“DaPesca brings honor to New Jersey’s fishes and fishing industry and fills a void in fine dining…created by restaurateurs and chefs who have failed to place local fishes on a proper pedestal.”

By Andy Clurfeld

Set back from the main drag of Morristown is the old Vail Mansion, a formidable structure that could, and once did, house any number of governmental offices in this, the county seat of Morris. Instead, it is home to four distinctive eating-and drinking entities that have, under its reinvention as Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen, become the dining-out headquarters in north-of-the-Raritan New Jersey for the tuned-in, private jet, chef’s-on-a-night-off, wine geek and raw-bar-loving sets. Translation: It’s the high-style crowd’s home away from home.

Christopher Cannon, late of the New York City restaurant scene, where he won James Beard Awards for Marea and L’Impero, came to New Jersey by way of marriage. Becky, his wife, grew up in North Jersey and knew it was ready for a visionary. Chris Cannon is a visionary.

For a time, Cannon was a visionary without a place to practice his progressive restaurant ways. A bitter divorce from his New York restaurant partners left him without dining rooms and bars to pour the artisan, quirky, impossible-to-find wines he was known for—and without a constant stream of fans looking to partake in the latest “Cannonball” blind wine-tastings. So the Cannons and their kids moved to Becky’s home state, and Chris Cannon started looking around for the perfect place to create a public space. Hey, why not a circa-1917 mansion on South Street in Morristown? What might intimidate most only inspires an industry veteran who appears to live by the motto, “If something’s easy, how can it be fun?”

Three years ago, Jockey Hollow became The Oyster Bar, which rocks nearly nonstop with pristine raw fishes, charcuterie, and plates small and large; The Vail Bar, a speakeasy-style hideaway where the go-getters and the glamorous convene over cocktails and fine fare; the Rathskeller, the basement beer hall-private events space that used to serve as Morristown’s very own jail and now hauls ‘em in for live music and top-tier craft brews to wash down German grub; and, upstairs, a somehow-intimate 70-seat fine-dining space.

You can explore the bars at your leisure. Right now, we’re talking about that upstairs restaurant-within-a-restaurant that the father of reinvention himself reimagined this winter as DaPesca.

DaPesca brings honor to New Jersey’s fishes and fishing industry and fills a void in fine dining that, inexplicably, in our state bordered by 130 miles of ocean, not to mention rivers and bays and myriad and many lakes has been created by restaurateurs and chefs who have failed to place local fishes on a proper pedestal. Cannon was bothered by this. Having recently acquired a chef as formidable as the mansion turned- restaurant itself—Craig Polignano, ex-Ryland Inn, among other high-end restaurants—to take charge of all things food at Jockey Hollow, and having developed an association with Eric Morris, founder and owner of Local 130, the New Jersey seafood specialist, Cannon was ready to shame the gun-shy of the Garden State. DaPesca does just that.

Sourcing primarily from Local 130, as well as Forty North Oysters, the Barnegat Oyster Collective and Sona-Far Hills Seafood, DaPesca names on its ever-changing menus the boats and their captains who fish off our coastlines and make possible what Polignano and his kitchen crew create. 

If you eat at DaPesca regularly, captains such as Jim Lovgren and Eric Myklebust might become your guidestars for how to order.

There really is no better way.

For the Barnegat clams, sparked by a wispy ring of Calabrian chile, and the local oysters, with their slurpy salinity and ping of minerality, pave the way to a Spanish mackerel crudo set atop a tangle of cucumber strands spliced with puffed rice and scented with the penetrating power of yuzu. That intense citrus tames the mackerel, probably my favorite fish on the planet, and infuses the toasty puffed rice scattered about with unexpected freshness. The dish shows how inspiration can take hold. You’ll find the calamari á la plancha a revelation, especially if you’ve been eating the same-old, same-old renditions for a generation or so. Here, the local stuff isn’t fried and sent out to pasture with tomato sauce, but given an Asian twist with tamarind and noodles of papaya, Balinese peppers, and peanuts that act as so much more than a give-away garnish. I learned something new about calamari’s versatility in every bite. Our local tuna, too, took a spiritual trip to the Far East when Polignano chose to plate it in a pho-style broth scented with Thai basil and popping with crunchy sprouted mung beans. Polignano and Cannon readily admit pledging allegiance to the flag of Italy, culinary religion in New Jersey, after all. Which brings us to the pasta-risotto portion of the menu: Don’t pass by the “little hats” of pasta—cappellacci stuffed with nuggets of braised pork—that are set in a rich shellfish broth with little clams spurting big juices. Those curious counterpoints to the clam-pork duet? Beech mushrooms. They sop it all up. Meanwhile, the pinched logs of dostalini stuffed with the buttery-tangy Piedmontese cheese castelrosso take to a saucy combo of orange and puntarella, a hopped-up chicory, along with a side crumble of pistachios; and the risotto is positively daring, what with crab dancing with almost-sweet Meyer lemon and a verdant, rough chop of seaweed pesto working pine nuts not ground into the mix, but left whole and therefore more forceful. You know skate wing, right? Well, be prepared for something completely different here, as Polignano turns it on its ear. It’s twirled into something that looks like a mini muffin and partnered not just with the classic caper-butter duo, but with an Italianate twist of roasted cauliflower and grapes. This silky-textured, mild fish always tastes ever so slightly nutty to me. Well, darned if the chef doesn’t give his skate a flourish of hazelnuts at the finish. Bingo. Dayboat scallops are done simply and right here, with a slaw-like base of celery root and apple, cubes of potato and mysterious notes of black truffle that appear when least expected. The best lobster dish I’ve ever had in New Jersey is Polignano’s butter-poached lobster, which yins against the yang of translucent curls of fennel and threads of tarragon. But it’s the frothy bouillabaisse cream that did me in: How boffo is the rich-on-rich marriage of lobster and shellfish bubbles?

Not everything at DaPesca is divinity of the sea. I don’t get the need to wrap monkfish in prosciutto like the minions do, especially when sidemen include olives and sausage that only add to the oversalted taste of the dish. I also hope the squid ink gnocchi, with more squid on the plate, is nixed by now since it was mushy in texture and muddy of flavor. Desserts, too, need work: I’m not a fan of oversize anything, but the two cubes of lackluster carrot cake with a two-bite torpedo of mascarpone ice cream ain’t worth $4, let alone $14, and the trio of sorbets—blood orange, cranberry, and Meyer lemon—had awkward shards of ice within.

Next time, I’ll nab another round of the butter-poached lobster and see if I can get an extra bowl of that bouillabaisse froth. I’ll bring fish-shunners to sit at my table so I can order extras of the calamari and skate and mackerel and dive into their plates without competition. I’ve been looking for a big-ticket seafood joint like this for decades. DaPesca is where my odyssey ends.

NEW JERSEY’S BEST WINE LIST?

Chris Cannon may be over-the-moon about Jersey’s fishes, a fanatic about forging relationships with Garden State farmers and fascinated with the history of his newly adopted state, but there’s nothing more he loves than wine. Unless it’s the collection of eyeglass frames he’s amassed with a fervor that could be described as manic. But that’s a story for another issue of Edge. Cannon has the most idiosyncratically desirable wine list I know, a list that you’re given to scan on an iPad as you are seated, but really deserves a conducted class by itself on a day when Jockey Hollow is otherwise closed. Think a library-style, hushed opportunity to sit and read, and re-read a list that seems like it cannot be real. But it’s a list he’s been working on most of his adult life, establishing connections with importers, distributors, and winemakers, forging relationships with wine names major and utterly obscure. Frankly, Cannon’s tastes tilt to the obscure.

But his prices lean friendly. The centerpiece of his wine program is an evolving, always-changing list of “60 Under $60.” It’s a treasure trove of wines you never thought you’d be able to try, of grapes you’ve never heard of from winemaking regions that have no beaten paths, of styles that will teach you how to pair wine with food once and for all. Cannon and his floor crew love talking wine at the table with their guests, and they love sharing their latest finds. If you’re so inclined, give a call to arrange a “Cannonball” wine adventure, in which the wine maestro himself will pour—blind—wines largely from this “60 Under $60” list and guide you through the tasting. The Cannonball experience takes place on Fridays.

No matter where you dine at Jockey Hollow, you can take advantage of New Jersey’s best wine list.

DaPesca

At Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen • 110 South Street, Morristown • Phone: (973) 644.3180

Reservations accepted and recommended; major credit cards. Open for dinner Tuesday and Wednesday from 5 to 9 p.m., Thursday from 5 to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday from5 to 10:30 p.m. A four-course tasting menu is $86, while a seasonal six-course tasting to be ordered by the entire table is $116. (With wine pairings, the six-course menu is $190.)

A la carte service is available at DaPesca except on Saturdays when only the tasting menus are served. For more information, visit www.jockeyhollowbarandkitchen.com.

 

Four innovations that will transform the way you live a decade from now. 

By Luke Sacher

Two generations ago, yesterday’s vision of the future was showcased at the New York World’s Fair, Expo 67 and Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland. It was all about big things, produced by venerable Dow Jones conglomerates: moon rockets from Grumman and Lockheed/Martin, jumbo jets from Boeing, prefabricated housing made of “miracle materials” from Monsanto and DuPont,

monorails from AMF, communications satellites from Bell Laboratories, copying machines from Xerox. Today, a used smartphone has more processing power than all of NASA’s computers combined had for the moon landings; a lowly iPhone 6 is 32,600 times faster than the Apollo-era IBM Model 360, which was as big as a car.

The iPhone just celebrated its 10th birthday silver-lined only a handful of technical wizards and scholastic futurists dared to predict the impact that mobile supercomputers would have on the lives of billions, and only a few got it right. Smartphones have forever changed the way we interact with our material world, and with one another. Answers to questions simple and complex are now always at our fingertips. If you have Siri or Alexa, you don’t even need to use your fingers. One could say that we’ve become simultaneously smarter and dumber, but for better or worse, the fact is that the world will never go back to what it was a decade ago.

So what’s coming down the pike right now that holds the same game-changing potential? Here are four of the most promising new inventions, clouds that truly seem to be 100 percent silver-lined.

MEMORIES STICK 

DNA STORAGE

In 1965, Gordon Moore, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, predicted that the number of transistors that could be printed onto microprocessor chips would double every year, and chip performance/speed would double every 18 months. His prediction became known as “Moore’s Law.” What Moore may not have foreseen is that every five years, the amount of digital data worldwide increases roughly tenfold. Microprocessor chips and most data storage devices are made of silicon, hence the name Silicon Valley. Computers store and process data on silicon chips as binary digits (zeros and ones) via tiny electrical charges. The problem is that the physical limit of microchips as a medium for data storage and processing is fast being reached. Which means that instead of computers getting smaller and smaller, they will soon have to get bigger and bigger to manage all that data. Engineers and manufacturers simply can’t squeeze any more circuits onto microchips beyond a gap of a few atoms, and so can no longer build them fast and dense enough to keep pace with demand.

So what’s the alternative? Leonardo DaVinci said that the best solutions to most scientific problems were to be found in Nature and, in this case, it turns out he may have been right on the money. Over billions of years of biological evolution, Nature has generated the most advanced information storage medium currently known: DNA.“Oh, sure,” you’re saying, “I already know that DNA holds all the genetic data for building every living thing on Earth, but what can it do for me?” How about everything from saving your vacation photos to curing cancer?  

