A unique collaboration puts healthy choices within reach of a “growing” population. 

By Yolanda Navarra Fleming

At roughly 125,000 residents, Elizabeth ranks as New Jersey’s fourth-largest city. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 37.96 percent of its residents are classified as overweight and 28.71 percent are obese—particularly in the Bayway, Elizabethport, and Midtown areas. Complicating matters is the fact that 17 percent of Elizabeth’s population lives below the poverty line, and that many residents do not have easy access to grocery stores because of physical distance or immobility.      

For people like Brandy Rumola, her husband, and two children, who live in the Mravlag Manor housing project, Elizabeth’s Mobile Market program—sponsored by Groundwork Elizabeth and The Foodbank, and organized by the Shaping Elizabeth coalition—offers more than a hand-out.

“Eating healthy is one of those things I’ve been meaning to do, but had a hard time with,” says Rumola, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom whose children are 13 and 10. “The Mobile Market is such a help because we get fresh vegetables and fruits, which means a few less dollars I have to spend. But they also give us recipes…and I’ve learned about portions, saturated fat, and things I didn’t know before.”

In 2013, a group of organizations known as the Shaping Elizabeth coalition came together to mastermind a plan to stem the spread of chronic disease with a combination of health screenings and services, nutrition education, food distribution, and community gardening. They began with a grant from Shaping NJ (the state partnership for nutrition, physical activity and obesity prevention), and support from the Gateway Family YMCA.

Catherine J. Hart, deputy executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Elizabeth (HACE), which helped establish the Mobile Market program, says it’s not just about the food.

“It brings residents together,” she says. “HACE has enlisted a team of resident volunteers who distribute the food, which means they get out and meet one another directly. They look out for each other. The young people help the seniors in carrying items back to their houses. If someone can’t [physically] make the distribution, residents volunteer. There’s a tremendous amount of communication between staff and residents enabling HACE to bring in other forms of assistance and support.”

Alane McCahey, project manager of Shaping Elizabeth and Senior Director of Community Initiatives at The Gateway Family YMCA, adds that eventually residents will be able to be trained in food handling, which could also mean future job opportunities.

“Our guiding principle is to bring the resources to the people, versus trying to get people to come to us,” McCahey explains. “We’re much more apt to get people to make changes in their lives that way. We want people to be part of the solution so it’s more of a partnership. It’s one thing to have food handed to you, and another to know how to best use it. We’ll also offer education by a nutritionist from Trinitas.”

Recently, the coalition received another grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, involving NJ County Health Rankings and Road Map, one of the RWJ’s subsidiaries, as well as the City of Elizabeth, and Proceed Inc.

A program called Play Streets—sponsored by Gateway Family YMCA, City of Elizabeth, The Shaping Elizabeth Community Health Initiatives, and the Community Food Bank of NJ—creates a block party atmosphere to welcome residents in various neighborhoods to engage in activities that speak to their specific needs through children’s activities, health screenings, and more. Last year, through the Safe Kids Program at Children’s Specialized Hospital, free bike helmets were given out to kids who attended.

Early on, Trinitas organized the One Flight Up, Two Flights Down campaign to encourage walking for physical fitness. But the hospital also conducted a walkability audit of the city to determine what improvements could be made.

“We’ve come a significant way,” says Joseph L. McTernan, Sr. Director of Community and Clinical Services at Trinitas Regional Medical Center. “We focus on putting our community first. We have put a lot of work, time and effort into ensuring that the groups learn to work together as a team. The groups are structured for strong collaboration and sharing information between partners. We’re working well together even as we tackle some of the harder topics.”

With the help of Jonathan G. Phillips, executive director of Groundwork Elizabeth, residents take matters into their own hands by growing produce in community gardens. “We are involved in so many ways,” says Phillips. “We’re proud to be part of the coalition working with NJ Health Initiatives to build a culture of health in Elizabeth.

As for Brandy Rumola, she wonders if the Mobile Market is a benefit that’s here to stay—because it’s one of those things that just seems too good to be true.

“I genuinely hope they keep the program going,” she says. “I know other families that depend on it because there isn’t a grocery store close by. Not everyone has a car or has money to take a cab. It benefits the whole community.”

Hart offers comfort by adding, “At a time when funding is limited and opportunities are scarce, the Shaping Elizabeth collaboration has been—and will continue to be—beneficial not only for the agencies but for the people we serve: They will benefit from the services that as a group we can provide.”  

 

TRINITAS NAMED  A TOP HOSPITAL – AGAIN!

Inside Jersey magazine’s just-published ranking of the state’s best hospitals shows that Trinitas is ranked as a 2017 Top Hospital in the following categories: Top Hospital Overall, Treatment of Breast Cancer, Treatment of Prostate Cancer, Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure, Hip and Knee Repair, Care of High-Risk Pregnancies, Patient’s Room and Bathroom Kept Clean, Doctors Always Communicated Well, and Registered Nurses

Always Communicated Well. “We are gratified that physicians in our region responded so enthusiastically to the survey, which produced Top Hospital rankings for Trinitas in so many categories.  Their trust in the quality of our care is very important to us,” stated Gary S. Horan, FACHE, President & CEO of Trinitas.

TRINITAS RN JOINS GATEWAY CHAMBER TO EMPOWER YOUTH!

The Gateway Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted a comprehensive event for our youth on the importance of networking and building key skills. Veronica Sanchez-Rico, RN, Clinical Coordinator at Trinitas, was among the featured panelists who discussed their careers. Students gained critical insight that included the value of following one’s passion. Veronica and Jim Coyle (President, Gateway Regional Chamber of Commerce) participated in an interactive networking activity with the students who attended the event

 

ST. PATRICK’S PRIDE

As tradition holds, Trinitas participated in the Union County St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 18th. Congratulations to the parade’s organizers, especially this year’s Grand Marshal, radio personality Joseph Nolan, for their great work despite the weather. The Trinitas team marched proudly down Morris Avenue, wearing their pride on their sleeve!

 

 

UNION COUNTY’S GOT TALENT!

Trinitas sponsored the Union County Teen Arts Festival, an annual two-day celebration of the arts. The event is open to all students from public, charter, private and parochial middle and high schools in Union County.  Over 4,000 students from across Union County attended the event over the course of two days. Sixty-six Union County middle and high schools participated in the various exhibits, proving that Union County teens have tons of talent! 

HEALTH RANKINGS RELEASED FOR NJ 

Joe McTernan, Senior Director/Community & Clinical Services, took part in a press conference announcing the publication of the eighth annual County Health Rankings by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.  The event was held at the Gateway Family YMCA Elizabeth Branch. Thanks to health improvement initiatives by Trinitas, the Gateway Family YMCA, the City of Elizabeth and others, Union County was ranked as the 8th healthiest out of the 21 counties in New Jersey. “Trinitas Regional Medical Center has a strong, deep-rooted desire to improve the health of those we serve,” explained McTernan. The full Rankings are available at www.countyhealthrankings.org.

TRINITAS PARTNERS WITH  ELIZABETH HEALTH DEPARTMENT  AND SHAPING ELIZABETH       

The City of Elizabeth Health Department and Shaping Elizabeth came together with Trinitas experts to discuss health-related issues in honor of National Minority Health Month. The forum discussed topics such as where to find health care information, as well as how to prevent heart and kidney disease. Attendees received key information on exercise options, eating habits, and where to find healthy food throughout the community.

TRINITAS PARTICIPATES IN REGIONAL DRILL

Trinitas Regional Medical Center participated in Operation Gotham Shield, a comprehensive drill involving a mock radioactive “dirty bomb” explosion in the metropolitan area. As part of the exercise, the Trinitas team assembled a decontamination tent with staff in full protection suits in order to treat injured “patients.”  The purpose of this exercise was to create a learning environment intended to measure and improve the team’s ability to work through an integrated response to a widespread disaster.

 

HITTING A HIGH NOTE

Chuck Salamone and Diane Aragona, the husband and wife duo behind His & Hers Music based in Nutley, NJ, recently brought their passion for music and their ability to recognize talent to the Spring festival of the Mid-Atlantic Music Teachers Guild (MAMTG). They joined fellow music instructors at the event, where they also evaluated performers from throughout the region at the MAMTG’s rigorous competition. Three of their students were among those recognized at the festival. Graduates of Rutgers with Bachelors and Masters degrees in music, Salamone and Aragona, shown here with their winning student, vocalist Stephanie Helfgott, offer voice and instrument lessons for children through adults in their private home studio and in students’ homes. To learn more about His & Hers Music, check out their Facebook page @hisandhersmusicllc. further information about Diane Aragona and Chuck Salamone can be found at dianearagona.squarespace.com and http://AmigosAmigosBand.com.

One man’s journey to self-realization and home construction.

By Michael Jacobsen

How hard could it be? You watch a few YouTube videos, make a couple of trips to Home Depot and get to work. In a few weeks, you proudly show off your Do It Yourself (DIY) project—maybe a finished basement or a paver patio–to friends and family, who marvel at your resemblance to Bob Vila, or at least to Tim the Tool Man.   

Reality, alas—as I look back on my “DIY or die” project (as it came to be known around our household)—is so much different. At least I lived to tell about it, although my marriage very nearly did not survive. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I have to tell the painting story, because it sets the tone for the entire project.

You see, it was near the end of DIY or DIE that my newlywed wife and I were ready to put the finishing touches on a basement renovation. She hadn’t been too involved in the project other than some color and design advice. But painting was right up her alley…until the paint job found me happily slapping on the Mojave Sand and it all went wrong. As I bent down to reload my roller I caught my wife painting directly over where I had just finished

“You leave too many streaks,” she explained. 

At which point DIY became YDI—you do it—and I left to take a nap. But back to the beginning.

DIY vs. DIFM

There actually is a term for having others handle the job: DIFM, which stands for Do It For Me. In the real world it can complement the real Do It Yourselfer. The trick is knowing where one stops and the need for help from others begins.

DIYers fall into two camps. Many do it just to save money, hating to pay the premium that skilled laborers charge. Often the cost of labor doubles the cost of the entire project. And then there are those who, like me, relish the challenge of doing it myself—regardless of whether it actually saves money or even looks very good at the end. The pleasure and pride of looking around and realizing that my hands touched every piece of a project is what drives many of us. Sometimes in the right direction, sometimes off a cliff.

Every list of pros and cons of DIY versus DIFM starts with the price equation, then moves onto the skill level and, finally, adds in equal doses of available time and quality of the finished job. 

“When it comes to price, DIY has the professional beat hands down, but there is more to the story than that,” points out a blog post on the Rhode Island-based Hebert Design/Build website. “Before you consider taking on a home improvement project, take a good, hard look at your skills and experience.”

Another point to consider: If a home improvement project is not done correctly, who will you call to fix it? If you hired a professional, he should stand behind his work. If you did the work yourself, you may still end up calling the same guy to fix the job. Last but not least, according to the pros at the aforementioned Hebert Design/Build, a DIY home improvement project can have a fantastic outcome, but there is likely to be some “significant stress” along the way. Oh, if only I had read that before I started out with my modest basement refinishing. In reality, “significant” turned into “overwhelming.”

Knowing Your Limits

I write magazine articles for a living, so what do I know about DIY home renovation projects? Turns out, enough to get myself in trouble, but also enough to get myself out of it. 

Let’s set the scene: A growing family in a typical suburban New Jersey 1,000-square-foot, three-bedroom ranch with a nice backyard and an unfinished basement. Big enough for now, too small for the next decade. What to do, short of moving to a larger home with a larger mortgage? Wait. Did someone say unfinished basement?The space—all gray cinderblock walls, exposed beams and cement floor—is ripe for an aspiring DIYer such as myself with more time than money, more energy than brains and certainly more enthusiasm than expertise. Whatever. Let’s head to Home Depot.

Those guys are great. Many of them are ex-contractors felled by a soft New Jersey housing market, looking to make ends meet while sharing what they know with people like me. Want to know how many 2x4s you’re going to need? What type of ceiling to put in? How many linear feet of this and that? They actually know! And they are kind enough not to snicker right to my face as I ask stupid questions. Also, before hammering my first nail, I spent an afternoon with my good buddy Mikey G., perhaps the most ambitious DIYer I know. Now semi-retired, he was busy gutting and redoing his entire house, for God’s sake, so he must be some sort of expert at everything.

Turns out, he was an expert at finding experts. His mantra: Know when you are getting in over your head. 

“When you are not sure about the outcome of what you are about to do next, when you are not sure if it is the red or black wire you should be touching, then it is time to call an electrician,” he says.

Mikey G. is fond of YouTube videos. There are instructional videos for everything and he makes sure he watches a few—whether it is for pouring concrete or hanging a ceiling light—before he is comfortable enough to dive in. If he never gets to that comfort level, he turns to a pro: “Electrical work and plumbing are not rocket science, but one mistake can be very hurtful, either to yourself or to your wallet.”

His solution is a combination of DIY and DIFM. 

“I had to know what I could handle and when I see an opportunity to do it myself I do it,” Mikey G. says, pointing out that the contractors he is working with are more than willing to take a few bucks off the invoice if he handles some of the labor. That was to become my blueprint, especially after consulting with Big Joe, who I was told was the best handyman in northern New Jersey. Having learned the trade from his father (whose father before him taught him), surely this Joe of all Trades would have some sage advice.

“Yea, don’t be an idiot and try it yourself,” was his immediate response. “I wouldn’t try to write one of your boring articles, why you gonna try to do my job?”

Smart, insightful guy for a builder. But apparently he and his ilk get quite a kick out of DIY fails. In fact, they have a word for them: Happy Homeowners. As in “I had to go in and fix a Happy Homeowner job. Charged them a little extra.” Therein lies one of the pitfalls of trying (and failing) to do it yourself. If you come up short, you have to call guys like Big Joe and his friends, who will fix it for you, but at a price that may be more than it would have been had you called him first.

“Homeowners have to know what they can do and then stop there,” he says. It’s worth pointing out that Big Joe knows his limitations: “I never touch electric or plumbing because I know I don’t know how to do it. That way I know that when I flush the toilet the lights won’t shut off.” His advice: Let the pros do it. They have the knowledge and expertise and, just as importantly, the right tools. And when they see you are in trouble and can’t do it yourself, dollar signs start flashing in their eyes.

“I can’t tell you the number of times a Happy Homeowner gets halfway done and then I get a phone call to finish the job,” he says. More often than not he has to start from scratch because the initial work just doesn’t work. His favorite story? A Happy Homeowner tried to sheetrock and spackle a room but did such a bad job that before calling for the cavalry, he tore the whole thing down instead of admitting he screwed up. That one cost him a lot.

Identifying My Limits

At the end of the workday, I can honestly say I accomplished a lot of the basic stuff myself: nailing 2x4s to the frame, figuring out a grid for the drop ceiling, even pouring some concrete in one corner to level the floor. My rule of thumb turned out to be DIY on things you can’t see and leave the visible stuff to the pros.

So my experience came down to three pieces of advice about three things you don’t want to do yourself:

1. Electrical. One of the first books I purchased had a title something like How To Do Electrical Work and Live To Tell About It. Sort of a precursor to Electricity for Dummies. Well, turns out I’m no dummy, and I really don’t know my red wire from my black, so the first expert I called was a local electrician. Well worth any extra cost and I lived to write about it.
2. Plumbing. Speaking of not cheap, the one item that floated my budget down the river was plumbing work. Not much more than moving some pipes and routing the heating baseboards. The last thing I wanted was a flood of Biblical proportions ruining all of my hard work because I didn’t solder something completely.
3. Finish Work. You can’t cover everything with a coat of paint, so it is a good idea to have someone detail-oriented to handle things like spackling, trim, mitering the molding and hanging the doors. Nothing ruins a nice project like a crooked door that won’t close.

In the end, it turns out my two best tools were my hammer (I got pretty good at pounding away at things) and my cell phone. 

It’s amazing how many contractors are out there looking for work.

