a big Broadway musical.

EDGE: Hanratty was kind of a blank slate.

NB: He was. I got to really invent him. By the way, there was never a Carl Hanratty. He was based on several guys. They got the name from Tom Hanks.

EDGE: How did you hear this story?

NB: Tom sent me a note to the theater, typed on his famous vintage typewriter. It said Norbert, congratulations on Catch Me If You Can. He eventually came to see it and he said, “Let me tell you how the character came to be named Carl Hanratty.” He said on the first day of shooting they hadn’t named him because they couldn’t legally use the name of any of the FBI agents who were involved in the case. Spielberg turned to Tom and asked, “What are we going to name this guy?” Tom told me he named him Hanratty for a football player his dad loved at Notre Dame, and he named him Carl because it had the K sound in the name and that’s funny. And he’s right. Carl is a funny name.

EDGE: You’d mentioned My Fair Lady. You played Eliza’s father, Alfie Doolittle, a character that everyone has probably seen at least once or twice on some stage or in the movie. How do you bring something new to that role?

NB: No one believes me, but I was almost 50 years old when I got that part and I had never seen a production of My Fair Lady. And I never watched the film all the way through—only pieces of it when it came on cable late at night. I knew Pygmalion because I’d done a big course on George Bernard Shaw when I was in graduate school. Similarly to Catch Me If You Can, when the director asked me to do this part, I said, “What? I’m only 50. Why would I want to play this old drunken character?” But I went and read the script for really the first time as if it were a new piece, and thought This is a great part! Just that sardonic humor and the dichotomies within the character, and the great numbers. Also, it was truly a dream of mine to work on the big stage at Lincoln Center. When I came to New York the very first place I went as a young actor was to see Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at the Vivian Beaumont, and I thought Man, to get on to that stage, you’ve really made it. I leaped at the opportunity and had the most wonderful time doing My Fair Lady.

Netflix

EDGE: Let’s switch to television for a moment. The characters you played on Bloodline and Mercy Street were absolutely spot-on. Everyone knows someone like Kevin Rayburn, who just can’t seem to get out of his own way, and you were beyond believable in that part. Did you base your portrayal on people you’ve come across in life?

NB: The show was about a family that literally is trying to keep its head above water, and as an actor sometimes that’s what it felt like. It was really potent when it worked. I would like to say that I based Kevin on someone—or even had time to prepare. But the fact is that in Bloodline—which was produced by a trio of writer/creators, Glenn and Todd Kessler and Dan Zellman, who also did Damages, starring Glen Close— they famously withheld information from the actors.

EDGE: So you’re not getting a script until a day or two before?

NB: Right, and often they shot alternative versions of scenes! They were largely putting the editing together while they’re making it. As an actor, it was a real lesson in not knowing what was coming next. Also, they would shoot scenes out of order and the show’s narrative kept going back and forth in time, so I couldn’t get a handle on, like, I know where this is going, so I could make choices. Each night we’d get scripts to shoot the next day and I’m like, I don’t know how I end up here. Yesterday, I was shooting this scene where Kevin seems like a pretty good guy and today I’m shooting a scene where I’m in my underwear doing cocaine with a gun in my hand [laughs]—and they don’t necessarily tell you how you got there. It was really challenging, but it became a fun experiment in letting go into what you don’t know and treating each scene like it’s own little mini-movie with its own beginning, middle, and end. So if it looked like Kevin didn’t know what he was doing, that’s me. It was not an easy shoot. The stakes were so high and the material was so dark. But I loved it. We were down in that incredible locale in the Keys and it infected everything we did. There was no make-up— that’s really real sweat, that’s really real sunburn, my hair was really bleached out and those are real mosquitoes eating us up in the shots. It was like nothing I’d ever done before.

EDGE: I have a similar question about the character you played on the PBS series Mercy Street, Dr. Hale. Everyone has bumped up against someone like that guy, who has reached the limit of his talents and is threatened by people with new skills and new ideas, and who kind of embraces bureaucracy in the face of change—

NB: Which made the part so much fun to play! Yeah, that guy did not know his head from his rear end.

EDGE: Who were you thinking about when you played him?

NB: He was so pompous, so full of himself and thin-skinned and easily threatened. He reminded me so much of Frank Burns on  M*A*S*H*. I loved that show and actually thought a lot about Frank. You’re right. He wants things to stay the same. He’s dying to be an administrator behind a desk. I thought what was interesting about the character was that here he is, in the middle of the Civil War, but still looking for creature comforts and vices— sex and booze—to help mitigate the reality of the war. That felt really human to me. Imagine the carnage during the Civil War, before morphine is being used regularly in surgeries—just the violence—it must have been so incredibly difficult to process. It doesn’t surprise me that these doctors tried to find pleasure wherever they could.

EDGE: You’ve lived in New Jersey going on 20 years. What drew you to the state initially and in what ways has it grown on you?

NB: I came kicking and screaming, I’ll be totally honest. My first two girls were born in Brooklyn and we really wanted to stay there. We lived in Park Slope. We needed more room and I thought I’d be able to find a brownstone somewhere, but this was right when the housing bubble was starting to get really whacky and I just couldn’t afford a bigger space. My wife and I had friends who’d moved to Millburn and we were out visiting them and we looked around there. We liked what we saw, the schools were good, it was doable. So we moved to Millburn. Still, I didn’t really want to come. I like Springsteen as much as the next guy…but it was Jersey, you know?

EDGE: I am a transplant, too. When I left New York City in the 80s my friends acted like I’d been shot out of a cannon.

NB: Yeah [laughs] when you leave New York your family stops talking to you. No one comes to visit. But then something really remarkable happened. It took me a few years, but I’m the biggest fan now of where I live. I’m such a huge Jersey fan.

EDGE: What I like about New Jersey is that there are 500-plus towns and each is completely self-contained, so even though everyone you know is from “here,” somehow almost everyone is also from “somewhere else.”