The theory of storing digital data in DNA was conceptualized decades ago, but recent progress in applied biophysical technology is making it both possible and practical, perhaps sooner than anyone might think. DNA is much denser than silicon/nonorganic based media. The data for hundreds of thousands of DVDs (hundreds of terabytes) could fit on a thumbnail-sized quantity of DNA. It is also much more durable and, as we know, lasts virtually indefinitely. In comparison, nonorganic media may last only years or decades, and their formats and connection standards become obsolete even faster. DNA? Nope.

Traditional media such as hard drives, thumb drives and DVDs store data as sequences of binary code (0s and 1s) by modulating their electromagnetic and optical properties. DNA molecules store data as sequences of four component molecules called nucleotides: adenine, cytosine, thymine and guanine (A, C, T and G). The trick is to translate binary code to the quaternary code of DNA: 00 = A, 01 = C, 10 = T and 11 = G. For example, let’s say that a JPEG file’s first eight bits are 01111000. Break them into pairs (01 11 10 00), and translate those pairs to C-G-T-A. After determining what order the letters should go in, series of DNA strands are synthesized letter by letter, using an apparatus that takes bottles of As, Cs, Gs and Ts and mixes them in a liquid solution with “control” chemicals, which direct the reactions for their sequencing. By default, the process yields a secondary benefit of DNA storage: backup copies. Rather than making one strand at a time, it makes many identical strands at once before proceeding to the next strand in the series. Once the DNA strands are created, they must be protected against damage by drying them out and sealing them in containers that keep them cold and block water and light.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of DNA over electronic circuits is that it can interact with a biochemical environment like the human body. Computing with molecules involves recognizing the presence (or absence) of certain molecules, so a natural application of DNA computing is in the realm of bio-sensing and delivering medicines inside living organisms. DNA programs have already been put to medical uses, including diagnosing tuberculosis. Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel has proposed a “nano-biological doctor in the cell” that targets cancer molecules. DNA can also be used to control motion, which introduces the possibility of creating DNA-based “nano-robots” to carry and deliver molecular cargo (therapeutic drugs) to precise disease targets inside humans. Remember the 1960s movie Fantastic Voyage? Imagine a miniaturized submarine made of DNA and Raquel Welch as a therapeutic drug!

DNA computation has enormous future potential. Its huge storage capacity, low energy cost, ease of manufacturing (which exploits the power of self-assembly and affinity with the natural world) are a gateway to nanoscale computing, using designs incorporating both molecular and electronic components. There remain many challenges to be addressed for the technology to move forward, but almost 100 years of traditional computer science techniques that have revolutionized silicon circuit design are now being applied to DNA-based computing. Progress so far has been steady and rapid. Onward and Inward!

GOING UP?  

SIDEWAYS ELEVATORS

Over the past 50 years, many of the advanced fictional technological devices featured in the original Star Trek television series have been born into reality—flip phones, flat-panel video displays, and voice-activated computers to name three. Now add another one to the list: the Turbo Lift.

German industrial and engineering conglomerate ThyssenKrupp (the same Krupp that forged the steel and built the armaments that turned Europe into a mass grave moonscape twice in the 20th Century) has created the MULTI, the world’s first vertical/horizontal elevator system. This past October, ThyssenKrupp premiered a fully functional “proof of concept” MULTI in its 800-foot test tower in Rottweil, Germany. The test tower has horizontal shafts only at its top and bottom, but OVG Real Estate’s East Side Tower in Berlin has contracted with the company to be the first actual building to install a complete “lattice grid” MULTI system later this year. The MULTI uses MAGLEV (magnetic levitation) propulsion technology, and “exchangers” at junctions of its X and Y axis tracks

“When we decided to take this type of exchanger, which was one in about twenty different concepts,” explains Markus Jetter, ThyssenKrupp’s head of product development for systems and components, “we found that this would also allow not only the change from vertical to horizontal but also to maybe any other angle in between.” 

Conventional elevators are raised and lowered on counterweighted cables. They’re not very efficient. A lot of energy is used lifting the cables. MULTI is more energy-efficient than traditional cable/counterweight systems and, by running multiple cabins moving in a “loop” at up to 15 feet per second, the system can carry 50 percent more people—while also reducing wait times to between 15 and 30 seconds.

“Old School” elevators can only move along the Y-axis, and under the Newtonian Laws of fluid mechanics/inertia, can only rise to about 1,650 feet (500 meters). Sky-scrapers taller than that require multiple elevators and shafts, sometimes stacked on top of each other, in order to reach from the ground to top floors. The MULTI system’s “cable-free” design eliminates shaft height limits, releasing that constraint in skyscraper designs and allowing for far taller buildings to be economically feasible.

Shafts of cable elevators also take up a significant share of building floor space—as much as 40 percent in large skyscrapers. MULTI elevator cabins use common X and Y-axis shafts, thus significantly increasing a building’s occupied area. Their shafts are also roughly half the size of cable elevator shafts, which translates to more room for developers to install even more elevators. The MULTI design not only substantially increases the amount of occupancy space in single buildings, it could revolutionize metropolitan infrastructure and transportation, both for passengers and freight, since its elevators could travel between buildings, and not just up and down one. This is an architect’s dream come true

Might it be time to start thinking about preparing our farewells to taxicabs and subways and maybe even sidewalks?

GAME OF THRONES  

THE SMART TOILET

I suppose it makes perfect sense that Japan, the most hygiene-obsessed and robot-friendly nation on earth—with a swelling population of senior citizens—would also be the leader in “Smart

Toilet” research and development. The world’s largest toilet manufacturer, Toto, has partnered with medical technology company Daiwa to create Flowsky.

Flowsky is fitted with a sensor that measures a user’s urine flow-rate and volume, while a tiny self-cleaning receptacle inside the bowl is used to collect 5cc of urine for comprehensive measurement of glucose, albumin and hormone concentrations, as well as detection of inflammation indicators like leucocytes and antibody proteins. Blood pressure, heart rate, weight and body mass index (BMI) are recorded via a blood pressure monitor located within arm’s reach of the toilet and a floor scale in front of the basin. Data is then sent by a built-in smartphone to the user’s primary care physician.

Flowsky is presently only available in Japan, and only in medical facilities, but most likely not for much longer. Nursing homes in Japan are filled to capacity, and the number of older people is increasing rapidly. Flowsky promises to reduce skyrocketing medical costs, as well as eliminate the laborious and time-consuming standard procedure of acquiring lab results. Future Flowsky models will be equipped to detect pregnancy and blood alcohol content, PSA, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and to diagnose bacterial infections

“In Japan, most people see a doctor after they become ill,” explains Toto engineer Hironori Yamazaki. “With an eye to our demographic change, we are setting out to make the toilet a space for the early discovery of disease

Ten years from now, our toilets may well be the front line of healthcare, catching problems at the microscopic level long before symptoms manifest themselves. Personally, I can see a downside to this development. Right now, the toilet is the most trustworthy appliance in my house. I’m not sure I want the day to come where I ask myself, “Do I really trust my toilet?”

Will it only alert me to a looming medical issue, or is it going to it nag me about not going to the gym or remind me that I could be doing something smarter than vegging out on the couch scarfing down pork rinds? And then rat me out to my insurance carrier? In 2028, there may be no secrets we can keep from Son of Flowsky…or the iPot

CLEAR ENERGY 

SOLAR WINDOWS

Everyone loves the sun, and always has—Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Japanese, Californians. Seems like any time in the last 10,000 years, you couldn’t swing a stick without hitting a sun worshipper. The ancients realized something we too easily overlook: the indisputably mind-blowing scientific fact that all forms of energy on our planet (kinetic, thermal, electromagnetic, nuclear) originate from our great big yellow fusion reactor in the sky. And all of the fuels used by humanity to generate usable heat and electricity—wind, water, wood, coal, petroleum, methane, plutonium, etc.—are indirect, inefficient storage media for solar energy. The ultimate objective of energy technology is to bypass all of those indirect media and find a way to tap “directly” into the sun.

By the best current (no pun intended) estimates, total global electrical energy demand could be satisfied using solar energy. The problem is that it would require covering 1 to 2 percent of the Earth’s flat landmass with collector cells yielding 10 percent efficiency. However, think of megacities all over the globe, from New York to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Dubai to London, chock full of super skyscrapers with lots of vertical surface area. What covers that surface area? Windows. Yes, you might say, but windows of existing buildings can’t all be swapped out for solar panels. Solar panels are opaque and heavy and can only be installed on rooftops. And who would want to live or work in a windowless building? We’d all go mad as March Hares.

What if someone could invent a transparent (yes, transparent) film like window tinting in your car—made of abundant and inexpensive low environmental-impact materials—that could be laminated to every existing window in every city, capturing solar energy in the infrared and ultraviolet portions of the spectrum and converting it efficiently to electricity, while allowing the complete visible spectrum to pass through?

Trick question. It’s already happened. The two scientific rock stars leading the team that recently created this technology both earned their doctorates at Princeton University. Their résumés are as follows: Dr. Vladimir Bulovi ´ c, (left) Professor of Electrical Engineering and Associate Dean for Innovation at MIT, previously launched a number of technology companies including Kateeva and QD Vision—and is an inventor of over 50 patents in the field of

organic optoelectronics. Dr. Richard Lunt (right) of Michigan State University received his doctorate in chemical engineering from Princeton while working as a researcher there with Dr. Jay B. Benziger, and also with Dr. Stephen Forrest at the University of Michigan. While building his lab at MSU, he worked as a postdoctoral associate at MIT with Dr. Bulovic´. He has won numerous awards for his innovative research and has invented over 15 patents, most of which have been licensed. 

In 2011, Bulovic´and Lunt founded their company, Ubiquitous Energy, in Redwood City, CA. This past autumn, they debuted their first practical transparent photovoltaic film prototype, called ClearView Power. ClearView Power transmits up to 90% of visible light, absorbing only ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. It’s efficient: over 10% conversion to electricity is achievable and independent of its visible spectrum transparency. It’s economical: fabricated using low cost, non-toxic materials, and existing equipment. It’s thin and low-mass: the film is less than 1/1000th of a millimeter thick. And it does indeed have ubiquitous applications, generating electricity on any transparent surface without any aesthetic sacrifice.

This is what the beginning of the end of energy scarcity looks like, ladies and gentlemen. In my humble opinion, in 2028, we might be calling this the greatest technological achievement since the lever or the wheel.

FASTER! FASTER!

At present, DNA data storage is only experimental. Before it can be introduced to the marketplace, the processes of writing and reading DNA must be improved. Both are prone to error and relatively slow. Today’s DNA synthesis writes a few hundred bytes per second; a modern hard drive writes hundreds of megabytes per second. An average JPEG photo (like the one on the right) takes several hours to store in DNA, while it takes less than a second to save on the phone or transfer to a computer.

3-D ELEVATOR TRAVEL

With horizontal/vertical elevators coming online this year, the next holy grail for the elevator industry is three-dimensional (X-Y-Z axis) travel—a true Turbo Lift is not beyond the realm of present possibility, but still far from actuality. Currently, the drawbacks include cost. MULTI system elevators are five times as expensive as conventional ones. They won’t be adopted other than as a novelty until the return on investment (of increased throughput and reallocation of space) offsets their installation and maintenance costs. Another possible hurdle is shielding elevator occupants from the strong electromagnetic fields that propel them.