5 REASONS I’D DIY AGAIN

Price • You know the saying Will work for food? That’s me, plus maybe a cold beer. Either way, as long as I didn’t screw up too badly, there’s no doubt I saved plenty by not paying the mark-up of a skilled contractor.

Challenge • I’ve always liked to tackle new things. As long as they don’t tackle me back, it’s all good.

No Complaints • My father always had a saying when we were working on

something together: “Suits me and I’m fussy.” It was tongue-in-cheek and usually went along with “That’s good enough for government work.” Translation: Hey, it’s done and no one is complaining, so on to the next thing.

Satisfaction • There’s nothing like sitting back with a cool beverage and looking around at work that I did. Myself.

New Skills • This stuff isn’t rocket science and anyone with a little intelligence and drive can learn the basics. Home improvement can also be personal improvement.

5 REASONS FOR DIFM

Stress • Did I tighten that pipe enough? Did I use the right nails? Did I get enough materials? Worry can take years off of your life and add weeks to a project.

Quality • Be honest. Are you really going to be able to produce work to a standard of quality that matches a professional? 

Danger • Unless you really, really know electricity, don’t try to wire anything. Same goes for plumbing. And maybe climbing on a roof.

Warranty • If you screw up, who you gonna call to fix it? But if a contractor did the work in the first place and something is wrong, you (hopefully) have someone to make it right.

Time • Lots of us have better things to do, like real jobs, spouses, kids, sleep. Do you really want to spend your free time hanging sheetrock?

TALES FROM THE FRONT LINES

It didn’t take many conversations with contractors to come up with some of their favorite Happy Homeowner stories. Here are three of them.

Jumping the Gun 

After spending three days framing and sheet-rocking a room and after finishing with two coats of spackle on Friday, this contractor planned to come back on Monday to finish the job with a third and final coat to perfect the job, as is SOP. But when he showed up on the job Monday at 8 a.m., he found the homeowner had already painted the room. “I guess it looked good enough to him and he thought it was finished.”

Door No. 1 

One DIYer neglected to ask his Home Depot guy what the standard size of a door was. So he framed in a closet for his washer and dryer and figured, hmmmm, a door this random size was would look nice. So he slapped a few 2-by-4s up into an opening that looked about the right size. Trouble was, when the contractor came to hang the door the opening bore no relationship to reality. It took him a half-day to resize the opening and then hang the door. Obviously, there was no cost savings there.

Not My Fault

Thinking he would help out a cousin, a contractor agreed to do some finish work on the walls and leave the rest to his Happy Homeowner relative. He didn’t see the outcome until about two years later, when he stopped by for a visit and his cousin pointed out how bad everything looked and blamed it on his finish work. But, our pro pointed out, it was actually the terrible paint job done by his 80-year-old father that left the job looking amateurish — all streaks and drops and missed spots. Turns out his cousin had been blaming him for a bad job for two years. Who says every good deed doesn’t go unpunished?

Editor’s Note: Mike Jacobsen is a frequent contributor to consumer and trade magazines and an aspiring DIYer. That means his words are mostly spelled correctly, but his house has a lot of unusual angles, mismatched tiles and paint drops on the floor.  

Authentic. Exotic. Spectacular. So what are you waiting for?

By Andy Clurfeld

Summer travel season is upon us. Time to dust off the passport and plot excursions to ports exotic and intriguing. Or stay home and travel light—very light. And very near. Once upon a time, adventurous diners in New Jersey had to travel thousands of miles to experience the cuisines of foreign places. Not true today.  

In fact, Maplewood resident Anthony Ewing is tracking and mapping the Garden State’s myriad and many ethnic cuisines on his in 2010, it’s a veritable United Nations of dining destinations that includes some 1,200 Jersey restaurants serving 60 different cuisines. “From Afghan to Vietnamese,” Ewing says.   

The New Jersey native, who started mapping his top food finds after moving back home from Brooklyn, got us to thinking about all the terrific eateries practically in our backyard. Sure, we love our sushi nights, and the “local” that serves a beloved Italian dish is never out of our hearts. But on this trip around our neck of the woods, we wanted to explore foods a little less familiar. So we’ll hold the best-sushi-rolls and Nonna-approved red-sauce roundups for other issues of EDGE. 

Herewith, an eating tour that includes Chinese-inspired Peruvian, Ethiopian, Jamaican, Middle Eastern, Southern Indian and Russian cuisines.

Chowpatty

1349 Oak Tree Road • Iselin

732-283-9020

www.chowpattyfoods.com

 

Let’s cut to the postscript: So enamored of the dahi batata poori at Chowpatty were we that, seconds after we finished dining, Atsuko Sasaki and I rushed next door to Chowpatty’s market to buy the ingredients to make them at home. The little dish that captivated was a small, delicate puff made from chickpea and rice flours that’s sliced at the top so it could be stuffed with potato, a cilantro-green chili kind of pesto, a tart-faintly sweet reddish-brown sauce, and a slap of super-creamy yogurt. We downed those babies in no time

Now, my pal Atsuko is a certified chef in Japan and mightily skilled in the kitchen, so she replicated the dhai bataka poori at home first time out. I, of course, forgot the yogurt, but still managed to enjoy eight puffs before I even sat down to dinner.

This is what dinner at Chowpatty can do for you: educate and stimulate. 

After being enchanted by the dhosas, Atsuko found a friend who offered to teach her how to make the crispy rice flour crepes that are super-sized and can be filled with all manner of things: spices, cheeses, onions, vegetables. We nab the cheese-masala dhosa that puts two spice mixtures into play to great effect. A chile-potent red does a do-si-do with a cilantro-coconut green as they take aim at the sultry cheese melting into the crunchy crepe.

The sturdier uttapam, also made with rice flour, is served here much like a pizza. Ours is topped with a variety of vegetables and we can’t help but slice it like a tomato pie. We’re loving it alongside the tuver ringan, a mash of eggplant and peas that comforts and warms.

You must try a Thali platter at Chowpatty: Served on a round platter compartmentalized into little dishes of vegetables, rice, dal, pickled vegetables, yogurt-based sauces and legumes, it’s a feast meant to be eaten with tiny pappadum and charred bread made with millet flour. Don’t be shy with the sauces, including chili pastes hot and moderate, ghee and raita.

Dessert? Go for the pineapple-orange ice cream or the very dense, very rich, extraordinarily delicious mango kulfi, crowned by pulverized pistachios. We’ll end with another postscript: That’s sold in the next-door market, too. 

Nargiz Deli & Cafe

1651 Springfield Ave. • Maplewood

973-761-0123

Facebook: NargizDeliCafe

You can get gyros and paninis and pita sandwiches crammed with feta-cukes-tomato and your craving of the moment (lamb, chicken, hummus) at Nargiz, a specialty market with a bent towards things Russian and Eastern Mediterranean. But why get what practically is ordinary in NJ when you can get a piroshkie?

This, to me, is a no-brainer. This Russian marvel is an uber version of a pirogi  crossed with a buttery, flaky almost brioche-style roll stuffed with something wonderful. Honestly,  you don’t even need sour cream. That’s how good these piroshkies are.

Do like we did and get an assortment. Lamb? Yup. Potato? Natch. Cheese? Of course. As I eat them, I can’t help but feel this is a kind of melting-pot food that so many people from so many cultures would relate to easily. On top of the pirogi-brioche appeal, it’s got a Korean pork bun sensibility and a hometown hoagie attitude.

Lamb meatballs are killer tasty at Nargiz. Find them in the display cases and tell the friendly folks behind the counter that you’d like them warmed so you can eat a bowl of them at one of the cafe tables. While you’re at it, score the earthy, forcefully smoky eggplant casserole and a scoop of the Georgian bean salad, flush with cilantro, chopped onions and nuts. 

Don’t leave without shopping around. I found a pretty jar of pomegranate molasses that will make my next muhammara (red pepper-walnut-pomegranate) spread very likely the best ever. No offense to mail-order businesses, but you never know what you might bump into when combing the shelves of a place like Nargiz. 

I am going to figure out what I’m going to do with the cured sardines I snatched from the refrigerated case. Tonight might be the night I warm some olive with lots of lemon juice and flat-leaf parsley and toss those little fishes with strands of spaghetti and that sauce. Might be? Definitely will be.

Lalibela

261 Irvington Ave. • South Orange

973-327-4840

Facebook: Lalibela Ethiopian

Kategna is injera bread plied with butter and spiked with hot chili spices. It isn’t shy and it isn’t like anything you’ve ever tasted, unless you’ve been intimate with the addictively sour, spongey bread of Ethiopia. Made from teff flour, injera is the vehicle for eating in Ethiopia, used instead of forks and spoons and knives. Its uniquely pourous texture makes it one sublime scooper, and it’s the principal reason you should check out Lalibela, a small, humbly decorated storefront with a devout clientele.

So back to the kategna: Here at Lalibela, the chile-flecked injera is rolled and sliced something like a wrap sandwich – only there’s no filling. The flavor and the texture of the injera itself are what give it charisma.

It’s almost as though there’s an effervescence to injera. It’s rather magical.

Anyway, here’s what happens when you order a pair of entrees at Lalibela and pretty much any Ethiopian restaurant: Both entrees, as well as a pair of sides of your own choosing, come spooned atop a huge, flat pancake of injera. You also get a basket of jelly-roll style injera. Take your pick and start scooping.

The lamb stew, with lots of garlic and onions and a pronounced pop of tomato and pepper, is a stunner, with layers of flavor that serve as foils for the sour bread. A stew of beef is less interesting, mostly because the spicing is less complex, but little dumplings made from chickpea flour and and long-cooked in a berbere-spice mix with onions holds its own with the crisp, thin pancake. 

Collards are a must, for they serve as a bridge between the meats and the legumes. Lentils, for instance, are on fire in a way that rivets; when you alternate between the collards and the fiesty beans, there’s a yin-yang that comes into play.

The service at Lalibela varies: You might get a helpful soul or one less interested in your culinary education. Odds are, no matter, you will at very least bump into new flavors that make for a new favorite dish.

MishMish

215 Glen Ridge Ave. • Montclair

973-337-5648

www.mishmishcafe.com

MishMish is a hit and hip restaurant in the downtown district, a short stride from Anthropologie and an even quicker journey to the mind-set of Yotam Ottolenghi and his era-defining “Plenty” and “Jerusalem” cookbooks. You want a little Yotam without the kitchen work? Come to MishMish and be transported to the heart of the Middle East.

A local who is conversant in MishMish-ese tells me the hummus is a marvel, but you can skip it in the dip round since it’s easily obtained in hummus bowl form. This is excellent advice, especially since the smoked eggplant spread here is one to order by the gallon. Maybe by the cauldron, since it’s extra-deeply smoky, comes with a flourish of mild, crumbled cheese, and is the perfect partner for the singularly sensational pita. 

Let’s take a moment to talk about this pita. Forget what you buy in the supermarket. This is pita from Planet MishMish, a thicker incarnation that mines the depth of flour like, say, a Dan Richer at Razza (in Jersey City) does for his bread and pizza.

Fried cauliflower is worth the splurge on oil intake, cause it’s so good, so comforting, that it doesn’t even need the yogurt-based dip served on the side. I flat-out adored the shishito peppers char-grilled whole and served naked save for a wedge of lemon. Eat ’em by the bushel.

If you are a card-carrying member of the Ottolenghi flock, you know from shakshuka. (If not, it’s eggs poached in tomatoes, onions, chilies and spices, often served with cheese on top and bread.) You’ve eaten shakshuka for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner. It’s the absolute-right-at-any-time dish. How did we live without shakshuka?Anyway, MishMish does it with mushrooms and harissa, with lamb meatballs and with lamb sausage. Each has a following. I can vouch for the lamb meatballs. I could write a whole story just about the lamb meatballs, but I don’t have time or space. 

Mostly because I want to get to the hummus bowl with ground brisket ragu. Are you in heaven yet? No kidding: The folks here grind up brisket and add it to a slushy of tomatoes and warming spices. Think cinnamon most prominently and you’ve nailed it. If you eat this dish and don’t immediately plan a dinner party, do not consider yourself on the food-centric spectrum. Depending on your mood, you might favor the grilled chicken shawarma hummus bowl, a beauty thanks to the roasted tomatoes and drop-dead sensuous caramelized onions.

Think about it. Is there a reason not to eat the MishMish way every day?

Pimento Grill

1908 Springfield Ave. • Maplewood

973-846-4555

www.pimentogrill.biz

Pauline Barnes, owner/chef at this sweet storefront, wants you to know that once you enter her domain, you are under her care. And guidance. She’ll help you plan your dinner, your party, your life. She’ll tell you why you need Pimento’s jerk chicken, why you must experience her oxtails, why you need the coconut “run-down” red snapper. 

We are happy in her presence and soothed by her comforting Jamaican fare. No, it’s not high-on-the-Scoville scale stuff, but it’s lazy-day swell when island attitudes beckon and you want to turn yourself over to dishes that take you away. Like a Calgon bath used to do.

Talk about those oxtails. They are simmered in gravy, along with big, broad butter beans and a host of island herbs and gentle spices. Similarly attuned to the milder side of eating life are the brown stew vegetables, which incorporate soya chunks to maximum advantage. This is the dish that will cure you of your misconception that everything island is going to set off a 12-alarm fire in your mouth.

We took on the curried goat with relish, gnawing on the hunks of lamb-like meat. Ditto for the jerk chicken, which is among the mildest I’ve ever tried and totally right for beginners. We snacked on the fried sweet plantains throughout dinner, because, frankly, they put you in a “nothin’-can-be-finer” mood.

I think the under-the-radar fishes just might be the best tickets on Pimento’s menu. Pauline’s touted run-down snapper is a winner, simmered as it is in a coconut sauce and served head-on, bones-in, yet easily filleted at table. It was the sauce, creamy, yet light, and flecked with greens, black beans and onions, that made the dish divine. The escoveitch whiting, even though fried, offered a nice ping of vinegar.

Hello, island time. We need you.

Don Julio

50 Marshall St. • Elizabeth

908-820-9494

www.donjuliorestaurantnj.com

Chinese immigrants to Peru in the mid- to late-19th century brought with them culinary concepts and traditions they fused with ingredients and new sensibilities they discovered in their new home in South America. The result is a cuisine known as “Chifa,” and nowhere in New Jersey is it found with more authenticity and sheer deliciousness than Don Julio.

Located near the waterfront here, Don Julio is a destination. It can be crazy-packed on weekends; fair warning. Folks come for both the Chifa and also traditional Peruvian fare. The menu, almost telephone-book long, is worth coming early to read so you can study and plot.

 

Here’s what I think you should do: Assemble a large party and go all-out. Do Chifa as your primary, but don’t miss the best of Peru here. First, have the ceviche, for it’s an expertly crafted Peruvian model, flush with shrimp, topped with hunks of sweet potato and plain potato, a chunk of big-kerneled Peruvian corn, crunchy beans and a ton of onion rings. Bet you will eat the whole thing.

 

Then go for the wonton soup. Frankly, strip mall American Chinese joints water down, and dumb down, wonton soup. See what it can be by sipping the mutlilayered broth holding delicate-skin wontons, thick slices of juicy roast pork, thick shreds of cabbage and slices of white-meat chicken. And, ah! The noodles, the noodles!

Fried rice is nirvana. It is light, bright and mostly about the exquisitely cooked rice. It’s neither salty nor dry. It is punctuated by nibs of pork, peas, egg and sprouts, and it possesses a seminal freshness. 

Our server smartly directed us to the sirloin steak over “green noodles.” How simple, yet how beautiful. The “green noodles” are made so by tossing hearty spaghetti-like strands with a verdant sauce that looks and tastes like pesto made with cilantro. Which it is. But, again, there is a lightness and a brightness that speaks to a deft hand in the kitchen.

We cannot resist another recommended dish, the sweet-sour fried fish, which is neither sweet nor sour, but fascinating in its purity of taste. Plied with cabbages and surrounded by a brothy brown sauce, it looks like a bowl of confusion, yet yields clear, clean tastes. It says a lot about Don Julio. Which can teach you a whole lot about “from-away” flavors right in your own backyard.  

