A me rican Es s e nc e
American Essence
NOVEMBER 2023
FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
Undefeated Heavyweight Champ The son of a WWI Marine, Rocky Marciano set the standard for American might and endurance
A Writer’s Sensibility NOVEMBER 2023
How family, faith, and life’s big questions inspire bestselling author Mitch Albom
At Home With
LIDIA BASTIANICH The celebrity chef is at once an ambassador of the traditional Italian food of her roots and a champion of the home she’s embraced
VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 11
w e i v nt e PrConte
d ted e t i Selec Lim of
Multnomah Falls
Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
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mericanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace. … We Americans can only do our allotted task well if
we face it steadily and bravely, seeing but not fearing the dangers. Above all we must stand shoulder to shoulder, not
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asking as to the ancestry or creed of our comrades, but only demanding that they be in very truth Americans, and that we all work together, heart, hand, and head, for the honor and greatness of our common country. Teddy Roosevelt
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History 40 | The Polish Son of Liberty Young engineer Thaddeus Kosciuszko aided America’s revolution with diversionary tactics and engineering feats.
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Contents First Look 8 | Winter Wonderland Whether you prefer to hit the slopes or cozy up by the fireplace, here are six resorts where you can enjoy winter R&R.
Features
18 | Dreaming Big Two young men found their calling through reviving an ancient art form that was almost lost under China’s communist regime. 24 | Of Friendship and Bread Despite war and chaos, a group of friends made it to America and unexpectedly achieved success through baking. A ME RICAN ES S EN CE
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50 | Taming the Oklahoma Territory Chris Madsen left his name and past behind to take on the toughest job in the West.
28 | Breathing Life Into History The Victims of Communism Museum hopes more will listen to the stories of those who risked all to find freedom in America.
54 | The Revolution’s Tea-less Party Vowing to forsake tea and British cloth, the Edenton women protested taxation without representation.
32 | A Businessman Ventures Into Education Nido Qubein’s vision for educating the next generation.
58 | Pardoning Poultry Americans love their turkey dinners, but some lucky birds get a presidential reprieve.
36 | Giving Wings to Children An organization gives hope to the children of those who made the ultimate sacrifice serving the country.
60 | A Majestic Star Charlton Heston’s offstage courage and leadership matched his onscreen nobility.
10 | Writing About Life’s Mysteries Bestselling author Mitch Albom invites readers to contemplate life’s big questions. 14 | America’s New Favorite Sport What’s behind the sky-rocketing appeal of pickleball?
44 | Badge of Strength Just like his father, Rocky Marciano had an indefatigable heart to win.
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Lifestyle 86 | Brain-Boosting Foods Doctor-turned-cooking instructor Annie Fenn on how to eat to prevent Alzheimer’s. 88 | In Lidia’s Kitchen Chef Lidia Bastianich, celebrating 25 years on public television, reflects on the power of food to unite. 98 | Punch With Pedigree A crowd-pleasing recipe with 18th-century roots. 100 | Keeper of His Craft Master woodworker Eric Hollenbeck preserves Victorian-era architecture with hands and heart. 104 | New Hampshire’s Grand Dame The historic Omni Mount Washington has been a destination since its very inception. 112 | Parting Thoughts Researcher Esther Sternberg on how to make your work environment a peaceful place that helps you flourish.
Arts & Letters 68 | My Family Roots A writer remembers his great-uncle, who came from a family of shoe cobblers in the Italian countryside and eventually became New York mayor.