Things to do this Spring

March 29 to April 29

The Sting: A New Musical

Paper Mill Playhouse

(See web site for showtimes)

The con is on with this tale of two hustlers, Henry Gondorff and Johnny Hooker, in a musical inspired by the Oscar-winning 1973 film.

 

April 12

Ars Vitalis

Kean Stage 7:30 pm

Celebrate the art of music composition in this tribute to the life and work of Frank Ezra Levy, one of New Jersey’s most prolific and gifted composers.

 

April 14

Arrested Development

UCPAC 8:00 pm

The beloved hip-hop group brings its high-energy act to the Union County Performing Arts Center.

 

April 14

Moscow Festival Ballet: Giselle

State Theatre 2:00 & 8:00 pm

The acclaimed ballet company performs one of the most romantic ballets, with choreography by the legendary Marius Pepita.

 

 

April 15

Let It Be

NJPAC 3:00 pm

It’s the reunion concert that never was, a time capsule back to John Lennon’s would-be 40th birthday that celebrates the music of the Beatles.

 

April 15

I Am Tango

UCPAC 6:00 pm

Tango Lovers, the award-winning dance company, tell the story of tango’s evolution through different eras and cultures.

 

April 19

George Thorogood & The Destroyers

State Theatre 8:00 pm

Boogie blues legend George Thorogood and his longtime band roll into New Brunswick with hits like “Bad to the Bone,” “Move It On Over” and “Who Do You Love.”

 

 

 

April 21

Gabriel Iglesias

NJPAC 7:00 & 10:00 pm

The popular comedian comes to NJPAC’s Prudential Hall with two performances on his One Show Fits All tour.

 

April 22

Margarita with a Straw

Kean Stage 3:00 pm

Margarita with a Straw tells the coming of age story of a Punjabi teen with cerebral palsy.

 

April 26

Ruben Studdard

State Theatre 8:00 pm

The Season Two American Idol winner stars in Always & Forever: An Evening of Luther Vandross.

 

April 27 to May 3

Shen Yun

NJPAC

(See web site for showtimes)

The world’s premier Chinese dance and music company is in Newark for a week of performances.

 

April 28

Brian Stokes Mitchell

Kean Stage 3:00 & 7:30 pm

Tony-winning song and dance man Brian Stokes Mitchell performs hit songs from his many Broadway shows and his upcoming album Plays with Music.

 

April 28

Dorthaan Kirk

NJPAC

New Jersey’s First Lady of Jazz is honored on her 80th birthday in the Victoria Theater by music legends Don Braden, Jimmy Heath, Steve Turre and Cassandra Wilson.

 

May 3

Worship Night In America

Prudential Center

Grammy winner Chris Tomlin headlines a show that includes Kim Walker Smith, Matt Maher, Christine D’Clario, Tauren Wells and Pat Barrett.

 

FOR THE KIDS

 

April 14

Journey to Oz

Kean Stage 11:00 am

This new adaptation of Frank Baum’s beloved tales set in the Land of Oz features audience involvement in sound effects and call and response with the onstage characters.

 

April 20

Wild Kratts Live

State Theatre 6:30 pm

Martin and Chris Kratt come to life in a high-energy, multimedia

adventure.

 

April 29

Charlotte’s Web

UCPAC 2:00 pm

Theatreworks performs the beloved E.B. White tale of a girl and her pig. The production is part of the Sensory Friendly Theatre program, featuring live shows adapted for children with autism and other sensory sensitivities.

 

May 4 & 5

The Wizard of Oz

State Theatre 2:00 & 7:00 pm

A spectacular celebration of the iconic 1939 MGM film, starring Dorothy and Toto, along with the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion. There is no 2:00 pm performance on the 4th.

 

May 12

Panda-Monium

NJPAC 2:00 & 3:30 pm

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra performs Music from the Animal Kingdom in a pair of family-friendly afternoon programs.

 

June 3

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

State Theatre 3:00 pm

Constantine Kitspooulos conducts the New Jersey State Orchestra in John Williams’s Oscar-winning score live during a screening of E.T.

 

 

May 4

The Piano Guys

NJPAC 8:00 pm

The YouTube sensations blend a wide range of iconic music, from Bach to Bruno Mars.

 

May 5

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

NJPAC 8:00 pm

Violinist Ning Feng is the main soloist and Dima Slobodeniouk conducts the NJSO in a program featuring Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

 

May 6

Patti Lupone

State Theatre 4:00 pm

Tony winner Patti Lupone takes the stage in Don’t Monkey with Broadway, her tribute to the unforgettable show tunes of the Great White Way.

 

 

May 11 to 13

Alvin Ailey American

Dance Theater

NJPAC

(See web site for showtimes)

The company’s annual stop in Newark features Revelations, the signature masterpiece that pays homage to the African-American experience.

 

May 12

Marin Mazzie & Jason Danieley

NJPAC 6:00 & 8:30 pm

The golden couple of Broadway performs beloved show tunes in the intimate setting of NJPAC’s Chase Room.

 

May 13

The Temptations & The Four Tops

State Theater 7:00 pm

Two of the greatest Motown acts join forces in New Brunswick for a live concert featuring all of their signature hits, from “My Girl” to “I Can’t Help Myself.”

 

May 18 & 19

The Original Misfits

Prudential Center

Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only reunite in their return to New Jersey, where it all started three decades ago for the legendary horror-punk-metal pioneers.

 

May 19

William Shatner

NJPAC 7:30 pm

William Shatner (aka James T. Kirk) takes the Prudential Hall stage following a screening of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.

 

May 20

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

State Theatre 3:00 pm

Violinist Eric Wyrick is among the featured NJSO soloists in a performance of Bach’s complete Brandenbrg Concertos.

 

May 31 to July 1

Half Time

Paper Mill Playhouse

(See web site for showtimes)

From the director-choreographer of Kinky Boots comes the remarkable true story about a group of seniors who became hip-hop dancers for a big-time basketball team.

 

June 15

Happy Together

State Theatre 8:00 pm

An all-star constellation—including The Turtles, The Cowsills, and Gary Puckett & The Union Gap—performs beloved hits from the 1960s and 1970s.

 

June 15

Journey + Def Leppard

Prudential Center 7:00 pm

Don’t stop believing—both bands have created all-new shows for their 2018 tour, which stops in Newark on the 15th.

 

Editor’s Note: This overview of local entertainment, curated by Rachel Stewart, is just a taste of our area’s overall performance picture. For full listings, log onto the following web sites:

Kean Stage • keanstage.com

Paper Mill Playhouse • papermill.org

State Theatre • stnj.org

NJPAC • njpac.org

Prudential Center • prucenter.com

Union Country Performing Arts Center & Hamilton Stage • ucpac.org

Cryotherapy is coming to a health club near you. Is that a good thing?

By Mike Cohen

In the classic sci-fi film Logan’s Run, set in the year 2274, citizens of a certain age entered a special chamber called the Carousel, where they were “renewed.” It turned out that was future-speak for being vaporized. Renewal has a different look in 2018, although in the case of cryotherapy, it still has a futuristic feel. Across the country, citizens of a certain age are discovering the renewing benefits of the cryosuana chambers that have started to pop up in gyms, health clubs and spas. You may have seen one; it’s an insulated standalone chamber that you stand in, with protection for your hands, feet and private parts, and your head exposed at the top.

Cryotherapy is an ergonomic modality used to address a wide range of aches, pains and medical conditions. It also has benefits for athletes looking to improve their performance. The ancient Greeks and Romans used cryotherapy (immersion in chilly seawater) to treat inflamed wounds. In the 19th century, European medicine rediscovered this technique. A couple of generations ago, cryotherapy looked a lot different: a bag of ice wrapped around a knee or shoulder, a chilled whirlpool bath. In the 1970s, Japanese researcher Dr. Toshiba Yamauchi pioneered the concept of whole-body cryotherapy to treat rheumatoid arthritis and, in doing so, began to notice its therapeutic side effects for subjects who suffered from injuries and chronic inflammation. Since then, there has been a huge amount of medical information coming out about this technology and how it can benefit the human body in myriad ways.

Back to the cryosauna chamber. Liquid nitrogen gas is expelled at –200⁰C and blown around your body in the chamber, escaping from the top. It’s all over in three minutes. You’re shivering, yes, but you quickly warm up and experience a particular euphoric feeling, which keeps a lot of folks coming back. “Regulars” often schedule sessions every one to two weeks.

What exactly is going on with this cold air and your inflammation/injury? The cold blast hits the skin and the blood vessels constrict. The skin doesn’t “like” the cold and shunts blood to the center of the body, the core, to keep it warm. The autonomic nervous system—which controls automatic stuff like breathing and heart rate— begins to take over. It is composed of the sympathetic (fight or flight responses) and the parasympathetic, which conserves energy and relaxes things. The body begins to shiver, contracting muscles to stay warm, and increases the metabolic rate. This is the sympathetic part. The chemical mediators that started this process are basically put into hibernation and the tissues’ response is one of slow motion. The blood slows down in the extremities and, in turn, slows down what is called oxidative stress to the tissues (aka free radical formation).

Another part of the autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic system, when exposed to cryotherapy, begins its magic with releasing noradrenaline from the nervous system. This helps to alleviate pain along with several other actions. Increased parasympathetic activity has been linked to exercise recovery and a reduction in cardiovascular risk for stroke or heart attack

Medicine can be so boring, right? So let’s skip to the good stuff. Why would cryotherapy be something of interest to you? Well, there are many medical issues where this type of treatment has been tested and the results are pretty eye-opening. For example, studies have shown remarkable improvement in low back pain with as little as 10 sessions of three minutes duration each.

Another area where cryotherapy has proved to be effective is sleep. A study of elite basketball players from Europe showed a 15% improvement in the quality of their sleep with as little as one session. The maximal effect was demonstrated after 10 sessions.

Currently, the main customers for cryotherapy are seeking relief and recovery from the pains and strains of physical exercise. When we exercise strenuously, we release inflammatory compounds like CRP (C Reactive Protein), and inflammatory cytokines—including Tumor   Factor, Interleukin and Interleukin 6—into the circulatory system. Not good. Pain, swelling, stiffness, loss of motion all come with “overdoing it.” Free radicals are also part of the picture, generated during exercise. These free radicals attack cell walls, especially the lipid (fatty) parts, which causes cells and blood vessels to leak. With cryotherapy there is a dramatic reduction in these factors by virtue of cryo’s ability to generate an Interleukin inhibitory factor, and by releasing an anti-inflammatory cytokine called Interluekin 10.

I know. It can be a little confusing. But here is the takeaway: Even after a single three-minute exposure, there is medical proof that the inflammatory chemicals begin to reduce in concentration in the blood. Strength can actually increase after cryo treatment. Power also can improve after as little as one to three sessions. And, for all those runners/rowers out there, the body’s VO2 Max is increased after as little as three exposures. Athletes having been “cooling it” before competing and noting an increase in performance. The NBA Dallas Mavericks and the NFL Dallas Cowboys are among the pro teams that have these machines.

There is also evidence that cryotherapy can benefit individuals experiencing depression and anxiety, as pain can be the underlying issue in both cases. By exposing the body to cryotherapy, it increases the metabolic rate —as detailed above—which brings with it an increase of catecholamines, such asepinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine. Also cortisol, ACTH and endorphins are increased as a result. These are all ingredients for improving one’s mood and attitude. In the brain there is a system called the Opioid Peptide System, which regulates motivation, emotion, responses to stress, and control of food intake. You can see how this is part of the depression and anxiety issue. With cryotherapy, this Opioid Peptide System is stimulated to release these chemicals into the brain. Indeed, medical studies have shown significant improvement after only five sessions.