ETHNIC NEW JERSEY

Anthony Ewing, founder, publisher, editor, writer of the peerless EthnicNJ.com Web site, has a handful of favorite ethnic restaurants in the EDGE sphere. Here are five, in no particular order, that are worth your while to check out.

The Banderas • Summit • Costa Rican

Enter to a full wall mural of a Costa Rican volcano. Find inside a traditional menu of rice dishes, including chicken and rice and shrimp and rice. “Costa Rica is all about simple, straightforward food,” Ewing says. “Not too spicy.” 

Seoulite • Berkeley Heights • Korean

An early example of authentic Korean is this regional favorite that settled into a mainstream town years ago. “There aren’t barbecue tables,” Ewing says. There are, however, beautiful “soft tofu stews and bibambap made in the kitchen and rice cakes in red pepper broth.” Ewing notes there will be another branch of Seoulite opening soon in Somerville.

Thai House Rock • Colonia • Thai

Well, Thai with a hefty “side of rock-’n’-roll,” Ewing says. Think vinyl records on the walls. “It’s a hole-in-the-wall,” he adds, but the food is sincere. 

Arepas Pues • Elizabeth • Colombian

“Authentic, Colombian-style arepas are served here,” Ewing says, which are different than those from other parts of South America.

Binh Duong II • Hillside • Vietnamese

It’s the younger sibling to the original, in Bloomfield, and Ewing pegs this one as serving better food. In fact: “Some of New Jersey’s best Vietnamese food.”

Editor’s Note: Andy Clurfeld recently presided over the 1st Annual Garden State Culinary Arts Awards. New Jersey’s most influential restaurants and chefs vied for top honors in 13 different categories in front of a standing-room-only crowd of foodies, friends and family. Several nominees have appeared in the pages of EDGE, including Cucharamama, A Toute Heure, Common Lot and The Frog and The Peach. You can check out these stories and others by clicking on the FOOD button at edgemagonline.com.

2017 TRINITAS HEALTH AND WELLNESS EXPO 

The 2017 Trinitas Health and Wellness Expo was held on Sunday, February 26th at Pantagis Renaissance in Scotch Plains, with over 500 people in attendance. Guests enjoyed demonstrations, resources, and some great presentations by experts on a variety of topics from stroke prevention to healthy dietary guidelines to follow. Ben Michaelis, Ph.D., author of Your Next Big Thing, and regular feature on The Today Show, Fox News and MSNBC, was the keynote speaker and focused on mental health and well-being through creative expression. The Expo was a collaborative effort with the Greater Westfield Area Chamber of Commerce, which aims to connect local businesses with the community.

 

A VICTORIAN SPRING 

A Victorian themed flower show will be presented by the Rake and Hoe Garden Club of Westfield on April 28, 2017 from 1:00 to 7:00 pm at the Presbyterian Church on 140 Mountain Avenue in Westfield. As a prelude to the flower show, Ken Norman from KN Floral Inspirations presented examples of Victorian arrangements at a recent club meeting. The show will provide the opportunity to enjoy floral design and horticulture, photography and fashions. For more information, call Pat Wilson (908-389-9342) or visit the club’s website: www.rakeandhoe.org or Facebook page. From left to right: Alice Cowell, Junior Committee Chair; Ken Norman, KN Floral; Diana Kazazis, President; Barbara Mullin, Design Commit-tee Chair. 

 

REDUCING SALT AND ENHANCING FLAVOR

In honor of Black History Month, Trinitas addressed high blood pressure within the African-American community with a cooking demonstration on reducing sodium in your day-to-day diet. Michelle Ali, Director of Food & Nutrition Services at Trinitas, shared key tips on how to reduce salt without losing the flavor in your meal. Trinitas hosts programs every month open to all members of the community on a variety of topics. For a full list of upcoming events, refer to the Community Events on page 60.

 

 

TRINITAS LISTED AMONG TOP EMPLOYERS IN THE UNITED STATES

For the second year in a row, Becker’s Hospital Review has named Trinitas Regional Medical Center one of the 150 Top Places to Work in Healthcare. The hospital, which employs almost 2,800 individuals, developed its “Pat on the Back” awards program to recognize employees who go above and beyond on a continuous basis. Trinitas also recognizes five employees annually with the Elizabeth I. Kellogg Award which includes $5,000 for their commitment to the hospital’s mission, vision and values. Employees can take advantage of the hospital’s tuition reimbursement program, on-site fitness facility and leadership academy program; in addition, employees who use the Trinitas network are offered discounted healthcare services at Trinitas sites throughout the state. 

 

LITTLE RED HATS WARM HEARTS IN A BIG WAY 

Trinitas participated in the American Heart Association’s Little Hats, Big Hearts program to empower new moms to live heart-healthy lives while raising awareness of congenital heart defects, the most common type of birth defect in the country. As part of the Little Hats, Big Hearts program, babies born at Trinitas in February received a red crocheted hat and a kit full of heart-healthy information for mom and baby. 

 

GOING RED WITH TORY BURCH

Big thanks to Bloomingdale’s at The Mall at Short Hills, who very generously donated a beautiful red Tory Burch Tote in honor of American Heart Month. Trinitas employees and community members purchased a chance to win the bag, raising awareness of Heart Month and over $1,700 to support the cardiac area of Trinitas’ emergency department expansion project. Congratulations to our winner, Trinitas employee Nancy Farrell!  

 

COLOR ME CALM

Barnes & Noble in Springfield made a special donation of four cartons filled with coloring books for the Trinitas HELP Program. These coloring books are an extension of art therapy, which has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety and increase self-esteem in adults.  From left to right: Diana Noboa (Elder Life Intervention Assistant), Veronica Vargas (Barnes & Noble), Johanna Thomas (Elder Life Intervention Clinician), and Kathryn Loaiza (HELP Volunteer).

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

Paragon Tap & Table • Crispy Skin Pan Seared Salmon

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

Paragon has been ranked in the top 10 gastropubs since it opened in 2014. In addition to our elevated craft experience we also offer local and sustainable foods such as this Crispy Skin Pan Seared Salmon from Farro Island. I am always looking for new, inventive and seasonal ways to create and pair foods with uncommon balance.

— Eric B. LeVine, Chef/Partner

 

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Wasabi Crusted Filet Mignon 

1230 Route 22 West • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 518-9733 • partyonthegrill.com

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

 

Daimatsu • Sushi Pizza

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

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

— Chef Momo

 

Publick House •   Publick House Fish & Chips 

899 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-2355 • publickhousenj.com

Our fish and chips have been a staple dish since we opened, and one our guests have come back for them time and time again. The secret lies in the delicate beer battering, coating the fish just enough to provide a crispy exterior, while not masking the flakey, delicate cod. With a large pile of our hand-cut, double-fried house fries, this is the perfect dinner any day.

— Bernie Goncalves, Owner

 

The Barge • Cioppino 

201 Front Street • PERTH AMBOY

(732) 442-3000 • thebarge.com

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

— Alex Vosinas Chef/Owner

 

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • House Made Mafalda Pasta Inverno Style

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

Our goal is to give our guests a pleasurable dining experience, with fresh ingredients and personable service in a beautiful Tuscan décor complete with fireplaces. Our house-made Mafalda pasta features slow-braised artichoke crowns, cipollini onions and oven-dried tomatoes in a saffron cream broth. Luciano’s is available for dining and private parties of all types.

— Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

 

Morris Tap & Grill • Grilled Eggplant with Portobello

500 Route 10 West • RANDOLPH

(973) 891-1776 • morristapandgrill.com

In addition to our signature burger featured in the Top 50 Must-Have Burgers in the USA, we also offer vegan options such as this Grilled Eggplant with Portobello, roasted tofu and tomato basil sauce. Our 50 tap lines feature some of the top beers in the country. Keep an eye on our social media and website for upcoming events. 

— Eric B LeVine, Chef/Partner

 

Spirit: Social Eatery and Bar • Double Cheddar Infused Burger

250 Morris Ave. • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 258-1600 • mclynns.com

It doesn’t get better then a double cheddar infused burger from the new Spirit: Social Eatery and Bar.  

— Mark Houlker, Chef

 

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll 

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

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

 

Galloping Hill Caterers

Galloping Hill Road and Chestnut Street • UNION

(908) 686-2683 • gallopinghillcaterers.com

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

— George Thomas, Owner

 

Vine Ripe Markets

430 North Avenue East • WESTFIELD

(908) 233-2424 • vineripemarkets.com

Fresh mozzarella is not just for caprese salads and pizzas! Try to pair it with flavors and proteins that accentuate its beautiful texture and subtle flavor. I recommend our store-made fresh mozzarella wrapped with prosciutto di parma and topped with a fig demi-glaze. The saltiness of the prosciutto, paired with the subtle sweetness of the fig sauce provides for a perfect salty/sweet bite every time! Available daily in our deli.

— Frank Bruno, Chief Culinary Officer

 

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

Necessity may be the mother of invention,  but invention’s children are somewhat less predictable. 

By Luke Sacher

One of the best movies I’ve seen in years is David O. Russell’s Joy, a biopic starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop, holder of over 100 patents and one of America’s top contemporary industrial entrepreneurs. “I watch somebody struggle with something,” she explains, “and it instantly triggers something in me. I start to think, ‘There is a better way. It’s going to help so many people.’ I become laser-focused on getting to that. I do not stop until I figure out the solution.”      

Thomas Edison said almost exactly the same thing: “I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it. There’s a better way, I shall find it.” Obviously, comparing the hands-free mop to Edison’s phonograph, incandescent light bulb, stock ticker or motion picture camera is a false equivalency. But let’s give the lady credit where it’s due. She and the Wizard of Menlo Park are kindred spirits, sharing personality traits common to all inventors, including imagination, initiative, persistence and a vision of a future where the human experience is more efficient and enjoyable. 

Edison (above) also famously noted that genius is “one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” And he was correct. Invention can be a sweaty, dirty and sometimes dangerous business, especially when short-term results are the driving motivator. If you think about it, this is the basic plot of every Roadrunner cartoon. Plus, invention is full of economic uncertainty, for it involves pushing knowledge forward into places where little or no knowledge exists. “We do not know what it is that we do not know,” economist Israel Kirzner once observed. Additionally, we do not know the true cost of finding out what it is that we do not know—or whether it is even worthwhile knowing. “That is where entrepreneurship comes in,” Kirzner concluded.

In other words, not only do inventors have to get the idea and execution right to gain traction, there must also be a sound business plan behind it, too. This is why the scientists, technologists and innovators who do succeed deserve our undying admiration.

That is, until their inventions start killing us. 

Alas, history is littered with big ideas that turned out to be perfectly horrible in the long run. Their costs can be measured in human lives. Fortunately, there are many more small flashes of inspiration that blossomed into true game-changers. When confronted with the products and technologies that promise to change our lives for the better today, I find it helpful to take a look back at the good and the bad. 

CAN DO 

War, claimed the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, is the “father of all things.” We have war to thank for the tin can. In 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte (right) conscripted virtually every able man in France into the first modern mass army and launched it across Europe. A mob of more than one million undisciplined illiterate sans culottes, deployed from the English Channel to Switzerland, rolled over French opponents by sheer force of numbers. But an army marches on its stomach, and the Grande Armée spent more time foraging for food than fighting. On the eve of the first major battle against the Austrians, while consuming a “pot luck” dinner made from whatever his chef could scrounge up in the surrounding village, Napoleon decreed a massive prize to anyone who could devise a way to preserve and package rations for his troops. In 1810, after 15 years of experiment, Nicholas Appert claimed that prize—on the condition that he make his invention public. That year, he published The Art of Preserving Animal and Vegetable Substances. Appert lived in Epernay, the home of champagne. He modified the heavy bottles as storage containers by shortening the necks to widen the opening. He then filled them with various foods, placed them in boiling water for 30 minutes, and sealed them with corks and wire cages. Ironically, he had also accidentally invented pasteurization—30 years before Louis Pasteur made the scientific connection between heat and killing bacteria! 

 

Meanwhile, across the Channel, a pair of Englishmen, Bryan Donkin (right) and John Hall, acquired the patent for a lighter, unbreakable container, the tin-plated steel can. In 1813, they built the world’s first commercial canning factory in London, and produced their first tin-canned goods exclusively for the Royal Army and Navy. Soon all the other European Empires adopted the tin can to provision the ranks of their own armies and navies. But there was just one fly in the ointment, so to speak. This advance in food preservation and portability was not without its setbacks. Early tin cans were crudely sealed with a 50/50 tin and lead alloy solder. Troops in the field and sailors on the high seas would customarily reheat their contents while still in the cans, exposing the lead alloy to acid and dissolving the lead in the food. It’s disconcerting to think that all of the soldiers and sailors in the armies and navies of Europe might have been half-crazy from lead poisoning during the mid-1800s. It might be part of the reason why the Crimean War (1853–1856) is well remembered for its “great confusion of purpose”

and “notoriously incompetent international butchery.” 

Fortunately for the civilian population, canned foods were not mass-produced until the final decades of the 19th century. That happened after William Lyman invented the can opener in 1870, and the crude technique of soldering cans shut with globs of lead had been discontinued. Today, 40 billion cans of food are consumed in just Europe and the United States, according to the Can Manufacturers Institute. The tin can revolutionized how, what and when people could eat—not at all a small contribution to the growth and health of the global population.  

THE COLOR PURPLE

Mauveine. Never heard of it? Think “mauve” and settle in for a roller-coaster ride through a century of innovation. It begins around 1800 with James Watt, whose improvements to the steam engine in the 1780s triggered the Industrial Revolution. William Murdoch, a research assistant at Watt’s steam engine works in Birmingham, England, realized that coal could be used for something other than engine boiler fuel: Heat coal up in a kiln and it emits flammable gases that could be collected, stored, and used as fuel for illumination. Eureka…gas light was invented. Within a few years, complete gaslight piping networks were built in London and other major cities in Great Britain.

What remains of the coal after the gases are cooked out of it? Coal tar. Sticky muck, reeking of ammonia. What to do with it? It was the Industrial Revolution, remember, so the short answer was throw it into the rivers. Enter a man from Glasgow named Charles Macintosh (left), a clothing and dye maker who needed the ammonia as a solvent and bleach. After a bit of fiddling, he managed to extract another solvent from the tar, naphtha, which turned out to be the perfect solvent thinner for a newly imported material from the Orient: rubber. He sandwiched the thinned rubber between two layers of fabric and in 1824 invented a game-changing raincoat, the Mackintosh!

People interested in chemistry began asking themselves what else might be extracted from coal tar. The British, who were facing a malaria crisis in their Far Eastern colonies, hoped that the only remedy for the mosquito-borne disease, quinine, might somehow be synthesized from coal tar. In 1856, a young British chemist named William Perkin (above right) tried for months without any luck to coax quinine from coal tar. One day, he tossed another of his failed solutions

into the sink, where it mixed with water and turned bright Royal Mauve. By complete accident, he had stumbled upon the world’s first artificial aniline dye, which he named Mauveine. This “invention” made him a fortune thanks to the emerging middle class of the industrial age, who were keen to emulate Queen Victoria’s sartorial splendor. Ironically, Perkin’s luck appeared to run out when he attempted to persuade British academia and the investor class of the potential for progress and profits to be realized by creating a full industrial chemical industry. They were happy to keep building railroads and textile mills. So he approached academics and investors in Germany, where intellectual merit counted for more than family ancestry. By 1870, German chemical corporations like Agfa, BASF, Hoechst, and Bayer had left the rest of Europe in their wake, inventing everything from dyes to aspirin to artificial fertilizer to high explosives. All derived in one way or another utilizing coal tar. 