NB: I do, too, man. You’re so right about that. We lived in Millburn for a couple of years and moved to Maplewood after that. I can walk to Millburn from where I live. But the character between the two towns is wildly different. I just find that super-interesting. I love Maplewood, Millburn, South Orange—now my third daughter is going through the school district. I love it. It’s such a tight community. It’s progressive, inclusive, beautiful. And as a point of departure, it’s fantastic. It’s close to the city, I’m eight miles from Newark Airport, I can be in the Poconos in an hour, we can be on the beach, or points north in the Hudson Valley, in 45 minutes. It’s a gorgeous state, filled with tons of farms, great rivers, places to camp and hike. I’ve just fallen in love with it. 

You started in movies really late. Do you think it was good in a way for you?

Absolutely. I was 20 years on the stage in New York prior to getting the movie career, as such, though I did do television work, I did some movies. I think the training—both in the profession and in life—was to my benefit. When I was working in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the drug culture was booming and a lot of people didn’t make it through it. I was very peripatetic when I was young, back-and-forth cross-country, to New York to Los Angeles to San Francisco, trying to find the doorway, where to be able to get in. It’s just being in the right place at the right time.

Which is better, to be the President, to be God, or to be a movie star?

Movie star.

Why?

It pays. None of the rest of them pays. Not nearly as well.

What are the cons of being a movie star?

Well, first, it’s what I wanted from a very young age, I wanted to be in the movies. But as you start to watch your career go on, you realize that you didn’t want to be “star.” If you are a character actor, you don’t want to be a star, because you can’t be a character. A star very rarely gets roles like Quasimodo. Bob De Niro could walk down the streets unrecognized after he had done Bang the Drum Slowly, Godfather II and Raging Bull. He had done all these well-received movies, but he could walk down the street unrecognized. That’s character acting, when you hide, when you become the character, that’s the essential difference to me.

When you were a kid, did you ever dream about being the President?

No, I only dreamed about being an actor. When I was a kid, I went to the movies every day I could find enough money. President? CEO of something? No. Later on, I thought it might have been interesting to have been a racecar driver.

Is that on your bucket list?

I’ve done it!

Is there anything left on your bucket list?

I wanted to be a jet pilot. I wanted to be a sailor, a water sailor. I wanted to be a cowboy—I’m a good horseman, I love horses and live with them. And the rest of it is just to be here, to enjoy life.

When you play the President, do you take pleasure in it?

The pleasure is in working. Believing that you are the President or God or the devil or whatever, the only joy in that is bringing the character to life. I don’t get any personal sense of the power of God or the power of the President. Make believe is make believe. I hate for people to somehow gloss over that and say, “Oh my God! God just walked in the room!” Don’t do that. 

Editor’s Note: Morgan Freeman played the President in his most recent film, Angel Has Fallen, co-starring with Gerard Butler. He is due to star in four films in 2020, including the action comedy The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, with Ryan Reynolds, Salma Hayek and Samuel L. Jackson.

This Q&A was conducted by Sarah Williams of The Interview People.

At only 10 years old, Alexa Swinton has become the talk of the 2019–20 TV season.  You’ve seen her in Showtime’s Billions and on The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live, but she has earned her first starring role in the ABC sci-fi drama Emergence. Alexa more than holds her own with screen veterans Allison (Fargo) Tolman, Clarence (Shawshank Redemption) Brown and Donald (Scrubs) Faison. A longtime (relatively speaking) New Jersey resident, she shot the first season of Emergence right here in the Garden State. Veteran EDGE interviewer Gerry Strauss found her to be full of surprises.

Photographer: Emily Assiran • Hair & Make-up: Evy Drew • Stylist: Jenn Rosado

EDGE: Is this the first you’ve heard of Edge Magazine?

AS: It’s really funny because I’m actually in love with this magazine. I’ve been going to this place called Karma Organics Spa in Ridgewood since I  can remember. They have Edge Magazine there, so that’s what I’ve grown up reading.

EDGE: When you first started preparing for your role in Emergence, how did they describe the character of Piper to you?

AS: Oh, wow. They described Piper as this mysterious girl who’s sweet and doesn’t remember anything about herself. I was very intrigued by just that.

EDGE: You handle this role impressively. Do you think you would have been comfortable working on a show this terrifying a year or two ago?

AS: I feel like I could’ve definitely handled it because I would’ve worked just as hard. It would’ve been a tiny bit harder for me, but obviously I would’ve still enjoyed it and still worked on it.

ABC Studios; Swinton with co-star Allison Tomlin

EDGE: Before you started working on the show, did you know anything about co-star Allison Tolman?

AS: I’d heard of Good Girls actually, because my class watched it, and they were like, “Oh my God! Isn’t that the person who played that evil character on it?” And I was like, “I don’t know.” Then I realized that it was, and I was like “Oh God, you guys talk about her all the time.”

EDGE: Has she given you any advice, or helped you? Are you friendly behind the scenes?

AS: Yes,  it’s a close family, it’s a really great set family. I feel like we really lucked out, because some sets don’t love each other the way I feel like our relationship is. Allison always says be nice to the crew, because you are one of them and they are one of you. She’s just the best and nicest person you’ll ever meet.

EDGE: Who would you say is the funniest person that you have acted with so far?

AS: My mom! She’s an actress, writer and stand-up comedian and we are collaborating now on a film based on her immigration at age 9 from the Soviet Union to New Jersey in the 80’s. I play my mom. We are also working on a book series about a fourth-grader named Skylie—based on me and my siblings and friends—who lives in New Jersey. So all New Jersey-focused projects.

EDGE: What about on Emergence? In this family that you work with, who’s the comedian there?

AS: I think that they’re all really funny, I feel like role- wise though, I think that Clancy Brown takes it, only because his role has been the funniest. But I feel Donald Faison comes in second for Murray on Clueless, and Turk on Scrubs. And then, Allison comes third because I’ve not watched Downward Dog, the only comedy she’s done that I’ve heard of.

Photographer: Emily Assiran • Hair & Make-up: Evy Drew • Stylist: Jenn Rosado

EDGE: If you could do a voice for a character on TV, which show would you like to be on?

AS: SpongeBob. If there’s ever a recreation of it, I’d definitely love to be a SpongeBob character. I feel like Sandy would definitely be number one on my list. I would also love to be in The Good Place. It’s the best show ever. It’s really funny, and I just think that I’d love to be on there.