One final aspect of cryotherapy that is worth noting is that its benefits are cumulative. The more you do it, the better things tend to get. That sounds like a good business model, doesn’t it? It’s another reason you may be seeing cryosuana units coming to a location near you. 

What Exactly Is Inflammation?

We have all seen inflamed joints, tendons, and extremities. Hot, sometimes swollen and painful limbs, spine and joints all tell us that we have either done too much in the gym or have been subjected to injury. Inflammation and injury start with the vascular system. Small arteries and veins are part of the capillary system, where they are renamed arterioles and venules. These are called the endothelium. With trauma or overuse, the endothelium becomes sticky and attracts platelets and leukocytes (white blood cells) that clump together at the site of injury and begin to decompose. Doctors call this degranulation. Once this happens, there are all sorts of chemical compounds released by these cells to create a pulling-back of the endothelium, creating gaps inside the walls of vessels. These compounds have nasty names like tumor necrosis factor and interleukin 1. Additionally, free radicals, histamine and serotonin are generated and all swim in the same pool of liquid inside the vessel. With the gaps created, the liquid inside the vessel, lets call it plasma, leaks out into the surrounding tissues, joints and muscles and creates swelling and irritation. This liquid has a higher protein content than inside the vessel, and therefore more liquid from inside the vessel tries to dilute the protein outside the vessel. Then the body attempts to heal itself with more cells “coming to the rescue”—namely macrophages, which are human waste disposals. They grind up and eat the damaged tissue so that new tissue can be laid down. However, this process is not fun. It hurts. It’s the body’s way of saying, “I need some time off to heal this problem.”

CRYOTHERAPY AND DISEASE

Rhuematoid Arthritis

This is a disease where the body is essentially destroying itself, eating away at soft tissue and bones. Studies have shown that some of the chemical factors involved in this disease are Interleukin and Tumor Necrosis Factor. With cryotherapy—and from here on I am talking about the cryosauna unit—exposure does remarkable things to the blood work of rheumatoids. With 10 exposures of three minutes. there is a significant drop in these chemical markers, which in turn decreases pain, inflammation, and degradation.

Fibromyalgia

A difficult diagnosis to deal with, as this is a diagnosis often arrived at after loads of negative testing results. The anguish of chronic pain, often from a neurological basis, is distracting to patients. Cryotherapy has shown that, with as little as 15 treatments of 30 seconds in duration, there is a dramatic effect on reducing pain.

Multiple Sclerosis

MS is a debilitating disease of the muscles and nerves.

Fatigue was the overwhelming issue in most MS patients when questioned about their disease. With 10 three-minute exposures, there is a significant reduction in fatigue of the skeletal muscles.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Although thousands of athletes, including LeBron James, swear by whole body cryotherapy, the FDA has not approved any WBC devices. It’s a good idea to discuss cryotherapy with your doctor, especially if you plan to replace more traditional treatment options for medical conditions.

 

While other charitable groups are devoted to raising money, HFNJ focuses on how best to spend it.

By Yolanda Navarra Fleming

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey (HFNJ) has been a nurturing force in the greater Newark, NJ area and the Jewish community of MetroWest since 1996, when it was formed from the sale of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center to the Saint Barnabas Corporation. As a champion donor to Trinitas, the HFNJ’s extreme generosity to the hospital dates back to 2000, totaling 21 grants to the rather significant tune of $3,374,132.

According to Marsha I. Atkind, Executive Director/CEO, the HFNJ functions a bit differently than one might expect. Rather than working to raise funds, the board plays an active role in making decisions about applicants’ proposals and projects.

“We have a strong endowment,” says Atkind, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, who studied at Columbia University Law School. “(The late) Lester Lieberman, our founding chairman, was the chair at Newark Beth Israel when the sale took place. He made that sale happen and his vision made the HFNJ happen. We owe everything to him.”

At one time a stay-home mother, Atkind got involved in women’s issues and became President of the National Council of Jewish Women in 2002. When her term was up, she was hired by the Jewish Federation of MetroWest to start a women’s foundation. In 2008, she was recruited to the HFNJ.

“In our 21-year history, we’ve given away about $135 million dollars, the lion share in greater Newark,” remarks Atkind. “We fund everything from major pieces of equipment, as we’ve done for Trinitas in the Emergency Department, to programs at grassroots agencies that help people improve their health and wellness.”

As needs arise, Nadine Brechner, Vice President/Chief Development Officer at Trinitas, remains grateful that the HFNJ’s generosity doesn’t begin and end with money. Trustees and staff spend their time working closely with applicants to get to know the challenges of their goals and how to best meet them, which sometimes means reshaping and improving proposals.

“Marsha, her staff and trustees are all fantastic,” says Brechner, who works closely with them on projects from start to finish. “They have taken an active interest in our patients and visit frequently. Whenever I’ve gone to them with our needs—both big and small—they’ve always found a way to help. They also question our proposals. And they follow up because they want to know that they have truly helped. They are true partners.”

An example is the new Gary S. Horan Emergency Department at Trinitas, a 24,000-square-foot renovation that nearly doubled the amount of beds and created separate treatment areas for the consideration of seniors, families and behavioral health patients.

“Their gifts have literally touched almost every aspect of care at Trinitas, which is why the HFNJ will be honored at the 2018 Peace of Mind Gala this year,” says Brechner.

By definition, the HFNJ’s mission is to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable, underserved populations in greater Newark and the Jewish Community of MetroWest NJ, to elevate the quality of community healthcare, reduce disparities in access, and promote the infusion of compassion and humanism into our healthcare system. Dr. Beth Levithan, chair of the HFNJ, who joined the board in 1997, is most proud of the HFNJ’s commitment to humanism.

“There is a focus on humanism in every grant we fund and everything we do,” says Levithan, the former adjunct professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work in New Brunswick, and senior researcher/evaluator at the Research Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

“Les was passionate about inspiring our Board with that mission. He always emphasized treating people, not their diseases, as the key to successful healing and wellness. The Healthcare Foundation of NJ Center for Humanism and Medicine, which was founded and funded by HFNJ at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in 2004, is only one example of this emphasis.”

Arnold and Sandra Gold of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation were a pivotal influence on Lieberman and the HFNJ. “The most wonderful evening of the year for HFNJ is when we give out the Lester Z. Lieberman Humanism in Healthcare Awards to individuals nominated by our grantees as excellent examples of humanistic caregivers,” she adds. “Les and Arnold Gold are now deceased, but they would be so pleased to know their work will continue at HFNJ reaching the most vulnerable populations they both wanted to serve.”

The HFNJ was one of the early champions of HIV-AIDS programs and has prioritized projects aimed at early development, disabilities, and parenting. One of HFNJ’s biggest successes is Mom2Mom, a telephone peer support program run by Rutgers University Behavioral Health designed to have mothers of children with disabilities answer questions posed by other mothers with similar issues. Mom2Mom began locally and has now grown to serve mothers throughout the US.

“Some of the work we’ve done has been to help mothers bond with their infants and be the best parents they can be,” says Atkind. “We feel so strongly that if children start off on the right foot, a lot of the problems later in life could be alleviated or possibly eliminated. We know how hard it is to raise children, especially in today’s world with all the responsibilities and issues brought on by poverty, racial and cultural disparities, and technology. Programs that support mothers and teachers are crucial to the health of our country moving forward.”

Women, in general, can be grateful for the HFNJ’s most recent pledge for the new Connie Dwyer Breast Center to pay for the Hologic Selenia 3D Mammography System, the latest technology for detecting invasive cancers.

“HFNJ initially helped us update our technology when we went from film to digital imaging,” says Brechner. “They care about our moms and have been caring for them fora long time.”

THE HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION OF NEW JERSEY HAS SUPPORTED TRINITAS WITH THE FOLLOWING GRANTS:

Connie Dwyer Breast Center

Most recently, a $348,467 grant will cover the balance needed for a Hologic Selenia 3D Mammography System for the New Connie Dwyer Breast Center. This system will be the centerpiece of the new Center. Now the industry standard, 3D mammography technology, can detect 41% more invasive cancers than older methods while reducing false positives by 40%. With this grant, Trinitas will be able to provide the highest quality, potentially lifesaving diagnostic care to the underserved women of the region.

Emergency Department

These are among the latest and largest gifts they have given to Trinitas. In all, HFNJ gave $1.75 million to the Proud Past, Promising Future Campaign with the following components:

• The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey Transitional Care Unit: $1,000,000 (10/2016). Through this grant, HFNJ funded the construction costs for the Transitional Care Unit. This unit was created as a designated space to safely stabilize, diagnose and provide medical clearance to patients who are experiencing a psychiatric and/or substance abuse emergency. The HFNJ Transitional Care Unit served 6,544 patients in 2017— more than triple our initial projection of 2,000 patients per year.
• The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey Geriatric Unit: $500,000 (December 2015). The purpose of this project was to create a model for urban safety-net hospitals that ensures that seniors receive the safest, most comfortable and clinically sound care in an environment that respects their privacy and dignity. This five-bed unit was on track to serve 5,700 patients in its first full year of operation.
• Emergency Department Diagnostic Unit CT Scan: $250,000 (August 2014). HFNJ gave a $250,000 grant for the 128 slice CT Scan, which is the centerpiece of the ED Diagnostic Unit. Hospital-Acquired Delirium HFNJ took a leadership role through its initiative aimed at tackling Hospital Acquired Delirium (HAD) across New Jersey. Two grants totaling $242,048 provided salary support and supplies to establish a hospital-acquired delirium program, devoted primarily to aiding seniors on our inpatient units. The foundation also provided an additional grant to ensure that the program would be fully established over the long-term.

Ambulatory Surgery Center

A $149,134 grant in 2014 helped purchase two pieces of equipment for the Ambulatory Surgery Center. HFNJ also gave grants for the Behavioral Health EMR Project ($148,500), Surgical Equipment ($150,000), the first Digital Mammography Suite ($100,000) and other projects.

News, views, and insights on maintaining a healthy edge.

Back to the Future

Drug-resistant bacteria is responsible 

for more than 20,000 deaths a year in the United States, and the CDC warns that this number is unlikely to go down until a new antibiotic comes on the scene. Is Octapepin the answer? If so, it’s a case of “back to the future,” as this drug was developed in the 1970s…and then dropped.

According to the journal Cell Chemical Biology, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia noticed that Octapepin is similar in structure to Colistin, which is currently used as the last resort drug against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The toughest bacteria to fight have an extra membrane to penetrate, which is camouflaged from drugs, as well as the human immune system. Because Colistin is effective against this additional layer, the hope is that Octapepin will be, too.

If so, it should replace Colistin, which can wreak havoc with the kidneys and other internal organs. Octapepin was shelved in the 1970s and’80s because so many other powerful antibiotics were hitting the market during this time.

