10 Minutes with…
Barry H. Ostrowsky
President and Chief Executive Officer, RWJBarnabas Health
Gary S. Horan, FACHE
President and Chief Executive Officer, Trinitas Regional Medical Center

EDGE: As of January 1, Trinitas is now part of the RWJBarnabas Health system. What were some of the boxes that needed to be checked for this to happen?
Horan: Ensuring that we maintained our Catholic mission was of primary importance to us. It has been, and will continue to be, a core component of Trinitas, which remains a Catholic institution with continued oversight by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth. We also looked to partner with an entity that could help us advance our mission of caring for our most vulnerable citizens.
To be successful in the future, we also knew that health systems would have to coordinate care more seamlessly among providers, hospitals and care settings. We believed that we needed to join with an organization that would enable us to continue providing care in our community for years to come—against a backdrop of healthcare trends that disproportionately affect safety-net providers like Trinitas. For instance, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit physicians and nurses as a standalone hospital; they are looking for more variety and better possibilities for advancement—which being part of a larger health system can provide. So, starting about five years ago, we began looking at a number of strategic partners in New York and New Jersey. When we engaged in more meaningful discussions with RWJBarnabas Health, it was evident that they were the partner that we wanted to continue to pursue.
Ostrowsky: There was complete alignment on our goals, and our mission statements are almost identical. That was a very important component of the merger. In our view, nothing needed to change in terms of the strategy and the commitment and the culture. We both focus on taking care of communities and Trinitas does a fabulous job of this. And of course, its clinical services are of the highest quality. We want to take care of more and more of the population of New Jersey in a culturally competent way and, thanks to the addition of Trinitas to the system, we shall.

EDGE: What changes might patients notice on their next visit to the hospital?
Horan: They will notice a branding change, with a new RWJBarnabas Health logo and, through advertising, they will see that they now have access to an entire system of specialists. Conversely, RWJBarnabas customers now have greater access to the things that Trinitas does especially well, such as wound healing.
Ostrowsky: When an organization like Trinitas joins another group of institutions—in our case an integrated system—it needs to get a real advantage. We were in a position to offer that. All of the presumed advantages in terms of clinical and social care are now available in a convenient, seamless way for Trinitas customers. For example, if you need a service that isn’t immediately available on-site at Trinitas, we have it in the system with an easy referral because that “seamlessness” is something that already exists within our system. Also, I should mention that we are an academic-based healthcare system and Trinitas was already teaching clinicians, which means we’ll be able to further expand our academic footprint. So patients may notice more teaching going on.
Horan: Barry mentioned social care. RWJBarnabas has a very significant behavioral health footprint, which made our behavioral program a particularly good fit with theirs.
Ostrowsky: Yes, Trinitas has definitely distinguished itself in this area. Its services are clearly accretive to our clinical success as an organization, which—together with our Rutgers partner—made us probably one of the top three in the United States in terms of the complexity and breadth of our commitment to behavioral health services. The merger adds to that in terms of scale, including the number of beds and clinicians, giving us a very wide and deep platform of social services. If individuals presenting for medical care at Trinitas are vulnerable because of food insecurity or any of the other social determinants, they now have access to a full suite of social programs. We, as a system, are able to mobilize significant resources—including financial, human capital and technology—that may have been outside the grasp of a standalone hospital, as Gary was saying earlier. I don’t like changing things that work. When you look at Trinitas—the results it has produced for the community, the culture of the institution and those who lead it—there is no reason to make any changes, other than ensuring Trinitas has the resources I mentioned to continue to do the job it has done. In terms of leadership at the management level and department-director level, it is such a great group of people. I call Gary Horan a dean of this industry and he is truly that.
Horan: I think Barry and I are both excited about what it means to have our School of Nursing folded into the RWJBarnabas Health system. We graduate 150 to 170 nurses a year at a time when there is a shortage of nursing personnel. Being part of a system offers those graduate nurses an opportunity to stay within the system instead of being scattered all over.
Ostrowsky: We currently have 900 openings in our system for nurses. No graduate from the Trinitas nursing program is going to go unemployed for more than three seconds—we have gotten graduates from this nursing school in the past and if I could do it legally I would insist that every graduate comes to work in our system! But yes, the nursing school is a great asset not just for us but for the entire industry, and we want to see that supported and hopefully expanded. In fact, I have actually discussed with the dean of the school, Roseminda Santee, what it would take to scale up.

EDGE: What other aspects of the merger stand out as “win-win” situations?
Ostrowsky: Trinitas has twelve Centers of Excellence that we will be able to learn from, including a specific focus on cardiac care, oncology, emergency services and, as we discussed earlier, wound care and behavioral health. That will help RWJBarnabas Health to scale several high-growth service lines, such as cardiology, oncology, neurology and orthopedics. I also see us benefiting from existing academic partnerships between Trinitas and Union County College, the College of St. Elizabeth and Kean University.

EDGE: This merger was finalized during a global pandemic. Did COVID impact the process?
Horan: The actual merger process, even during the COVID pandemic, went very smoothly. Obviously, meetings that normally would have taken place in a face-to-face setting were done virtually. But that was not as great an obstacle as it has been in other industries. Also, remember that Trinitas had been through this before, in 2000, when Elizabeth General and St. Elizabeth’s merged to form Trinitas Regional Medical Center. That was very tricky, but it became a model for consolidating a Catholic and non-sectarian hospital. That experience prepared us in some important ways for the merger with RWJBarnabas Health.
Ostrowsky: I think the way the teams came together to plan and execute our merger is a case study that’s worthy of being written up. There was incredible cooperation—a total of around 300 meetings between our staffs—and it shows in the results. Our alignment on the goals and the mission led to effective integration planning and execution. For me, this is a picture of what it looks like when you undertake a transaction like this and do it right.

That year Elizabeth played baseball with the big guys.

Karen Finkelstein

During the winter of 1872–73, Elizabeth caught an expensive case of baseball fever. The sport had long been popular in the city, which had grown to over 20,000 residents in the years after the Civil War. In 1870 and again in 1872, Elizabeth’s amateur baseball club, the Resolutes, had claimed the New Jersey championship. Their main rivals were in Jersey City, Newark and Irvington. The 1872 championship, the result of a 42–9 thumping of the Champion Club of Jersey City—along with rousing victories over some leading professional clubs—convinced supporters of the Resolutes to recruit a lineup of professional players in 1873 and join the National Association, forerunner of today’s National League. This would mark the city’s one and only season in baseball’s big leagues. Their competitors that year included teams from major cities: Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Brooklyn, and Washington, DC.

As insane as it seems to see Elizabeth on that list of “major-league” cities, the enthusiasm heading into the spring of 1873 was not entirely unfounded. Most experts considered the 1872 Resolutes the finest amateur team in the region, if not the nation. But baseball was still a very young sport and few teams had found a way to make the professional game profitable. Even the Boston Red Stockings, the National Association’s pennant-winners in 1872, were thousands of dollars in debt at the end of the year and sent some of their players home for the winter minus a final paycheck. The Resolutes hoped to solve this problem by forming a “cooperative” club. They would pay their expenses and salaries from their portion of each game’s gate receipts, collected from the city’s rabid baseball populace.

NJSports.com

This was a fine idea on paper, but if you were a top player in 1873, would you play for a club that couldn’t guarantee your salary? If you said No way then you’re not alone. The Resolutes were laughed off by nearly every player they approached with this scheme. With no top stars interested in this proposition, the Resolutes cobbled together a roster of players from previous failed cooperative experiments, along with some local journeymen and a few better players who, unfortunately, were known as much for their surly attitudes and fondness for the bottle as their skills on the diamond. Those who did throw in with the club were encouraged by the fact that the team’s catcher, Doug Allison (above), was also the manager. The 26-year-old was the closest thing the Resolutes had to a “star.”

Catcher was the most important position on the field in the 1870s and Allison was one of the first players to move right up behind the batter to receive pitches on a fly instead of on a bounce, inviting the bat to cut through the air just a few inches from his face. A bit like NASCAR fans, Allison’s supporters came to witness his skill and daring, while also recognizing that a bloody accident was potentially just one pitch away. Another notable Resolute was a scary guy named Rynie Wolters, the first professional baseball player born in the Netherlands. Wolters had made a living in the 1860s as a cricket bowler and took up baseball pitching as the fortunes of the latter rose and the former faded. Despite the fact they served as Elizabeth’s opening day battery, Allison and Wolters were not what you’d call team players. They were baseball mercenaries and made no bones about it.

Filling out the lineup were Doug Allison’s brother, Art, along with Eddie Booth and Henry Austin—who formed the Resolute outfield—pitcher Hugh Campbell, and Favel Wordsworth, a shortstop with a name that seemed more appropriate for the stage than the diamond.

More than 500 fans braved chilly late-April temperatures to watch the Resolutes play their first official game, in Philadelphia. Wolters was horrible and they lost to their hosts, the Athletics, 23–5. Wolters stormed off and did not pitch again for Elizabeth, leaving Campbell to shoulder almost the entire pitching load the rest of the year. The Resolutes made a better showing in their second contest, falling to the Baltimore Canaries by an 8–3 margin, this time in front of 300 spectators.

Karen Finkelstein

Three areas of concern that cropped up almost immediately were that 1) the players didn’t seem to be gathering for practice between games, 2) because their home field did not have a dressing room, the player had to change into their uniforms in an Elizabeth rooming house, and 3) for some reason lost to history, the club was not actively advertising the date and location of its games.
Elizabeth was winless in May and, despite logging its first victory—over the Brooklyn Atlantics and their star fielder Bob “Death to Flying Things” Ferguson—barely drew flies for the club’s June meeting with the star-studded Red Stockings. Low attendance not only reduced the Resolutes’ basic operating capital, it also ate into the players’ “co-op” income, the combination of which triggered a slow, agonizing death spiral.