EDGE: Do you have any actors who you hope you will get to meet and work with someday?

AS: I definitely really want to work with the whole cast of Friends. They’re really just amazing people, and I feel like they really have done so much work that I really feel is great. But I’d also love to work with Jerry Seinfeld. He’s really funny.

EDGE: What’s the best movie that you’ve seen in the last year or so?

AS: Ready Player One. It was the best movie ever I think because it really shows the way that the world could be, everyone addicted to this one thing.

EDGE: What are some of your favorite things to do when you aren’t working?

AS: I love the malls, especially Garden State Plaza, which is like a whole city. We love the movie theater and the shoes at Nordstrom during their sale. I also love bicycling in the bike path along Saddle River Park, from Paramus to Glen Rock to Ridgewood.

EDGE: Are you more of a New Yorker or a Jersey Girl?

AS: I was born in New York and do have a special love for it, as well. I mean I have been auditioning in the city since I was three, and I have many favorite places and neighborhoods there. But I am proudly a Jersey Girl! 

EDGE Editor’s Note: Emergence scored a 93 among TV critics on the Rotten Tomatoes web site, with reviewers noting parallels with Stranger Things and Lost, and Alexa’s performance in a difficult role drawing comparisons to Millie Bobby Brown.

Hollywood defines the power couple in many different ways. Nicole Ari Parker and Boris Kodjoe are busy redefining it. Busy is the operative word here. Both are starring in network TV series—Boris on ABC’s Station 19 and Nicole on the FOX mega-hit Empire—and raising two young children, one of whom was born with spina bifida. Boris and Nicole met on the  Showtime series Soul Food and their partnership has blossomed along with their respective careers. As Gerry Strauss discovered, they have carried their rooted principles with them through marriage, parenthood and personal projects that are designed to spread love and awareness out into the world, including a family fitness app (see page 40) and the Full Circle Festival—an event hosted by Boris that honors and celebrates their ancestry, heritage, and generational legacy. Their family life is filled with ups, downs and the desire to find joy in all of it together.

EDGE: Boris, when you were a rising star in tennis at Virginia Commonwealth, were you already thinking about a career beyond the sport?

BK: No. While I was playing, I was completely committed to tennis, and that was my ambition, my dream, my purpose, everything. When that was cut short [due to injury], I came to the states to study and take my mind off of tennis for a little bit, and it progressed into getting my degree, and then moving to New York and being discovered for modeling. While I was modeling, I took acting classes to see if I could improve my English, because I had an accent. Throughout that process, being in acting class is when I fell in love with the craft.

EDGE: Nicole, when did you discover your passion for performing?

NP: I came at this fully open arms twirling, loving the theater, fully committed to being an actress from the very beginning. I graduated at 17 from a high school in Baltimore, and got into NYU early. Second semester, I switched over to the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. I was a Journalism and English major, and I called home, and I asked my dad if I could go to Tisch. NYU was really expensive, and he said, “You just have to promise me that when you get knocked down, you’ll get back up and I’ll support you. Don’t give up and I’ll support you, because it’s going to be a tough road.” I did it and I switched over to the full theater program, and stayed in New York for 13 years. I got my big TV break with Soul Food in 2000.

EDGE: You both had busy, thriving careers before getting married and starting your family. As your lives together have evolved, how has that changed the way you prioritize your career compared to other parts of your life?

BK: I think you just answered the question (laughs).

NP: Soul Food was my big break, and it was kind of his, as well. We’re in this wonderful new exciting moment in our careers coming at it from different places, and our friendship developed, and then our relationship developed, and then we got married and then we had kids. We progressed together. We actually do well working together—the beginning of our relationship was learning how to be together  14 hours a day. We really knew how to be around each other for long periods of time, and we had a nice rhythm in terms of managing our creative time, our personal time, our professional time.

EDGE: And kids…

NP: Kids change everything. For anybody. No matter what you’re doing, no matter what business you’re in, kids change everything. You have to come together and be on the same page about how you want to do this: Do you want them to be the priority? Do you want them to be part of our plan? We just agreed to make them the priority and everything wonderfully fell into place. We didn’t sleep the first year, like any parent, and we still worry like any parent. But we really work together. The one thing we agree on is how we want to raise the kids.

BK: We learned together how to make our children our priority, and that made everything else fall into place automatically.

EDGE: The theme of this issue is Teachable Moments. How tuned in are you to that aspect of parenting?

BK: I think there are teachable moments every single day. There’s teachable moments in terms of taking in your kids and balancing structure and trust. I think there’s teachable moments in our relationship, how we relate to each other, communicate, take each other in.

I’ve certainly learned a lot about my behavior and how it comes across because sometimes we think we’re communicating effectively, but your partner lets you know that it might not be as effective as you think. There’s learning each other’s dance steps, and it’s literally every single day that you learn something new and that you have a teachable moment. I think the key is to give each other the space and the freedom to learn, as well as to teach. A lot of people are shut off from learning new things or being open to receiving input, and I think as long as you’re open and willing to learn—to make mistakes and give each other that privilege, as well—it’s a good thing.

NP: There are opportunities every day, but there are a lot of things that are different about the way my kids are growing up than the way that I grew up. I am very conscious of some of the values that I want my kids to have, even with all of the access that they have, and the travel, and the exposure. We both are very conscious of them still having life skills. As Boris said, those present themselves all the time—like conflicts with people, taking care of your responsibilities, time management. Really, we don’t let that stuff fly because you can’t. Your kids are being saturated with so much stuff 24 hours a day that we really check-in and make sure they have, like, basic self-awareness, and know how to take care of themselves and how to take care of their responsibilities, things like making their beds and folding their clothes—Sophie even knows how to cook. I just think that there’s something wonderful inside of those things that every kid should have, just to survive and feel good about themselves when

they’re out in the world and not with you anymore. In terms of each other, it’s just hard traveling so much and working so much that we, again, both agree that we have to check-in and make sure we’re still having fun, and that we’re not just roommates and business partners.