In 1882, German pathologist Paul Ehrlich accidentally spilled some mauveine dye into a petri dish only to notice that it selectively stained only one kind of bacteria. Ehrlich continued his research and, 17 years later, invented Salvarsan, the first chemical treatment for syphilis. Ehrlich became the father of a new science, which he named Chemotherapy. In 1908, he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

THAT CERTAIN GLOW

In 1898, Marie (left) and Pierre Curie discovered radium. In 1903, they were both awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Marie was the first woman ever to win the prize. Eight years later, she received a second Nobel, for isolating radium, discovering a second atomic

element, polonium (named after her home nation of Poland), and her groundbreaking research into “radioactivity” (a word she invented). By then, radium was being industrially refined and Marie Curie was convinced that it had potentially “magic” healing properties. Indeed, for many years, she wore a pendant around her neck containing pure radium. 

Madame Curie was not alone. Burk & Braun’s Radium Schokolade chocolate bar and Hippman-Blach bakery’s Radium Bread, both made with “radium enriched” water, were very popular and profitable. They were both discontinued in 1936. The Revigator stored a gallon of water inside a bucket with an enamel lining impregnated with radium. Its manufacturers claimed that drinking Revigator water could cure arthritis and reduce skin wrinkles. Toothpaste containing both radium and thorium (radium’s “grandfather” element) was sold by Dr. Alfred Curie. He was no relation to Marie or Pierre, but seized upon the opportunity to capitalize on their common name. Alfred Curie also manufactured Tho-Radia cosmetics, a line that ecompassed powders, creams and lipsticks that promised to rejuvenate and brighten ladies’ faces.

Early 20th century physicians produced radium suppositories, heating pads, and coins used to “fortify” single glasses of water. They were meant to treat rheumatism, weakness, malaise, and almost any health complaint for which their hypochondriac patients sought miracle cures. Before Viagra and Cialis, impotence was treated with radioactive “bougies” (the French word for candles)—wax rods inserted into the urethra—and athletic supporters containing a layer of radium-impregnated fabric. A popular treatment called the Radioendocrinator involved a small “portefeuille” holding a number of paper cards coated in Radium, worn inside underwear at night. Its inventor died of bladder cancer in 1949.

Perhaps the most famous misuse of radium occurred between 1917 and 1936, when the U.S. Radium Corporation employed more than a hundred workers—mostly young women (below) just out of high school—to paint watch and clock faces with their patented “Undark” paint. As many as 70 women were hired to mix the paint, which was formulated of glue, water, and radium sulfide powder. Workers were taught to shape paint brushes with their mouths to maintain a fine point, and after work hours, painted their nails and teeth with the glow-in-the-dark paint for personal amusement. The company encouraged the young women to ingest the dangerous mixture, while its management and research scientists (who were aware of the danger) carefully avoided any exposure themselves. Five “Radium Girls” sued the U.S. Radium Corporation and won a large settlement in a landmark case involving labor safety standards and workers’ rights. There are no verifiable records of exactly how many suffered from anemia, inexplicable bone fractures, bleeding gums, and necrosis. Though many of the factory’s workers became ill, cases of death by radiation sickness were initially attributed to diphtheria, and even syphilis, in an attempt to smear their reputations.  

CHEMICAL ATTRACTION

Every so often, a brilliant solution to one problem will create an even larger one. An inventor hailed as a hero during his or her time ends up being recast as a villain by history. Meet Thomas Midgley, Jr. (right), inventor of leaded gasoline and Freon. If you didn’t know he was a real person, you’d think he was a character from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. Over the course of his career, Midgley was granted over 100 patents, including those for tetraethyl leaded gasoline (commonly called TEL and trademarked as Ethyl), and the first chloroflurocarbons (commonly called CFCs and trademarked as Freon).

Midgley began working at General Motors in 1916. In 1921, he discovered that the addition of tetraethyl lead to gasoline prevented engine “knocking.” GM named the substance Ethyl, and made no mention of lead in its reports and advertising. Oil companies and auto makers, especially GM,

which owned the patent jointly with Midgley, promoted the additive as a superior alternative to ethanol, on which there was very little profit to be made. In 1923, the American Chemical Society awarded Midgley the Nichols Medal for the Use of Anti-Knock Compounds in Motor Fuels. He then took a prolonged vacation in Miami to cure himself of lead poisoning.  

Later in the decade, Midgely was assigned to another GM division, Frigidaire. The modern, self-contained plug-in refrigerator had existed for almost two decades by then, but it used refrigerant chemicals that were not only toxic and corrosive, but occasionally explosive, including ammonia, chloromethane, propane, and sulfur dioxide. Midgely was tasked with finding a safer alternative. His research team incorporated fluorine into a hydro-carbon and synthesized dichlorodifluoromethane, the first chlorofluorocarbon (CFC). They named it Freon. Freon soon became the standard refrigerant, and was later used in aerosol spray cans and asthma inhalers (!) as a propellant. In 1937, The Society of Chemical Industry awarded Midgley the Perkin Medal (named after Henry Perkin, aka Mr. Mauveine) for his invention.

Though recognized as a brilliant chemist, Midgely can claim two of history’s most environmentally catastrophic inventions. The release of large quantities of lead into the atmosphere has been linked to long-term health problems, including neurological impairment in children and increased levels of violence and criminality in major population centers. The ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas effects of CFCs only became widely known 30 years after Midgely’s death. Author and scholar Bill Bryson summed Midgley up beautifully when he remarked that he possessed “an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny.” Environmental historian J.R. McNeill said that Midgley “had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history.”

BRIGHT, SHINY  OBJECTS

Say what you will about the law of unintended consequences, but it is most definitely an equal-opportunity destroyer. But a good invention gone bad doesn’t always harm people. Sometimes it only demolishes an industry. In 1981, the compact disc hit record stores, the very thing it would inadvertently kill. The 5” CD replaced LP records and audio cassettes. Its size rendered music packaging unimportant, ending an era of album-cover art that brought some of the world’s most gifted artists and photographers into our homes. The quantum leap in audio quality CDs delivered—which did not erode over time as vinyl and magnetic tape did—fulfilled the promise of the early digital age. 

For the next 20-or-so years, the CD was one of the best things that ever happened to the record industry. Baby Boomers, grown older and wealthier (and less interested in new music), were all too happy to re-purchase their favorite albums, even at double the price of the old LPs. Industry revenues soared. Record company executives, keen on generating foolproof profits, were delighted to sell their existing catalogs in a new package. At the same time, they also poured big money into recording contracts with established superstars and the overnight sensations created by that other thing that began in 1981, MTV. A lot of that cash came out of the budgets traditionally earmarked for promising acts that needed more career nurturing. They were put on starvation diets and pressured to produce hit videos instead of developing loyal audiences. The result was a mix of aging, bloated artists and one-hit wonders.    

I was a part of the industry during this period, having contributed to over 100 music videos as an assistant cameraman and camera operator from 1983 to 1995. I worked with Van Halen, Joe Jackson, Guns ’n Roses, Anita Baker, The Beastie Boys, Kenny G, Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, James Taylor, Willie Nelson and dozens more. Most of the shoots were great fun, 20-hour days notwithstanding. The few that were pure misery were mostly caused by despicable talent managers, producers and “A&R men” who would squeeze every last bit of production value out of both crewmembers and stage or location expenses. I was almost seriously injured (and possibly killed) more than a few times. On the continuous spectrum of business ethics, you can find promoters and managers of pop music artists somewhere south of people who look after the best interests of professional boxers.

Industry executives had been warned by their engineers since Day One that digitizing music in the form of a CD would, one day, mean a loss of control of their content. Although they had been reaping profits from digital technology for nearly two decades, they were still analog thinkers. The chickens came home to roost in 1999, when personal computers like the iMac, with plug-and-play capability, arrived. The new generation of desktops and laptops were configured with built-in Internet and drives that not only could play CDs but also “rip” them as MP3 files. The industry had reduced its product to digital data, and now anyone with a computer could take it for free. Even a novice user could become an audio engineer after a few days of online tutorial, ushering in an era of anonymous, shame-free theft through file-sharing sites like Napster

Music piracy, a minimal concern until then, cratered the industry. In the ensuing years, more than 370,000 jobs were eliminated. Music companies and artists lose more than$50 billion annually. A generation ago, bands toured to promote album sales, which climbed into the hundreds of thousands or even the millions. Today, they hit the road to survive, and for all but a fortunate few, music sales barely pay the catering bill.

SHIFT F7…BANG!

If you could make almost anything—and I mean anything—from a chess piece to a heart valve to a gun, all by yourself, in your garage…what would you make? Today’s most intriguing wait-and-see invention has to be the 3D printer. Known as additive manufacturing (AM), this technology creates three-dimensional objects by successive layering of material under computer control. 3D printers use an Additive Manufacturing file (AMF) created with a 3D scanner, or a camera with special “photogrammetry” software, or a computer assisted design (CAD) package. The machine itself uses a number of different production technologies, which frankly are so beyond my personal knowledge that I can’t even begin to describe them: Binder Jetting, Directed Energy Deposition, Material Extrusion, Material Jetting, Powder Bed Fusion, Sheet Lamination and Vat Photopolymerization.

3D printers support almost 200 different materials in four basic categories: plastic, powder, resins, and “other.” Other can include titanium, stainless steel, bronze, brass, silver, gold, ceramics, chocolate, glass, concrete, sandstone and gypsum. Printers capable of producing household chemicals, pharmaceutical medications, and even living tissue cultures for transplant organs are currently in an experimental stage. Their developers envisage both industrial and domestic use for this technology, which would also enable people in remote locations to be able to produce their own medicine or replacement parts for other machines

Just as nobody could have predicted the profound cultural impact of the printing press in 1450, the steam engine in 1750, or the transistor in 1950, it is impossible to predict the impact of 3D printing.  However, 3D printing makes it possible to produce single items for the same unit cost as producing thousands, thus undermining a foundational law of mass production: economy of scale. It will almost certainly have as profound an effect on the world as the advent of the production line and the factory did more than a century ago. Futurist Jeremy Rifkin has claimed that 3D printing marks the beginning of a third industrial revolution.

What will that revolution look like? By the end of the decade, you will be able to create many of the things that now require a special trip to a store on an affordable home 3D printer. Just download the file, push print. Sounds like fun, right? Well, consider the fact that in 2012 a Texas company posted design files for a fully functional plastic gun that could be produced by anyone with a 3D printer

The U.S. Department of State made the company take down the file after several months, but if you learned anything from the CD story in this article, you know the genie was long out of the bottle by then

According to a memo released by Homeland Security and the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, “significant advances in 3D printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printable files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public safety risks from unqualified gun seekers who obtain or manufacture 3D printed guns…[and] proposed legislation to ban 3D printing of weapons may deter, but cannot completely prevent their production. Even if the practice is prohibited by new legislation, online distribution of these 3D printable files will be as difficult to control as any other illegally traded music, movie or software files.”

The memo overlooks a key problem with 3D firearms. You could murder someone and then pop your gun into the microwave, melting any evidence of the crime. Who knows? Maybe the unintended consequence of 3D printing will be an entirely new branch of forensics. This could get interesting

EDITOR’S NOTE: Luke Sacher has another connection to this story. He served as cinematographer for the 1987 film Radium City, and met many of the “Radium Girls.” In her New York Times review, Janet Maslin wrote: “The film is about the desire for independence that led those teen-age girls to the plants in the first place, about facing up to hardship and about the dangers of being too well-bred to ask questions—it is a story too important to be ignored.”

Is it time for a retirement reboot? 

By Christine Gibbs

The dictionary is very precise in defining retirement: Withdrawal from one’s position or occupation or from active working. For a growing number of people in New Jersey and around the country, that definition barely hints at the reality of retirement. A generation ago, half of all Americans said they expected to retire comfortably by age 65. By contrast, according to a recent survey, about 25% of Americans now anticipate that retirement won’t begin until age 70 or later. According to AARP, 40% of Baby Boomers nearing retirement expect to “work until they drop.” So much for Webster’s.   

The math is far from encouraging. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 13%  of the current U.S. population is over 65, with projections escalating to 18% in 2030 and doubling in 2050 to almost 90 million. This puts stress not only on retirees, but also on their entitlements. Given that the average length of retirement is 18 years, right now four out of five Americans aged 30 to 54 say they are convinced they will not have sufficient funds to comfortably retire, and expect little help from diminished Social Security benefits when the time comes. They may be right. The Boston College Center for Retirement Research estimates that, as a nation, we are a mind-boggling $6.6 trillion short of what Americans will need to retire comfortably. 

If you’ve fully funded your retirement and feel confident that you can maintain a high standard of living and achieve all of your post-career dreams, you can stop reading here. If not, let’s do a reality check. 

WHAT RETIREMENT LOOKS LIKE

The first meaningful step toward retirement is visualizing what life will look like for you. It won’t be the same as it is today, especially if you are behind in building your nest egg. You will almost certainly downsize in terms of your living situation. If you own a home, try to put a conservative number on what kind of cash a sale will generate when you move to something smaller or less expensive. And then think about what it will cost to live in your next home—taxes, utility bills, maintenance. Maybe you’ll be renting. Or sharing a home with your children. 

How do you envision your lifestyle? Will you be taking around-the-world cruises or more modest travel adventures? Will you be joining country clubs or giving up your existing memberships? Will you be a buyer or a seller when it comes to the finer things in life, such as art, antiques or collectibles? Will you be eating out a lot or eating in?

Remember, everything comes with a price tag including, unfortunately, your health. Health issues increase with age, which often involve unexpected escalating medical obligations. Psychological and emotional distress often increases as we grow older. In fact for many, chronic anxiety and depression begin pre-retirement as we face the realities of aging. Although Medicare and private insurance plans can cover most of these costs, any decline in health—even a temporary one—is likely to erode your finances. Plan realistically for this eventuality. You don’t want to be 80 and snapping pills in half so you can afford to keep the lights on.    

TIME AND MONEY

So where to start? A good place to begin your retirement reboot is by determining how much you will really need to save in order to make your late-in-life fantasy come true. Any good game plan must start with an honest personal assessment. The two critical factors to consider are when and how do you hope to retire. There are a plethora of online calculators that let you plug in financial and other data to calculate how much cash to stash to achieve defined goals. There are an equally vast number of retirement experts and advisers out there offering professional assistance.   

Financial planners like to recommend saving 10 to 15 percent of your annual income starting as early as your 20s. A recent USA Today article suggests saving $300 per month starting at age 25 and investing aggressively (not to mention successfully) will accumulate more than $932,000 by age 65. Delaying saving by a decade would reduce the total nest egg to $408,000, while increasing the monthly savings by $100 would increase it to about $1.2 million. Which makes me wonder: Do any 25-year-olds read USA Today? Are you 25? The answer to both questions is probably not.

If you are in your 40’s or 50’s and have yet to pull your head out of the sand when it comes to saving for retirement, fear not. All is not lost. In fact, there is a consensus among the “big boys” in the financial arena on how to get back on track even when the retirement clock is ticking. A good place to start is to estimate how much cash you will need in your retirement kitty based on your projected monthly expenses.

DID YOU KNOW?

• The ancient Greeks would stockpile valuable olive oil as a way to survive during difficult times, including old age.
• Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Paine proposed a controversial public pension system in a pamphlet published in 1795.

Monthly Income Need       Savings Needed for 20       Years Savings Needed for 30 Years

$1,000                                    $166,696                                $212,150

$2,000                                    $333,392                               $424,300

$3,000                                    $500,087                               $636,450

$4,000                                    $666,783                               $848,601

$5,000                                    $833,479                               $1,060,751

$6,000                                    $1,000,175                            $1,272,901

$7,000                                    $1,166,871                             $1,485,051

$8,000                                   $1,333,567                             $1,697,201

$9,000                                   $1,500,262                            $1,909,351

$10,000                                 $1,666,958                             $2,121,501

The above sums assume your portfolio will earn a 6 percent annualized return during the course of your retirement and endure 2 percent annual inflation erosion.

Obviously, the first step is to start growing your savings faster than you’re growing gray hairs. Clark Howard, a successful consumer expert, in one of his books entitled Living Large for the Long Haul, extends his own personal lifeline to those who have passed the 40-year mark with no savings for retirement.