When the Resolutes visited Boston in July, the Red Stockings crunched two games into one day, marking what appears to have been professional baseball’s first doubleheader. The first of those games turned out to be the National Association’s greatest upset, an inexplicable 13–2 win by Elizabeth. The Red Stockings, with four future Hall of Famers in the lineup, woke up and won the second game, 32–3. The great victory in Boston was only the Resolutes’ second of the year and, as it turned out, their last of the season. They finished 2–21 in official league games and folded as a professional organization in August after several key players abandoned ship in search of better paydays.

Though an unqualified failure both on and off the field, the Elizabeth Resolutes were nonetheless a noble attempt to elevate a growing but still-small city to big-city status through sports. It wasn’t the first time civically minded American citizens tried to pull this off, nor would it be the last. The difficulties encountered by the club did, however, bring most sane baseball people to the painful conclusion that cooperative teams could not and should not be a part of the growing professional game. The numbers simply did not work. The good news is that the Resolutes reverted to amateur status and remained one of the state’s better teams for several years.

Elizabeth never lost its appetite for baseball. Its sandlot and high school teams produced more than two dozen professional players over the years—most recently Alex Reyes of the St. Louis Cardinals, who pitched in the 2021 All-Star Game. As for the Resolutes, well, they are still playing—their home field is actually in Rahway River Park—as a vintage baseball club that uses the same rules and equipment the original Resolutes did in the 1870s. The team was conceived by the late Paul Salomone of Westfield and first took the field in 2000.

Editor’s Note: For more information on the Elizabeth Resolutes vintage baseball club, visit their Facebook page.

We are producing a bumper crop of athletes in women’s sports in the Garden State. Do we know who planted those seeds?

New Jersey’s official nickname, The Garden State, first became popular during the 1800s, when New York, Philadelphia and other cities grew ever more dependent on the fruit, vegetables and dairy items produced by our famously fertile soil. Today, there is another export crop you can add to the list: top-notch athletes. We grow them like crazy.

This has been true for decades, of course. As noted elsewhere in this issue, New Jersey has a particular set of circumstances—great population density, strong school programs, healthy income and employment numbers, a terrific road system and, let’s be honest, a little bit of a chip on our shoulders—that constantly recombine to produce talented, successful and occasionally transcendent young men and women who leave their indelible stamp on college, international and professional sports. Okay, now let’s be honest again: The guys hogged the sports spotlight for more than a century here. It’s about time the girls get to share it.

Library of Congress

New Jersey’s explosion in women’s sports programs and participation—from grade school on up—is a relatively recent phenomenon. It was triggered in large part by the passing of Title IX legislation in the 1970s. Title IX was indeed a game-changer. It banned discrimination in higher education, which in turn compelled colleges and universities to support (and often create) women’s sports programs. With a dramatic expansion in college sports teams, the trickle-down effect was that coaches needed star athletes…and New Jersey schools and communities were uniquely structured to feed that need. Which is how we arrived at where we are today. However, giving Title IX the lioness’s share of the credit, as some do, misses a critical point: Today’s athletes stand on the shoulders of the pioneers of their sports—most of whom lived and played decades before Title IX, with some stretching back to the turn of the last century.

Country Club Types

The 1890s are sometimes referred to as the Gilded Age in New Jersey. For sports historians, that decade marked the first flowering of women’s sports in the Garden State. The elite-level athletes of that era tended to be children of means, young ladies who watched their male counterparts play country club sports like golf and tennis—and who wanted in on the action. Of course, they were bucking a cultural norm that had existed for centuries, the understanding that girls with the energy and athleticism to excel in sports should simply find another, more “ladylike” outlet for their talents. Consequently, the first stars of women’s sports in New Jersey weren’t concerned with how they might look to a future husband dripping with sweat. They were winners who possessed a killer instinct. And when the door opened a crack, they simply powered through it.

Pure Golf Auctions

The groundbreakers in tennis included Aline Terry of Princeton, who won the 1893 U.S. singles and doubles championships, and Bessie Moore (right) of Ridgewood, who won a total of six U.S. titles between 1896 and 1905. Terry was a highly mobile and stunningly aggressive player, despite the fact she played at a time when women were expected to wear ankle-length tennis dresses. Moore won by outlasting opponents in long rallies, thanks to her equally good forehand and backhand. She reached her first U.S. singles titles at the age of 16 and, at age 31, was the first-ever U.S. Indoors champion, winning the inaugural tournament held in New York’s Park Avenue Armory. Moore’s great rival was Juliette Atkinson, who was born in Rahway but learned the game growing up in Brooklyn (we’ll take some credit for her as a Jersey Girl anyway). Atkinson combined stamina and strategy to become the nation’s top player in the late-1890s.

Another top player in the early days of tennis was Helen Homans. Growing up in Englewood, she sharpened her skills playing against her older brother, Shep, when she was a young teenager and he was an All-American football star at Princeton (and later a champion tennis player). Homans won the 1905 U.S. singles champion-ship and was a supremely talented doubles player. She married her frequent mixed doubles partner, Marshall McLean, and played at a high level well into her 50s.

Top-flight women’s golf also got its start in the 1890s. For several years before that, New Jersey country clubs set aside certain days for their female members and created a set of tees that were closest to the hole for beginners, juniors and women (though to this day they are somewhat derogatorily known as “ladies” tees). The U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, which is the country’s third-oldest golf tournament, began in 1895 and was held at the Morris County Golf Club in its second year, 1896. The club had been in operation only two years at that point, having been formed as America’s first all-women golf club in 1894. In 1897, the competition moved to the Essex County Country Club in West Orange. Beatrix Hoyt, the granddaughter of Salmon P. Chase—who served as Secretary of the Treasury and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the Abraham Lincoln administration—won both tournaments.

Upper Case Editorial

The biggest name in women’s golf in New Jersey during the 1920s and 1930s was Maureen Orcutt (below), who learned the game as a girl in Englewood. She was runner-up at the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 1927 and won more than 50 titles during her career, including the U.S. Senior crown twice in the 1960s. Orcutt became just the second female sports-writer for The New York Times. In 1946, the former Olympic track star Babe Didrikson Zaharias helped women’s professional golf get off the ground by founding the LPGA Tour. The U.S. Women’s Open came to New Jersey for the first time in 1948 and Babe, age 37, cruised to the title by eight strokes. The tournament returned to New Jersey five more times between 1961 and 2017.

Run Camille Run

While golf and tennis were dominated by the upper crust in New Jersey during the early 20th century, other sports enabled elite athletes to show their stuff regardless of how well-off their families were. The first dual track meet for female athletes was held in 1903 in Montclair and Spalding’s annual guide listed women’s track and field records for the first time in 1904. As social attitudes changed about the value of vigorous exercise for young women, running, jumping and throwing competition became commonplace in New Jersey high schools during the first two decades of the 1900s (although male spectators were often barred from these events).

The 1920s are called the Golden Age of Sports in America and that was certainly true in New Jersey. Women’s softball teams began springing up across the state and bowling became a popular women’s sport after Prohibition kicked in. Prior to that, bowling alleys were allowed to serve alcohol and were basically sports bars for men. When the taps were shut off, bowling alleys courted women to make up for lost income. Competitive swimming also became a popular sport for women, especially along the Jersey Shore. Gertrude Ederle (above), who summered in Highlands, learned to fight off the strong currents of Sandy Hook Bay and developed the endurance she needed to become the first woman to swim the English Channel, in 1926.

Black Book Partners

For nearly two decades prior to the Second World War, New Jersey became a regional hub for men’s and women’s track and field events. The first great homegrown women’s star was Camille Sabie (above), a teen prodigy whose name has, unfortunately, been lost to history. Sabie, a Newark girl, was so explosive in short sprints and hurdles that officials sometimes wondered if there was something wrong with their stopwatches. In 1922, she shattered the world record in the 100-yard hurdles twice in two different meets on back-to-back days. She was picked to compete on America’s first international track team, in Paris, where she broke her own world record twice more, ran the anchor leg for the 440 relay squad and beat all comers in the broad jump. In the fall of 1922, she continued smashing records. At a meet in Newark’s Weequahic Park, 25,000 people showed up to watch her equal the American record in the 100-yard dash and set new world records in the broad jump and 60-yard hurdles. Sabie retired from competition shortly before her 20th birthday and eventually became the beloved Phys. Ed. Teacher at her alma mater, East Side High School in Newark.

In 1923, Newark was selected as the site of the first Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) women’s track and field championships. The meet was won by a team sponsored by Prudential Insurance. In 1931, the AAU championships were held in Newark again and, by the time they were done, a 19-year-old Texan had become a household name. Babe Didrikson (yes, the same “Babe” who would help establish the LPGA 15 years later) won the long jump, broke the U.S. record in the hurdles and won the baseball throw with a distance of 296 feet—a record that apparently still stands. Didrikson’s time in the hurdles was so good that officials held up the meet to measure the track…and found that it was actually more than two feet too long.

Another early New Jersey track star was Paterson’s Eleanor Egg, a sprinter who piled up more than 250 medals and trophies in the 1920s and ’30s—but missed two Olympics due to unfortunately timed injuries. Mae Faggs, the first American woman to compete in three Olympics (1948, ’52 and ’56), was born in Mays Landing and grew up in Queens. Another transplanted New Jersey Olympian was Mary Decker-Slaney, who spent her early years in Hunterdon County before moving to the West Coast in the late-1960s.