New Blood Test Detects 8 Forms of Cancer

Scientists at Johns Hopkins recently announced a universal blood test that detects eight of the most common types of cancer. The test looks for trace amounts of mutated DNA and proteins that are released into the bloodstream by tumors. By identifying each type of cancer before it has time to spread, the test promises to have a major impact on the mortality rate from the disease. The most recent trial showed a 70 percent success rate in detecting cancer among study subjects. Ovarian cancer was the easiest to detect, followed by liver, stomach, esophageal, colorectal, lung and breast cancer. Although current blood tests can detect cancer, none have been able to pinpoint the type of cancer with significant accuracy.

Researchers were quick to point out that most of the cancers detected were advanced stage two or stage three, but there is hope that the test can be refined to catch the disease in its pre-symptomatic stages.

Breakthrough for Central Sleep Apnea Sufferers

Sleep apnea, a breathing disorder that affects an estimated 1 in 15 Americans, has been getting a lot of attention lately. Even if you are one of the 14 that doesn’t suffer from this disorder, you may have noticed an increase in ads for CPAP devices, as well as louder debates about whether sleep-deprived sleep apnea sufferers should be allowed to operate trains, planes and automobiles. Sleep apnea comes in two varieties, obstructive and central. Obstructive sleep apnea, which is caused by an upper-airway blockage, is the most common and controllable. Central sleep apnea is far more dangerous. It happens when the brain and diaphragm don’t communicate, resulting in lapses in breathing. Some lapses can last a minute or more. Late last year, the FDA approved an implanted device for central sleep apnea patients that should be available sometime in 2018. Marketed under the name Remede, the neuromodulation system activates a nerve that sends signals to the diaphragm to stimulate breathing. It is one of several new products on the horizon for sleep apnea sufferers—an estimated 40 percent of whom refuse to wear a  CPAP device.

“Perfect Storm” Flu Season

So what did we learn from the recent, and particularly bad, flu season? Stay at home. The relative ineffectiveness of this year’s vaccine (estimates range from 10 to 22 percent effectiveness)—combined with regional shortages of Tamiflu and a robust employment picture—created a perfect storm for transmission. Although most flu sufferers followed the basic medical advice to stay in bed, drink fluids and take fever reducers, many went back to work (or school) too soon. Most doctors recommend staying home an additional 24 hours after you “feel fine.” Although healthy adults and children will recover from the influenza virus, it can be deadly for those with weakened immune systems, as the virus can lead to pneumonia. The World Health Organization links between 290,000 and 650,000 fatalities each year to flu epidemics. Four in five flu deaths worldwide occur among people 65 and older.

New Benchmark for Gene Therapy

For the 1,000-plus individuals in the U.S. with a rare, inherited retinal disorder caused by a defective gene called RPE65, 2018 holds incredible promise. The rest of the medical profession is also excited, because the FDA’s approval of Luxturna marks the first time it has OK’d a “true” gene therapy treatment to reach the market. Gene therapy involves the delivery of a healthy copy of a gene to make up for one that is unhealthy. The RPE65 gene is responsible for a protein that makes light receptors in the eye. Patients that inherit a defective version of the gene suffer from retinitis pigmentosa and eventually go blind. Luxturna is injected into each eye with a single dose that uses a benign virus to deliver healthy copies of the RPE65 to the retina. Though not a cure, it has been shown to improve eyesight substantially. The bigger picture surrounding FDA approval of gene therapy is intriguing, to say the least. Because many cancers begin with a DNA defect, gene therapy (which has been under development for two-plus decades) could become a major weapon in the fight against the disease.

Warming Up to Saunas

There are now more than a million saunas in the United States, including home units and those in health clubs, spas and resorts. Those who swear by saunas got some good news recently when a study out of Finland pinpointed a specific benefit for middle-aged adults at risk for heart disease. Researchers found that a 30-minute session at 160 degrees decreased blood pressure by seven points and increased arterial elasticity. Heat exposure can widen blood vessels and promote better blood flow, easing the workload for the heart. Study subjects had at least one of the three conditions: obesity, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Saunas gained an initial foothold among Americans in the 1950s, after the Helsinki Olympics. Finnish athletes attributed their medal-winning performances to the incorporation of saunas into their training routines.

Booze News Not Good for Heavy Drinkers

A new study from the University of Toronto has drawn some alarming conclusions about the long-term effects of heavy drinking. Researchers looked at the medical histories of a million individuals diagnosed with dementia over a five-year period and found that the strongest predictor for this condition was a previous hospitalization for issues related to alcohol consumption. More than half of early-onset dementia cases were linked to alcohol-related brain damage. Of the 5.5 million cases of Alzheimer’s dementia in the U.S., about 200,000 are considered early-onset. One in 10 Americans over the age of 65 has some form of dementia. Heavy drinking is defined as four or more drinks per day for men and three a day for women.

The Hidden Cost of Climate Change

Does climate change impact health? The devastating aftermath of the 2017 hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean has focused much attention on this relationship. While the response to each disaster teaches us something new about how to deliver healthcare to stricken areas, each disaster also demonstrates how natural disasters can undermine healthcare in vulnerable parts of the world. In many places, the disasters are actually the source of public health crises. This, maintains the World Health Organization, which is the “hidden” cost of climate change. The situation is exacerbated by bureaucratic tinkering with post-disaster statistics. For instance, only 64 deaths in Puerto Rico were officially attributed to Hurricane Maria. The apocalyptic images that we saw suggest a different story. And indeed, the deaths related to a “disruption in healthcare” on the island surged well past 1,000 in the weeks that followed.

Poets have been writing odes to mothers for a thousand years. Baby books have been offering advice to moms for a century. Alas, no words convey the true essence of motherhood quite like the intimate moments captured through the lens of celebrated lifestyle photographer Sue Barr. Her work offers an honest and engaging window into what it looks like to be a modern New Jersey mom.

Sue Barr is a winner of annual American Photographic Artists awards for Advertising, Sports & Adventure, Portrait and Lifestyle. Her fashion photography has been featured in EDGE during its first year of publication. You can see more of her work at suebarr.com.

 

So you think your mother-in-law is bad…

By Sarah Rossbach

My husband used to tease me that my mother paid him a huge fee to marry me. But that jest perhaps hides the real truth: On Christmas Eve, the year we were married, my mother-in-law, martini glass in hand, cornered me at a family gathering and tearfully thanked me for marrying her middle son. While no money was exchanged, I registered the gratitude that with her son in my hands, she had one less worry on her mind. I must admit I was lucky in the mother-in-law department.

Mother-in-law. An appellation so resonant that it is almost onomatopoetic in evoking a mixture of fear, humor invasiveness and sometimes loathing. My father used to say that he married a “Rose that grew from a dung heap.” And when my mother married my dad, her new sister-in-law took her to lunch to warn her about the well-manicured claws of her future mother-in-law. My mother actually got along swell with my grandmother, perhaps because she was a vast improvement to her own mother. Meanwhile, the sister-in law’s mother was referred to by her husband as “The Toad.” That being said, mothers-in-law can occasionally be outright fun. An older friend said his early-to-bed wife’s night owl mother used to commandeer him after the witching hour to squire her around to Palm Beach nightclubs. (And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson!)

The evil or comic mother-in-law has been a casting staple in Hollywood: From the movie Monster-in-Law to Samantha’s mother, humorously invasive and sardonically witchy Endora, on Bewitched to Game of Thrones’ murderous Olenna Tyrell, the theme of mothers-in-law is rich territory.

Mother-in-law stories start with the tying of the knot. There are endless stories of mothers of the groom wearing funereal black at the wedding, or trying to upstage the bride by wearing white. And then there are the mothers-in-law, with shriveled hearts, who forgo the wedding altogether. Probably good riddance. No one could be good enough for Sonny Boy or perfect Poopsie. The umbilical cord knows no ends. Oedipus, anyone? Speaking of Oedipus: imagine the nightmare of his mother, Jocasta, who by unwittingly marrying her son, incestuously became her own mother-in-law. 

Mothers-in-law may have the best intentions, such as Recounted that, on a first visit to her husband-to-be’s hometown, his mother drove her around on a tour of all her son’s ex-girlfriends’ houses. The not-very veiled message being: there were many before and, if she didn’t take good care of him, there could be many afterwards.

My own area of study is Chinese culture, where there are hundreds of stories of young Chinese wives becoming slaves to their tyrannical mothers-in-law, thanks to Confucian expectations of filial piety, respect and obeisance: The custom was that, on marriage, the wife moved into her husband’s multi-generational home and was at her mother-in-law’s beck and call. The mother-in-law continued a cruel cycle of abuse, no doubt similar to how her own mother-in-law treated her. There are so many examples in Chinese history and fiction of wretched mothers-in-law that one doesn’t stand out as more horrible than the others.

Which is better—the coldly snubbing or the insanely smothering mother-in-law? History has something to say about that. In the 19th Century, when John Ruskin, the Scottish art critic and champion of Pre-Raphaelite artists, married at his mother’s urging the high-spirited Effie Gray, he caught a chill on their honeymoon and had to be nursed back to health by his mother. However, his mother’s lack of boundaries in over-nurturing Ruskin can’t be the only cause of six years of an unconsummated marriage. With reason, Effie annulled their union and married Ruskin’s more handsome and appreciative protégé, the painter John Everett Millais.

The White House has housed four mothers-in-law and, not just one, but two of them were domineering and judgmental. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed to Eleanor, his meddling mother Sara took him abroad to discourage their union. When that didn’t work, she built double townhouses in New York as a wedding present, so she could be near her dear one. Wherever they lived, she always shared a roof. Her overbearingness did “save” the marriage, as she objected to the possibility of Franklin divorcing Eleanor when he strayed from the marriage, saying she would cut him off without a dime. FDR’s successor, Harry Truman, gained a disapproving mother in- law when he married Bess Wallace. Bess’s mother never considered Harry—a former dirt farmer and failed shopkeeper—good enough for her daughter, even when he became president (!) and she settled into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

History offers plenty of Game of Thrones-esque stories about overbearing and conniving (to the point of felonious and even homicidal) mothers-in-law. In the 16th century, Mary Stuart, aka Mary Queen of Scots, after her husband Francis II’s untimely death, was cast out by her mother-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici (right). Mary fled to Scotland, leaving the Crown Jewels behind at Catherine’s insistence. (But that was certainly better than the imprisonment and beheading that ultimately awaited her in Scotland.) Catherine also tangled in her daughter’s marriage and may have poisoned her son-in-law’s mother as well as caused religious riots. And although one marries for better or worse, it couldn’t get worse than the domineering Bona Sforza (1494- 1557), the poisonous and poisoning Italian-born Queen of Poland. Bona, by all accounts, was a horrible mother to her five children, but she was far worse to her daughters-in-law. After unsuccessfully attempting to prevent her son’s marriage to Elisabeth of Austria, she is said to have poisoned Elisabeth within two years. Her son remarried his mistress, who quickly and mysteriously died mere months after the wedding.

We may feel safely centuries away from these murderous mothers-in-law, but the beat goes on. Closer to here and now, in 2013, a Florida newspaper reported that a 70-year-old grandmother allegedly offered a supposed hitman $5,000 to knock off her daughter-in-law. Fortunately for the intended victim, the hitman was an undercover cop. 

FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION

Darrin Stephens’s mother-in-law, Endora (played to virtuoso perfection by Mercury Theater veteran Agnes Moorehead), earns high marks as one of TV land’s great sitcom mothers-in-law. Moorehead is hardly alone. Some of history’s finest character actors have made this role their own on the small screen.