1. Crunch Retirement Numbers Realistically

• Income (salary, portfolio, social security, pension)?
• Unsettled debt?
• Expenses?

2. Get Aggressive

• Stop stalling and start saving—as much as you can, as soon as you can!
• Play catch-up: If you are 50 or older, the IRS lets you make extra contributions to supplement your retirement savings accounts.

3. Rethink Your Retirement Timetable

• Keep working beyond the standard retirement age.
• Supplement with part-time work.

4. Scale back

• Get real about expenses and luxuries.

DID YOU KNOW?

Medicare was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. It established eligibility at age 65. 

THE FINAL FRONTIER

What will the world look like for retirees now in their 40’s or 50’s?  They will be part of what one strategic forecasting agency recently referred to as “a tsunami of senior citizens.” It may change the very nature and culture of the United States, and will certainly have a major impact on the economy. By their sheer numbers, seniors will represent a juggernaut voting block, and millions of new jobs and perhaps even new industries will be devoted to their needs. And remember, this is based on current life-expectancy rates. With advances in medicine, a lot of today’s 50 year-olds will reach triple-digits. They are only halfway home! 

DID YOU KNOW?

88% of Americans today are worried about retirement as compared to 73% in 2010.   

DID YOU KNOW?

The U.S. Census Bureau indicates that average savings for a 50 year-old today is $42,797.  

What do those next 50 years have in store for us? A Place for Mom, a very successful for-profit senior living referral service, recently put forth the following predictions:

• A drastic decline in traditional nursing homes in favor of continuing care communities and aging-in-place with at-home care.
• Improved technology to include a wide array of accurate health-monitoring wearables, smart homes powered by cloud-based artificial intelligence, and even exo-suits worn under or over clothing to enhance mobility.
• Neighborhood-friendly civic planning to accommodate common senior limitations.
• Going green among the graying population through eco-friendly domestic design to save energy and money while making seniors safer.
• A booming healthcare industry based on the Bureau of Labor forecasting job growth at 70% for home health and personal care aides.

In the end (no pun intended) a happy, healthful, meaningful retirement comes down to quality of life. And in that regard, everyone is different. For some, it’s a matter of money—of never having to say no to something because you can’t afford it. For others, it’s about staying engaged and maintaining a positive outlook—of never being afraid to say yes. Just as everyone is different, every retirement is different, too. The more you can picture your own bright future, the more realistic your chances are of making it happen. 

DID YOU KNOW?

Age 66 is the full eligibility age for Social Security for anyone born in 1954 or earlier, with partial benefits available starting at age 62. For those born after 1954, the eligibility age increases by two months per birth year until it reaches 67. 

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

 

SEMINARS

Seminars, unless otherwise noted, will be held at the CORE Building, 1164 Elizabeth Ave., Elizabeth, NJ

(Enter parking lot from South Broad St., next to Fire House) Register online or call (908) 994-8939.  

 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19  • 5:30 pm 

The Truth Behind Immunizations 

Clark Sherer, MD, Chief of Infectious Diseases, Director of Medical Students Education   

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/Immunizations  

 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26  • 5:30 pm 

Parenting Children with Autism: Strategies for Success from  a Multidisciplinary Team

Carole Soricelli, MS, OTR 

Director of Trinitas Children’s Therapy Services Trinitas Children’s Therapy Services

899 Mountain Avenue, Suite 1A, Springfield, NJ 07081

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/AutismAwareness  

 

THURSDAY, MAY 11  • 5:30 pm 

Go Red for Women’s Event

Mirette Habib, MD, Interventional Cardiologist

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/GoRed 

 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17  • 5:30 pm 

Stroke: Who is at Risk?

Terry Finamore, MS, BSN, RN, Coordinator for Stroke and Bloodless Medicine & Surgery Programs 

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/StrokeAwareness

 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24  • 5:30 pm 

What Does Your Skin Say About You?

Carol Blecher, RN, MS, AOCN, APNC, Nurse Practitioner

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/SkinCancerDetection

 

THURSDAY, JUNE 8  • 5:30 pm 

How Safe is Your Home?

Diana Youssef and Krystle Rodriguez, Neighborhood Revitalization Coordinators, Habitat of Humanity 

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/HomeSafety

 

THURSDAY, JUNE 15  • 5:30 pm 

Alzheimer’s Diseases:  Life after Diagnosis

Tim Clyne, BA, MSN, RN, CDP, Nurse Manager, HELP Program; Diane Reehil, MSN, GNP, CNN, Clinical Nurse Specialist, HELP Program; Johanna Thomas, BA, CDP, Elder Life Intervention Clinician, HELP Program

Register at www.TrinitasRMC.org/AlzheimersAwareness

 

TCCC SUPPORT GROUPS

Conference Room A or Conference Room B

Trinitas Comprehensive Cancer Center 

225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth New Jersey 07207

All events take place from 1pm to 3pm. 

Call (908) 994-8535 for 2017 schedule. 

Living with Cancer 

Viviendo con Cáncer, Grupo De Apoyo 

Living with Breast Cancer

Viviendo con Cáncer de Mama

Caregiving Support Group

Viviendo con Cáncer, Grupo De Apoyo 

Viviendo con Cáncer, Apoyo Familiar

For more information on any TCCC support programs and to RSVP, please contact Roxanne Ruiz-Adams, LSW, (908) 994-8535. Por favor llame al (908) 994-8535 para confirmar su asistencia.

TRINITAS HEALTH FOUNDATION EVENTS

THURSDAY, MAY 4

6:00 pm 

Annual Gala Dinner Dance 

The Venetian, Garfield, NJ

Join the foundation as they honor Connie Dwyer at this beautiful black tie event complete with fantastic live music, dancing, an incredible auction and amazing food and drink.  

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

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

 

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Health Services with Women In Mind

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

To learn more about these services, contact Amparo Aguirre, (908) 994-8244 or at amaguirre@trinitas.org  

 

Ask the Pharmacist:  Medication Management 

Free of charge, by appointment only.

Monthly on the 4th Tuesday, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm  

Call (908) 994-5237  

 

MEDICAL AND BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SUPPORT GROUPS

Diabetes Management Support Group

Monthly, First Monday, 2:00 – 3:00 pm

Kathleen McCarthy, RN, CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator)  

Open to both diabetics and non-diabetics who want to learn more about diabetes prevention.

65 Jefferson Street, 2nd Floor, Elizabeth, New Jersey Call (908) 994-5502 for further information or registration 

 

Sleep Disorders 

If you or someone you know experiences problems sleeping, consider contacting the Trinitas Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center in Elizabeth. Another location can be found in Cranford at Homewood Suites by Hilton with easy access on and off the Garden State Parkway. Both centers are headed by a medical director who is board certified in sleep medicine, internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and intensive care medicine, and is staffed by seven certified sleep technologists. 

For further information, call (908) 994-8694 to learn more about the Trinitas Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center or visit www.njsleepdisorderscenter.org

 

Narcotics Anonymous

Monday 7:00 – 8:30 pm

Sunday 12:00 noon – 2:00 pm; Sunday 5:00 – 6:30 pm

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

 

Alcoholics Anonymous

Friday 7:30 pm – 8:45 pm

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

 

HIV Education and Support Program  for HIV Positive Patients

Monthly. Call for scheduled dates/times.

Judy Lacinak, (908) 994-7605

Early Intervention Program Clinic, 655 Livingston St. Monastery Building, 2nd Floor, Elizabeth

 

Mental Illness Support Group (NAMI) for Spanish Speaking Participants

4th Friday of each month except August, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Mike Guglielmino, (908) 994-7275

Martha Silva, NAMI 1-888-803-3413

6 South Conference Room, Williamson Street Campus 225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth

 

TRINITAS CHILDREN’S THERAPY SERVICES

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

 

“10 Tips…” Workshops 

Come take part in the 7th year of our highly successful Ten Tips Workshop Series. The series is for parents, teachers, or other individuals who work with young children and focus on practical strategies that can be easily implemented into daily classroom and/or home routines. All of our workshops offer suggestions that are appropriate for all children with an emphasis placed on children with special needs and those who may be on the Autism Spectrum. 

All workshops take place at the Trinitas Children’s Therapy Services Center, 899 Mountain Ave, Suite 1A, Springfield NJ. Workshops are $15 each.  

April 18, 2017   6:00 pm – 7:30 pm    

10 Tips for Building Fine Motor Skills 

During Circle Time Activities   

May 16, 2017   6:00 pm – 7:30 pm      

10 Tips for Building Sensory/Tactile Processing 

During Large Group Activities Time Activities   

June 13, 2017   6:00 pm – 7:30 pm      

10 Tips for Building Gross Motor Skills  into Large Group Activities   

For more information or to register for this last workshops, please contact Christine German, OTD, OTR, at  (973) 218-6394, ext. 4012, or email CGerman@trinitas.org

Winter/Spring Programs: 

February 20-May 22    

All programs are offered one time per week, for 45 minutes at Trinitas Children’s Therapy Services, 

899 Mountain Avenue, Suite 1A, Springfield, NJ  07081

These programs and/or group therapy sessions are a great alternative to individual therapy. They give children the opportunity to address key developmental areas 

in structured but busier environments that are more reflective of typical real-life home and school situations. Classes are grouped by skill and age level.  

Scribbles to Script 

Children from preschool (prewriting) through elementary school (cursive) have the opportunity to use the Handwrit-ing Without Tears program to learn pre-writing skills, proper letter formation, and writing within the given lines. Multi-sensory fine motor, visual-motor, and visual-percep-tual activities help to reinforce learning and make writing fun!  45-minute classes held once weekly.  

Sports 1 Step at a Time 

Children between the ages of 4 & 12 will have the opportunity to work with a PT to refine their skill set for several sports, including soccer, basketball, and kickball, in a non-competitive group setting.  45-minute sessions held once weekly. Mondays 4:15 – 5:00 

Social Butterflies

Children between the ages of 4 & 12 have the opportunity to become social butterflies by engaging in fun non-challenging therapeutic activities overseen by a speech & language pathologist.  Skills taught include turn taking, topic maintenance, appropriate question asking, following  non-verbal cues, and using manners. 45-minute sessions held once weekly. Wednesdays 4:15- 5:00  

Typing Whizkids 

Children from 1st grade through middle school will partici-pate in functional tasks that will allow them to learn efficient keyboarding/typing skills. From key location and finger placement, to speed and accuracy children will learn this   v a l u a b l e s k il l t h e c o r r e c t w a y w h i l e w o r k i n g with an OT. 45-minute sessions held once weekly. Thursdays 6:15 – 7:00  

Cook With Us 

 An opportunity for children to work with a PT and certified personal trainer, to learn the basics of daily nutrition and fitness, and simple meal and snack preparation, in a practical and fun environment. 45-minute sessions held once weekly. Wednesdays 4:30 – 5:15          

Parents Night Out 

Please inquire about our quarterly “Parents Night Out” event. Drop your child(ren) off for a few hours of fun play time, a movie and a snack, while mom and dad enjoy a much needed night out. Takes place quarterly.

April 7th 6:00 – 8:30

June 9th 6:00 – 8:30

 

7th Annual Camp Trinitas

Now accepting registrations for Summer 2017 

The program is the perfect opportunity to have children gain new skills or maintain recently-learned motor and academic skills without a full day or even full week commit-ment. Sign up for as many days or weeks as you would like. Sign up for a ½ day or a full day. 

We will now be located off-site, with a classroom, an outdoor space, a playground, a kitchen, and a larger gym area!  We will now be offering the option of either a ½ day or a full day!Allow your child to participate in a camp directly organized and supervised by skilled clinicians in their respective fields. Camp Trinitas is run by OT’s, PT’s, speech therapists, and ABA clinicians, to address each child’s specific needs.

Early Bird Special: 1ST 10 Camp Registrants receive a 10% discount.

Whole Camp Experience Special: Sign up for all 7 weeks and all 28 days and receive an additional 10% discount.

To register for any programs or for more information, please contact Kevin Nelson at knelson@trinitas.org,(973) 218-6394, ext. 13, or fax (973) 218-6351. 

To learn more, visit www.childtherapynj.com 

 

This page is sponsored by

Elizabethtown Healthcare Foundation

Inspired to Care, Inspired to Give

WE’RE ALMOST THERE! 

If you have visited us lately, you know that big things are happening at Trinitas! We are in the home stretch of an $18.7 million state-of-the-art expansion and renovation of our Emergency Department, which will decrease wait times and increase patient safety, comfort and satisfaction. This expansion—which will also create special areas for children, seniors and behavioral health patients—will be completed in August 2017.

We have raised almost $16 million to date. We are very proud to say that Trinitas board members, physicians, leadership and staff have come together and donated over $2.5 million to this important project, showing their commitment to providing the highest level of care to all the patients we serve. 

Would you like to be a part of all the excitement? To find out how you can help the patients of Trinitas and have your gift matched dollar-for-dollar by the JC Kellogg Foundation, please call Nadine Brechner or Rob Eccles at the Trinitas Health Foundation at (908) 994-8249.

TRINITAS IN THE  WINNERS CIRCLE 

On February 25, 2017 hundreds of Trinitas supporters joined us at the Meadowlands Racetrack for Trinitas Health Foundation’s 13th Annual Evening at the Races. Attendees enjoyed a great night of action for an important cause, by joining us in the Winners Circle to benefit the patients of Trinitas Regional Medical Center! For information about attending or sponsoring upcoming events please call Joanne McGann at (908) 994-8249. Pictured above, Gary S. Horan, FACHE, President & CEO of Trinitas RMC (center), took in the race with wife Arlene Horan (left) and Chris & Karen Horan.

SNYDER FOUNDATION LEAVES LASTING IMPRESSION    

Representatives from the Harold B. and Dorothy A. Snyder Foundation (left) visited Trinitas Regional Medical Center to get a firsthand look at the Emergency Department’s (ED) amazing transformation. Top on their list was a tour of the ED’s new Diagnostic Imaging Unit, since their generous grant helped pay for the unit’s technologically advanced 128 Slice CT Scan. This state-of-the-art equipment allows physicians to diagnose and treat patients far more quickly than ever before. The trustees pictured left stand proudly by their plaque in the Diagnostic Unit, which commemorates their beloved trustee Phyllis Snyder and honors the Snyder Foundation for their generous contribution.

 

New Jersey’s Arboreal Splender

Photography by Dwight Hiscano

Internationally published and highly collected, Dwight Hiscano has been creating photographs of the American landscape for over thirty years. His prints are held in notable collections both in the U.S. and abroad, and have been presented to governors, members of Congress, and community leaders in recognition for their service. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibits including the Nature’s Best exhibit at the Smithsonian, the National Geographic-sponsored International Mountain Summit in Italy, the Capitol Rotunda, and an exhibit at the Richard M. Ross Art Museum, alongside works by Winslow Homer, Thomas Hart Benton and John Marin.

Dwight’s images have appeared in The New York Times, Outdoor Photographer, Nature’s Best, Nature Conservancy Magazine and Photographic Magazine, and he was a finalist in the International Black and White Spider Awards. His photographs have been featured prominently in books, posters, calendars, websites, and annual reports in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He often leads photography workshops, lectures and gallery talks, and was the keynote speaker at the Garden Club of America’s Annual Horticultural Conference.

Dwight recently opened Dwight Hiscano Gallery in Morristown, offering his large, limited-edition prints for private collections as well as large scale installations in corporate and medical facilities throughout the Northeast.

For more information please visit www.dwighthiscano.com, contact the gallery at 908-577-2275, or email dwighthiscano@gmail.com.

News, views and insights on maintaining a healthy edge.

 

Crunch Time 

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

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

 

Into the Woods 

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

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

 

Cervical Cancer’s “Racial Divide” 

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

 

But Is It An Organ? 