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72 | Why I Love America A reader reflects on the values that make America the ultimate place to forge your own path. 76 | Writing ‘Faction’ In Brad Thor’s novels, the line between fact and fiction is often blurry. 82 | Corporate Overreach “Tyranny” examines how companies use contracts, lawyers, and government handouts to grab power and profits. NOV EMBER 2023
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SOCIAL CALENDAR
By Sandy Lindsey
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1940S WHITE CHRISTMAS BALL
An Enchanting Estate
CHRISTMAS AT BILTMORE
Built in 1895 by the Vanderbilt family, this 8,000-acre estate offers two celebrations. The daytime event includes a tour of more than 100 elaborately decorated trees, including the 35-foot Fraser fir in the Grand Banquet Hall. After sunset, there’s live music and special candlelit evening experiences. Biltmore.com Where It All Began
AMERICA’S HOMETOWN THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION
Asheville, N.C., Nov. 27, 2023–Jan. 4, 2024
Tamale Time
From cabins to castles, the fanciful to the elaborate, artists’ imaginations and technical skill are challenged as they create masterpieces comprised of at least 75 percent gingerbread. The prior judging and awards ceremony at The Omni Grove Park Inn are private, but the hotel opens the display to the public on Sundays through Thursdays; other times are reserved for guests. OmniHotels.com Santa Goes Sailing
Plymouth, Mass., Nov. 17–19 Plymouth gives thanks in a big way as the town celebrates the 402nd anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, with Pilgrims, Native Americans, soldiers, pioneers, and other patriots, all highlighted by a nationally recognized parade featuring floats depicting historic events. Be sure to save time for Sunday’s Harvest Market. USAThanksgiving.com | AM ERICAN ES S E N C E
holiday trolley, the Merry Market of local fine arts and crafts, house tours, Lobster Trap Tree Lighting, and much more. ChristmasPrelude.com
31ST ANNUAL NATIONAL GINGERBREAD COMPETITION
Asheville, N.C. Nov. 3, 2023–Jan. 7, 2024
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Sweet-Toothed Architects
KENNEBUNKPORT CHRISTMAS PRELUDE Kennebunkport, Maine Nov. 30–Dec. 10 Where else would Santa arrive on a lobster boat but in a classic New England town done up in bright lights, bows, and boughs? Enjoy a pancake breakfast, the hot chocolate bar, a
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INDIO INTERNATIONAL TAMALE FESTIVAL Indio, Calif., Dec. 2–3 Dig in at the Guinness World Record holder for the “Largest Tamale Festival.” This event kicks off the holiday season with a dash of spice, featuring strolling mariachis, carnival rides, the world’s biggest bounce house, a car show, six stages of live entertainment, 300 vendors, beer gardens, and tamales, tamales, tamales. IndioTamaleFestival.com A Quintessential Christmas Village
NEVADA CITY VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS Nevada City, Calif. Dec. 3–17 Locals and tourists alike promenade in their Victorian best on the lamp-lit streets
amongst carolers, bagpipers, and brass bands, with the tantalizing scent of roasted chestnuts in the air. Nibble yuletide treats and sip holiday libations while doing some lastminute shopping among a fun selection of vendors. NevadaCityChamber.com Dreaming of a Vintage Christmas
★ 1940S WHITE CHRISTMAS BALL Denver, Colo., Dec. 9 Have yourself a merry little Christmas as you step back into the glamour of the 1940s and ’50s. Join crooners, songstresses, big bands, and a crew of reenactors for an all-out vintage-themed bash, in an airport hanger surrounded by antique cars and movie set lights and props. The event was inspired by the founder’s grandmother, a radio singer, and grandfather, a WWII vet turned radio announcer, and the 1940s music that was the soundtrack to their love story. It has raised over $113,000 for veteran and military history nonprofits. Wear comfortable dancing shoes. 1940sBall.org
Editor’s Note Dear Readers, Whether we are first-generation Americans or our ancestors arrived aboard the Mayflower, America ever remains for us a beacon of freedom. Over time, a rich tapestry woven by different cultures but united in the values of hard work and optimism has made our heritage and history unique among nations. In this issue, we visit chef Lidia Bastianich, who has long been familiar with the power of food to bring people together. The math may not add up, but she’s 100 percent American and 100 percent Italian, a businesswoman with verve and drive, and a home cook who loves to welcome millions of viewers to her table on her long-running public television shows. Ms. Bastianich recounts for us her memories of food and family and her journey to the United States after her native Istria became part of Yugoslavia (page 88). We also visit two remarkable young men, Jesse and Lucas Browde. American-born and raised on baseball, these brothers have grown to realize the blessings of being American—but also the responsibilities entailed in keeping the flame of freedom burning. As they play their part in reviving the almost-lost art of Chinese classical dance and tour the world, they find themselves blessed to come from a place where different cultures and perspectives can thrive (page 18). In our History section, travel back in time to meet Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Polish native whose engineering skills contributed greatly to victories during the American Revolution (page 40); and world heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano, whose grit and heart were only equaled by his father’s (page 44). In America, we have the freedom to invent and reinvent, the opportunity to innovate and break boundaries—and, in the process, make America even greater than the sum of its parts. Happy Thanksgiving,
5025 Arlington Centre Blvd., Suite 130 Columbus, Ohio 43220 Editor-In-Chief Editor@AmericanEssence.net
www.jjandcompany.com 614.459.8890 5
CULTURE SHORTLIST ‘BOTTICELLI DRAWINGS’ San Francisco’s de Young and Legion of Honor museums present “Botticelli Drawings,” the first exhibition concentrating on the drawings of Sandro Botticelli. The artist is best known for his mythological paintings, but he created portraits and religious works as well. These preparatory works, some newly attributed to the early Renaissance master, chronicle his entire career and give clues to how he created some of his renowned works, such as “Adoration of the Magi.”