BK: Part of teachable moments when you’re talking about our kids is exposing them to different cultures. With the Full Circle Festival, we have made it our goal to invite people to experience Ghana’s vibrant culture and connect with their ancestry because this happens to be the Year of Return 2019, which commemorates 400 years since the beginning of the slave trade. Taking our kids there along with other friends and family was a really important way for us to expose our children to history, to culture, to their ancestry, and doing it in a celebratory way.

EDGE: How do you explain your celebrity status to your kids?

NP: One time, I was doing a play in New York during the summer, and we put them in a camp. It was a camp at the Y, and as soon as we walked in, not even realizing we dropped them off, all the kids were like, “Oh, my God!” They knew Boris from the Resident Evil movies, and they were very excited. Our kids hadn’t really experienced that before. We were, like, “Uh-oh. Teachable moment. Too late!” [laughs]. Sophie and Nicolas were just frozen. We talked to the counselors and everybody calmed down and they had their day. I asked Sophie later, “How did it go at camp?” She said, “Well, I told them that my parents were just regular people like their parents and what they do is just a job, just their work.” She had this kind of understanding for herself that kept her calm, and so it just calmed everyone around her. She’s like, “It’s just the job they do. Just their job.” I felt like that was the age-appropriate understanding. Then, as they get older and become self-aware and they’re in the photographs now, we just make sure they’re okay. Just make sure that they’re not being overexposed and self-conscious. I think we’ve worked on that in a way that they know when they’ve had enough. They don’t need to be on the red carpet. They’ll go ahead of us. They’ll run and see their friends if they go to an event. They don’t need to be in it.

BK: When they were smaller, we were driving downtown and there was this huge, gigantic advertising for one of my shows, and Nicolas screamed and said, “Daddy, daddy, look. They got your picture. How did they get your picture?” Then, Sophie, who was at the time maybe four, leaned over to him and said, “You’re so silly, Nicolas. Mommy gave it to them!” It was all very, very innocent. They had no clue. Then, as time went on, they really were educated more from their friends, because we really kept them sheltered in our community in Manhattan Beach. It’s very family- oriented, very protected. After a while, they figured it out on their own by themselves.

EDGE: What advice would you guys give to parents who are at the onset of facing their own medical challenges with their kids?

BK: The first thing I would say is that you’re not alone. I think that’s the lifesaver. It was for us when we realized that there’s a whole world out there, there’s a whole community out there of parents who were dealing with similar things. That really encourages you to do your research, and to talk to as many people as you can, and to get input and advice. Then, I would encourage them to know that they are the parents of their child, so they know their child better than anybody else—get multiple opinions, always trust their parental instincts and their connection with the child that they have. Children will teach you what they need.

EDGE: Let’s talk about your professional lives a bit. Boris, Station 19 is following an impressive blueprint for success. It’s a spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy and is being produced by Shonda Rhimes.

BK: I’ve been a fan of Shonda Rhimes since the beginning. She’s a trailblazer who has changed the way we watch television. I’ve always wanted to be a part of “Shondaland.” Station 19 wasn’t established. They had just finished the first season, and I guess they were still looking for their place, for their rhythm. It was a good moment for me to join the cast and help them find their path, if you will. I’m excited about it because it’s a great show with a great cast, and I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface yet in terms of the stories that we want to tell. I’m always an advocate for going deeper, telling multi-dimensional stories and for heightening the stakes, and we have a great opportunity now in this third season to do that.

EDGE: Nicole, you’ve become a major player on Empire, a show that was already a ratings monster. How did you feel about jumping onboard that speeding train?

NP: It was a joy because I have known Terrence Howard for so long, and I was so excited to work with Taraji Henson and Gabby Sidibe and everyone. I just jumped in and I felt like a new girl the first season entering into a family, and then it just took off from there. They made me feel like I was part of the family and it was a really great feeling. It’s tough. It’s a one-hour show. It’s a drama, it’s fast-paced. It’s a big cast. It’s in a different city, but somehow it has this joyous ride, a crazy ride. It’s been good.

EDGE: With both of you starring in full-season network shows, have your respective shooting and media schedules created even more of a juggling act when balancing family life?

BK: I think it’s always a juggling act when you’re talking about being on two network shows, because of the time commitments it requires. Also, Empire films in Chicago, so that comes with its own challenges in terms of traveling back and forth. It’s certainly a blessing, but there’s always a trade-off. I wouldn’t call it a juggling act or balancing. It’s really setting your priorities and not only making sure that the kids don’t pay the price, but that we don’t—because we have to look at each other and say, “Look, we were here first. We have to make sure that we have everything we need from each other.” Which is very important. If that means that we meet in Mexico for two days or if that means that I’m flying to Chicago for a day or three days or whatever that means, we have to be honest and we have to be committed to that.

There’s an App for That

EDGE: Boris, your commitment to fitness has produced KoFit. How did this app concept evolve?

BK: Health and fitness has been a part of my life and my brother’s since we were kids. We’re both athletes. He played professional basketball. The fact is that we are regressing as a society in terms of our health, which is obviously public knowledge. I don’t have to bore you with the stats, but we found that a lot of people complained that the plethora of workouts, fitness advice and nutritional information that’s out there is just super-confusing. It ends up being clutter that’s intimidating for people. It renders them paralyzed. Patrick (right) and I wanted to simplify all things fitness and nutrition. He is a certified nutritionist. He’s a personal trainer and a life coach, and so we came up with the KoFit app as a way for people to start where they are at. They don’t need equipment, they don’t need a gym, they don’t need an advanced degree to understand nutrition. All they need is a space in their house and they can start with as little as five minutes. None of our workouts are longer than 20 minutes. My brother gives great simple tips on food. We run people through mindfulness exercises like meditations and yoga exercises. Patrick’s wife is a certified yoga teacher. We want the whole family involved—we’ve got our kids on the app to communicate the simplicity and how easy it is to introduce some positive habits into your life and make health and fitness part of your lifestyle.

EDGE: KoFit is offering 30-day memberships for free to anyone who signs up. Why was that important to you?

BK: This is building the community. KoFit is a family, and we want to invite families across the world to take part in this movement—to find a way to be healthier, happier and stronger. This is just part of us wanting to invite people to join the family.