New Jersey Gems

Over the ensuing decades, Garden State high schools sent several track and field athletes to top college programs—a process that accelerated dramatically after Title IX legislation was passed. That paved the way for New Jersey Olympians like Joetta Clark of South Orange—who represented the U.S. in four Olympics—and her younger sister, Hazel. At the 2000 Olympic trials, Joetta, Hazel and sister-in-law Jearl Miles-Clark swept the top three spots in the 800 meters final—an all-sisters outcome we are unlikely to see again in any track event. This past summer, Sydney McLaughlin of Dunellen was the talk of the Olympics, setting a new world record in the 400-meter hurdles and also winning gold as a member of the 4 x 400 relay team. All are part of a continuum that stretches back nearly a century to the triumphs of Camille Sabie.

Playing Ball

The breakout sports stars of the 1920s and 1930s laid the foundation for the postwar boom in New Jersey of girls’ and women’s sports participation. Softball, swimming and basketball in particular took off. As mentioned earlier, softball was being played at a high level in the Garden State prior to the war years, particularly in Bergen and Hudson counties. In fact, several players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (made famous in A League of Their Own) came from New Jersey, most notably Dolores Lee of Jersey City, who inspired the scene where Rosie O’Donnell throws two baseballs at the same time. After the AAGPL folded in the mid-1950s, several top stars joined the New Jersey-based Allington All-Stars, a barnstorming club that took on men’s teams all over the country. Their star was Dottie Schroeder, who was played by Gina Davis in the movie. A generation later, girls were getting in on Little League action, starting with Maria Pepe, whose insistence on playing for her Hoboken team in 1972 opened the door to millions of girls who followed.

NJSports.com

Women’s hoops picked up steam in the 1950s and 1960s with the international success of AAU teams and became a full-blown phenomenon in New Jersey during the 1970s, thanks to a confluence of forces: the announcement that women’s basketball would become an Olympic sport in 1976, the advent of Title IX, and the wondrous play of Carol Blazejowski (above). Blazejowski starred for Cranford High and then Montclair College, where she drew huge crowds not only at Montclair but also at Madison Square Garden. She later starred for the New Jersey Gems in the short-lived Women’s Professional Basketball League. Sports Illustrated called her the most relentlessly exciting performer in the history of women’s basketball. One of the co-captains of the aforementioned ’76 Olympic team was Juliene Brazinski Simpson, who developed her skills as a point guard competing against the guys on the playgrounds of Elizabeth and later, in high school, for Benedictine Academy.

One of the early pioneers of women’s basketball was Cathy Cowan of Egg Harbor. She attended West Chester College south of Philadelphia, which had a strong athletic program for women, and ended up being one of the top coaches in the nation during the 1970s. She married NBA referee Ed Rush and later ran basketball camps for girls. One of her counselors was Geno Auriemma, who went on to win multiple NCAA titles as head coach of the UConn Huskies. Another camp counselor was Cheryl Reeve of Washington Township, who coached the Minnesota Lynx to the WNBA title in 2011. The first president of the WNBA, it’s worth noting, was Val Ackerman of Pennington, who starred in college for the University of Virginia. By the 1980s, New Jersey was producing some of the nation’s top players, including Valerie Still of Camden, Adrienne Goodson of Bayonne and Anne Donovan of Ridgewood. Donovan won Olympic gold in 1984 and 1988 as a player, and then as head coach of Team USA in 2008. She also led the Seattle Storm to the WNBA championship in 2004.

New Jersey women began making waves in aquatic sports starting in the 1960s. Lesley Bush, who attended a school in Princeton without a swimming or diving team, found a home at a training center an hour north in Mountain Lakes and made the Olympic diving team in 1964 at age 16. When she stunned the experts by winning gold in Tokyo as a relative unknown in the platform competition, even her parents thought it might be a mistake. Princeton threw a parade for Bush upon her return and many of her classmates—who were let out of school for the day—had no idea it was that Lesley Bush they were going to see. Another teenage swimming prodigy was Ginny Duenkel (right) of West Orange, who also won gold at the 1964 Olympics. Neither her parents nor her coach could afford the airfare to Japan, so she went alone and demolished the world record in the 400-meter freestyle. An earlier gold medalist was Joan Spillane, who began her swimming career in Glen Ridge before moving to Houston. She was a member of the record-setting 1960 freestyle relay team. These swimmers set the stage for modern record-breakers and NCAA champions, including Olympic gold medalists Kelsi Worrell of Westampton Township and Rebecca Soni of Plainsboro.

Gymnastics Hall of Fame

In recent years, gymnastics has made its share of headlines in Garden State newspapers, and there are dozens of first-rate gyms here to get young girls started in the sport. Laurie Hernandez of Old Bridge had something to do with that. She surprised many experts when she finished second behind Simone Biles at the 2016 Olympic Trials, and then won silver in Rio on the balance beam (with Biles taking the bronze). Hernandez also helped the American team win the all-around, becoming the first person born in the 21st century to win Olympic gold. She was the latest star in a Garden State gymnastics tradition that stretched back to the Swiss and German turnvereins of the early 1900s. Along the way, New Jersey produced several elite-level gymnasts, including Irma “Chip” Haubold of Union City (a 1936 Olympian along with her husband, Frank) Helen Schifano of East Orange—America’s top competitor during the 1940s—Roxanne Pierce (right) of Springfield, Alyssa Beckerman of Middletown and Kristen Maloney, who began her career in Hackettstown before moving to Pennsylvania.

There is seemingly no end to the sports that have been impacted by New Jersey women on the national and international levels. They include figure skating, skiing, hockey, cycling, rowing, fencing, bowling, lacrosse, field hockey, all manner of equestrian sports and even professional wrestling. Unfortunately, magazines being what they are, there is only so much one can squeeze in so many pages. The question of who sowed the seeds of women’s sports culture in New Jersey is one that deserves deeper dives and a much more comprehensive answer.

Honestly, you could write a book about it.

What did you say to [director] Pablo Larrain when he first asked you to play Princess Diana in Spencer?
Umm..not No. [laughs] I didn’t have the most developed relationship with her story. I’ve always admired her from afar, but really from an amorphous, unarticulated place. I love Pablo’s work and he was so positive about it. When he described the prospective three days that we were going to examine and kind of fall into, I thought it was a cool way of approaching the thing. Considering she’s an extremely famous person and people think they know a lot about her, it’s so interesting to examine the moments in between, where she’s alone, even though it’s obviously a total work of fiction. I think that’s why we make movies.

What was it like when you knew you’d got Diana’s voice?
I consider my ear to be kind of attuned to things, but I had to completely trust my coach. When we first started on day one, I was like, We can’t work anymore…am I ready? Does it sound good to you? And he was like, Absolutely. It got better as we shot, so I know he was just saying that to give me confidence. There was really not much more he could do. He wasn’t going to be like, Actually, you’re not there.

What was your favorite outfit?
The Chanel couture dress on the bathroom floor, definitely. The one that’s on the poster.

Her walk was so specific and you did it brilliantly. How did you get that?
Thanks, but if you put it side-by-side I don’t think they are exactly the same at all. There is a kind of projection that happens with the audience. You have a few things right and then everyone fills in the blanks for you. She was a little bit lighter than me, taller, a little bit more linear…I wish I had a more interesting answer…I just looked at a lot of pictures.
Did you get the curtsy right away? It’s very subtle.
It’s tiny! People do too much and then fall over. It’s just a tiny head tilt and one foot. It’s harder for women—obviously, only women do it—but women who wear heels, that’s harder. I can do it though [laughs] I’ve got balance!

What were the most challenging scenes for you?
The stuff I couldn’t get ready for, which would be the stuff with the kids, because they are just unruly little animal people [laughs]. The whole thing between all of us needed to be even more real than what I could prescribe while faking it. So yeah, the scenes with the candlelight and we’re playing the game at night, and the dancing stuff. The kids are ad-libbing the whole time. We’re just playing a game and it’s really hard to ad-lib in the accent. With a movie like this, to a certain extent, you get there and you let it grow and you kind of let it find itself. But those two things were the only sort of unknowns, which is the most fun. But scary.

Editor’s Note: This Q&A was conducted by Lucy Allen of The Interview People.

Clean living. Prudent diet. Sunscreen savvy. All vital to healthy skin. And all easier said than done.

People spend billions of dollars a year on products that promise to make their skin firmer, fresher and younger. But doctors who focus on caring for the skin insist that the body’s largest organ needs more than over-the-counter potions to maintain its health and radiance—and to do what it was designed to do. “Skin is the protector of our body and the first line of defense,” says Dr. Kamran Khazaei, head of Nouvelle Confidence, the Center for Cosmetic Laser & Rejuvenation. “The first thing that’s affected when you come in contact with pollutants, bacteria and other toxins is the skin—that’s why you have to continually do maintenance on the skin, to allow it to work its best.” Everything we eat, breathe, and do affects our skin, and the results aren’t always pretty—especially when people neglect the basics of skin health.

Here’s how to ensure you protect the skin that protects you. SKIN RAVAGERS While genetics can play a role in how easily you burn or scar, whether you freckle and how soon you show signs of aging, experts say that lifestyle choices have the biggest impact on your skin’s health. Smoking, eating an unhealthy diet, exposure to pollutants and even a lack of sleep and exercise can cause premature aging and other skin problems. “Smoking and a poor diet absolutely damage the skin,” says Dr. Khazaei. “Any type of toxin in the body affects the whole body, including the skin.” But when it comes down to it, sun exposure continues to have the most punishing effects on a person’s skin. “The worst enemy of the skin is the sun,” says Dr. Khazaei. “Everyone thinks they look healthier by tanning themselves under the sun, but that’s the worst thing to do for skin health.” It’s hard to avoid news reports on the dangers of sun exposure, but surprisingly it hasn’t had a huge effect on people’s behavior.