‘WANDERLUST:
An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age’ American author Reid Mitenbuler has reproduced the incredible and unfathomable life of Danish explorer Peter Freuchen, arguably the most interesting person you’ll ever read about. He survived at times by sheer will, whether in the polar regions, in writing novels and screenplays in America and Denmark, or in facing down Nazis.
This page is n in the p The exhibition runs from November 19, 2023 through February 11, 2024. For more information, visit FAMSF.org
Publisher: Mariner Books, 2023 Hardcover: 512 pages
‘THE BOYS IN THE BOAT: Nine Americans
and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics’
Daniel James Brown’s narrative work of nonfiction gives a thrilling account of the American rowing team that won gold in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It also highlights the fact that winning at this level requires not being better than your opponents but training twice as hard. Publisher: Viking, 2013 Hardcover: 416 pages 6
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‘CITIZEN X’ American director Chris Gerolmo’s HBO film chronicles the true story of Russian police detective Viktor Burakov (Stephen Rea) and his 10-year hunt for serial killer Andrei Chikatilo (Jeffrey DeMunn),
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DIRECTOR
dubbed “Citizen X.” Despite the mounting deaths, his investigation is hindered by Communist Party officials refusing to admit the existence of such violent crimes in the USSR. (TV-R; 1h45m)
Chris Gerolmo STARRING
Stephen Rea, Donald Sutherland, Max von Sydow RELEASED
1995 TV Movie STREAMING
DirecTV, Apple TV, Vudu
American Essence FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
NOVEMBER 2023 | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 11
PU B LI S HE R
Dana Cheng E D I TOR I AL
Editor-In-Chief Managing Editor Lifestyle Editor History Editor Arts & Literature Editor Editor-At-Large Production Manager
Channaly Philipp Annie Wu Crystal Shi Sharon Kilarski Jennifer Schneider Tynan Beatty Astrid Wang
CR EAT I VE
Lead Designer Photo Editor & Designer Designer Photographer Illustrators
Marie Tatsiana Moon Sunny Lo Samira Bouaou Biba Kayewich, Fei Meng
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Sandy Lindsey, Tim Johnson, Jeff Minick, Krista Thomas, Catherine Yang, Dustin Bass, Sally Humphries, Joe Haines, Andrew Benson Brown, Rudolph Fernandez, Eric Lucas, Jeanne Meek, Ian Kane, Kevin Revolinski, David Coulson, Cary Dunst, Amy Denney American Essence (USPS 24810) is published monthly by Bright Magazine Group at 5 Penn Plz. Fl.8, New York, NY 10001. Periodicals postage is paid at New York, NY. Postmaster: Send address changes to American Essence, 5 Penn Plz. Fl.8, New York, NY 10001. General Inquiries: AmericanEssence.net/help Advertisement Inquiries: ad@AmericanEssence.com Submissions: Editor@AmericanEssence.com
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The Paddleball Game Sweeping America A healthy hybrid of tennis, badminton, and ping pong, pickleball is America’s new favorite sport By Krista Thomas
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yson McGuffin. Jay Devilliers. Anna Leigh Waters. Ben Johns. These names might not mean much to those outside the sphere of professional pickleball. But the evidence is clear: Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. Findings from the 2023 Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) indicate that participation practically doubled in 2022, with approximately 8.9 million pickleball players in the United States. Communities all over the country are constructing pickleball courts or renovating tennis courts due to high demand because this social game is a game for all ages. The myth that retirees make up the bulk of the sport is simply not true. Players as young as 6 years old learn to hit, dink, volley, and serve up perforated, hollow plastic balls to an oppo-
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nent over a net measuring three feet high on a 20-by-44-foot court. The court construct is the same size as a doubles badminton court, with singles and doubles playing to a score of 11, winning by two. The rules are easy to learn, and, regardless of paddle-sport experience, everyone at every level can enjoy this new national pastime sweeping the nation. A Nationwide Phenomenon Pickleball is easily accessible, with courts found in practically every city and various tournaments and leagues providing competitive play. Even colleges have stepped up to offer intramural and competitive pickleball on their campuses. Of course, pickleball has its roots in senior community centers, so players can experience the health benefits of low-impact phys-
ical activity, enhance hand-eye coordination, and improve balance. “The biggest factor in the growth of pickleball in age groups who aren’t in retirement is without a doubt the social aspect of the sport,” says Jeff Watson, vice president of communications at PPA Tour (Professional Pickleball Association). Aimed at elevating the game as a professionally recognized sport, PPA was recently founded in 2018. Because PPA arranges professional tournaments in various American cities, fans may watch in person or watch at home through broadcasts that air on networks like ESPN. A rating system was developed to separate amateurs and professionals. Most professional pickleball players earn a living through corporate sponsorships and tournament prize money through PPA tournaments.