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

Real-Time Concussion Detector 

With football increasingly in the crosshairs of the medical community, it was only a matter of time before equipment measuring concussions in real-time started finding its way onto the field. A new “smart” mouthguard should be available to players nationwide by 2018. The device, manufactured by Prevent Biometrics, calculates a player’s risk of concussion after a hard hit. That information is sent instantly to coaches, team doctors and parents, who can pull a player out of the game if need be. This is a critical decision—study after study has shown that players who stay on the field after a concussive hit take twice as long to recover compared to those who leave immediately. The mouthguard was developed with the help of the famed Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Kevin Lukenda of Linden Family Medical Associates thinks a computerized Bluetooth mouthguard could be a valuable tool to objectively gauge whether a player is injured and to what degree he may be concussed. “Right now, we depend on referees, coaches, parents, teachers, school physicians and even the student athletes themselves in the diagnosis of concussions,” Dr. Lukenda points out. “Many times these voices go unheard because of the consequence of limiting the student athlete’s ability to play—despite jeopardizing their health. Though there are objective measures to determine a concussion, often times the decision becomes very subjective.”

 

Early Detection for Autism 

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

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

The Connie Dwyer Breast Center comes to Trinitas.

By Mark Stewart

Connie Dwyer knows how lucky she is. Lucky to have lived through the ordeal of breast cancer, to be sure. And lucky to have had the emotional and financial support she needed to make it through a double-mastectomy, reconstructive surgery and chemotherapy after being diagnosed in 1999. But it was during her chemo sessions, Dwyer recalls, that she came to understand just how lucky she was.

“I underwent treatment in a room with several other people,” she says. “There was one young woman in particular who took a bus to get there, and then had to take two more buses to get to her job, where she was an hourly worker. She had two children at home that she had to provide for. Chemotherapy is such a shock to your system, physically and mentally. I often think back to the courage she demonstrated, and about how traumatic it would have been for me without the support of my husband, Bob, and our three wonderful daughters. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I wanted to give back.”

And so she did. 

In 2004, the Dwyers began working to raise funds for St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark. They saw a specific need—uninsured women without access to critical services—that was being addressed by the hospital, and created a fund that eventually grew into many millions of dollars

In 2016, St. Michael’s was purchased by Prime Healthcare, a for-profit medical corporation. Legally, their charitable organization could no longer be affiliated with the hospital, so the Dwyers created the Connie Dwyer Breast Cancer Foundation and began looking for a new home

Long story short: later this year, Trinitas will open the $3 million Connie Dwyer Breast Center

“We spoke to a number of places that would have loved to have had us come,” says Dwyer, “but at our very first meeting with Trinitas we were so taken with Nadine Brechner, Gary Horan and all the doctors we met—they were all ‘from-the-heart’ kind of people. You could tell how much they cared about their patients and the women in the surrounding communities. It was an immediate connection. Bob and I felt very comfortable with them, and our board agreed that Trinitas was the best place for us to go.”

Janet Lesko, who has worked with Dwyer since 2004, now serves as the Director of the Connie Dwyer Breast Cancer Foundation. Lesko confirms that they “fell in love” with the people at Trinitas, and adds that Dwyer herself remains the organization’s driving force

“Connie’s vision, leadership and dedication has enabled us to help so many women receive breast cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment in our community,” she says. “We are delighted to now have the opportunity to expand our reach through a partnership with Trinitas Regional Medical Center.”

“Thanks to Connie’s empathy, sensitivity and generosity, the patients of our region will have a state-of-the-art facility designed for best possible outcomes and compassionate care,” says Nadine Brechner, Executive Director of the Trinitas Health Foundation. “We are most thankful for her partnership.”

“Our missions are actually a perfect match,” points out Trinitas President and CEO Gary Horan, FACHE. “We provide excellent, compassionate healthcare to all the people we serve, including those among us who are poor and vulnerable. We appreciate Connie’s confidence and trust in Trinitas to help further the loving mission of her foundation

As for Dwyer’s newly-independent organization, she says it is laser-focused on its mission to provide breast care and education to uninsured women. The experience has also provided another, unexpected, benefit: Many of her 12 grandchildren have gotten involved.

“By helping me with this work,” she says, “it has made an important impression on them. They have a real sense of what you can do for others in life.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Connie Dwyer is being honored at the Trinitas Health Foundation Annual Gala on May 4, 2017 at The Venetian in Garfield, NJ. For tickets or sponsorship information, please call (908) 994-8249 or e-mail nbrechner@trinitas.org. For more information on the Connie Dwyer Breast Cancer Foundation, log onto cdbcf.org. 

High-tech mannequins keep Trinitas nursing students on the cutting edge.

By Diane Alter

Remember the Mannequin Challenge, the viral phenomenon that swept the nation in 2016?Well, that was nothing new to the Trinitas School of Nursing (TSON). Mannequins have been teaching and challenging TSON students since 2005, when the first high-fidelity patient simulator arrived. It was called SimMan and it was developed by Laerdal Medical Corporation. Since then the nursing school’s population of high-fidelity patient simulators has steadily grown. The school’s faculty has become increasingly adept at using these medical mannequins to demonstrate key aspects of safe patient care and teach students how to respond to emergency situations.      

TSON’s Learning/Simulation Center is currently equipped with 23 high, medium and low-tech patient simulators.

Seven are high-fidelity computer-operated mannequins that have heartbeats, can breathe, talk, sweat and simulate a wide range of medical conditions and responses to treatment. Two are birthing simulators that can simulate the birth of a baby and the complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Also featured in the lab are part-task simulation trainers. These are smaller simulation pieces of equipment that mimic specific parts of the human body. They are used to practice delicate procedures, such as intravenous therapy, urinary catheterization and colostomy care. 

“The benefits of using the mannequins for teaching are many,” Donna Penn, Dean of the Trinitas School of Nursing, says. “The students practice skills and techniques. They also learn how to communicate, problem-solve, and engage in critical thinking—all in a very safe and controlled environment. The mannequins provide an interactive environment that permits hands-on experience where students can make mistakes and learn and grow from them.” 

Assistant Deans Monina Franco-Tantuico and Rose Santee explain that the mannequins also allow students to reflect and think back on what they did right or wrong, and change their behavior as needed. The devices also allow teachers to create scenarios that students will hopefully never see, but if and when they do, they will have received training on how to react. 

“It is a very effective and modern way to teach,” says Franco-Tantuico. 

“It makes all of us think more, and it keeps us all on our toes,” adds Santee.

The Learning/Simulation Center also includes a digital audio-visual system that transmits and records situations in a simulated environment to facilitate learning. Control rooms for the simulation area permit instructors and computer specialists to remotely operate the mannequins. An adjacent debriefing room enables instructors and students to review the video recording of the simulated scenario and engage in a reflective discussion of what occurred during that simulation. The Learning/Simulation Center is just one more example of how TSON continues to enhance students’ learning environment and promote professional growth. 

The school’s commitment to excellence is continually recognized and rewarded. TSON was yet again designated as a National League for Nursing Center of Excellence (COE) for 2015-2020 in the category of “Creating Environments that Enhance Student Learning and Professional Development.” This marks the third consecutive COE designation in this category since 2008. 

Editor’s Note: The TSON’s Learning/Simulation Center has been filmed by The National League for Nursing, the premier organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education.

Trinitas launches a new telehealth initiative. 

By Ghilianie Soto 

In the healthcare business, it’s all about follow-up. Heading into 2017, Trinitas established Project ECHO to build on the successes of Crisis Assessment Response and Enhanced Services (CARES) and Statewide Clinical Outreach Program for the Elderly (S-COPE)—two of its most innovative outreach initiatives. CARES, a statewide funded program by the NJ Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services, is a crisis response team for community dwelling adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and co-occurring mental health and behavioral disorders. S-COPE provides a similar service to older adults in long-term care. The monitoring, coaching and regional training offered by the CARES and S-COPE teams were strictly on-site.

Project ECHO extends these vital offerings via the Internet.

Project ECHO—which stands for  Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes—uses virtual conferencing via a platform called Zoom to hold sessions with guests and partners, including group homes, day programs, hospitals, nursing homes, and clinicians who manage cases for CARES and S-SCOPE. Partners can participate via smartphone, laptop, desktop or tablet. Family members of an individual diagnosed with behavioral health issues can also submit cases for review by Project ECHO experts

“Our motto is ‘Move the right knowledge to the right place and to the right people,’” says Lucille Esralew, Ph.D., Clinical Administrator of CARES and S-COPE, who oversees Project ECHO. “Instead of transporting individuals with complex needs long distances to specialists, we can now provide specialty consultation at the primary point of care. Partners can essentially conference in from the comfort of their own homes if they so choose.” 

The aim of Project ECHO is to equip providers, families, and clinicians with best-practice approaches to serve individuals with complex problems. Where extreme solutions are often offered by an agency or provider that could potentially be more detrimental to the overall mental health of a client, Project ECHO provides a space to fully review the case and offer alternative solutions with the client’s best interest. Project ECHO also serves as a tool to train community providers, facility providers as well as students in social work, nursing, psychiatry, professional counseling and psychology. 

Each Project ECHO session includes two case presentations and a brief exercise or didactic on a related topic. All client information is kept confidential. The sessions last approximately 1.5 hours and consist of an inter-professional team known as “The Hub.” The Hub of the Project ECHO team includes psychologists, advanced practice nurses (APNs), social workers, behaviorists and professional counselors. The client never appears during the session, nor are the sessions intended to be a method for delivering treatment. The intent is to increase the number of professionals involved in providing care and services to a particular client

Project ECHO was originally developed in 2003 by Sanjeev Arora, MD, and his team at the University of New Mexico. The program was initially designed to train and mentor local providers in rural New Mexico in the care of HIV patients due to the scarcity of specialists and the difficulty in accessing specialty care. Dr. Esralew—along with several Trinitas staff members including Leone Murphy, APN (S-COPE), Bonny Uchenna Life (CARES), Phil Caruso LPC (CARES), and Mobin Chadha (LCSW)—attended a five-day training session in Albuquerque in late 2015.  

Project ECHO sessions are held twice a month for S-COPE and CARES, and are broadcast out of Trinitas’ New Point Campus in Elizabeth. Another specialty project involving developmental disabilities and dementia was recently added. This program is funded by an HRSA Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Project, through which Trinitas partners with Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Although Project ECHO’s telehealth format is used worldwide, current applications and resources for behavioral health with vulnerable adults remain limited in New Jersey. While some parts of the state are heavily populated—with competent psychiatrists and behavioral health experts—other areas are in real need of critical guidance. 

“There will never be enough specialists, but we can train and incentivize those who do exist,” explains Dr. Esralew. “There has to be a mechanism that matches the needs of each client with a provider in order to make changes to the system of care for these individuals.”

With over 1,000 cases seen by CARES in the state of New Jersey in 2016, Project ECHO is poised to make a profound difference in a lot of lives in 2017.  

 

For more information on Project ECHO contact:

Mobin Chadha, LCSW

Clinical Coordinator, S-COPE mchadha@trinitas.org

For more information on CARES  call 1-888-393-3007. For information on  S-COPE call 1-855-718-2699.

 

What happened to the domestic robot revolution?

By Mark Stewart 

A decade ago, Bill Gates made a bold prediction to readers of Scientific American. The visionary billionaire heralded the coming of a revolution in domestic robotics, writing that they could have “just as profound an impact on the way we work, communicate, learn and entertain ourselves” as the PC. Some time in the relatively near future, he believed, the typical American household would feature robots that clean the home, prepare food, do the laundry, dispense medicine, mow the lawn, provide security and drive the family car.     

Fast-forward to 2017. The future of robotic “home helpers” is moving at a Roomba-like pace.  

Ah, Roomba. Admit it, back when the autonomous vacuum cleaner debuted in the early 2000s, you envisioned a not-too-distant future populated by droids that relieved your family of the dreaded Three D’s: dull, dirty and dangerous. You know, the stuff you’re already willing to pay someone else to do. Americans did buy something like 10 million Roombas and, over the years, new models became smarter and more reliable. But honestly, is this where we thought we’d be at this point?  

The main obstacle to the long-promised domestic robot revolution has been money. The developers who should be creating game-changing household helpers have been focusing their talents on industrial and military applications. Why? Because that’s who’s paying good money for the technology. These are customers that have calculated a return on investment and given robot manufacturers lucrative contracts that guarantee a high degree of economic certainty. 

How much would you pay to have a gleaming, capable, intelligent, articulate C3PO shuffle into your life? What would your neighbor pay? What would your mom or dad pay? This is the problem; no one can really answer these questions yet. Right now, the job of creating a truly functional I Robot-style household helper is too big, too complicated and too expensive. Churning these units out in sufficient numbers to make them affordable would seem unfeasible for decades to come. For that to happen, robots would have to get a lot more effective when it comes to relating to humans, and someone would have to make a huge investment to accelerate this process.

ENTER ELON

Neither point, it turns out, is a deal-killer. Futurists and technology experts agree that performing mundane household chores happens to be a great proving ground for the next generation of robots, not just domestic ones. For example, an ironing robot recently developed at

Columbia University had to overcome two obstacles: understand how much pressure to apply to a garment and recognize wrinkles. Both tasks relied on extremely advanced scanning and sensing technologies—the kind that would absolutely have to be a part of any household robot. These technologies, in turn, would be needed in the development of robots that would one day replace highly skilled, highly paid workers who do exhausting or dangerous jobs. So the incentive is there to chase after the domestic market as a sort of stepping stone to bigger and better things.

These types of advances ultimately rely on the great leaps in artificial intelligence (AI). For visionaries like Elon Musk (above), those leaps can’t come soon enough. The man behind Tesla, SpaceX and other high-profile ventures is now devoting his considerable resources to accelerating artificial intelligence in ways that will push the robot revolution forward. He is one of several tech giants bankrolling a non-profit company called OpenAI (openai.com), which has established the near-term goal of making a domestic robot. 

According to the company’s web site, OpenAI is “working to enable a physical robot (off-the-shelf; not manufactured by OpenAI) to perform basic housework. There are existing techniques for specific tasks, but we believe that learning algorithms can eventually be made reliable enough to create a general-purpose robot. More generally, robotics is a good test bed for many challenges in AI.” Musk sees robots as instruments of positive change that will benefit humanity rather than harm it. This, he believes, can be accomplished by freely collaborating with other institutions and developers, and making its patents and its research open to the public

So, you ask, when will my Roomba masseuse be ready to lay its robotic hands on me?

Not so fast. Giving robots the level of AI required to administer a deep-tissue massage is not something we should do without considering the possible consequences. Stephen Hawking, for one, believes that bestowing the ability to learn on machines will lead to the ability to re-design themselves. That ability, he maintains, poses an existential threat to humanity, because this will happen at an ever-increasing rate until robots decide that humans are an unnecessary annoyance. Imagine a worldwide web of domestic robots that suddenly decide we’re not worth keeping alive anymore. Musk and his co-investors happen to share this apocalyptic vision of robots gone wrong. They believe that the openness of OpenAI is the best safeguard at this point

ON THE MARKET

What’s out there now? The fact is, a typical household could conceivably own a half-dozen or more robots right now. The Roomba is one of a number of devices that do things as well (or almost as well) as an unskilled human. In this EDGE issue, in fact, we feature two in our gift pages: a robot gutter cleaner and a robot kitty litter cleaner. The advantages of the litter cleaner should be obvious to anyone with a cat. It senses when a feline is finished and scoops its waste into a drawer in the base with a carbon filter to cut down on the odor. It’s a robot in a very basic sense, in that it relieves humans of sifting and scooping. The gutter cleaner is a more specialized item that still requires its owner to climb a ladder in order to turn it loose. It then buzzes along, dislodging and ejecting leaves and debris. Anyone who owns these items almost instantly realizes what the truly ”robotic” versions might one day do: deposit the cat waste

in the garbage, and levitate in and out of gutters without the use of a ladder. The AI involved in these advances is formidable, to say the least.