• In the 1960s, Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard took turns chewing the scenery in the sitcom The Mothers In Law. They played embattled neighbors whose children married, forcing their parents into uncomfortable closeness week after week.
• On The Honeymooners, the mere mention of Alice Kramden’s mother (played by sneering Ethel Owen) sent Ralph into a quivering rage. She rarely missed an opportunity to mention the boys her daughter could have married…and once had Ralph arrested as a counterfeiter.
• Sitcom mothers-in-law could be tough on daughters, too. Frances Sternhagen, who gained TV fame as Cliff Clavin’s mother on Cheers, was even better as Bunny MacDougal on Sex and the City. Bunny took meddling in the lives of Trey (her son) and Charlotte to a whole new level.
• On Everybody Loves Raymond, Doris Roberts made Debra’s life a comic nightmare, while standing up for her son at almost every turn. Roberts was nominated for seven Emmys as Marie Barone. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ambitious mothers-in-laws always run the risk of a double-edged sword. Literally. When King Herod the Great discovered his mother-in-law and her daughter were conspiring to regain power for their dethroned family, he had both executed.

 

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

Paragon Tap & Table • Beef Ramen

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

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

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Wasabi Crusted Filet Mignon

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

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

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

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

— Chef Momo

The Barge • Cioppino

201 Front Street • PERTH AMBOY

(732) 442-3000 • thebarge.com

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

— Alex Vosinas Chef/Owner

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • Pan Seared Scallops

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

Pan-seared scallops over butternut squash risotto and wilted spinach, finished with a brown butter emulsion. This is one of the signature dishes featured on our menu since we opened 10 years ago.

— Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

Morris Tap & Grill • The Monster Burger

500 Route 10 West • RANDOLPH

(973) 891-1776 • morristapandgrill.com

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

— Eric B LeVine, Chef/Partner

Garden Grille • Roasted Garlic & Herb Rubbed Grilled Sirloin

304 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

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

Tender sirloin grilled to mouthwatering perfection with a chimichurri sauce, served with buttery whipped potatoes and wilted spinach.

— Chef Sean Cznadel

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

272 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 315-2049 • longhornsteakhouse.com

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

— Anthony Levy, Managing Partner

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD

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

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

— Duff Regan, Managing Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

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

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

1075 Morris Avenue • UNION

(908) 977-9699 • ursinosteakhouse.com

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

Vine Ripe Markets • Filet Crostini with Horseradish Cream Sauce

430 North Avenue East • WESTFIELD

(908) 233-2424 • vineripemarkets.com

Savory, tender, with a touch of aromatic and toasted flavors that tantalize the senses! Filet Mignon served rare and shaved onto homemade Garlic Crostini, topped with our Horseradish Cream Sauce is a medley of tender and crispy textures perfect for sharing with family and friends, any time of year!

— Frank Bruno, Chief Culinary Officer

In pursuit of the American Dream, immigrant cultures are reshaping New Jersey’s foodscape.

By Andy Clurfeld

From “America” by Simon & Garfunkel

Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

They’ve all come to look for America

All come to look for America

All come to look for America

Drive the Turnpike in 2018, 50 years after “America” was released by the poet-rocker duo, and you’ll find today’s America at every exit. Its sister thoroughfare, the Garden State Parkway, offers the same people-scape at every exit ramp as well. Cross-hatch the ’Pike and the Parkway with major roadways such as Interstate 80, 195 and the Atlantic City Expressway, and you’ll find jump-off points that lead to people, places and things of incredibly diverse origins.

Is New Jersey America’s most emblematic state? Could this Mid-Atlantic stalwart of the original Colonies, gateway to the Northeast, subject of Mason-Dixon Line debates and most teased member of the family of states united under a red, white and blue flag signifying liberty and justice for all be the poster child for America itself?

The argument could be made.

It would be won, slam-dunk, on the merits of our peerlessly diverse and delicious foodways. I’ve taken to saying, as I’ve worked the past year to form the Garden State Culinary Arts Foundation, that New Jersey—a peninsula of 8.9 million people bordered by two major rivers, a connective ocean and the unique and fertile Delaware Bay—is singularly positioned as the nation’s culinary leader.

For not only does it benefit from those waters, but from a wide-ranging geology that allows for the cultivation of many and myriad crops and provides lands for raising animals. Somehow, in a state that balances extreme densities of populations in its cities with expanses of space in its countrysides with veritable crops of varying housing types in its suburbs, we’ve also become one of the most diverse states in America. Our ethnic communities have taken root in cities, in rural areas, in the suburbs.

No matter the roadway, no matter the exit, you’ll find foods that define the now-wide-breadth of today’s cuisine in America.

It started in New Jersey with waves of immigrants from Italy, Ireland,

India, Germany, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Ellis Island—whose 27.5 acres were found by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1998 to be dominated by New Jersey —was the gateway for these folks, who settled in Garden State cities, farmed its lands north, central and south, and set up shops everywhere to make Old World staples and invent hybrid foods that used New World ingredients in recipes developed back home.

The next waves of immigrants, from Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Korea, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador, Portugal and other parts of India, formed enclaves throughout the state and brought with them their culinary traditions that added to the increasingly rich foodscape.

Foreign-born populations in Hudson, Middlesex, Bergen, Union and Passaic counties began serving forth in restaurants and specialty markets foods you’d once needed a passport to experience. From Ducktown, an Italian enclave in Atlantic City, to the Koreatowns of Palisades Park and Fort Lee; from the Ironbound’s Portuguese community of Newark to Havana on the Hudson in West New York and Union City; from India Square in Jersey City and Little India in Edison/Iselin to the Little Istanbul, Little Lima, Little Bangladesh and the huge number of various Little Middle Easterns in Paterson, there’s a world of authentic cuisines in New Jersey.

Travel to the ‘burbs outside Atlantic City, and you’ll find expert Vietnamese food. There’s more in Cherry Hill and on the outskirts of Camden. Filipino fare is flush in Jersey City’s Little Manila and also in Bergenfield, Piscataway, Edison, Belleville, and Woodbridge. Scout Mexican in Long Branch, Freehold, New Brunswick, Trenton, Vineland, Bridgeton, Lakewood, and Red Bank. Don’t expect to visit South Paterson without spending a day devouring Turkish foods.

What’s more American than a bountiful table with an equally bountiful number of options? Our food choices in New Jersey, thanks to the various waters we have for fishing, the wide range of soils we have to cultivate and grow crops and raise animals for meat and dairy, and the globe-spanning backgrounds of our population who bring a world of edibles right to our doors, are second to none.

Second to none.

I see that as I shop in Mitsuwa, the Japanese uber-market in Edgewater with not only a peerless selection of fresh and prepared foods but also with a food court that puts to shame anything you’ve experienced in a major mall.

I see, as well, that we indeed are second to none when I scour the shelves at NetCost, the Russian/Eastern European supermarket in Manalapan or its sister, Gourmanoff, in Paramus. There’s an increasing number of Hmarts in the Garden State, a testament, yes, to the Korean populations but also to the interest folks of all ethnicities have in Korean cuisine and ingredients. Food Bazaar (I like the one in West New York) is where you can find Latin-leaning ingredients, and Jersey City’s India Square is home to a host of markets, including D-Mart. I’m also a fan of Chowpatty’s small snacks-and-sweets shop in Iselin.

If you want to look for America today, start here at home, in New Jersey. Because we are both the original melting pot and the modern melting pot, convening in our compact state at the biggest table the world has ever known.

Bon appetit!

Editor’s Note: The 2018 Garden State Culinary Arts Awards took place in April. Among the winners were Razza Pizza Artigianale’s Dan Richer (Outstanding Chef), who was profiled in a past issue of EDGE, and Ariane Daguin (Culinary Legend) of D’Artagnan in Union.

An American Returns to Vietnam

By Rick Geffken

I think it happened when Ken Burns and I spoke during the promotional tour for his 18-hour documentary film series, The Vietnam War. The conversation was part of a confluence of happenstances that seemed to be pulling me back to a place whose mere mention still conjures agony, anger, and guilt in those of us who lived through that disastrous period of American history. It felt like the final sign, or permission perhaps, to return to the country where I’d spent the 16 most hazardous months of my life.

And to search for the beautiful South Vietnamese woman who had once been my fiancée.

That was then. In December 2017, walking among Hanoi’s street vendors and busking musicians, I was just a tourist, not a whole lot different from the ubiquitous backpackers drawn to the capital city by its cheap lodgings and myriad diversions. I indulged in street foods, seated at the tiny plastic tables the proprietors set up beside their charcoal grills. The barbequed chicken or pork called bun cha, and ban me, the baguette sandwiches slathered with margarine and paté. Both are served with tangy nuoc mam, the fish sauce I could never get enough of. The shops are everywhere, especially the local Highlands Coffee chain. I developed a nightly addiction for the espresso-like Vietnamese coffee flavored with a thick condensed milk. Each cup comes with a small metal drip filter, not designed for the impatient.

Making my way from a coffee shop to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is as jarring as it gets for an American war veteran. Not too far away is a monument to John McCain’s seizure at Truch Bac Lake (left), commemorating where he parachuted after being shot down in 1967. Equally disconcerting was passing through the doors of Hoa Lo Prison (aka the Hanoi Hilton), where captured soldiers and airmen were subjected to deprivation and torture. American POWs had more prescient gallows humor than they knew. The twenty-five-story Hanoi Towers overshadows the infamous prison these days. The day I visited Hanoi’s university, the Temple of Literature, built in 1076, I watched proud parents taking pictures of recent grads with their diplomas. They were happy to pose with me, too.

Hanoi was only one stop on my three-week odyssey. In South Vietnam, my friends and I idled a few days in the seaside resort of Vung Tau, called Cap Saint-Jacques by the French. Gorgeous mountain lookouts and theme parks feature huge statues: the Buddha atop one and Jesus another. Our B&B was opposite a wonderful seafood restaurant, where we dined among what looked like members of Vietnamese high society celebrating Christmas. In Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Christmas carols blasted day and night from commercial malls and government offices everywhere in the Communist metropolis. Gift-wrapped packages were stacked in store windows, hotel clerks wore red Santa Claus hats, and Christmas trees were decorated with bright lights and outsized ornaments. The incongruity of it all suggested we may have lost the military conflict, but we won the cultural war. The Vietnamese may have to decide one day if that’s a good thing

Regardless of where I traveled, it was difficult to find evidence of our war anymore. The Citadel in Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam, and the scene of ferocious fighting during Tet in 1968, has been restored. The small civilian homes once sheltered by its thick walls and moats were not rebuilt. The Imperial Enclosure and the Forbidden Purple City were—and they once again honor the Nguyen Dynasty, Vietnam’s last. I purchased delicate painted paper lanterns at the gift shop near where so many men from both sides fought and died. On the wide boulevards of Ho Chi Minh City, I saw little of the old  French colonial Saigon, with its distinctive Parisian feeling, that I remembered. Millions of motorbikes now zoom past modern electronic chain stores, western-style gyms and yoga studios, and tall office buildings. Luxury high-rise condominiums line the Saigon River in the incongruously named “Diamond City.” Classic old buildings are being taken down and replaced with shiny new skyscrapers, as the city rushes toward world-class city status.

Two reminders of the American War, as the Vietnamese rightly call it, do exist.

The Presidential Palace, where a succession of South Vietnamese dictators lived, is now the Reunification Palace. The War Remnants Museum (above) won’t let visitors forget atrocities like Agent Orange and napalm. It’s filled with captured American weapons, tanks, planes, and unforgettable images of victims of brutality, both civilian and military.