Yet, according to Mr. Watson, “Catching the pickleball ‘bug’ takes very minimal exposure to the sport. Pickleball encourages people to come together and enjoy quality time with one another while engaging in a heart-healthy activity that easily gets the competitive juices flowing. People love pickleball for many different reasons, but it ultimately comes down to the fun factor. Once you start playing, you simply can’t stop. It’s addictive.” With a simple introduction, players young and old are off and running in just a few games. Many, like PPA Tour player Anna Leigh Waters, were introduced to the game recreationally during the pandemic. At the age of 12, she became America’s youngest professional pickleball player. Today, the 16-year-old homeschooled pickleball star is ranked No. 1 in the NOV EMBER 2023
Top pickleball players Jessie Irvine and Jay Devilliers during a competition.
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36.5 million Americans have played the sport at least once
Pickleball is a social sport, with an evergrowing number of courts where people can play.
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Sport participation has grown
158.6%
over the past three years
world—not just for doubles, but also for singles and mixed doubles play. Mr. Watson noted that while Ms. Waters and her male counterpart Ben Johns have dominated the sport for a number of years, there are a few up-and-coming players. “Connor Garnett is a rising star in the men’s game with silver medals in singles in two of the last three PPA Tour events and wins over the sport’s biggest stars. On the women’s side, Jorja Johnson is definitely a name to watch based on her atypical playing style, lightning fast hands, and fearless attitude on-court. She landed her first gold medal earlier this year alongside older brother JW Johnson and also has two silver finishes
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18-34
years old is the largest age bracket of pickleball players (28.8 percent of total)
under her belt, with many more likely to come as her game matures.” Here to Stay Though pickleball has experienced significant growth since 2017, its roots were planted in 1965 when Washington congressman Joel Pritchard and his colleague Bill Bell devised a racquet-ball type of game at the former’s home for friends and family to play. Their friend Barney McCallum helped shape the rules, originally based on badminton, and the three created a whole new sport. And the story goes that the funny-sounding name originated from Pickles, the family dog who chased stray balls. By 1990, all 50 states in America were introduced to pickleball. And in 2005, the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA) was founded as a nonprofit governing body to further promote the development and growth of this new sport in the United States and its territories. Melissa Zhang, director of communications and content for USA Pickleball, said: “I attribute pickleball’s growth to the fact that it’s easy to learn and get a game going, especially compared to other sports. With other sports, you may have to take lessons and receive instruction for a certain amount of time before being able to get a rally started and get up to a relatively capable playing level,” she noted. After their first time playing, people easily get hooked. According to Ms. Zhang, the racquet sport gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did it encourage people to leave their homes for indoor or outdoor courts, but they could spend quality time with family and friends. “It was so easy for people of all generations to play with one another. Grandparents could play with their children or grandchildren, for example, so that meant that everyone in the household could get outside and participate in a game of pickleball together,” Ms. Zhang added. The sport has grown into a multimillion dollar
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60%
Growth of total participants from
40%
was the fastest among players under
A little over of total participants are men and nearly are women; with a slightly faster rate of growth among women
2020–2021
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There are
10,320
pickleball courts in America
years of age (21% growth rate)
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industry, with expectations of growth forecasted to reach $2.368 billion by 2028. Retailers are seeing spikes in sales for pickleball paraphernalia. Investors are lining up to manage professional pickleball teams. Professional tennis players, including Andre Agassi, John McEnroe, Steffi Graf, and Maria Sharapova, have switched from the rigors of tennis to displaying their athletic prowess and skill at public pickleball slams. With professional tours like the PPA Tour, fans have access to entertaining sports venues in more than 25 cities.