The Boris File

Boris Frederic Cecil Tay-Natey Ofuatey-Kodjoe

Born: March 8, 1973 • Vienna, Austria

Boris is the son of a German psychologist and Ghanaian physician, who named him after Russian poet Boris Pasternak. He is fluent in three languages. Groomed to be a pro tennis player, Boris starred for the Virginia Commonwealth University tennis team; his brother Patrick played basketball for VCU. A back injury cut short his career, at which point he pivoted to modeling and acting. His film credits include roles in Love & Basketball, Madea’s Family Reunion, Surrogates, two installments of the Resident Evil franchise, Baggage Claim and the upcoming Nicole & O.J. (scheduled for release in 2020). In addition to Soul Food and Station 19, Boris has appeared in a number of television series, including Boston Public, Second Time Around, Undercovers, Real Husbands of Hollywood (with Nicole), The Last Man on Earth, House of Cards and Grey’s Anatomy.

The Nicole File

Nicole Ari Parker

Born: October 7, 1970 • Baltimore, Maryland

Nicole is the only child of a dentist and healthcare professional. While attending an all-girls prep school she was named Best Actress in a statewide theater competition and went on to join the Washington Ballet Company. She earned a degree in acting from NYU in 1993. In her 20s, Nicole made memorable appearances in a string of critically acclaimed independent films, including The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, 200 Cigarettes and Boogie Nights, which earned her a SAG Award nomination. Her breakthrough TV role came in 2000 on the Showtime series Soul Food. She also earned rave reviews in Remember the Titans and Brown Sugar.

Nicole’s other film credits include Imagine That with Eddie Murphy

and two Martin Lawrence comedies, Blue Streak and Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. Among her TV credits are CSI, All of Us, The Deep End, Revolution, Murder In the First, Time After Time, Rosewood and The Romanoffs. Earlier this year, Nicole squared off with Boris on an unforgettable episode of Lip Sync Battle.

Family is complicated. Mental illness within a family complicates matters exponentially. No one knows this better than actor-author- activist Mariel Hemingway. The granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and sister of Margaux Hemingway —both of whom took their own lives—she is intimately familiar with the dark places that few of us are willing to go. In Mariel’s search for answers and quest for balance, she has developed a unique point of view—which she shares through her books and speaking engagements. With the release of the documentary Running from Crazy, she told her family’s complex story of mental illness, substance abuse and suicide and became part of a long-overdue national conversation. On October 29, Mariel Hemingway will join Jack Ford on stage at the Park Savoy in Florham Park for Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide, presented by the Trinitas Health Foundation. Proceeds from the evening will benefit the Peace of Mind Campaign, a $4 million initiative to renovate the hospital’s Department of Behavioral Health and Psychiatry.

EDGE editor Mark Stewart intruded upon her summer sojourn in the mountains of Idaho to chat about her family, her passion and her career.

EDGE: I’m curious about the documentary Running from Crazy. It was extraordinary. How does something like that even get made?

MH: It started when one of my best friends, Lisa Erspamer, who worked with Oprah Winfrey at the time she was leaving her talk show and they were starting OWN. She said to me, “You’ve got to tell your story.” I asked her, “Ummm…why would I do that? My family’s crazy.” Lisa said, “That’s the point! That’s why you have to tell your story!” We started shooting it in 2011 and it was released in 2013, with a premiere at Sundance.

EDGE: Have appearances like the upcoming Trinitas event with Jack Ford become a significant part of your schedule?

MH: Yes, actually. I’ve been doing speaking engagements all over the country now, gosh, for about nine years. You know, I never thought that was going to be my thing, telling the story of my family and revealing the darkness that haunted my siblings and my grandfather, all the addiction in my family. But I realized after doing the movie and speaking a few times, how important it is for others to feel as though they can tell their stories. I really believe that telling your story is a step in recovery and healing. So it’s been really wonderful. I’ve written two books since then. One of about their lives. We all experience some form of mental instability at some point in our lives, whether or not we have mental illness or are dealing with some kind of a loss. Also, in this very highly technical age that we live in, we are all getting more and more disconnected from ourselves and other humans. It’s really important to share your story, to let people know we are all the same.

EDGE: What do you want to get across when you talk to people suffering with mental illness, or to people dealing with a loved one who is struggling with it?

MH: There are ways of making your quality of life—and that of the people around you—much better. One of the things I want to get out there is I want people to realize that everything they do in their lives matters, especially when you have a mental health issue. What are you eating? Are you drinking enough water? Are you consuming alcohol? Are you not sleeping enough? Are you exercising? I’m not a doctor, but all these different things affect the brain, especially if you have a sensitive brain. My feeling is let’s do as much as we can as individuals to make our lives better, and to make the lives of those suffering better. I know you know this because you’ve got someone in your family—it can be very difficult to get them to see it, to acknowledge it, to take responsibility for it…but it can be done.

EDGE: It’s hard work.

MH: It is. It is hard work. But you know what? In my opinion, life is hard work. However, the benefits of taking care of yourself so outweigh the negatives. Okay maybe you have to do a little bit more, but we all have to take care of ourselves better. There is so much we all have to do to take care of our brains.

EDGE: What has impressed you about the way people are approaching issues of mental health?

MH: The more I’m in the space, the more I see people doing extraordinary things. There is a doctor in Dade County, Florida who wants to turn the whole system around because he doesn’t see why people suffering from mental illness should be incarcerated. Mental illness is it own specific thing, yet it has numerous facets. Take addiction. Addiction is a huge problem in this country, whether it’s alcoholism or opiate addiction. We are inundated with so many mental health disorders that need to be addressed differently, but first we need to pay attention to them. We can make a difference the more we speak about it.

EDGE: Do you feel awareness of mental health issues has improved significantly in the past decade?

MH: It’s getting better. We’re not there yet. But when you see Lady Gaga and other celebrities talking about mental health—people with that kind of fan base and following— that makes a difference. Sadly, that’s what it takes. But it is a good thing if it makes people embrace it and say, “Hey, we’ve got to pay attention to this.”