In 1969, as a young Army lieutenant, I flew along the Cambodian border in a Birddog observation plane, spending my days looking for North Vietnamese troops. The bomb-cratered landscape I surveilled resembled the moon Neil Armstrong stepped onto that same year. Occasionally, what sounded like the intermittent buzzing of mosquitos around our plane drew my attention to muzzle flashes from shooters a thousand feet below. As quickly as they appeared, they skedaddled into their hidey-holes on the side of the border we weren’t supposed to cross. Being a target of small arms fire will instantly snap you out of revaries contemplating the natural scenic beauty of Vietnam. And out of the remorse for what a large country can do to destroy a small one.

I came face-to-face with beauty when I met Le Thi Nga, one of the interpreters at the 25th Infantry Division’s Military Intelligence Detachment in Cu Chi. As did most young Vietnamese women, she wore the traditional ao dai (pronounced “ow-zai”), the flowing and tight-fitting colorful silk tunic worn over long black trousers. We spent hours together almost every day. Eventually, we began exchanging dreams for a shared future as we tried to bridge the cultural gaps between us. When I discovered that she, like me, was Catholic, I was convinced we were fated to fall in love.

Her parents weren’t so sure, despite my efforts to impress them by attending Sunday Mass at their small church in Bac Ha village. Not only was I the sole uniformed American in the congregation, the M-16 rifle propped on my kneeler could not have helped them envision a traditional marriage for their daughter. By the time my tour was over, Nga and I decided it was best for us to lead separate lives in very different societies.

Fast-forward nearly five decades. I hired a driver to take me from what I still thought of as “Saigon” to Bac Ha. It had been 20 years since I last heard from Nga in a letter describing an abusive marriage and divorce from a former South Vietnamese soldier. The only clue I had to her whereabouts was an old return address. I had no idea if she was still alive. My driver’s English was passable enough to understand where I wanted to begin my search. We left the puttering motor scooters of Saigon’s chaotic traffic for the journey northwest. The old dirt road I traveled many times once bordered rice paddies with working water buffalos and a few mud huts with thatch roofs. These days, it’s a bustling major highway lined with shops, small restaurants, and not a few large factory buildings.

My first stop was the small village church, my best guess being that the local priest might assist me in locating Nga. The rudimentary house of worship was now a larger, more modern church, apparently serving a prosperous community of believers. Unfortunately, I arrived on a day when no worshipers were around. Near the door of the locked church, the name “Le Thi Nga” appeared on a list of contributors. If this was indeed my Nga, it meant she was still living close by.

A cleaning woman seemed to recognize Nga’s name on my old letter but motioned that she had moved away to Cu Chi town some time ago. This was not good news. It meant my search would be more complicated because I’d have no starting point in a city far different, unrecognizable really, from the little town I’d frequented for drinks, food, and other wartime comforts. Next, we stopped an old man on a motorbike. He recognized Nga’s name. His translated response was “Is she a lady around 60 years old?” Yes, I said, and he agreed to show us to her home. Were we talking about the same woman?

Our guide led us back to the main road, a divided highway with modern buildings on both sides. It had been dirty and dusty all those years ago, crowded with small restaurants, make-shift laundries, the poor hovels of the men and women who supported our base, and houses of ill repute. The workers were herded through our base security gates each morning to our hootches, where they washed and ironed our fatigues, and cleaned our latrines, burning the half-cut 55-gallon drums of GI excrement with the unforgettable smell of burning diesel fuel. This is as familiar a flashback to veterans as the whoosh-whoosh of Huey chopper blades. Our scooter man pointed for us to park on a side street while he rode off down the sidewalk. Returning within minutes, he motioned for me to hop on the back of his scooter, and off we went, past astonished pedestrians. Near a yogurt and juice store, he gestured toward a side door where he had just told the owner that someone was looking for her.

Tentatively, I made my way down a dimly lit corridor.

“Nga?” I called out. “It’s Rick.”

I heard footsteps approaching and recognized her immediately despite her look of astonishment. Tears began pouring down her cheeks. We embraced, speechless.

“How did you find me? What are you doing here? Why didn’t you write ahead?” she finally stammered in little-used English.

“I wanted to surprise you,” I responded, though in truth I had no idea I’d actually locate her.

Nga motioned for me to sit. She kept leaving the small kitchen area to compose herself and catch her breath. She said something about me being like a detective to find her, still in shock until she finally settled beside me. I’d brought along some old pictures. Our great friend Hung, her best friend Lan (above left), and my fellow lieutenants: Fly, Sam, and Jim. We lingered over the images of parties at her house. Ba Muoi Ba beer bottles littered tables filled with spring rolls, pho, and other delicacies—my first introductions to what is now world-famous cuisine. What news of Lan? I was distressed to learn she was “sick now,” living with her family just a few houses down the street. Of course, I wanted to visit her.

As we entered the open-front fabric and ribbon store, I knew the young proprietress was Lan’s daughter even before we were introduced. Uyen had the same fine features as her mother. She and Nga retreated to a back room, asking me to join them a few moments later. I removed my shoes before entering the living room. And there, lying on a bed in a semi-comatose state was our beautiful Lan, very thin and reduced now to breathing through an oxygen tube. Her gray hair was shaved close, no longer the flowing black mane that once framed that exquisite face. Did I hide my shock well enough? I was embarrassed to be in this intimate family place, a virtual hospital room for a gravely ill woman. No explanation of her illness was offered.

Lan could no longer communicate, but Nga and Uyen spoke to her anyway.

“Rick has returned to see you.”

I bent down to kiss an inert Lan, whispering I loved her and how I appreciated her kindnesses when we first knew each other. This strong, intelligent woman who once wrote me letters of friendship, to help me understand the language, was dying. Lan’s husband emerged from the back of his home. Shirtless in the Vietnamese climate, Nguyen Hoa greeted me with affectionate gestures as Nga explained who this stranger was in his home. I gave him some pictures of a young Lan and a copy of a New Year’s greeting she wrote to me before they were married. He reciprocated by showing me his picture as a proud uniformed man, and those of his ancestors enshrined on an altar-like bureau in the living room.

Uyen’s brother, Khoi, clearly his mother’s son, entered and offered a shy hello. We stepped outside the family home to take pictures. Uyen said, “My family and I would like to thank you for your visiting. My mother must be very happy. We wish you healthy and happiness.”

The American War is little more than faded history for the newest generation.

The Vietnamese are a most gracious people, unfailingly polite, kind and self-effacing. In as much of that spirit as I could muster, I took Nga to lunch. At the large outdoor restaurant she ordered egg rolls, deep-fried eel and herb salad makings. Fifty years vanished as she carefully assembled spring rolls on thin rice paper and reminded me to dip them into nuoc mam, peanut sauce, or soy. She laughed as she let me kiss her for the photo in the empty restaurant. “I am single, I don’t care!”

Returning to her home, we exchanged small talk in the car’s back seat, my hand resting gently on her knee, a gesture more of friendship than intimacy. “I am very happy today,” she repeated a number of times. We walked down the narrow village streets toward her old house, where she once invited our friends for fun and diversion. She insisted I wear a nón lá, the Vietnamese conical hat, to protect me from the midday sun. Her humor was still intact as I took our selfie: We looked like “two VC’s,” she said, referring to the Viet Cong guerillas thereabouts the last time we were together. This very odd couple strolling side-by-side drew bemused glances from the windows of the modern homes that replaced the old thatch-roofed huts. Following the death of her parents in the early 1980’s, Nga sold the house. It was torn down, two new homes on its site. “I loved my old house here,” she said. I did, too. Two old friends spoke of the past and the reasons they didn’t marry. Nga’s her mother “cried and cried” at the prospect of her only daughter’s leaving. My intuition was that my America might be an overwhelming place for a country girl. I sensed no current disappointment in those decisions, just a reluctant realization of hurdles too high to jump.

After 1975 and the fall of the South Vietnamese government, Nga and others who had worked for the Americans had their ID papers specially marked. She was sent to the fallen Saigon for a two-week re-education class—a far milder punishment than other South Vietnamese “collaborators” experienced. Still, she recalled, “it was very hard.” Later, Nga was assigned to work in a tourism office in Vung Tau for five years. She was married and divorced with no children, and has been single for decades. Nga reported that there are no government soldiers around now. Just “too many police…but they leave me alone.”

Nga and I held time at bay for several hours, though not quite turning back the clock. Familiarity returned; romance less so. I realize now that a lonely soldier confused warm companionship and a dollop of guilt with true love. I won’t diminish what Nga and I had during the war. Had I brought her home to America, there’s an even chance we might have grown to love each other enough for a marriage to prosper and thrive. And just as likely she might have become homesick and discontented with a fast-paced and rapidly changing society so different from her traditional life in Vietnam. The exigencies of fate won’t allow a resolve to these hypotheticals.

Everyone in town seemed to know and respect Nga. She still walks briskly with the same dignity I recalled, head held high. She’s slim-figured with less gray hair than me. All in all, she’s made it through the years nicely.

Old friends walked back to my car on a bright and hot afternoon, having said all we could. On a busy Bac Ha street, I asked if I could kiss her good-bye, intuitively knowing her demurral wouldn’t be a rejection. No, it would simply not be proper for a single Vietnamese woman to display public affection. Even to an aging foreign man returning to her a lifetime later.

 

How a dream renovation became a nightmare… and how you can keep it from happening to you.

By Mark Stewart

No home renovation project goes exactly as planned, regardless of how meticulously you’ve planned in advance. Deep down, most homeowners understand this. However, when a “home reno” jumps the tracks, it produces the kind of gnawing, roiling anger that can throw your entire life out of whack. I speak from experience. Last summer, with the kids out of college, out of the house and out in the world being solid (and self-sufficient) citizens, we decided to pop for an entirely new kitchen.

The time was right. Although we had inherited a perfectly functional kitchen from a previous owner, it was what my wife liked to call “dated” the day we moved in. Two decades later, as the cupboard doors were falling off their hinges, she usually inserted an expletive in front of “dated.” Those hinges, by the way, were stamped Made in West Germany, so yeah, they were [expletive] dated. The upside of waiting so long was that we completely agreed on the optimal layout. We knew what we needed and didn’t need, and set a budget that reflected all of these sensible choices

The final bill was about $40,000, which is about what we budgeted. There was a fair amount of custom work and carpentry involved, but it’s not a huge space so we thought the price was reasonable. The cabinets and countertops were first-rate and we could not have been happier with the results. My wife really put a lot of research and legwork into these choices and was unflustered when the stone place sold our first counters out from under us by mistake. She didn’t even freak out when our kitchen contractor failed to count the number of cabinets until a couple of weeks after they had been delivered, only to find out that the manufacturer had forgotten to build one.

Less than 10 percent of our budget was dedicated to flooring. As luck would have it, flooring turned out to be 100 percent of the problem. We picked an installer who had an impeccable reputation. It was a family business that had been around for decades. The beloved father had given way to his daughter, who exuded the class and confidence you like to see in these situations. Her salesman came to the house and suggested a high-tech linoleum product that would give us the unusual floor design we wanted. It sounds icky, I know, but it was really cool (and not inexpensive).