The sport has amassed fans because “there’s something about the camaraderie of doubles teams battling on a small court, the solid feeling of connecting with a pickleball, and the headiness of a hands battle at the net that really resonates with people of all ages,” Mr. Watson added. And because the sport is so accessible, the community has grown quickly. “The pickleball court has also become a place to meet new people, build community, and create a sense of friendship and teamwork,” he added. • NOV EMBER 2023
Pickleball players span a wide range of ages. The sport is popular with seniors because it is a low-impact physical activity.
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A Story of Friendship, Through Bread A friendship forged through war became the foundation for making an American entrepreneurial dream come true By Annie Wu
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an friendship survive a war, migration to another country, and life’s ups and downs? One group of friends from former Yugoslavia has demonstrated that a strong friendship bond can overcome any tribulation. There’s Uliks Fehmiu, an Albanian who loves acting and still participates in film projects in Serbian and Bosnian; Bane Stamenkovic, whom Mr. Fehmiu first met when he was 7, then going through high school and later mandatory military service together; Igor Ivanovic, who played a pivotal role in Pain d’Avignon’s founding but later left to start his own bakery; and Vojin Vujosevic, who was always the cool kid in the group. They all eventually made their way to New York to escape getting drafted into the war and, incidentally, fell into the world of baking. Together, they formed Pain d’Avignon, a boutique wholesale bakery for high-end restaurants and hotels in New York. In 2009, the bakery expanded to offer their selections to ordinary New Yorkers via cafes, opening four retail stores alongside pop-ups within hotels across the city. The path to success wasn’t easy, but every step was buoyed by the knowledge that there was no turning back to the violence and hatred back home. Whatever hardships they would go
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through, they would go through them together as friends. “Our story can never be only about the bread and its technical aspect, because to us, it represents this odyssey, this journey, this element of survival, this moment of adaptation … into a new country, new environment,” said Mr. Fehmiu in an interview. A Friendship Forged Growing up in Yugoslavia before the Yugoslav Wars broke up the Balkan Peninsula, the group of friends lived in a place not unlike New York: Different cultures and religions intersected in a region bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. “It’s where Austro-Hungarian and Oriental architecture clash beautifully. Where one could ski in the Alps in the morning and swim in the Adriatic that afternoon. Where, in the same pastry shop, one could find baklava by way of Turkey or Greece and Sachertorte compliments of the Viennese,” wrote Mr. Fehmiu in the bakery’s 2022 cookbook, “The Pain d’Avignon Baking Book.” It was an idyllic time filled with beautiful memories for the four childhood friends. When, in the late 1980s, tensions ran high and war seemed imminent, the friends each found ways to escape the draft. Mr. Ivanovic became the reason they ended up in baking. After he got discharged from mandatory military service, he headed straight to New York. While there, he hung out with fellow Serbs, some of whom worked for Eli Zabar, a popular bakery and supermarket in the city. He soon found a job delivering bread at Eli’s. Mr. Stamenkovic joined his family in New York (his father was a textile executive and moved there for business) as soon as he finished military service, while Mr. Vujosevic returned to America for studies at the persuasion of his parents, who saw an increasingly volatile situation back home and wanted him to stay away. For several years, Mr. Fehmiu was the only one remaining in Belgrade, hoping to develop his acting career. But by spring 1992, things came to a head. The military police came looking for him. With his mother’s warning, he was able to stay at a friend’s house and later flee to Macedonia. From there, he made his way to New York. Bakery Adventures While Mr. Ivanovic was visiting his girlfriend’s mother’s summer house in Cape Cod, he realized
BANE STAMENKOVIC that the Massachusetts seaside town lacked good bakeries. He began making deliveries of Eli’s artisanal bread to local restaurants there; chefs clamored for the opportunity to get fresh baguettes and sourdoughs from him. When Mr. Ivanovic realized that bread should be made close to where it is sold, he began making plans for what would become Pain d’Avignon. The friends and their family members pooled together money to start their first business venture in America. None of them had baking experience. But luckily, Mr. Ivanovic convinced one of Eli’s bakers, a Bosnian, to leave Eli’s and join Pain d’Avignon. The baker did not write down recipes; he mixed dough purely by its look and feel. The friends learned by observing. Mr. Fehmiu had two huge tomes on French baking. “I would have these pages from the book copied and faxed over to my mom in Belgrade to her theater. And she will translate them over there because it was much cheaper than if we translate that in Boston,” he recalled. By word of mouth, Pain d’Avignon soon earned a glowing reputation beyond the Cape and Boston; customers from Manhattan began requesting that their local stores carry Pain NOV EMBER 2023
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The bakery came of age at a time when the American public became more conscious about where its food came from.