Right now the household robots that enjoy the most success tend to be outside-the-home devices, such as robotic pool cleaners and lawn mowers. Pool-cleaning robots work like relentless miniature tanks, crawling along the pool bottom and sides, power-washing and suctioning. Solar-powered robotic pool skimmers have also become popular. The same companies that produced “automatic” pool cleaners have all added AI to their units, jumping on the robotic bandwagon. 

Several companies now make robotic lawnmowers. They operate cordlessly, much as a Roomba would. Most models run automatically, on a schedule the owner determines. There is an advantage here because two or three “touch-ups” instead of a big cut allows the trimmings to work their way back into the soil instead of turning brown under the sun. The mowers require an invisible dog fence-like wire to be installed around the perimeter of your property, but after that it’s pretty much a set-it/forget-it operation. If they miss a few spots (which they almost invariably do) a few whacks with a string trimmer and you’re done. A good robo-mower will run you upwards of $1,000 and possibly upwards of $2,000. That’s the one-season cost for a good lawn service, so these machines do pay for themselves.

INSIDE JOB

For most people, the first foray into household robotics tends to be an exterior product—a pool cleaner or lawnmower, for example. Is it because we want robots to “prove themselves” on the other side of a thick wall before we invite them into our homes? Certainly, the issue of human trust is a key component of the domestic robot revolution, and at the moment we don’t really trust them enough to invite them into a more intimate relationship. That may change soon, because AI is all around us—monitoring our likes and dislikes, anticipating our interests and desires, and creating a comfort level that will serve as a gateway to human-robot partnerships inside our kitchens, bathrooms, and wherever else we want to save time and avoid drudgery.

What are the folks behind the domestic robot revolution doing to get us to that point?

First and foremost, they are focused on interaction. Domestic robots need an interface that is both engaging and comfortable. Some important groundwork has been laid by Apple with Siri and Amazon with Echo, its intelligent personal assistant. As much as humans like to think that we are “teaching” these technologies to work with us, we really are the ones being taught. The other piece of the interaction puzzle is the development of AI with which we don’t have to interact. The more household devices learn about who we are, what we’d like them to do—and how and when we’d like them to do it—the better. No one enjoys having to remind a spouse or housemate to do something over and over again. We’ll be even less enthusiastic if we have to tell a machine the same thing more than once or twice. We’ll want our domestic robots to be subservient and respectful of our precious time.

In terms of a domestic robot’s appearance, the jury seems to be out. Do we want to share our living space with a humanoid machine? Those who say yes are probably looking for an element of companionship in a robot. Which is absolutely okay. Those who say no recognize that a domestic robot in a human package would likely encounter a number of physical obstacles and be a lot more expensive that something more utilitarian. One that looks more like an “appliance” and less like a person will be just fine. I believe that household robots are more likely to take the form of beloved droids in popular culture—maybe Rosie

on The Jetsons or R2D2 from Star Wars or Sonny in the aforementioned I Robot

If and when we do develop the technology to give our robots human bodies—both inside and out—it strikes me that they would quickly become a lot more than mere domestic workers. Think about it. They would look and sound like humans. They would be smarter, kinder and more intuitive than people, too. If they cook, clean, shop, drive and do home repairs well, doesn’t that make them domestic partners? If my wife found someone who could do and be all those things, she’d leave me at the nearest jughandle. I pity the fellows who’ll have to compete with robot suitors a couple of generations from now.

There is a final consideration where humanoid domestic robots are concerned. 

Should we actually get to the point where our robotic helpers do look and function like Sonny, why would we keep them cooped up in the house? We’d want to show them off, right? In fact, assuming they were intelligent enough and mobile enough, wouldn’t we expect them to function as our surrogates, doing all the boring stuff we don’t want to do? Perhaps even our jobs? 

You can see why futurists believe there is a slippery slope to fully autonomous androids. At some point, household robots would just find us to be a nuisance. And instead of us hitting the power-down button on them, they might be pulling the plug on us

UNTETHERED

Not surprisingly, the good people at the U.S. Department of Defense are keeping an eye on the domestic robot revolution. As a matter of fact, they have also gotten in on the fun. In 2015, the Defense Department held a Robot Challenge with a $2 million first prize. Twenty-three companies entered the competition, which required an “untethered” robot to complete eight tasks that mimicked activities of the first responders to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A Korean robot won. It was one of only two to complete all eight tasks, including walking across rubble, climbing steps, opening a door and driving a car. 

 

The future of eating well is right under our feet. 

By Yolanda Navarra 

Everyone used to say my grandmother should have opened a restaurant.

Instead, she married a man with an eight-acre apple orchard and evergreen farm in Holmdel, where he also grew organic vegetables, fruits and flowers. The farm was a magical place and their marriage—farmer and chef—made their house a farm-to-table paradise for me. Whenever she called, I’d squint my little eyes and hold my breath, hoping, for a dinner invitation, which was usually a creative feast of whatever she’d collected from the farm that morning. The first time I ever tasted a Jerusalem artichoke, I was an 11-year-old who couldn’t get enough of unusual flavors. I lived for them. I’ve never forgotten the smell of spices in the kitchen or picking apples from trees, and looking out at the land wondering what might be ready to harvest. All these years later, the flavor of that first Jerusalem artichoke is still on the tip of my tongue.

A New Jersey upbringing doesn’t make me a foodie any more than being hungry for just-picked produce makes me a farmer. Yet with the thousands of farms—and farmers markets and farm-to-table restaurants—dotting the Garden State, I am hardly alone in my obsession for eating local.

The state’s official website celebrates the fact that New Jersey continues to live up to its nickname. Our farmers are producing quality crops. While food and agriculture is our third largest industry, New Jersey ranks highest in the production of cranberries, spinach, bell peppers, blueberries and peaches. We also raise famously delicious Jersey tomatoes, corn, apples, strawberries, potatoes, hay, soybeans and nursery stock. Jersey Fresh, a 33-year-old program sponsored by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to educate consumers about the state’s crops, reports that our farmers grow more than 100 varieties of produce and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of specialty crops. As of 2015, we have 9,100 farms spread out over 715,000 acres of land that generated $1.02 billion in sales the previous year

Rachel J. Weston, chef and author of New Jersey Fresh: Four Seasons from Farm to Table, (the subject of a 2015 EDGE story), says, “If you haven’t eaten corn harvested that same morning, strawberries still warm from the sun or tomatoes just brought in from the field; you haven’t experienced the bounty of the Garden State…[and] when farmers and chefs collaborate together on showcasing Jersey Fresh products in a meal the results are memorable.”

Weston recommends preserving summer and fall produce for winter by making jars of jams, pickles, chutneys, salsas and tomatoes that will be ready to go even if the ground is frozen. In fact, her freezer is stocked with local berries, peaches, pesto and eggplant. Winter finds her cooking with storage crops, including potatoes, carrots and winter squash. She also can’t resist shopping at farmers markets for various mushroom varieties, which are grown in climate-controlled greenhouses

“I supplement a bit from the grocery store,” she concedes, “but with some planning and creativity, it is possible to eat well year-round.”

But it’s not only about the food; Weston also enjoys the personal connection. “Shopping directly from farmers and through a season-long C.S.A. (Community Supported Agriculture, aka “farm share”) program or a visit to a roadside stand provides the opportunity to meet the people who grow our food, learn how it is grown and the opportunity to have fresher, more flavorful options, while supporting our local economy.

FARM TO MARKET

There’s an inherent magic and entertainment value to shopping at a farmers market that the average grocery store can’t offer—coupled with the freshness and immediacy of the food and where it was born. Farmers markets typically offer more than just produce. Eggs, cheese, meats, breads, grain, mushrooms, wine, honey and more are all part of New Jersey’s agricultural output

“I’m a big believer in you get what you pay for…and when you shop at a farmers market, you get the relationship built into that price,” says Chris Cirkus, who manages the West Windsor Community Farmers Market, and also works part-time at the New Jersey Department of Agriculture as the Farm-to-School Assistant Coordinator. Unlike a chain grocer, she adds, farmers market products are competitively priced: “Folks are very mindful of what they can spend on groceries, so we really focus the market on those offerings.” Cirkus also volunteers at Greenwood Ave. Farmers’ Market in Trenton—which was created for food access and health services and is run by the Trenton YMCA—and consults for the 31 & Main Farmers Market at Campus Town, in front of The College of New Jersey

New Jersey is home to more than 150 farmers markets. Each market is a separate entity; therefore no two are created equal. They can vary in their number of vendors and have their own rules. For instance, some may prohibit anyone other than farmers themselves from vending; in other words, no distributors are allowed. Others prohibit the sale of non-food items. It all depends on the shared vision of the organizers, who can be anyone from community members to townships to businesses.

The West Windsor market, a non-profit organization, began in 2004 and is run by community members. In spite of the township’s support, they operate independently. The market currently features around a dozen vendors, including bakers who use local flours and fruit; a pasta maker who uses local grain and vegetables; ketchup and sauces made with New Jersey tomatoes; jams sourced from local fruit; pickles, and pickled vegetables made with New Jersey vegetables. Two food trucks offer breakfast and lunch using local meat, eggs, and vegetables

The great equalizer is the good intention. Ideally, each market exists to support the community that hosts it. The markets that fail often lack either support, passion, or both. Not every town should have a farmers market, Cirkus says. It depends upon, among other things, what farm stands are nearby.

“Farmers markets don’t typically allow distributors; that’s the point,” she says. “It’s about creating community, engaging with the folks who grow, raise and produce the food.

“It all comes back to the farmers for us, and how we can ultimately highlight them across the entire marketplace. There are statistics about shopping locally and the percentage of a dollar that stays in the local economy when supporting small farms and business. I think it is something like two-thirds of each dollar. If that’s not enough of an incentive to shop at your local farmers market, perhaps the relationship with the farmer or vendor who grew, raised or produced that food is.”

FARM TO TABLE

Can you imagine a world where diners cared about the origin of their food? I can, and I love what that looks like. Farm-to-table establishments would be commonplace and restaurateurs would embody the farm-to-table lifestyle. Farm-to-table would no longer be a movement. It would be a fact of life. 

Jim Nawn, owner of the Fenwick Hospitality Group, which produces The Dinky Bar & Kitchen, Main Street Catering & Events, Cargot Brasserie (opening this spring) and Agricola Eatery (agricola is the Latin word for “farmer”), developed 112 acres of farmland in Skillman known as Great Road Farm to supply seasonal, sustainable, antibiotic-free ingredients—including more than 120 vegetable varieties. They have been certified organic for the past two years. “I believe our number-one goal is great-tasting food,” says Nawn, who formerly owned and operated 37 Panera Bread franchises in North Jersey. “I also believe that local and organic produce leads to optimal taste, when we can grow in our limited growing season and in balance with costs .” 

A similar blueprint for success can be found in Cape May, where Curtis Bashaw (above) is co-managing partner of the Cape Resorts Group, which relies on Beach Plum Farm to supply food for the group’s establishments: The Ebbitt Room, Blue Pig Tavern, Rusty Nail, Boiler Room, Exit Zero Cookhouse and Louisa’s Café, all of which are within two miles of the farm. “We bought this farm with the vision of growing food for our restaurants in Cape May,” Bashaw says. “People love to get in touch with where their food comes from and with the natural setting here, just a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.”

The eight-year-old, 62-acre farm supplies most of the produce for all the restaurants, including more than 100 fruit and vegetable varieties, herbs and flowers. Beach Plum Farm even has a kitchen that serves salads, sandwiches and fresh juices. In this case, fresh is synonymous with extraordinary flavor, says Bashaw. “You cut the asparagus at 6:00 in the morning and you are eating it in a salad in the Blue Pig Tavern by lunchtime. That’s pretty fresh. The flavors just pop in a way most people aren’t accustomed to.”

Chef David C. Felton of Ninety Acres relishes what was once his young chef’s dream of having a farm so near to the table, which has become part of his daily mission. Ninety Acres is yet another farm-to-table gem, located in Peapack-Gladstone. Set on sprawling Natirar, the 90-acre portion of a larger property that once belonged to King Hassan II of Morocco, it now has a farm that feeds the restaurant. About 250 chickens supply fresh eggs. Berkshire/Duroc pigs lend to the farm’s sustainability by gobbling up the pre-plate cooking scraps from the restaurant, while sheep graze their way through the cover crops. For composting, the litter from the sheep and pigs are consumed for vital nitrogen, as well as food scraps and non-toxic wood chips and leaves from a nearby county park.

Felton can imagine a more food-conscious existence, too: “I think we’d revert back to a simpler time, when food was more precious and neighbors were more civilized. People used to grow their own food, or knew the people that grew it for them. There was a shared concern for quality ingredients that could feed not just a family, but a community. If everyone cared about their food’s origin, I think personal connections would be strengthened. There would be more communal dining with real conversation, rather than chatter with emoticons.”

Eric LeVine (above right) is among the growing number of New Jersey chefs who rely on local growers for the bulk of their ingredients—which in turn influences their menu offerings. LeVine, chef and partner at Morris Tap and Grill in Morristown and Paragon Tap and Table in Clark, says he is inspired by nature. “Our menu rotates seasonally,” he explains, “so we focus on spring/summer and fall/winter. We change things depending upon what the farmers have to offer and take advantage of what’s available. For example, when corn is at its peak, we’ll grab a couple of  bushels and use them in a dish like corn salad or corn risotto.”

The winner of Food Network’s Chopped in 2011, LeVine has partnered with Happy Harvest Hydro Farms in Denville for his supply of greens. Its method of hydroponic farming is a soil-free, insect-free and completely non-toxic approach to growing. He buys other produce from the century-old Donaldson Farms in Hackettstown. What’s most important is getting the right products without going too far afield, LeVine points out: “We source local poultry from a hormone- and cage-free farm in Pennsylvania. All of our fish and meats are from sustainable farms.”

Driven by what he calls an “insane passion,” LeVine has worked in the food industry for the past 37 years. At times, he’s experienced the challenges of scoring enough of the consistently high-quality food he needs to run his businesses. “It’s tough at times because all you want to do is help farmers with their products, but it’s a balancing act.”

Consider the fact that a patron may ask for a slice of tomato on his burger in the off-season. LeVine says, “If the American palate didn’t always demand it, I’d never offer tomatoes this time of year!”

 

 

WHAT’S IN A (NICK)NAME?

The nickname on your license plate dates back to a speech delivered at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Abraham Browning (below) of Camden described New Jersey  as a “Garden State”—an immense barrel filled with good things to eat and open at both ends. Benjamin Franklin made a similar observation decades earlier. 

 

 

 

 

JERSEY TOMATOES

New Jersey farmers have been growing tomatoes since the 1920s. Now, there are hundreds of varieties. But the quintessential Jersey tomato, the Rutgers 250 (named for Rutgers University’s 250th anniversary), is considered delicious enough to bite into like a piece of fruit so the sweet juice drips down your chin. Rutgers tomatoes, among the most popular Jersey varieties, were once commercially grown specifically for canning—think Campbell’s Soup in Camden. The seeds can still be purchased for growing in your own garden.

 

Editor’s Note: Eric LeVine demonstrates his commitment to sustainability, his community and his customers through education. Look for classes this spring and summer on farm-to-mouth cooking on his website, www.chefericlevine.com.

 

“There’s a new chef in town…Christopher Albrecht, a protégé of Tom Colicchio…and his is the ultimate farm-to-table future.”

By Andy Clurfeld

THE RYLAND INN

115 Old Highway 28, Whitehouse Station

Phone: (908) 534.4011

Reservations recommended. Major credit cards accepted. Open from 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for Sunday brunch and from 4 to 8 p.m. for Sunday dinner. Prices: Snacks and cheese: $6 to $21. Appetizers: $13 to $22. Entrees: $22 to $54. Side dishes: $9. Desserts: $12. Five-course tasting menu: $75; $120 with wine pairings; five-course vegetarian tasting menu: $65; $110 with wine pairings.