Recent CDC studies have shown that 40 percent of adults don’t use sunscreen, and 70 percent of those who use sunscreen don’t bother to reapply when it’s recommended. It’s the ultraviolet radiation that causes most of the trouble—particularly UVA rays. “UV radiation is a known carcinogen, and is associated with both an increased risk of skin cancer and an increase in skin aging,” says Dr. Joseph Alkon, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Trinitas Regional Medical Center, who specializes in treating skin cancers. Unfortunately, many people have taken their desire for darker skin straight to a more dangerous spot—the tanning bed—where UVA rays are three times more potent than in natural sunlight. “There has been a rise in the number of people using tanning salons, including teens and younger patients,” says Dr. Alkon. “More than one million people use tanning salons on a typical day in this country—70 percent of whom are females in their late teens to late 20s.” Tanning bed use, he adds, may put you at even more risk of cancer and other damage.

SAVING YOUR HIDE You may think you’re a lost cause after decades of sunscreen-free sunning at the shore, but there’s still plenty to be done to improve the health—and look—of your skin. Dr. Khazaei uses laser and microdermabrasion treatments to help combat the signs of skin damage. “Laser treatments help regenerate collagen formation to rejuvenate the skin, and can be used to treat freckles and age spots,” he says. “Microdermabrasion removes dead skin cells that are produced by the sun, exposing the younger, healthier skin beneath.” Customized skin care products—like Dr. Khazaei’s own line—can help clear away dead cells and revitalize the skin beneath. But the best protection is prevention—and that means stopping smoking, getting more sleep, eating better, and most importantly, using sunscreen regularly. “Even on a cloudy day, you need sunblock to protect the skin—the rays that cause the most damage can still pass through the clouds,” Dr. Khazaei warns. “If you take care of your skin, it naturally stays younger and lasts longer.”

Editor’s Note: Lisa Milbrand is a New Jersey-based writer whose articles on health and relationships appear in Parents, Arthritis Today and Modern Bride. Her blog themamahood. com celebrates the life of a working mother.

Turns out you can judge a wine by its color.

Although wines have myriad and complex properties, perhaps the most obvious can be attributed directly to the skins of their grapes. The basics of wine-making are well known…grapes are picked, then crushed, and the skins either stay in contact with the crush or have little to no contact. Wines can be grouped into three primary categories relative to the skin of the grape: white wines, red wines, and rosés wines.

WHITE WINES are wines that contain little or no red pigmentation. These wines have had little or no interaction with the skins of their grapes as they are processed. White wines are almost always made from white grapes, but they can be made from black grapes as well, because the juice of most black grapes is actually clear. White wines can be sweet or dry, or somewhere in between. Popular white wines include Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc.

RED WINES are made from black grapes and have a red or blue tint. Since most grapes have colorless juice, red wine needs its grape skins, which contain nearly all of the grapes’ pigmentation, to remain intact along with the juice during all or part of the fermentation process. Tannins, also found in the grape skins, are transferred into the wine while the skins are in contact with the juice. Besides the difference in color, the primary difference between red and white wines has to do with their respective tannins.

Found mainly in red wines, tannins provide a dry, puckery sensation in the mouth and in the back of the throat. They also help preserve wine, allowing most (but not all) red wines to be aged longer than white wines. Popular red wines include Beaujolais, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chianti, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel.

ROSÉ WINES are pinkish in color, so they are often referred to as pink or blush wines. Rosés are made from black grapes, but they do not fully turn red because the grape skins are removed from the juice mere hours after initial contact. This brief exposure to the skins gives the wine its signature color through the slight transference of red pigments. Rosés can also be produced by blending white and red wines. This technique also involves brief skin contact, which ensures that a minimal amount of tannins enters the blush wine. Many rosés are sweet, with White Merlot and White Zinfandel serving as typical examples.

The best and most traditional vintages, however, are the European rosés, which tend to be bone dry. Given today’s high-tech instant information resources, grape skin and its extracts have been getting a lot of attention in terms of potential health benefits. Antioxidants, called pycogenols, are present in grape skins. The darker the grapes, the greater concentration of pycogenols, hence the media’s infatuation with the healthful properties of red wine. In the 1950s, these compounds were isolated from grapes and used in the treatment of cirrohosis, varicose veins, and retinopathy (an eye disease attributed to diabetes). As scientific discovery progressed, the researchers were able to isolate reservatrol, the most hyped compound on the market associated with grape skins. Studies have shown reservatrol’s benefits to include: • High potency anti-inflamatory properties • Blood thinning capabilities as good or better than aspirin • May interfere with the development of cancer • Natural anti-fungal agent • Helps to reduce bad cholesterol (LDL) • Can increase good cholesterol (HDL) • Reduces blood pressure.

Now before we all go out and drink massive quantities of red wine to saturate ourselves with reserves of reservatrol, there are some offsetting side effects. In order to enjoy most of reservatrol’s positive health benefits through red wine consumption, we would have to drink red wine practically all day long, every day. Perhaps not a bad idea to some, but our livers would undoubtedly have something to say about this. A further, consideration is that reservatrol is a plant estrogen, which has received much attention as contributing to the proliferation of certain breast cancer cells. Grapes, once an innocent treat we all enjoyed as youngsters, now provide us as grown-ups with the fruit of the vine in its fi nest form—wine, complete with all its trappings, some good, some bad. We can now appreciate that wine is more than just grapes and their juices. It’s got some real skin, too.

Mike Cohen owns the Wine Concierge (www.gourmetwc. com). He specializes in locating hard-to-find wines for customers in New York and New Jersey.

What’s Cooking This Summer? Hopefully Not YOU!

When it comes to summertime beauty, looking good is a whole different ballgame. While winter hues tend to accentuate the delicacies of one’s skin tone, hair and eye color, the warmer months are all about bright bursts of color against a healthy, sun-kissed palette. Of course, getting that sunny summery look often means increased UV exposure. Preventing skin damage during

the sultry summer months requires careful attention to protection, hydration, and (of course) daily product application. First rule of thumb—you don’t have to hit the beach to grab a perfect tan. TERRACOTTA SUNLESS BALM by Guerlain ($50/5.7 oz) is enriched with 100% natural Moroccan argan oil, so it hydrates, protects, and even helps to regenerate the skin for a smooth, flawless finish. Mimicking the effects of a deeply hydrating body butter treatment, this rich formula is ideal for quenching sun- and wind-parched dry skin. A subtle iridescence also gives your skin a natural glow for several days after the first application. Most importantly, Terracotta will leave your skin looking naturally tan, not orange or streaked. It’s quality luxury and, most importantly, it’s safe.

If you do plan to tan the natural way, you absolutely must protect your skin before leaving the house. Given the impact of a diminished ozone layer, you just can’t be too careful. And just because you don’t feel as if you’re baking in the high-noon sun doesn’t mean you aren’t burning. Doctors recommend wearing at least an SPF 15 at all times and these days it’s easy to find a light, smooth moisturizer with built-in UV protection (without breaking the bank). I highly recommend RoC RETINOL CORREXION DEEP WRINKLE DAILY MOISTURIZER SPF 15. This wonder product is a huge favorite among skin care gurus. Don’t let the name scare you off! This moisturizer helps to visibly reduce expression lines and wrinkles while protecting your skin from the sun’s harmful rays. Enriched with Vitamin E and SPF 15 sunscreens, it also helps prevent the signs of premature aging.

It does contain Retinol, however, which can be a challenge. In fact, it’s recommended that the user test the product for two weeks while building up the dosage gradually. The buzz on this product is incredible. Although it’s relatively new to the market, it’s being touted as a miracle cream inasmuch as it’s hypoallergenic, non-comedogenic (won’t clog pores), oil free, and amazingly inexpensive (only $18.00/oz.). And since a good base cream won’t send you into foreclosure, ladies, I say splurge on your lips! CHANEL’S AQUALUMIERE SHEER COLOUR LIPSHINE is super light for those hot, balmy nights and also packs an SPF 15. Even at $30.00 a tube, don’t waste time shopping around. Survey says “Monte- Carlo” will be this summer’s hottest shade, so grab it while you can!

For the fellas, don’t be swayed by what your buddies tell you! Harsh sun, salt-water, and chlorine hold as many dangers for your skin and hair as they do for the ladies. Unless you want to end up looking like George Hamilton, here are some tips for summer maintenance. First of all, shaving is key. The ART OF SHAVING’S LEMON ESSENTIAL OIL ($22/5 oz.) is the perfect shave cream for summer. Rich with glycerin, coconut and other essential oils, it leaves your skin smooth and moisturized. But, once you’ve got a stubble-free, clean canvas of a face…what to do? This is where great unisex skincare comes in. What’s a beauty regimen without the quintessential summer face soap? Origins A PERFECT WORLD DEEP CLEANSER WITH WHITE TEA (5 fl . oz./150 ml) might sound like an afternoon drink, but as soaps go, it’s life changing. This perfect foaming face wash is formulated with nature’s rare Silver Tipped White Tea. In a preemptive sweep, dirt-grabbing minerals combined with the gentle, skin-compatible cleansing action of palm and coconut oils plus oat amino acid reach deep to help detoxify and free skin of harmful, free radical-releasing impurities before they settle down and cause skin-aging oxidation, dehydration, and irritation.

Now that your face is smooth and clean, there’s just one more step. Toner is essential for healthy skin in warm weather climate. Lately, vegan products have become all the rage. long last, I believe a non-chemical toner has finally been perfected. LUSH BREATH OF FRESH AIR TONER ($17.45/8.4 fl . oz.) is pretty much as naturally perfect as it gets. It rehydrates dry skin with soothing, nutritious ingredients like real sea water (fetched from deep in the Pacific), natural spring water, aloe vera gel, patchouli oil, rosemary oil, and seaweed absolute. Just a spritz softens and balances, while it refreshes and renews. Everybody needs a little extra help when it comes to maintaining a fresh face when the heat is on. So follow these tips, be prudent, and enjoy a skin-tillating summer.