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d’Avignon’s breads. It was time to make the leap to New York. The bakery came of age at a time when the American public became more conscious about where its food came from and desired high-quality food products. In the early ’90s, at a time before such an approach to food was ubiquitous, Pain d’Avignon stood out for its handmade, small-scale baking. “We were also very fortunate to ride this wave. … This somehow seamlessly coexisted with our own values and the way we work,” Mr. Fehmiu said, reflecting on how he and his partners came from the Old World tradition of buying local, seasonal ingredients and cooking accordingly. They also pursued bread-making the old-school way, learning to toy with fermentation to get different results and valuing the time it took to master the craft. The partners found a warehouse in Queens, New York, to start baking. Some days were really tough. Mr. Stamenkovic recalled: “Bakeries are 24/7. … So you’re not only making the bread, but you’re also in packaging, you’re also in distribution. You’re in customer service. But there’s no drivers, there is nobody to pack the bread, nobody to take the phone call. So it’s you.” It was routine for them to work 15- to 18-hour days. The friends began experimenting with different bread recipes to offer new creations to New Yorkers. They were a hit. Many specialty food stores, as well as restaurants and hotels, began serving Pain d’Avignon’s breads. In those days, the bakery was still getting on its feet. They didn’t earn much. “We ate dumplings on a good day,” Mr. Stamenkovic said. But at St. Regis, a 14
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hotel where their breads were served, “the soup was $35, $40. … It was just very, very surreal to become part of that type of restaurant scene that was ever-changing and everybody from all over the world came here to see, and to learn, to be part of,” he added. But the bakery didn’t just cater to the highend crowd. It was just as willing to serve its goods at a three-Michelin-star restaurant as a small eatery that bought three or five loaves of bread a day for its customers. “It costs you more to do all of that, put it in the bag, and deliver. … You don’t do that for financial purposes. You do it because you love what they do and you believe in what they do,” Mr. Stamenkovic said. What do the friends credit their success to? Ultimately, Mr. Fehmiu said it’s the strength of their friendship. No matter where they were,
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they understood each other without having to say much. Their chemistry came from “accepting each other and understanding what it is that we are expecting from one another, and not trying to change and mold [the other],” he said. Despite the hardships of escaping war and starting life as immigrants to a new country, they had each other through it all. Mr. Fehmiu’s father once tried to persuade him to pursue other opportunities. “I was not interested. The only thing I was interested in was that we are together, whatever it is.” They found their way to conduct business together and, at the same time, nurture their friendship. “It’s jazzing. It’s improvising. … It’s actually understanding the rules of the band, how do we jazz within the orchestra, and somehow, we’ve been jazzing pretty good.” •
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PAIN D’AVIGNON’S RECORD Founded in: 1992 First shop location: Cape Cod, Mass.
First New York bakery opened in: 2000 Work hours in early NY days: 84 consecutive
1. Chocolate blueberry scones. 2. Bread on the conveyor belt. 3. An illustration depicting the bakery’s early days in New York, which appears in “The Pain d’Avignon Baking Book.”
4. & 6. Pain d’Avignon was among the first in the Northeast to offer artisanal bread. 5. (L to R) Cofounders Tole Zurovac, Mr. Stamenkovic, and Mr. Fehmiu, with Mr. Fehmiu’s wife, Snezana Bogdanovic.
18-hour days
Number of New York City cafes: 8 Latest project: The Tipsy Baker, a new sitdown restaurant and wine bar where food, baked goods, and wine will be served
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The Marcianos: A Family of Fighters Rocky Marciano’s title fight paid homage to his father’s grit in World War I By Dustin Bass
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ocky Marciano was a relentless force in the boxing ring. He was a heavyweight who seemed to never tire. He hit men so hard their mouthpieces along with teeth flew out. He ended the careers of some fighters, and nearly the life of one. But where did that power and stamina that heart come from? It came from his father: the thin, bespectacled shoemaker who suffered from poor health. Like Father, Like Son Pierino Marchegiano was born in a small Italian village east of Rome along the Adriatic Coast. Life in Italy, though beautiful, was not sustainable. At 17, Pierino joined the more than 4 million Italians between 1880 and 1920 who immigrated to America. He found a job at a shoe factory in Brockton, Massachusetts, quickly learned English, and fell in love with his adopted country. September 23, 1952: Pierino’s ears perked up to the sound of the national anthem. As the music faded, the large crowd at Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium roared in patriotic applause. His son Rocco Marchegiano (Pierino named him after his father) walked to the center of the open-air stadium, wearing a robe with his slightly altered name stitched on the back: Rocky Marciano. It was the ultimate American moment for the Marchegiano family and for countless Italian Americans across the country. Rocky, the son of Italian immigrants, would be battling for the heavyweight championship of the world against Jersey Joe Walcott.