The Ryland Inn is a grand old gal. She sits on a sidecar to Route 28 in Whitehouse Station, set back from the bustle of the highway and possessing an elegance that only the most effective facelifts can provide. Oh, she’s had work done, of that you are sure. Yet if you remember her from the old days—say, back in the 1970’s—when pioneers to this once-agrarian part of Hunterdon County used to congregate at the bar, you’ll feel at once at home with your memories and in awe of the rejuvenating renovations. 

Ryland had a rebirth in the 1990’s courtesy of Craig Shelton, a chef who brought it four-star fame and, eventually, a James Beard Award. The kitchen has been manned by a Who’s Who of Garden State chefs (James Laird and Anthony Bucco, to name a couple) and visited by luminaries of all stripes: Ronald Reagan dined there, as did the food cognoscenti from Gourmet, who put Shelton on the cover of the magazine in October 1997.

Flash forward to now: There’s a new chef in town, and his is the ultimate farm-to-table future. Christopher Albrecht, a protégé of Jersey son and “Top Chef” star Tom Colicchio, is the definition of the chef-of-today. Albrecht talks soil before he talks anything else in the culinary processes. “The most flavorful bounty any garden or farm produces is not an accident,” the chef says in literature presented with the check to every table at Ryland. “It’s a direct reflection of the condition of the soil.”

Ryland has its own farm and Albrecht, best known from his years at Eno Terra in Kingston, also plucks primo ingredients from more than 20 regional farms, food purveyors and producers to make up his evolving tasting menus, a la carte bill of fare and nightly specials. 

Albrecht merges ingredients of the micro-seasonal moment with simplicity of presentation, function driving flourish—such as the pop of crunch the deep-rose pomegranate seeds give the pitch-perfect thin slices of opa supported by tiny leaves of cilantro and celery, sour-slightly sweet grapefruit in a “snack” of crudo. There is the best dish of the night, a cauliflower-and-mushroom cassoulet, which we begged a portion of from the vegetarian tasting menu. It’s not-pretty brown-and-beige, but it is pure soul food, with flageolets and black-eyed peas providing the base, fennel and leeks the counterpoints, and the starring vegetables the binding flavors.

The tortellini stuffed with a trio of pulled game meats—duck, rabbit and pheasant—suffers from tough, hard-in-parts pasta. However, the smoked game broth, streaked with shards of ricotta and shreds of Swiss chard, is so divine, I lift the bowl to my lips to drink down every ounce. But someone on the line didn’t watch the pot as the tortellini boiled!

A special of quail stuffed with raisin bread, olives and fennel was stunningly salty, both in its breast meat and the skin of the bird. The red corn grits that support the sweet Nantucket bay scallops taste, well, gritty, but when you connect the grits to the scallops with the grilled radicchio, a light bulb goes off. The bitterness of the radicchio, soothed by the red wine reduction and the richness of bone marrow, bridges shellfish and grain. It works. You eat, and you eat more.

Talk about bridges: Fat pappardelle, fortified by squid ink and midnight black, is given the all-luxe treatment with a Bolognese of venison, the warmth of chocolate and the infusing heat of Aleppo pepper. It’s another eat/eat more dish. I didn’t feel similarly about the braised and roasted beef duo, with torpedo-shape onions sitting atop the shredded meat and a thick oval of textbook medium-rare beef standing solo on the plate astride the potato-Swiss chard gratin. All good, fine enough, but the heartstrings felt no tug.

If we saw another charcuterie board pass by, we were going to pitch a fit. Instead, we interrupted the dinner’s flow by ordering one. There’s not just the de rigueur salumi on board, but a riveting chicken-liver mousse and a classic French rolled paté that defines melt-in-mouth sensibilities.

If you’ve never experienced viognier in its Condrieu incarnation with paté, do so here: Though Ryland’s wine list needs to pay better attention to Albrecht’s predilections for sauces, seasonings and spices, the 2011 Domaine Faury Condrieu is a bottle that can take you through the charcuteries and many, many dishes here. 

The kitchen needs to take another pass at its maple flan dessert. The flan, thick, pasty and not maple-y, tasted like canned pumpkin pie filling. Its accompanying citrus salad, spiked with Earl Grey, sported unripe segments of grapefruit, while the funnel cake (which looked, oddly, like a fried soft-shell crab) was heavy with batter and oily. And the oval scoop of whipped cream was overwhelmed by cinnamon. In another finale, the chocolate trio, the chocolate-caramel tart was afflicted with un-dissolved sugar and mighty grainy, a flaw neither the hot chocolate nor the icy semifreddo could mitigate.

So we have Ryland past, Ryland of a rebirth era and, now, Ryland looking ahead. With Albrecht, this nationally known landmark has the right stuff for a bright future.

It’s up to the folks who brought The Ryland Inn to its present, owners Jeanne and Frank Cretella, to let this chef hold sway.  

SUPPORT SYSTEM 

I wondered if Albrecht was getting the proper support in the kitchen with a couple of dishes (quail over-salted, tortellini undercooked). On the whole, the dishes are well-conceived. But, is there a notch that’s not yet been kicked up? I think so.

Ryland deserves, Albrecht deserves and diners deserve service that is head-and-shoulders above the crew on the floor of these stately dining rooms. The front-of-the-house staff needs a crash course in propriety and how to serve in a fine-dining setting. 

This isn’t about a miscue here and there, but across-the-board fundamentals. Information about specific ingredients in dishes is given incorrectly, knowledge about beverages (particularly wine) is lacking, and basic tableside etiquette ignored, with diners’ conversation routinely interrupted and the practice of being watchful from a discreet distance seemingly not taught.

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

 

Paragon Tap & Table • Homemade Italian Sausage with Herb Risotto and Heirloom Tomatoes

77 Central Ave. • CLARK

(732) 931-1776 • paragonnj.com

I have created a hearty dish that represents the Craft Experience that Paragon Tap & Table is known for. My winter menu also features street fair tacos, steamed selection, award-winning burgers and of course creative and seasonal large plate entrees. 

— 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 • Grilled Oyster

860 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-7888 • daimatsusushibar.com

Fresh jumbo Pacific oyster grilled with homemade miso sauce, fried northern puffer fish marinated in light ginger soy coated in potato starch, with deep-fried crunchy veggie on the side.

— Momo, Chef

 

Publick House •   Publick House Rigatoni 

899 Mountain Ave. • MOUNTAINSIDE

(908) 233-2355 • publickhousenj.com

It’s cold outside and our rigatoni pasta with braised short ribs is the perfect entree to warm up to. Short ribs are a labor of love, but seeing the customer’s face light up after the first bite makes the process worth it. The rigatoni and short rib are enhanced with sautéed kale and stewed tomatoes, and finished with creamy, herbed ricotta.  

— Bernie Goncalves, Owner

 

Luciano’s Ristorante & Lounge • House Made Mafalda Pasta Inverno Style

1579 Main Street • RAHWAY

(732) 815-1200 • lucianosristorante.com

Our goal is to give our guests a pleasurable dining experience, with fresh ingredients and personable service in a beautiful Tuscan décor complete with fireplaces. Our house-made Mafalda pasta features slow-braised artichoke crowns, cipollini onions and oven-dried tomatoes in a saffron cream broth. Luciano’s is available for dining and private parties of all types.

— Joseph Mastrella, Executive Chef/Partner

 

Costa’s Italian Ristorante & Catering • Paglia Fieno Mimosa

120 Chestnut Street • ROSELLE PARK

(908) 241-1131 • costasitalianrestaurant.com

Our Paglia Fieno Mimosa features spinach and egg fettuccine in a brandy cream sauce with peas, mushrooms and prosciutto.   

— Nicola & Brian, Hosts

 

Spirit: Social Eatery and Bar • Double Cheddar Infused Burger

250 Morris Ave. • SPRINGFIELD

(973) 258-1600 • mclynns.com

It doesn’t get better then a double cheddar infused burger from the new Spirit: Social Eatery and Bar.  

— Mark Houlker, Chef

 

Arirang Hibachi Steakhouse • Volcano Roll 

23A Nelson Avenue • STATEN ISLAND, NY

(718) 966-9600 • partyonthegrill.com

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

 

Galloping Hill Caterers

Galloping Hill Road and Chestnut Street • UNION

(908) 686-2683 • gallopinghillcaterers.com

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

— George Thomas, Owner

 

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

 

Want to know how your BEST DISH could be featured in our Chef Recommends restaurant guide? 

Call us at 908.994.5138

Laughter may be the best medicine… but in Tinsel Town medicine isn’t always a prescription for laughter.

By Mark Stewart

There is nothing inherently funny about doctors and hospitals. Their business is deadly serious, no pun intended. Perhaps that is why, over the past century, Hollywood has churned out just a handful of feature-length medical comedies—and why the good ones are truly few and far between. Television has had somewhat better luck with this genre. Half-hour sitcom scripts don’t leave room to delve too deeply into the grim reality of trauma and illness, enabling a show like Scrubs to bang out nine successful seasons. Even so, it’s worth noting that the show’s main plot device was to explore the daydreams of Zach Braff’s character, Dr. Dorian. His reality?Not so much.      

The best medical sitcom, by almost any measure, was M*A*S*H*. It lasted 256 episodes over the course of 11 seasons thanks to a superb ensemble cast and a stable of thoroughbred television comedy writers. More than 125 million viewers tuned in for the final episode in 1983. That was before anyone had a DVR and, speaking purely from personal experience, before most folks figured out how to program their VCRs. 

So it should come as no surprise that the film that tops the list of all-time Top 5 medical comedies is that very same anti-war doc-pic. What do the five movies have in common, other than their watch-ability? Not a one actually takes place in a traditional hospital setting. 

Interesting, don’t you think?

1) MASH (1970)

The concept was deliciously brilliant: Use the Korean War to make a biting mainstream satire of the Vietnam War. Director Robert Altman cast some of the top young actors of the day in the now-iconic key roles: Donald Sutherland (Hawkeye), Elliot Gould (Trapper John), Robert Duvall (Major Burns), Tom Skerritt (Duke) and Sally Kellerman (Hot Lips). Their understated performances coupled with the gritty cinematic style of Harold Stine gave this film a gripping reality that made the subversive, anti-authority wit and humor scalpel-sharp. And yet it was silly when it had to be. MASH won the grand prize at Cannes and went on to earn the Golden Globe for Best Picture and five Academy Award nominations, winning an Oscar for Ring Lardner Jr.’s adapted screenplay of Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel. 

Little Known Fact: The lyrics of the movie’s (and TV show’s) theme, “Suicide is Painless,” were written by Mike Altman, the director’s 14-year-old son. Mike made more from the song’s royalties than his dad did for directing the film. 

2) High Anxiety (1977)

After his runaway hits Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks took on suspense thrillers for his next parody, High Anxiety. His character, Dr. Richard Thorndyke, starts a new job as head of the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very Very Nervous. We know something’s not quite right at the Institute when he meets his staff, which includes Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman, two of the great comic kooks. Thorndyke suffers from vertigo, one of many tips of the hat to Alfred Hitchcock, including an unforgettable scene inspired by The Birds. He must overcome his affliction to save his love interest, played by Madeline Kahn. The shower scene from Psycho is also parodied. 

Little Known Fact: Mel Brooks actually worked with Alfred Hitchcock on the screenplay for High Anxiety. After the film was released, Hitchcock sent Brooks a case of 1961 Chateau Haut-Brion. 

3) Nurse Betty (2000)

The charm of this comedy—besides the spot-on performance of Renée Zelweger in the title role—is that it is utterly unpredictable and follows its own rules. That’s a tribute to Neil LaBute, a playwright-turned-director who maximized the skills of an eclectic cast that includes Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock (as ruthless hit men), Aaron Eckhart (as a sleazy car salesman), Allison Janney (as a Hollywood producer) Crispin Glover (as a small-town newspaper reporter), and Greg Kinnear (as a soap opera doctor). After witnessing the murder of her husband, Betty enters a fugue state and becomes a character in her favorite daytime drama, A Reason to Love. Kinnear’s send-up of a shallow, self-absorbed Hollywood actor is priceless. Zelweger won a Golden Globe for her work.

Little Known Fact: Wizard of Oz fans who spotted references to the 1939 film in Nurse Betty weren’t imagining things. Production designer Charles William Breen said he was inspired by the classic movie, and Renée Zelweger clearly channeled Dorothy in her portrayal of Betty.

4) A Day at the Races (1937)

Author Norman Cousins (a New Jerseyan, for what it’s worth) famously cured himself of ankylosing spondylitis with mega doses of vitamin C and a steady diet of Marx Brothers movies and other comedies. A Day at the Races is considered one of the brothers’ best. Standish Sanitarium faces ruin when Mrs. Emily Upjohn, its wealthiest patient, is deemed sane enough to be discharged. Enter Dr. Hugo Hackenbush (Groucho Marx), who is hired as Chief of Staff to personally treat Mrs. Upjohn. Hackenbush is actually a veterinarian, but Harpo and Chico help him escape detection. Meanwhile, the fate of the sanitarium hangs on the performance of a racehorse named Hi-Hat, piloted by Harpo in a wild final ride.

Little Known Fact: Many of the movie’s best scenes—including the classic Tutsi-Fruitsy Ice Cream exchange between Groucho and Chico—were perfected on the Vaudeville stage by the Marx Brothers in the months prior to filming

5) Dr. Dolittle (1998)

Eddie Murphy plays John Dolittle, a San Francisco physician who had the ability to talk to animals as a boy. But that was then and this is now—he’s a family man and partner in a lucrative practice that’s about to be sold for big bucks. A bump on the head restores Dr. Dolittle’s unusual powers, and he begins communicating with a sarcastic dog (voiced by Norm McDonald), a sassy guinea pig (voiced by Chris Rock), a wounded tiger (voiced by Albert Brooks) and a variety of other creatures. The movie got a PG-13 rating for its ceaseless scatological humor, but was marketed by 20th Century Fox as a family film. Among the other voices you’ll recognize are Jenna Elfman, Gilbert Gottfried, John Leguizamo, Julie Kavner, Garry Shandling, Paul Reubens, Ellen DeGeneres and Brian Doyle-Murray.

Little Known Fact: The late-1990s marked the beginning of Eddie Murphy’s transition from movies aimed at adult audiences to family-friendly fare. The Nutty Professor (1996), Dr. Dolittle and Shrek (2001) revived his box office power. In 2007, Murphy won a Golden Globe and was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar for playing R&B star Jimmy Early in Dreamgirls.  EDGE

SHORT STUFF

Two of history’s most uproarious medical comedies were 18-minute “two-reelers” that were screened between the main movie-house features.  Interestingly, both were set in traditional hospitals.

In County Hospital (1932), Stan Laurel plays the all-time worst hospital visitor, arriving in the room of Oliver Hardy, who is in traction with a broken leg. Billy Gilbert, whose mere appearance on the screen generated peals of laughter in the 1920s and ’30s,

plays Ollie’s doctor. He throws them both out after a near-death experience.

If the Three Stooges turn you on, Men in Black (1934) is one of their most important short films. Larry, Moe and Curly play a trio of doctors who graduate from medical school with the “highest temperatures in their class.”  

The boys received their Columbia Pictures lone Oscar nomination for Best Short Comedy for Men In Black, which was meant to be a spoof of Men In White, a serious film starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy.  

NOT THAT BAD

Steve Guttenberg fans will argue that Bad Medicine (1985) should sneak into the Top 5 and they may have a point. Guttenberg plays a slacker who attends medical school in Central America and finds himself—both as a doctor and a solid citizen. The school is run by autocratic Alan Arkin and the students learn more from Marcus Welby reruns than from their professors. A fun movie that was largely ignored at the box office and video rental stores…hey, remember video rental stores?

EDITOR’S NOTE: An unnamed EDGE staff member suggested that Mother, Jugs & Speed be reconsidered as a Top 5 medical comedy for this story. He is no longer permitted to speak at editorial meetings. Mark Stewart has authored two “Top 10” books on film: Ultimate 10 Movie Blockbusters and Ultimate 10 Movie Characters, both in 2009.