Editor’s Note: Dan Brickley was the host of TLC’s A Makeover Story for three seasons. He has authored numerous articles on fashion and beauty.

As 20th Anniversaries go, Sarah Chang’s is one of the more remarkable. She has been captivating audience since age 8, mastering some of the most challenging violin concertos with awe-inspiring passion and precision when her peers were still proud of how well they tied their shoes. Now 28, Chang’s résumé is pages long when others her age are just getting their career-defining breaks. She has enchanted audiences from Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center to the great concert halls of Europe and Asia. She has shared the stage with fellow luminaries from Pinchas Zukerman to Yo-Yo Ma. Chang’s CDs are best-sellers. She has even carried the Olympic torch. EDGE sent ZACK BURGESS on assignment to profile Sarah Chang. His job was to peel away the layers that typically accompany international stardom and acclaim, and get to the heart of this transplanted Jersey Girl. Sarah made it easy. Her poised and stunning facade notwithstanding, she is still a kid at heart.

EDGE: Every parent of a talented daughter dreams that their child will have the life that you do. So let’s get the obvious question out of the way. Do you ever yearn to be someone other than yourself, to slip out of your skin and into someone else’s?

SC: Maybe for a day, but not any longer than that. I love my life. I have been traveling all over the world since I was a 10-year-old. I’m 28 and have seen and done things that are just unimaginable.

EDGE: When did you request your first violin?

SC: At four. My father played the violin and I wanted to be like him—I’m a daddy’s girl, like most little girls. I was playing the piano at the time and thought it would be great to play something else. Besides, I wanted something to carry around.

EDGE: At what point did you realize that your life was going to be different?

SC: I performed with the New York Symphony Orchestra when I was only eight. I knew there was something that wasn’t normal about that. But I didn’t think I had a “gift.”

EDGE: As an adult, have you ever experienced the fearlessness you did back then?

SC: No. I was a kid. I just did it! I didn’t think about it. Of course, now, I’ve been doing it forever and this is my life, but back then I just went with it, like most kids do.

EDGE: What was it like working with older musicians?

SC: Everyone would be going to parties after a performance and here I had to go back to my room or go study. It was frustrating then but, hey, I was a kid, a teenager. Nothing is fair when you’re that age.

EDGE: So today, as a 28-year-old, what is the downside of being Sarah Chang?

SC: The travel. Sometimes I wake up and don’t know where I am, or what city I’m in. But then I remind myself of what I do, and how I get to entertain people all over the world— and that, at an age when others are just breaking into this business, I have been doing this for twenty years now. I’m already booked out to 2012, which is a great “problem” to have when you’re an artist.

EDGE: What’s your greatest obstacle as an artist?

SC: Having to be good every night, even on those days when I don’t feel well. It’s what the public expects from me and, realistically, it’s what I expect from myself.

EDGE: Which can get rather difficult.

SC: Because I’m human.

EDGE: Does it all seem surreal sometimes?

SC: Sometimes. But for the most part I’m used to it. I don’t go through this wow syndrome, where I have to pinch myself. I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m a professional. You know what I mean?

EDGE: How does dating work when you’re Sarah Chang?

SC: It’s a challenge as a young woman on tour. It’s really hard to have a personal life when one person is in one place and the other is somewhere else. I would like to settle down someday, but I would also like to be a committed mother and wife when that happens.

EDGE: When were you finally on your own?

SC: My parents stopped traveling with me when I was around 18 or 19—which presented a challenge because they were no longer there to protect me. I made my fair share of mistakes. But I’m having fun at this point in my life.

EDGE: What was life like before that, as a 13- or 14-yearold?

SC: I was just like any other teenager who thought the world owed me something. In retrospect it was no big deal. You know, here I am performing one minute and doing homework by fax for Germantown Friends and Juilliard the next. I was always struck by how much younger I was than everyone else, and that bothered me. I missed a lot of parties. But now that I’m older, in retrospect it really was no big deal.

EDGE: What do you do on days when you’re not performing?

SC: I’m just like everybody else. I’m human. I have everyday highs and lows just like everyone else. I would say I just like to have a day to myself. No cell phones, no Blackberrys, no emails. But that rarely happens. I probably wouldn’t know what to do if it did.

EDGE: Is there anything you miss about being a Jersey Girl?

SC: Of course. I miss the driving—and the space. I’m a terrible driver, so I could really use the space!

Photos courtesy of Sheila Rock/Opus 3 Artists
  

While the skincare industry touts its latest, greatest miracle-working scientific formulations, actual science increasingly links healthy skin to what you put IN your body, not ON it.

Skin is the largest organ of the body. It’s the only one that is instantly visible. And it is vulnerable to all sorts of attacks, including dryness, excess oil, wrinkles, sunburn, acne, dermatitis, rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, seborrhea, and various forms of cancer. Millions of consumers shell out billions of dollars on topical skincare products each year in an effort to improve the look and feel of their skin. All the while, they may be missing a more obvious, cheaper, and better way to reach their goal. Food.

In their book Beauty Basics for Teens, Dianne York-Goldman and Mitchel P. Goldman, M.D., urge a balanced diet that includes carbohydrates, protein, nutrients and fiber, but is low in saturated fats and empty calories. They also advise drinking at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day for proper hydration. The goal is to eat foods rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and healthy fats. Melody L. Meyer of Albert’s Organics, a California-based natural products distributor, suggests leafy green vegetables for iron and calcium, sweet juicy fruits (especially at breakfast), a variety of whole grains, and easy-to-digest proteins like legume soups, paneer (cheese made from boiling milk, adding lemon and straining solids), and lassi (diluted yogurt and spice drinks).

Carotenoids, which are found in red and orange fruits as well as in yellow and dark green vegetables, are recommended by Sharrann Simmons of Cognis Nutrition & Health, an Illinois-based food technology company. She says that carotenoid lutein has been shown to protect skin against UV-damage, improve skin hydration, encourage elasticity and enhance beneficial lipid levels. For its “Beauty from Within” campaign, DSM Functional Food Marketing of New Jersey also enlists carotenoids, as well as antioxidant vitamins C and E, green tea extracts, omega-3 fatty acids (which can be found in fish and flaxseed), and polyphenols (derived from olives). Consumers seem to be getting the message. A recent study by the Mintel Group, a market research fi rm, notes that 2008 saw the debut of more than twice as many new beauty foods and beverage products as there were in 2007.

Dermatologist and author Nicholas Perricone urges a diet loaded with these essential proteins: fish, poultry and, occasionally, lean beef, pork or ham. He also suggests consumption of soy foods like tofu and tempeh, egg whites, low-fat cottage cheese, low-fat milk, and yogurt. For carbs, he favors squash, spinach, onions, green beans, asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, collard greens, escarole, green peppers, strawberries, raspberries, apples, blackberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, and kiwi. Recommended fats include oils derived from olives, walnuts, safflower, soybeans, rapeseed (canola), and sunflowers, as well as nut butters and avocado.

Perricone also is high on the following ten “Superfoods”: Aτai (pronounced ah-sigh-ee), a high-energy berry that grows in the Amazon The allium family of foods, including garlic, onions, leeks, scallions, shallots, and chives, all of which are rich in flavonoids. Barley, which is not only low on the Glycemic Index, but high in both soluble and insoluble fiber. Green foods, which are derived from cereal grasses and blue-green algae. Buckwheat, also low on the glycemic scale, and which may be substituted for less healthful grains like rice, wheat, and corn. Beans and lentils, an alternative to fattier meat proteins. Hot peppers, which are high in heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory compounds. Nuts and seeds, which are a source of good fats. Sprouts for their enzyme content.

Yogurt and kefir, fermented dairy products that add digestion-aiding probiotics to the diet. J.T. Ryan is a licensed physical therapist and owner of Healing Touch in Howell. The company makes and markets handmade natural body-care products. She emphasizes the need for trace minerals and electrolytes, which she calls “a key to cellular regeneration.” For example, Ryan says, a deficiency in copper will lead to scar formation during the skin’s 40-day cycle period. Foods rich in copper include most nuts (especially Brazils and cashews), seeds (especially poppy and sunflower), chickpeas, liver and oysters. Are there foods that should be shunned if your goal is shiny, smooth skin? Most definitely. This is particularly true if you are worried about acne. Naturopath Alan C. Logan, who teamed with dermatologist Valori Treloar on the 2007 book The Clear Skin Diet, cautions against the foods most popular with American teenagers—pizza, hamburgers, cookies, crackers, fried potatoes, salty snacks and sweetened beverages.

Even milk consumption is “strongly associated with acne,” the authors claim. In place of these no-no’s, Logan argues for a diet that focuses on the omega-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), found in fish like mackerel, sardines and salmon, tomato extract with the carotenoid lycopene, marine fish that are rich in collagen, and a high-flavanol cocoa extract. Logan explains that inflammation is at the core of acne, and that oxidative stress, a byproduct of the standard American diet, “fans the flames of inflammation.” Fish oil, he says, especially EPA, blocks the production of the inflammatory chemicals. This also is why antioxidant fruits and vegetables are so important. Does this mean you have to toss away all your lotions, creams and ointments? Of course not. They definitely serve a purpose. But keep in mind that if you really want a smooth, healthy complexion, a good nutritional foundation is where you should start.

Editor’s Note: New Jersey-based freelance writer Alan Richman is the former editor of Whole Foods Magazine.