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Pierino’s War Thirty-four years before the title fight and five years before Rocky Marciano was born, Pierino found himself witness to a very different battle. When America entered World War I, he was one of the first Italian Americans in Brockton to enlist. The 23-year-old was shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow Marines in Chateau-Thierry. Their immediate objective was to stop the Germans from crossing the Marne River. Their ultimate objective was to keep them from reaching Paris. The Battle of Chateau-Thierry in June 1918 was the beginning of the heaviest fighting the Americans would experience. It would extend to the Battle of Belleau Wood, where Germans nicknamed the Marines “Devil Dogs” in reference to their ferocity. In the early morning hours of June 1, the Germans tried skulking across the river. The Americans opened fire, taking the enemy by surprise. The Germans returned fire, shelling the American positions. The fighting continued into the night, at times erupting in hand-to-hand combat. It was the beginning of the end for what had become known as The Great War. The War in the Ring The ring at Municipal Stadium was surrounded by current and former champions. Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Jimmy Braddock, Sugar Ray Robinson. Marciano, an 8-to-5 favorite, hoped to soon join their champion ranks. Although the smart money was on the undefeated Marciano (42-0), Walcott scoffed at the
Rocky Marciano in his fighting pose, photographed by Herb Scharfman on November 9, 1951.
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When America entered World War I, Rocky’s father, Pierino Marchegiano, was one of the first Italian Americans in Brockton to enlist.
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FAR ABOVE Marciano’s father, Pierino Marchegiano, was one of the first Italian Americans in Brockton to enlist as a Marine in World War I—the
heaviest fighting the American soldiers would experience. A painting of the Battle of Belleau Wood titled “Wheat Field Charge” (also known as “How Twenty Marines Took Bouresches”) by Frank Schoonover, 1919.
ABOVE The 13th round Suzie Q that won Marciano the title of World Heavyweight Boxer against his opponent Jersey Joe Walcott on September 23,
1952.
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odds and declared, “If I can’t lick this bum, take my name off the record books.” The opening bell had hardly rung before Walcott made the bettors shiver with anxiety. Walcott landed a hard left hook to Marciano’s chin, dropping him for the first time in his career. It was the same left hook he landed to knock out Ezzard Charles for the title. The crowd roared and jumped to their feet, but almost as quickly as the crowd had risen, so had Marciano. The knockdown was no fluke. Marciano was in for the greatest test of his boxing career. The Crimson Mess Marciano may have heard war stories from his father. If not, Pierino’s scars were enough to convey that his father had endured the worst that war could offer. Pierino had not only fought at Chateau-Thierry, but he also fought in the bloodiest campaign in American history: the MeuseArgonne Offensive. A scar was visible on the left side of his face from when a grenade exploded near him. The blast had sent shrapnel through his cheek, knocking loose several teeth. Undeterred, he spit them out and kept fighting. Walcott’s punch by no means compared. Marciano was back on his feet, moving quickly to Walcott. The champ continued to pour on the punishment. When he landed another hard left hook and a straight right, ringside announcer Bill Corum announced, “Those are stunning, powerful blows that Joe is landing.” The two fighters pounded away at each other. In the fourth round, Marciano tried his famous Suzie Q a feint left followed by a hard right. He missed, only grazing the neck of Walcott. The two were gaming for a knockout, landing several punches even after the bell. By the sixth round, Walcott developed a cut on his left eye and Marciano a cut on his forehead. “Marciano’s face is a crimson mess,” Corum proclaimed. Inside the trenches along the Western Front, Pierino had become acquainted with the “crimson mess.” German machine gun fire and mortars decimated the line in an attempt to stop the incremental Allied advance. The creaking sound of metallic tracks halted when a sudden
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explosion left the tank frozen in place, sending shrapnel everywhere. Pierino grabbed his right leg, itself a crimson mess. “Medic!” Chemical Agents Marciano’s and Walcott’s cornermen worked to staunch their bleeding. Chemical agents were innocently used, but to painful effect. Sweat, blood, and a chemical seeped into Marciano’s eyes, making it impossible to see clearly. Walcott pummeled the challenger with jabs. In desperation, Marciano landed a hard right to Walcott’s face. The crowd uttered a collective “ooh.” It was a punch that had dropped lesser men. “There’s something in my eyes. They’re burning,” Marciano yelled. His corner worked feverishly to wash out the chemical, but to no avail. “They’re trying to get whatever it is out of Marciano’s eye,” Corum explained before the start of the ninth round. “He was squinting badly at the end of the round and he is still in his corner.”