EDGE: Let’s switch gears and talk about your career. Since you can now find everything ever made somewhere on the Internet, which of your films or TV shows should your fans go back and re-watch?
MH: The film and television I did…it’s interesting. It was always the right thing I needed in my life at that time, so it was the best thing I was doing. There was one film that was super-fun, an independent film called The Sex Monster. It had a terrible title—it sounded life soft-core porn [laughs] but it wasn’t. It was really funny. You know, I watched Personal Best this year for the first time since it came out in 1982. It holds up. It is such a good film, kind of ahead of its time. I don’t know. I think more about the people I worked with and how much I loved them. People like John Candy in Delirious or Peter O’Toole in Creator. These were movies that didn’t do that well, but they were so fun to make.

EDGE: I liked the Steven Bochco series in the early 90s, Civil Wars.

MH: I loved making that show! I was actually thinking that [laughs] but I thought maybe you didn’t know what it was!

EDGE: That was a good, tight show with an extraordinary cast.

MH: I know. Debi Mazar, Alan Rosenberg, Peter Onorati, David Marciano (above). They all went on to do lots of great stuff. Bochco was always interesting and [producer] Billy Finkelstein was a good guy, too. I learned so much about acting and discipline making that show.

EDGE: Who else made the light bulb go on for you? Who helped you take things to the next level?

MH: I learned a lot from working with Woody [Allen]. Not that he said a lot, but it was an interesting set to be on. I probably learned the most about digging deep into your soul for a performance from Bob Fosse (left). Star 80 was a difficult movie to make but he was an incredible director. Because he was from Broadway and was a choreographer, he had an interesting way of going about things. The way he rehearsed and rehearsed as though it was a play. You just don’t get that opportunity anymore.

EDGE: You’ve got a number of projects going on heading into 2020.

MH: I do. I’m producing [Ernest Hemingway’s] A Moveable Feast into a short- form series. I’m not going to be in it because I’m too old now [laughs] but I’m very excited to be creating my own stuff now, and that’s what I’m doing moving into the future.

EDGE: Is it stressful keeping so many balls in the air at once, or is that kind of your comfort zone?

MH: I guess I’m that person who, if you give me too much to do, I’ll get it done. And if you don’t give me enough I sit there wondering what to do. It’s not too much yet. I really enjoy it. I’m good about keeping a balance to my life. It’s taken me a lot of years to figure it out, but I think I’ve finally done it.

If you are someone who believes the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, then Ever Carradine is your kind of actor. The third generation of accomplished performers in the Carradine line (you know her grandfather, John, her uncles Keith and David, and her father, Robert), Ever is the latest success story in the family business. She is currently a cast member in two hit series on HULU—Marvel’s Runaways and The Handmaid’s Tale—and has turned in memorable performances in numerous films and TV shows. Along the way, Ever has won critical acclaim, as well as the admiration of her peers for the authenticity and creativity she brings to her characters. She’s a true professional, in every sense of the word. Mark Stewart caught up with Ever prior to the Season Three premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale.

EDGE: The theme of this issue is “fish out of water.” It strikes me that, given your family’s history in the business, you might never have felt that way as an actor.

EC: I haven’t. Where I find myself most comfortable, having grown up on film sets, is being in that environment. The transition to making that place my working environment—and not just my family’s—was very easy. That’s kind of half the battle: showing up at the set knowing what everybody’s job is, understanding the workings of a crew…it’s very helpful in doing good work, because then you’re not distracted by trying to catch up with what the heck is going on [laughs]. As far as performing in front of an audience, I don’t know that any actor will ever tell you that they’re totally comfortable with that. I still struggle with public speaking, but I’m very comfortable on a film set. I love it so much. It’s one of my favorite places to be.

EDGE: Have you done much stage work?

EC: My last play was in college. I graduated and then hit the ground running in Los Angeles. I started working in film and television. There have been a couple of opportunities where I’d almost done a play, but the timing wasn’t right or I couldn’t move myself from Los Angeles to New York in a way that financially made sense for me. But it was in college I had a little bit of a lightbulb moment. I was doing a play and thought, “Hey, if I could do this and make a living at it, I would be one of those lucky people who loves going to work every day.”

EDGE: And are you?

EC: As far as kicking my feet up and thinking, “Wow, I really am successful and making a living at this”…I’m an actor, and actors are always concerned about what the next job is going to be, what’s going to happen when one thing ends and who will hire me…that never really goes away. The past couple of years, I find myself on two shows that not only do I love, but I’m proud of the work we’re doing and proud of the stories we’re telling. And they happen to be on opposite schedules, so I shoot Marvel’s Runaways (right) half the year and The Handmaid’s Tale the other half of the year. So I just feel gratitude and am pinching myself because I can’t believe I get to be on these two shows at the same time.

EDGE: I couldn’t help noticing that, in school, you majored in Anthropology. My daughter did, too, and found it to be very helpful in her professional life, which has absolutely nothing to do with anthropology.

EC: Initially, my major was Sociology/Anthropology. And, as your daughter knows, you’re digging deeper into other people’s culture. That is a great starting-off point for fleshing out any character as an actor, to take yourself out of your own shoes and delve into somebody’s else’s reality.

EDGE: Getting into the business with the Carradine family name, was it easier for you or did that set the bar higher?

EC: When I started my career I just wanted to work. I wanted my own experiences on film sets. Coming out of college we all take ourselves pretty seriously, so when I started I saw myself doing dramatic work. But right away I started booking comedies, and it was really confusing me. But I sort of just took the ride. I did a lot of comedies for a lot of years, and then I booked a big drama and that turned things back for me toward the dramatic. Now I feel very comfortable in both worlds.

EDGE: What advice did your family offer?

EC: The advice my family—and all of their friends—have always given me is Save your money. When I was young I was, like, Yeah, whatever. Then as I got older I realized that the reason you save your money is that, in leaner times, you are still able to be in control of your choices. You don’t have to take a job you don’t necessarily want because you need the paycheck. Everyone in my parents’ generation has told me that. Save your money. Save your money. Save your money. Also, my uncle, David Carradine, used to tell me that the only ones who didn’t make it were the ones who quit. So after some dark auditions, some sad auditions, I would always remind myself of that.

EDGE: How did you land the role of Naomi on The Handmaid’s Tale?