The eggs, scrambled with cream, cooked with patience over low, slow heat, are folded with strands of scallions and set, with a ripple of sharp parmesan, over toasts. They’re an appetizer on this easygoing weeknight at A Toute Heure in Cranford—the mark of a sure-footed kitchen confident enough to start off a dinner with the most basic of ingredients.

A Toute Heure, two years old this month, is the domain of chef-owner Andrea Carbine, who set up shop in this homey corner building with the idea of creating an American version of a bistro. That is to say, she and chef de cuisine Kara Decker fashion a daily-changing menu of regionally sourced foods prepared without fuss or frills, like those simple, yet perfect eggs. They serve it all without pretense in a warm, wood-accented room that defines cozy.

They cater to a local clientele, most of whom drop in, toting bottles of wine, for whatever is on tap that night—be it a silky house-made liver pate, or pork-and-veal meatballs strewn with caramelized onions and served with curry-charged ketchup, or a pile of hush-puppies given a shot of energizing heat by pickled jalapenos. Those locals know to gird themselves for weekend nights, when the no-reservation policy (save for parties of six or more) can make for long waits on the deck. Yet there’s a camaraderie on that deck—some sharing of wines, some reminiscences of A Toute Heure dinners past – that makes it a pleasantly communal experience:

Do you think there’ll be enough chocolate pot pie to go around tonight? Have you tried a red Rhone blend with the brined chicken? Inside, the big-ticket decoration in the low-lit dining room is a double-wide blackboard chalked full with names of the farmers, cheesemakers and other purveyors who provide the ingredients that fuel A Toute Heure’s kitchen. Starting about now, with rhubarb and peas and berries, crops from Carbine’s own garden in Cranford will take hold of the menu and, come high summer, just about take it over. It’s micro-seasonal, deliberately so, and yet there’s a soul to the food here that gives it year-round continuity and comforting familiarity.

It’s about, after all, those eggs, that fundamental liver pate and, perhaps, a puff pastry tart filled with an earthy chop of long-cooked wild mushrooms, onions and a film of fontina that unites the starter. You also can kick things off by nibbling on a short selection of small bites, such as the spirited meatballs or, my favorite, cippolino onions densely glazed with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with sharp, yet creamy blue cheese. It’s a terrific combination and it makes you think about what you can do at home with a little vinegar, onions and a few flecks of cheese. I’m still thinking about what I can do with my next catch of mussels, thanks to A Toute Heure’s humble-goes-haute rendition swathing Prince Edward Island mussels in a velvety saffron cream sauce, then boosting the spice quotient with crumbles of chorizo.

The skinny Belgian-style fries on the side, served with a petite pot of garlicky aioli, makes it better than a trip to Brussels. Halibut poached in olive oil and plated with parmes and stoked mashed potatoes, sautéed spinach and a splay of preserved lemon advances A Toute Heure’s simple-is-right theme. So do the seared New Jersey sea scallops. Their crackling crusts yield to super-sweet meat and, quickly, find smart plate mates in a tart-crunchy apple-fennel salad and a cider vinegar-infused beurre blanc. The pot pie is the I-want-whatever-that-is dish at A Toute Heure. It won’t matter to you what’s inside when you see it come out of the kitchen. You’re going to jones for that beehive of a puff pastry top covering a pottery crock and won’t much care if it’s concealing beef or chicken or just vegetables.

On this night, it’s buttery braised beef and a passel of root vegetables cloaked in a red wine-enriched gravy that demands a soup spoon. Yet it always comes down to a roasted chicken in a bistro, and if a bistro can’t do a roasted chicken right, it’s got no business calling itself a bistro. This brined, bone-in bird is high on interior juice, with a drizzle of garlic-licked oil moistening the crisped skin. I’d gobble it down, straight, any old night of the week, even without the aid of the accompanying toasty fingerling potatoes and plump stew of portobellos. I’d also gobble down a bowl of the vanilla-spiked whipped cream in record eating-contest time, though I’d be foolish to miss the lemon verbena bread pudding it tops. What a great idea, I think to myself, as I hog this dessert. A gentle, lyrical herb giving style and substance to the chunks of bread and swirl of custard that make up a typical bread pudding.

You don’t need hard smacks of accenting flavor, just a subtle touch of something provocative. Save the punches for the chocolate pot pie, which is – happily – all about over-the-top ganache cut by slivers of pear and a balancing squirt of rum. The apple-toffee cake is the choice for a super-sweet tooth, built on a foundation of wines apples and capped by creamy toffee. Get it with one of A Toute Heure’s homemade ice creams – say, the sweet cream or the ricotta with candied citrus. Once cosseted inside A Toute Heure, you’ll get what it’s about: comforting, yet not clichéd, food prepared with technical precision, respect for the seasons and resolutely in tune with stewards of the land and sea. It’s food you’ll want to eat any day, any time. Andrea Clurfeld is a former editor of Zagat New Jersey.

Desperately Seeking Solitude

“I love tranquil solitude…” Shelley, the ill-starred poet, he of the golden pen, knew the true value of solitude. And so do we. All around, we see the vaunted worth of the priceless melt away. The most highly prized dwindles, fades into the commonplace. But solitude eludes the calipers of ordinary measure. Not easily found today. How much more difficult tomorrow? Solitude. Such a luxury. No, the new luxury. It’s the exclusive reserve of the wealthy…or the ingenious. Presented in these pages, still spared the encroachment of progress, crowds and all manner of acclaim, is a choice selection of refuges where Solitude is valued above all else.

Musha Cay

David Copperfield, who just happens to be the owner of Musha Cay in the Bahamas, modestly calls his island, “the most beautiful place on the globe.” Not for anyone who wants to rough it. Rather a refuge for anyone who unashamedly wants to be spoiled. The island is staffed by gentle folk whose pleasure it is to see that you are content, content, content…morning to night. To be left in peace. Swim in the free-form beach-side pool or fl oat the day away in the calm of the Caribbean. Take a turn at wind-surfing, a spell of snorkeling, tennis on a flood-lit court. Picnic on a different beach every day. While you’re in residence, you’re the supreme command. You can rule your kingdom in solitary splendor or share it with up to a dozen forever-grateful friends. Your modest housing is Highview, a manor house of 10,000 square feet, rimmed by mahogany decks with views of the far rim of the world. Travel to and from Musha Cay is via the island’s Twin Otter aircraft, transport deemed more than satisfactory by the likes of Robin Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Tim McGraw and….oh why go on and on. Isn’t it enough to promise that on Musha Cay you will be….well, let’s just say: Content.

Photo by Erico Hiller

Lamu

One of seven islands lying just off the east African coast. Today its political allegiance is to Kenya. Its cultural allegiance, however, is to the 15th century, when Arab traders sailed the seas unmolested and wealthy beyond all imagining. Their ways are here preserved. Revered. Life in these narrow, crooked streets moves no faster than a donkey’s pace…the same donkeys that still carry water jugs from well to dwelling. The beaches, called shela, are broad. White. Empty. The sea is limpid. Stay in a guest house, reserved for you alone. Barefoot girls, veiled in white linen, place baskets of mango and papaya on the doorstep at dawn. Feast by moonlight on the catch brought fresh from the sea by fishermen sailing the dhows built by their fathers and grandfathers. Each day is chanted into wakefulness by the imam high atop the ancient mosque. Here Swahili is the spoken word. Karibu. Welcome…welcome to Lamu.

Photo courtesy of Canoe Bay

Canoe Bay

Solitude, serenity, sylvan quiet. Enshrined deep in the Wisconsin woodlands, Canoe Bay is situated on the edge of deep, glacier-formed Lake Wahdoon. Nature provides the setting. Frank Lloyd Wright provided the inspiration by which this one-of-a-kind resort takes architectural shape. Rattenbury Cottage is hidden away on a 280-acre property. Designed by one of Wright’s most astute devotees, it features the open-air layout that characterizes so much of the Great Master’s creations. A large living room with soaring ceilings, polished wood paneling and massive stone fi replace…king-bedded sleeping space, huge bathroom with two-person whirlpool spa, gleaming white oak floors, broad cantilevered deck with unimpeded lake vista…it all adds up to privacy, promised and delivered. No motor boats or jet skis disturb the lake’s tranquility. The fully equipped boathouse is at your disposal complete with kayak, canoe, paddles. The gourmet picnic basket is only a phone call away. Dine in the cottage, on its deck, or if you prefer, in Canoe Bay’s glass-enclosed lakeside dining room. Under the star-studded night skies, the call of the loons is unchanged since primeval times.

Photo courtesy of Iles de la Madeleine

Iles de la Madeleine

Adrift in Quebec’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Iles de la Madeleine (aka Magdalen Islands) form an archipelago some 65 miles long, bent like a fishhook…a dozen islands, home to the Acadians. Longfellow immortalized the Acadians with his well-beloved poem, “Evangeline.” But Longfellow’s Acadians fled the tyranny of Britain to settle in Louisiana. He said not a word about those who eschewed Louisiana in favor of staying in what Canadians affectionately term “the Maggies.” Theirs is a unique community….sea-faring, song-loving, proud of their heritage. Hospitable to visitors, perhaps because so few fi nd their way to these charming wave-washed specks of land. Red cliffs, green hills and golden beaches. A meterological quirk assures mild winters, warm autumns, gentle summers. The people have lovingly preserved the French of yesteryear…musical in its cadences, well suited to a pace of life unmatched in the world beyond the horizon. Here life is governed by tide and wind, by surf and wave. Once a true convent, today the Domaine du Vieux Couvent receives no more than a handful of visitors at a time. Each is settled into comfortable suites, tucked between a lighthouse and a working fishing pier. Walk the beaches in peace. Consort with seals and dolphins. Ship out to sea for the day with a pecheur who will gladly take you aboard. Feast by candlelight on freshly hauled lobster and crab…on greens grown right here in island gardens. A glass of vin ordinaire in the local café. A lesson in surf casting taught by the great-great grandson of an islander who cast into these very waters a century and a half ago. Pack a sweater, sunglasses, bathing suit. Leave behind your watch and calendar, your laptop, your cell phone. Time in the Maggies is unrelated to the time you leave behind at home.