We live in a century-old house on the side of a hill, so nothing is exactly straight. The kitchen floor has a bend to it that reflects 100-plus years of settling. The previous owner, a roofing company executive whom we knew to be meticulous, had solved this problem when he re-did the kitchen during the Bush I administration. The cabinets may have been disintegrating in 2017, but the floor looked as good as the day it went in. We just weren’t crazy about the look. As the salesman assured us that we had made a brilliant choice, I began to question whether he was thinking in two dimensions or three. Or whether he just said Yes to anything, collected his commission and then dumped the job on the workmen. No, he responded, this is a “floating” floor, so with some leveling in a couple of spots, it is actually an ideal choice.

The renovation timeline, from demolition to completion, was four weeks. We aren’t stupid. We knew it would take longer. But our contractor and his carpentry crew, who did exceptional work, kept telling us this was a relatively simple, straightforward job. So of course, 24 hours after the flooring was installed, we knew something wasn’t quite right. In several places, the seams that were supposed to fit snugly together were curling upward to such a degree that you could almost trip on them. Needless to say, the cabinets couldn’t go in until this issue was addressed. Despite several conversations with the owner of the flooring company, she did not send anyone to look at the problem, nor did she make the 20-minute drive from her office to our house to evaluate the problem for herself—for more than six weeks from the day we first alerted her that something was obviously wrong.

As anyone who has lived through a kitchen reno knows, there is no part of your family routine that isn’t completely disrupted during construction. We had a second refrigerator in the basement, which was great, but our only cooking appliances were a toaster and a microwave, which we moved into the library. (Full disclosure, the “library” isn’t as fancy as it sounds—it’s a room with two bookshelves and we couldn’t think of a better name for it). Meanwhile, a fine layer of dust settled on everything we owned.

Finally, the flooring company owner showed up. She rattled off a series of theories and excuses for why the material failed. Most of them sounded like they were our fault or the fault of someone who no longer worked for her. We countered each with the same question: Why didn’t you come the day after we told you there was a problem? Her answer was that she had worked with this product for years and never had a problem. As the words crossed her lips, I could tell she wanted them all back. If that was the case, then you should have been here an hour after  we called, not six weeks later. She sent in a crew to fix the problem but it was really too late

The cabinets had been installed around the trouble spots in the flooring, and within a few weeks of their “fix” the seams began to separate. There is no way to fix this and there is no way they will ever see the balance of the invoice they sent me after they walked out the door (without so much as an apology).

This was not our first brush with an unprofessional home improvement professional. We hired a local guy to do some much-needed re-shingling and lay a new roof over a large enclosed porch. This was in the fall of 2012. He disappeared after Sandy, the shingling unfinished and within a year, the incomplete roofing job began leaking into our family room. Oh, and by “disappeared,” I mean he began working for my across-the-road neighbor, who had deeper pockets and more appealing indoor projects. Back in the mid-1990s, when we owned a house overlooking the Hudson River in Weehawken, we sprang for an addition in anticipation of our second baby. The contractor did fine work except for one thing: He was 5’2” and I am 6’2”. I still have marks on my head where I constantly banged it on the bay window he installed exactly 6’1” above the back entrance to the home. 

I’ve had my issues with contractors on smaller jobs, including one who pocketed the money and then disappeared into the wind. And we’ve had some great people work for us, too. Each time we hire someone, I hop on the web and read about renovation nightmares and how to avoid them. Over the years, I’ve made my own list of do’s and don’t’s, which I am always willing to share and continuously update. They are as follows…

• 

  www.istockphoto.com

  If you use a referral service like HomeAdvisor.com, be aware that they send the job out to tradespeople within a huge radius of your home. You may be inundated with calls and have to explain your job more times to more people than it’s worth. We recently had a tricky gutter repair (our roof has an unusual design) and I was shocked at how many people were willing to drive 90 minutes or more from all over the state for what was probably a $500 job. What does that tell you? Either they are going to overcharge you to cover their travel time or, worse, they will “find” something more expensive to work on while they are there. Once when we lived in Hudson County, our local car repair place was caught on camera poking holes in engine hoses to create big problems where only little ones existed. My radar was up when the first guy said he’d drive down from Hackensack to Monmouth County to fix my gutter. Of course, he never showed. The next HomeAdvisor gutter guy came from Warren, couldn’t solve the problem, did a temporary repair and asked to be paid in cash. I assume that was to avoid paying HomeAdvisor.com their cut. No more internet fix-it adventures for me!

• Make sure your contractor is licensed and insured. This sounds like a no-brainer but I’ve had people work for me who it turned out were not. This information should be on the estimate they give you. It should also be on the ad you first saw and even on their vehicle. If you use someone who is unlicensed, no one is going to help you go after them if something goes wrong. If you use someone who is uninsured, or who uses workers that are either off the books or undocumented, have a chat with your home insurance company to find out if you are covered should someone get hurt. Every contractor in New Jersey, by the way, is licensed in Trenton, so it’s easy enough to check. It’s also a good idea to run your contractors past the Better Business Bureau. If you are planning a big five- or six-figure job, it’s not a bad idea to contact your attorney’s office and ask if they can do a search for any lawsuits once you’ve narrowed your contractor choice to one or two.
• As a job evolves and the to-do list grows or changes, make sure everything new is written down and agreed to. A misunderstanding (or worse) resulting from a verbal agreement can be difficult to resolve. This is especially true when the contractor or project manager speaks English as a second language. Some of the most skilled and affordable tradespeople you’ll ever meet have mastered their craft but not the native tongue. If you ask for something specific and get a nod or a Yes, don’t assume you’ve communicated clearly. We brought in a company for a big interior painting job and they did spectacular work. The only problem was that the person with whom I was dealing was Portuguese. So when we agreed on a price that included painting “all the woodwork,” I was surprised when I was handed an extra bill for the six doors they painted. The doors are wood. Are they not woodwork? 
• You set the payment schedule. Make it crystal clear that there will be “benchmarks” throughout the job where you’ll be writing out checks, agree on what those are, and then say something like, “We’ll get along great until you start asking us for money on things you haven’t completed.” If you feel you need to explain further, just say, “Sorry, but you are paying for the sins of the last guy who worked here. I hope you understand.” Believe me, the contractor will understand. On a six-figure job, there should actually be some kind of language in the contract stating that a portion of advance money will be placed in escrow.
• Although I’ve never done this, consider offering a “completion bonus.” A friend of mine promised 5 percent extra if the job was 100 percent complete and the workers were out of the house by a certain date— I think it was two weeks after the estimated finish date—and it worked! He said it was the best money he ever spent.
• Finally, don’t assume the “smallest” part of a renovation job won’t cause the biggest headache. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way.

 

AS SEEN ON TV

Home renovation shows come in all shapes, sizes, and formats. As a group, they represent the most popular and profitable genre of television programming. HGTV leads the way in this category, airing Fixer Upper, Flip or Flop, Ellen’s Design Challenge, Brother vs. Brother, and Property Brothers—with a total of 15 million viewers. According to HGTV’s on-air talent, these are five of the most common (and costly) home renovation mistakes:

• Buying the cheapest materials
• Building a small bathroom
• Narrow hallways, doors, and staircases
• Forgetting to upgrade electrical
• Hiring the wrong contractor

 

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

By Caleb MacLean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

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

By Christine Gibbs

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

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

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

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

SERIOUS BUSINESS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DOCTOR’S ORDERS 

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

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

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

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

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

Adult • 7 to 9 hours

Teenager • 8 to 10 hours

Child (6 – 12) • 9 to 12 hours

Child (3 – 5) • 10 to 13 hours*

Child (1 – 2) • 11 to 14 hours*

Infant • 12 to 16 hours*

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

* including nap

SENIOR SLEEPERS

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

THESE DREAMS

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

 

Vipin Garg, MD

Director, Trinitas Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center

908.994.8880

 

Trinitas branches out to offer convenience and continuity of care.

By Caleb MacLean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A TEAM EFFORT

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

Dr. Nazima Abarova, OB/GYN

Dr. Abu Alam, OB/GYN

Traci Alves, NP

Dr. Sergio Baerga, General Surgery

Dr. Gerardo Capo, Oncology/Hematology

Symptom Management

Dr. Michelle A. Cholankeril, Medical Hematology/Oncology

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

Dr. Clarissa Febles Henson, Chair, Radiation Oncology

Dr. Clyde T. Jacob, OB/GYN

Dr. Eddy Joseph, OB/GYN

Dr. Rachel Kaye, Otolaryngology/Surgery

Dr. Barry Levinson, Hematology/Oncology

Dr. Prakriti Merchant, Gastroenterology

Dr. Boris Pashkover, Otolaryngology/Surgery

Dr. Jack Perrone, OB/GYN

Dr. Vasyl Pidkaminetskiy, Internal Medicine

Dr. Mark Preston, OB/GYN

Dr. Vincent Salerno, Hematology/Oncology

Dr. Adriana Suarez-Ligon, General Surgery

Dr. Richard Tai, OB/GYN

Dr. Oscar Verzosa, Internal Medicine

Dr. Michael Viksjo, Gastroenterology

Midwives:

Carol Rose Trzaska, CNM

Shirley McDuffie, CNM

Chantal Berry, CNM

MaryBeth Weimer, CNM

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

Yeah We grow ‘em strong in the Garden State.

By Christine Gibbs

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

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

Ziad Ahmed

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

Autumn de Forest 

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

Ethan and Grayson Dolan 

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

Alex Jackman 

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

Linsey Lam

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

Wé McDonald 

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

Sydney McLaughlin 

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

Brooke Rotondo 

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

 

Michelle Sidor 

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

Matthew Whitaker 

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

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

 

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

By Erik Slagle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THIN BLUE LINE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Detective Sergeant Nazzaro concurs.

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

LIKE BUTTER

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

Adam Rowen, MD

Pulmonary Medicine Specialist

Trinitas Regional Medical Center

(908) 289-7600

 

 

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

 

 

 

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

Paragon Tap & Table • Beef Ramen

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

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

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Wasabi Crusted Filet Mignon

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

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

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

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

— Chef Momo

The Barge • Cioppino

201 Front Street • PERTH AMBOY

(732) 442-3000 • thebarge.com

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

— Alex Vosinas Chef/Owner

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • Warm Goat Cheese Salad

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

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

— Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

Morris Tap & Grill • The Monster Burger

500 Route 10 West • RANDOLPH

(973) 891-1776 • morristapandgrill.com

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

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

Garden Grille • Grilled Chicken Paillard

304 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

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

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

— Chef Sean Cznadel

LongHorn Steakhouse • Outlaw Ribeye

272 Route 22 West • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 315-2049 • longhornsteakhouse.com

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

— Anthony Levy, Managing Partner

Outback Steakhouse • Bone-In Natural Cut Ribeye

901 Mountain Avenue • SPRINGFIELD

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

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

— Duff Regan, Managing Partner

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

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

 

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

1075 Morris Avenue • uNION

(908) 977-9699 • ursinosteakhouse.com

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

 

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

Call us at 908.994.5138

 

More than ever, home is where the science is.

By Mark Stewart

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

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

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

UNBREAKABLE

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

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

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

BYE-BYE BRICKS?

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

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

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

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

TRYING ON A ONE-PIECE

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

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

ALL THE HOME THAT’S FIT TO PRINT

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

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

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

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

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

CONCRETE IDEAS

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

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

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

GET SMART

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

 

Bluetooth Padlock

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

masterlock.com.

 

Heat Seeking Camera

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