EC: I had done a pilot with Bruce Miller, the series creator, and Jenji Kohan and Gus Van Sant, in 2015. It was one of these special pilots that I was certain would be a go, and that we would be on the air forever and ever. And then the pilot didn’t get picked up. But I had an incredible working relationship with Bruce and his wife, Tracy. About a year later, I got the script for The Handmaid’s Tale. I read it and I was floored…and was desperate to be in it. Initially, I read for the role of Rita, the Martha to the Waterfords—and thought I did a great job. Then I didn’t get it. I was heartbroken. I sort of put it out of my head. Months later, I got a call: There’s another role in The Handmaid’s Tale and would I go in and read? It was Naomi. I went in and read. After a long wait—for actors, a long wait is more than ten days—I was told I got it and I was on a plane to Toronto the next day. One of the things I love about that show is that everyone reads for every role, the old-fashioned way. Generally, they don’t offer things—they like to hear the people and look at them say the lines.

EDGE: Is Naomi a bad person?

EC: I don’t think so. Something that is coming up for me more and more, in Season Two and definitely in Season Three, is that these people are all in a misery of their own making. Nobody is really happy in Gilead, but they all created this and now they’re stuck there and have to work with what they have. I am so desperate for the Naomi flashback episode, which sadly does not happen in Season Three but fingers-crossed will happen in Season Four. I would love to get a little glimpse of who she was, pre-Gilead. She is a bit of a busybody and has to get into everything. The core of Naomi is her bravado mixed with her raging insecurity. And rage.

EDGE: You’ve played a number of tricky characters over the years. I’m thinking of the one you played on Shameless over the course of four episodes or so. I thought you were really good in that.

EC: You know the pilot I had done with Jenji Kohan and Bruce Miller? I found out that it hadn’t been picked up right before the Shameless audition came up and, also, I had had a child four weeks earlier. I was such a fan of Shameless and the cast and the directors—and it shoots in Los Angeles, which when you have a newborn makes it all the more appealing—that I really wanted to go in and audition. Well, the character I read for was an overwhelmed, exhausted mother who didn’t feel well, which is sort of how I felt [laughs]. The whole thing was a blur, honesty. I was white-knuckling my way through it because I was exhausted and terrified. I think that translated on screen and made it all the more interesting. You just make sure you show up on set and know your lines backwards and forwards and just hang on, because they are all so good in that cast.

EDGE: The first time people saw you regularly was about 15 years ago on the FX series Lucky, which was nominated for an Emmy. I know the series only lasted a year, but that must have been a fun cast to work with.

EC: Oh, I loved that show. It was so fun to be the girl with all those guys. We had a really, really good time. I think you could tell. Craig Robinson and Billy Gardell together were genius. We would go to Vegas sometimes to shoot exteriors and I would just make sure I got to bed at a reasonable hour. The guys went out all night.

EDGE: After that you played the lead in the cult horror movie Dead & Breakfast. That looked like fun in a different way.

EC: The thing about Dead & Breakfast was that the writer and director, Matt Leutwyle—and Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Erik Paladino and the rest of the cast—we were all on a softball team together. Matt was like, Do you guys want to make a horror movie? So he and Billy Burke wrote this hilarious script and we all went up to Livermore, California for three weeks. I think we shot the entire thing at night and it was just the best time.

EDGE: And you got to kill someone with a chainsaw…

EC: I did. I remember swinging the chainsaw around and thinking, I really hope I don’t decapitate the cameraman [laughs].

EDGE: What roles do you look back on as being among your best?

EC: I feel that way about Lucky, for sure. I really thought it would stay on longer, but it was a little ahead of its time, with the gambling/Vegas theme. I did the first season of Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton. That was a great job. I’d admired him for years so it was a real pinch-me moment to work beside him. They always say don’t meet your heroes, but I admire him now even more.

EDGE: On Marvel’s Runaways you play an evil parent. Explain that for the uninitiated.

EC: You know how they say that every teenager thinks their parents are evil? The premise of Runaways is: What if you found out they actually are? I just found that to be so smart and so fun.

EDGE: Have your children watched it? Your oldest in almost nine now.

EC: They don’t get to watch it. I don’t think I’ve done anything they can watch yet. It’s so sad [laughs]. When my daughter is 10 or 11 she can watch Runaways. She’s getting close.

EDGE: What do you like about Runaways?

EC: I love Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the show-runners. They are such wonderful leaders. And I love the cast. There are 16 series regulars on that show. Usually when you have that many people you get one or two bad apples. But I have to say, it’s a wonderful working relationship we all have, and we’ve formed friendships that are just getting deeper with every year. I think that translates on screen. You can see that.

EDGE: What’s different now that you’re part of the Marvel Universe?

EC: You know, I didn’t get it until I got the job. Then I was like, Oh my God…I’m in the Marvel Universe! You get a Marvel email! And the way they welcome you to it, it feels very big and exciting. I love it. I framed my pick-up letter on that show.

EDGE: Playing two different parts on two concurrent series, do you think of yourself as a character actor?

EC: I guess that I do. I remember when I was a kid my dad telling me that he was a character actor and I was like, “What’s that mean?” As I’ve grown older, I’ve found that character actors sometimes get the best scenes—the scenes you really remember when the whole thing’s over. It’s a gift and an art unto itself.

EDGE: When you think of your family, what are some of the favorite roles they have played?

EC: I remember as a kid, my dad making me sit down and watch Captains Courageous, and kicking and screaming because I didn’t want to. Twenty minutes in, I was completely riveted. I just loved Captains Courageous. And c’mon, Revenge of the Nerds, are you kidding? [laughs] And my uncle Keith, I was lucky to see him on Broadway as Will Rodgers. He’s good in everything, but he was just so good in that show.

EDGE: We have a Q&A with Timothy Olyphant in this issue. Your uncle co-starred with him as Wild Bill Cody on Deadwood.

EC: He did. And they killed him off almost right away. I think they had some regrets about that down the line.

EDGE: Your father was in a movie with John Wayne.

EC: He was. He was in a movie called The Cowboys. I feel my daughter is just about the right age to see that. She loves horses and I think she’d love it. That’s maybe on our movie-viewing list. I loved that movie as a kid, too.