Photo courtesy of Cabo Velas

Cabo Velas

On the dry breezy coast of the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica, just north of the town of Tamarindo, that’s where you’ll find Cabo Velas. A traditional working ranch, complete with livestock and tropical orchards sprawled over 1700 acres on a secluded seaside peninsula. Yours and only yours. A week? A month? Whatever. No other guest sets foot on those 1700 acres while you’re in residence. Your life unwinds in a thatched rancho. Your large bedroom and separate dressing room open onto a beachfront verandah. Shower indoors or out. Upstairs…a second slightly smaller suite. A guest or guests? It’s your say. Swim on any of five…yes, five…beaches, each secluded by seagrape, hibiscus and palms. Snorkeling, diving, kayaking? Of course. Or perhaps a ride before breakfast along a Pacific beachfront. Dine in the Rancho Principal, a screen-surrounded dining room, edged by a two-level terrace and beyond….the salty deep. White water rafting, golf, tennis, cycling…only 30 minutes away. But really, just staying put at Cabo Velas in the heartland of Costa Rica will doubtless suit you very, very well. Cabo Velas. Olé!

Editor’s Note: For more information on these properties, log onto the following web sites: MUSHA CAY (mushacay.com); CANOE BAY (canoebay.com); DOMAINE DU VIEUX COUVENT (domaineduvieuxcouvent.com); LAMU (magicalkenya.com).

Photos courtesy of Cabo Velas

The Meyersville Inn Spices Things Up for Spring 

I’ll be the first to admit it. Dining out in New Jersey can be an adventure. Pull up to the Meyersville Inn in the Morris County hamlet of Gillette and it’s hard to know what to expect. It has the look of a 19th century farmers co-op, and indeed that’s what it once was. It also could be a well-camouflaged wings and pies joint. It’s not. Like so many restaurants in the Garden State, the Inn offers an eclectic mix of pub food, steaks, seafood and Italian specialties. Unlike almost every other New Jersey restaurant, it specializes in Cajun and Creole cuisines. This taste of the Bayou comes courtesy of Chef Hoss, aka Houssain Elhady, an Egyptian- born culinary maestro who swapped his mechanical engineering degree a few years back for kitchen whites.

Elhady learned the art of Cajun and Creole cooking from the previous owner, Dan Walker, a Louisiana native. Since then Chef Hoss—whose résumé includes stints at some of the better restaurants in central New Jersey—has added a few intriguing twists of his own for the Inn’s new owners. “Creole and Cajun food isn’t as popular as other cuisines, like, for example, Italian food,” he says. “My culinary philosophy centers 21 around Creole and Cajun cuisine, and the ability to offer it to our customers. Those who have never tasted Creole and Cajun food need only try it once to experience the richness and depth of its flavors.” For the uninitiated (and the timid) there are some important differences between Chef Hoss’s menu offerings. Cajun cuisine takes a rustic approach to cooking, embracing fresh, locally grown ingredients and simple preparations. Onions, bell peppers and celery are the Holy Trinity.

This style developed from the French-speaking Acadians who were chased out of Canada following the French and Indian War in the 18th century. They settled in Louisiana and adapted their cooking to the local ingredients, i.e. anything they could hook, net, gig or trap. Crawfish were among the more abundant resources, and today they play a starring role on the Meyersville Inn menu. Much of Creole cuisine relies on the onion-pepper-celery combination, but from there it diverges significantly from Cajun. Creole is a Caribbean-influenced blend from the food cultures of France, Spain and Africa. As a rule, the French flavors are more aristocratic than in Cajun fare. Cajun food usually has a kick to it but, contrary to popular belief, an authentically prepared Cajun dish does not involve eye-watering heat. Unless, of course, you specifically ask for it that way. If you’ve been to New Orleans and still can’t remember which is which, Antoine’s is Creole and K-Paul’s (Paul Prudhomme) is Cajun. Emeril does both.

Elhady distinguishes himself from other Cajun/Creole chefs by making all of the spices and rubs used at the Meyersville Inn from scratch. This, he believes, adds to the authenticity of his food. From an ambiance standpoint, The Meyersville Inn offers a choice of two separate dining experiences. Those who prefer a more intimate setting will find the tavern, with its subdued lighting, blazing fireplace and generously stocked bar a quiet retreat from a hectic workday. Here light, classic pub food soothes and nourishes. Bayou-inspired specialties include authentic gumbo and a superb catfish sandwich.

Those who prefer to dine in a livelier setting veer toward the well-appointed dining room. Here a lighter, brighter, more spirited atmosphere provides the setting for an upscale but casual crowd, while the room’s Décor pays homage to the building’s colorful roots and history. The wide-ranging menu includes chicken, steaks and seafood, the portions are generous (hey, this is New Jersey, right?) and the wine cellar is surprisingly good. The Meyersville Inn isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, but for many it’s a hike. What makes it worth the trip is drifting down the Mississippi with Chef Hoss as your guide. Bring your imagination and your appetite and prepare to spend an evening on the Bayou.

Editor’s Note: The Meyersville Inn is located at 632 Meyersville Road in Gillette. (908) 647–6302. Marylou Morano is a freelance writer whose articles appear in magazines and newspapers around the state.

“Everyone knows someone who has lost their job… people have a lot on their minds.”Your house is worth a half-million less than it was last summer. Your portfolio is in freefall. That Christmas bonus was a little short. And you’ll be waiting a bit longer to retire. It’s enough to give you nightmares—if you could actually fall asleep. As stress rises, so does the risk of insomnia and other sleep disorders. In these trying times, more and more people will try anything to get some decent shuteye.

Unfortunately, chronic insomnia isn’t something you can make up for with a Starbucks run. Consistent sleep problems can take their toll on everything from your mood to your mortality. “There is no substitute for sleep,” says Vipin Garg, MD, Medical Director of the Comprehensive Sleep Disorders Center at Trinitas Regional Medical Center, who is board certified in pulmonary medicine and sleep medicine. “If you don’t get adequate sleep, you’re going to have consequences.” “People who have chronic sleep problems find it hard to concentrate and are often much more irritable,” adds Christopher Jagar, MD, a psychiatrist with the Department of Behavioral Health & Psychiatry at Trinitas Regional Medical Center. “It can affect performance on even the simplest tasks.”

It can lead to dozing off for milliseconds at a time, called microsleep. That can affect your ability to carry on a conversation, follow a meeting—or get behind the wheel safely. And sleeping disorders often go hand in hand with other serious health issues, which makes it doubly important to diagnose and treat them. Sleep apnea, a chronic interruption of a person’s breathing during sleep, has been linked to several life-threatening conditions, including heart attack, congestive heart failure, hypertension, obesity and diabetes. “Treating sleep apnea can not only affect the quality of your life, but also how many years you live,” Dr. Garg says. While disorders like sleep apnea have their roots in physical issues, many of us bring our nightly problems on ourselves. “Lifestyle is often a factor,” Dr. Garg says. “Using stimulants— caffeinated beverages, cigarettes, chocolate—can cause sleep problems. If the room isn’t dark enough, or if you leave a TV on, that can interfere with sleep. Engaging in some sort of stimulating activity, like an office conference, an argument or a workout, can make it hard to fall asleep.” Even something that’s often considered a sleep aid—we’re talking nightcap here—can backfire. “Alcohol may make you drowsy enough to fall asleep, but you’ll wake up again in a few hours,” explains Cheryl Krempa, RPh, MBA, Director of the Pharmacy at Trinitas.

Routine Tweaks

The upside? You may be able to cure your own insomnia with a few tweaks to your routine. Dr. Garg recommends keeping a diary of your daily activities, diet and sleep quality, to see if any patterns emerge—like a case of insomnia every time you knock down an order of crab-cakes. Or watch CNBC. Or talk to your mother. If stress is causing your sleep issues, try some common stress reducers—regular exercise early in the day, meditation, deep breathing—and take time to wind down before bed without bright lights or stimulating activities.

Even something as simple as a notebook by the bed could help you relax. “You can write down your thoughts in your diary before bed, so you’ve unloaded the problems that are keeping you up at night,” Dr. Garg suggests. If anxiety, depression or another issue is contributing to your insomnia, consult with a mental health professional. “Treating the underlying psychiatric problem usually solves the sleep issue as well,” says Dr. Jagar. Should lifestyle changes fail as a fi x, resist the temptation to load up on Tylenol PM or other sleep aids. “Over-the-counter sleep-inducing products use diphenhydramine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in Benadryl, to help you fall asleep,” Krempa says. “But they can make you feel drowsy the next day, so you’ll need more caffeine to be alert, and a vicious cycle begins.”

Instead, it may be time to see your doctor. “If you try all these techniques and they don’t work, you should see a physician to determine what could be causing it, so it can be dealt with correctly,” Dr. Garg recommends. Following diagnosis at an accredited sleep disorder center, apnea patients are often set up with positive airway pressure machines (CPAPs or BiPAPs), which keep the airways from becoming obstructed and enable a good night’s sleep. Other sleep problems may disappear after starting cognitive therapy or even light therapy, when you spend part of each morning lounging under a bright, sun-like light. Dr. Garg sometimes restricts the amount of sleep a patient gets each night to try to concentrate the sleep and avoid frequent night wakings. Still, stress-related sleep disorders can sometimes be even more difficult to overcome. “People have a lot going on right now—everyone knows someone who has lost their job. Things are dire,” says Dr. Jagar. “People who are under a lot of stress have a lot on their minds, and they often have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep. They simply don’t feel rested.”

If the lifestyle changes and stress relievers don’t work, your doctor may be able to prescribe one of the newer medications that have fewer side effects and are less likely to cause next-day drowsiness. “There are numerous formulations out there, so it’s easier to tailor the prescription to your exact problem,” Krempa says. Some medications, like Sonata (zaleplon) and Ambien (zolpidem) wear off quickly, so they work best for people who just need help falling asleep; others, like Lunesta (eszopiclone) help you stay asleep. It may take a few tries to hit upon the solution to your sleep issues, but once you do, you’ll feel like a whole new person. “Sleep disorders affect every part of your life—you become more irritable and take it out on your loved ones, and you have a harder time enjoying the things you love when you’re fatigued all the time,” Dr. Jagar says. But after you’ve caught up on your rest, you’ll be ready to take on the world, with all of its worries.

Editor’s Note: For more on sleep and sleep disorders log onto njsleepdisorderscenter.com or call (908) 994–8694.

Four Cornerstones Make a Great Wine Collection

A solid foundation relies on its cornerstones. Webster defines cornerstone as a physical stone, often ceremonial in nature. According to Wikipedia (which, as we know, is infallible) a cornerstone can also be “a concept which provides the basic tools for understanding or manipulating a larger intellectual edifice.” The edifice here is your wine cellar, and its cornerstones are the basic elements that provide a fi rm foundation upon which to build—or extend—a great collection. Making cornerstone selections for your wine cellar can present a formidable challenge, since the choices are many and the costs can be considerable. But fear not, brave oenophile. Get squared away on these four building blocks and the heavy lifting can begin: A well-rounded white that does not need to age, but stands ready to deliver outstanding taste right now and for the entire year ’round.

An age-worthy red that does need some years to soften its tannins and firm the structure indigenous to the grape and the region.

A delightful boutique wine, whether red or white, which is a special personal discovery and will enhance your status among your cellar’s guests.

A prestigious trophy wine, one that commands respect both for itself and for you, and which endows you with extensive bragging rights among your peers. Feel free to bask away in such a venerable wine’s reflected glory. While these cornerstones are only guidelines, they certainly give you lots of room to indulge in personal preferences while expanding your collection. Your cellar is limited only by your own investment of time and money…and, of course, by the size of the cellar itself.

White Wines for Now The choices here are huge and include grape varietals such as chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, and chenin blanc. Focusing on reliable regions such as Napa, Burgundy, Stellenbosch, and Vouvray can help to optimize your search. I personally find the white Burgundies the most versatile and satisfying in this cornerstone category. These wines are a chardonnay grape, which particularly in the subzone of the Côte de Beaune, have made wine connoisseurs sit up and take notice. The soil and the climate—predominately clay and benignly temperate—work together to bring a steeliness to the wine without compromising its unctuousness or creaminess. One particular producer in the Côte de Beaune region, Sylvan Bzikot, produces some of the most amazing white Burgundies at several different sites. Bzikot’s wines can range some in price. Since this is a wine to be enjoyed right now, I would definitely choose his Bourgogne Blanc, a stunning stainless steel vinified juice punctuated by stone fruit and lively acidity.

Red Wines for Later This category probably evokes the most controversy among serious wine enthusiasts. The battle rages over whether the best are Italian, French, Australian, or our own domestic reds. In all cases, the grapes of these wines (for example, the cabernet sauvignon, nebbiolo, syrah, and malbec) have thicker skins and possess innate properties that lend themselves to the aging process. By laying down the wine, time allows a new set of aromas and tastes to develop that differs from the wine’s inauguration. A velvety soft structure and complex fruit flavors evolve within age-worthy wines, hence the fatal attraction for red wine lovers. My favorite among the age worthiest is a really big red, Dal Forno Amarone. This is a wine comprised of several grapes indigenous to the Veneto region of Italy that are known for their power, structure and tannins. After a decade or more of aging, the other irresistible qualities of this wine are the amazing taste and aroma that spring forth from each glass to caress your senses. This beauty may be hard to come by, but it is certainly worth the effort.

Boutique Wines Whenever Boutique wines by definition are small production, hard to get and typically not very well known or popular… at least not at the time of your purchase. In fact, that is most of their charm. Wines in this category can tickle your fancy and sing to you like no others. The romance begins with the chase and blossoms with the wine’s delightful character and taste. My recommendation here has been one of my favorites for years. It is from the Brogan Cellars, a winery run by Margi Wierenga in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma, CA. Margi is the daughter of Burt Williams of William Seylem fame. By virtue of her father’s contacts, Margi has secured grapes from some of the most exalted vineyards in the U.S., recognized for their pinot noir production. Each year, she makes perhaps 25 cases from each of several different locales, the best of which I believe is the Russian River Valley, an area famous for the incredible strawberry and raspberry notes of its pinot noirs.

The Trophy Wines Forever Herein lie the Monsters, the Bad Boys, the true Princes of your wine cellar! A trophy wine will cost you, but if you choose wisely it will always be worth the price. After fl aunting your pride of ownership and you are finally sitting in front of a glass of this divine nectar, you will understand why it is called a trophy. Although such a wine might technically qualify in some ways as a boutique wine, most boutiques will never command the ratings and recognition of these masterpieces. A true trophy wine is a pride-filled selection, one that should be reserved to celebrate only the most auspicious occasions… perhaps a wedding, a birth, a market rally or even a hard-earned bonus (no matter how diminished in these trying times). My unrivaled selection here may surprise many, since it is not on the popular wine buyers’ radar. I nominate Chateau d’Yquem, the ultimate dessert wine produced by French wine-making masters. The wine is made only in spectacular years and consequently garners accolades from the moment it is mis en bouteille. The price is commensurate with the quality. Having had the privilege of imbibing this delicately sweet perfection after an especially memorable dinner, I can still recall my reaction to the very first sip: There was a pregnant pause and then I slowly lifted my glass to the heavens in heartfelt thanks. Nothing could have been more perfect. The trophy wine, whatever your selection, will always be the ultimate cornerstone and the crowning glory of your collection.

Mike Cohen owns the Wine Concierge (www. gourmetwc.com). He specializes in locating hard-to-find wines for customers in New York and New Jersey.

Timing is everything. NORMA KAMALI knows a thing or two about that. She shook up Madison Avenue in the 60s, put the first Pull Bikini on Christie Brinkley in the 70s, pioneered fashion video in the 80s and Internet shopping in the 90s. In 2008, Kamali launched what might just be the best-timed fashion line ever—a timelessly styled and budget- friendly collection for Wal-Mart. Her Spring 09 offerings are right on the money. Norma Kamali has always followed her own path. As this chat with EDGE confirms, she is at her best when her plate is full…and even better when it’s overflowing.

EDGE: Are you as excited about Michelle Obama as others in the fashion industry?

NK: I am. She is wearing affordable clothes. That is the best fashion statement.

EDGE: In a tough economy, sometimes you have to eliminate a couple of pricey items from your shopping list. What is the one thing a stylish consumer absolutely, positively cannot do without?

NK: If she is stylish, she really has everything, and doesn’t need anything else. However, styles at a price—and carefully chosen—can be a spirit-lifter. Anything expensive and not timeless might make you feel guilty or irresponsible.

EDGE: Last year you designed the costumes for Twyla Tharp’s ballet Rabbit and Rogue. What drew you to this project?

NK: I had worked with Twyla Tharp on a number of different productions. One being The Upper Room. Twyla came to me with the Rabbit and Rogue project as the evolution to this classic piece. The Upper Room is such a success. What drew me to this new project? It was the next wave of The Upper Room.

EDGE: What part of this production influenced you most during the conceptual process—the music, the movement, a dancer, a character?

Photo courtesy of American Ballet Theatre

NK: The concept of dark to light. The speed of the music. The type of music, film music. The music influenced the speed of the dance. Danny Elfman’s music came first and then these visual concepts. My concept for the costumes was to take the dark to light by using black, then silver, then white. I wanted to keep the color concept of silver from the beginning to the end. Brad Fields’s lighting design used the dark-to-light concept as well.

EDGE: Did Twyla coordinate your efforts?

NK: Yes. It’s a process. I would create a costume, the dancer would try it on, we’d tweak it, keep evolving it, until it worked. It’s a lot of fun, building on steps, like a painting or any creative project.

EDGE: Did you approach Rabbit and Rogue in a similar way to your runway shows and collections in terms of practicality? Drape, flexibility, breathbility, etc?

NK: Absolutely. First I figured the colors then I built on it. The way I approach something is to start, then edit and change, edit and change. The product just gets better and better that way. I would do a fitting and take photos with my IPhone. Twyla would look at them and write or call me back.

EDGE: Is designing costumes for a ballet different from designing for a musical on Broadway?

NK: I like dance a lot. It’s my preference. I’m not as excited personally with musicals or other Broadway forms. Other people do that really well. With dance I have an open palette. There’s a more creative spirit to it. It’s more fluid, less defined to a story line.

EDGE: You are a world-famous multi-tasker. What’s on your plate as 2009 starts to unfold?

Photos courtesy of Norma Kamali, Inc.

NK: Anything that relates to the new economy. I like to reinvent and think out-of-the-box.

EDGE: Can you sum up the inspiration for your Spring 09 line in a couple of words?

NK: Yes. Timeless style.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Leah Soltas for making this interview happen. To see Norma Kamali’s new collections log onto normakamali.com