EDGE: And was there anyone better than your grandfather, John Carradine, in The Grapes of Wrath?

EC: I know, right? I haven’t seen that in forever. We definitely need to up our Friday family movie night game!

More than 25 years have passed since Alison Sweeney first turned heads as the delightfully outlandish and manipulative ingénue Samantha “Sami” Brady on Days of Our Lives. The girl you loved to hate built a devoted following over the years, which extended to her seven-season stint as host of The Biggest Loser and, now, to The Chronicle Mysteries, which began airing on the Hallmark Channel in February. Sweeney produces and stars in the heart-pounding true crime series, which was inspired by her addiction to podcasts. Throughout her career, she has maintained a deep and genuine connection with her fans, which she continues to spin into entertainment gold. Gerry Strauss sat down with Alison to talk about her new project and the nature of what it means to be a good guy, a bad guy and a hero.

EDGE: So you know that the theme of this issue is “unsung heroes.” Who comes to mind when you hear those words?

AS: It’s hard not to think of the incredibly brave, hard-working firefighters, police, and all the first responders who helped battle the major wildfires in California in 2018. There are so many heartwarming stories of heroism and courage that came from each department. I am so proud and grateful for the work my husband, who is a CHP officer, and his colleagues do, and their constant selflessness in protecting others, as well as their commitment to their jobs. They are all heroes to me.

EDGE: Did the experiences of the contestants on The Biggest Loser strike you as being heroic?

AS: It was so inspiring for me to get to know them, to hear their personal stories and to see their efforts to rise above whatever was standing in their way and to overcome obstacles as they made significant changes to their lives. It was something different for everyone, but to not give up and to keep fighting? That’s heroic. Also, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several different charitable organizations, including hosting the MDA telethon. It was a gift to meet so many incredibly brave young people battling Muscular Dystrophy. They’re not just heroes for continuing to fight and stay strong in the face of such an overwhelming disease. They’re heroic because every patient I met still had hope and love and generosity in their heart for others.

EDGE: On Days of Our Lives, you were a superb antihero.

AS: What a lovely compliment [laughs] thank you! I am eternally grateful for the role of Sami and her misadventures.

EDGE: How much fun is it to play bad guys?

AS: I loved all of Sami’s schemes and machinations. It was always so fun to play as an actress, especially when she got caught. Those were always the best scenes.

EDGE: Does it seem strange to you now to have grown up, both as a person and an actress, on a daytime drama?

AS: Since I started at such a young age, I didn’t know anything else. I grew up having a relatively normal childhood, but then I went to work and played Sami, whose life was far from normal. I never confused my real life story with Sami’s, but it does feel as though I lived through both. In a way, I’m lucky. Just think of all the outrageous personal mistakes I got to experience vicariously through Sami [laughs] rather than making them in my real life!

EDGE: Whom did you look up to in your early soap days?

AS: Certainly, I always looked up to Deidre Hall and Drake Hogestyn through the years at Days because I was lucky to work with them a lot when I first started. It was like going to Daytime Drama University because I learned the ropes from the best. In turn, I’ve taken the opportunity to share what I know with younger actors—when they are open to it. Frankly, that’s not as common a trait anymore.

EDGE: How has social media changed the soap opera world since you became a daytime star in the 1990s?

AS: I remember joining the “World Wide Web” when soap chat rooms were first becoming a thing. I quickly found myself hooked on the instant feedback from fans. Sami always took a lot of criticism [laughs], but when she finally found herself some legitimate romantic love interests—instead of stealing someone else’s—I found the “shippers” online to be incredibly helpful. The actors that I worked with and I, we loved interacting with the fans and reading their reactions to a specific scene or cute subtle moment on camera. The fans notice everything. They appreciate the details. And they don’t forget anything. Ever. [laughs] Those are huge lessons I take with me to work every day, in whatever it is I’m doing.

EDGE: At what point did you decide that you wanted to be more than strictly a performer?

AS: I think the “producer” in me has always been there, below the surface, screaming to get out. Most people who’ve known me were not surprised at all when I announced I was developing and producing my own projects for Hallmark.

EDGE: What aspect of overseeing a project appeals to you?

AS: It’s not that I am a control freak, but I like to be a part of all the details. I love every department that contributes to making the movie the best it can be. Mostly, I love being able to choose to work with people who love it as much as I do. That is truly a blessing.

EDGE: Where did the idea for The Chronicle Mysteries come from?

AS: I am obsessed with the true crime genre— podcasts in particular. Like most people, the first season of Serial by This American Life captured my interest and I haven’t considered climbing out of the rabbit hole. There was one podcast I was listening to where the female journalist was interviewing some dodgy suspects and I thought, She’s really out there in real life, in danger. In that moment, I realized this could be a great scripted mystery series. Podcasting is a great premise because the technology is so good these days that people can really relate to it, and it’s so open that my character, Alex, could really take the podcast into any story that interests her. I think there’s a lot of potential for this…no limits!

EDGE: Has producing the series been easier, harder or different than you imagined?

AS: This is the hardest, most comprehensive project I’ve been a part of. As I mentioned, I’m so appreciative of my colleagues who are as passionate about it as I am. It’s important to me to keep challenging myself with new goals. I consider myself a storyteller, and the feedback from the viewers on the stories is so valuable to me—it makes it all worthwhile. Melissa Salmons, whom I met while she was writing at Days, is a fantastic writer and, thankfully, I got her hooked on true crime, too. We spend endless hours coming up with ideas for the episodes, the crimes, the suspects—everything. Honestly, I hope the police never have cause to look at my search history [laughs]. But seriously, there is intensity to this concept that is bigger than anything else I’ve done. I’m lucky because a lot of it can be done after I drop my kids off at school, and before soccer practice is over.

EDGE: Since you brought it up, how does a project like this fit onto your plate?

AS: I hope I continue to have the opportunity to push myself creatively, while still being the best wife and mom I know how to be. Sometimes I forget that I left the stove on and burn dinner, but the kids get to see my husband and me supporting each other, every day, through it all. To me, that’s the best role modeling we can do.