Marciano had executed the Suzie Q to perfection. A hideous yellow smoke flowed across the destroyed landscape of France. A cry rang out. “Gas!” Pierino fumbled for his mask. He had no doubt heard, if not witnessed, the symptoms and ultimate fate of those who inhaled the chemical agent of mustard gas. Frantically, he pulled the mask over his face. A panic surged through him as his eyes burned and his breathing became difficult. He had not put the mask on quickly enough. Pierino would spend the rest of his days with a sulfuric taste in his mouth and lungs that struggled to capture enough oxygen. The cornerman pressed the water-soaked rag onto Marciano’s face in hopes of clearing the fighter’s eyes. Finally, relief. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” Corum called out. The two fighters landed monstrous punches to face and frame. As the round neared its end, Marciano leaned forward, hoping to land his Suzie Q. It
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Patriots in Petticoats Penelope Barker and the Edenton Tea Party boycotted English goods during the Revolution By Jeff Minick
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he idiom “tempest in a teapot” means making a big deal out of some trifling problem or event. On October 25, 1774, in Edenton, North Carolina, 51 women turned that definition on its head. From their teapots came a storm that helped create the United States.
BELOW Inspired by the Boston Tea Party, the Edenton women met and signed a document formally protesting Britain’s taxation without representation.
Under the leadership of Penelope Pagett Barker (1728–1796), and inspired by the Boston Tea Party the previous December, the Edenton women met at the home of Elizabeth King, where they signed a document formally protesting Britain’s taxation without representation. They pledged “not to drink any more tea, nor wear any more British cloth.” They further declared that they “have determined to give a memorable proof of their patriotism, and have accordingly entered into the following honourable and spirited association.” News of this female protest soon reached England and brought immediate scorn and howls of laughter. In January 1775, in a letter from London to his brother James, an Edenton attorney who later served on the first U.S. Supreme Court, Arthur Iredell mocked the “Edenton ladies,” wondering whether this “female artillery” included any relatives of his sister-in-law. “We Englishmen,” he sneered, are afraid of the male congress, but if the ladies, who have ever since the Amazonian era been esteemed the most formidable enemies, if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequence is to be dreaded. So dexterous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal; whilst we, so unhappily formed by nature, the more we strive to conquer them, the more we are conquered. Six weeks later, a London paper featured a scathing cartoon by Philip Dawe depicting some of the women signing the document at a table while others gathered round a punch bowl. The artist gave these females masculine features and portrayed them as a confused and somewhat debauched rabble who had no idea what they were doing. London had its laugh, but the patriots in petticoats would laugh last. A Formidable Leader The organizer of this protest, Penelope Barker, was a force to be reckoned with in the bustling Colonial town of Edenton. An early historian of the event, Richard Dillard, wrote of her, “She was one of those lofty, intrepid, high-born women peculiarly fitted by nature to lead; fear formed
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The house of patriot Elizabeth King where the Edenton women formally signed a document protesting Britain’s taxation without representation. A drawing from “The Historic Tea Party of Edenton” by Richard Dillard, October 25, 1774. Library of Congress.
no part of her composition. … She was a brilliant conversationalist, and a society leader of her day.” Barker demonstrated these qualities early in her life. At age 17, she took responsibility for her deceased sister’s three children and soon married her sister’s husband, John Hodgson. Two years later, when she was carrying their second child, Hodgson died. Barker would marry and bury two more husbands, and only one of the nine children to whom she had given birth or taken into her household through marriage outlived her. Despite her personal tragedies, Barker was a shrewd businesswoman. Blessed by the inheritance left her by her second husband, she became one of the richest women in the Colonies. From 1761 until 1778, while her third husband Thomas Barker was in England as a representative of the Colonies, she had charge of the family’s affairs and succeeded admirably in maintaining their status and wealth. Likely because of Thomas’s involvement in politics, Barker also took an active interest in the
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events leading toward the confrontation with Great Britain. When in 1774 the First Continental Congress issued a plea for the colonialists to refuse British goods, she helped lead that protest. The women whom she gathered together that October day and who fixed their signatures to a public statement swore off English tea, substituting instead herbs from the garden or woodlands, and exchanged the fine dresses shipped from England for homespun clothing. Barker noted:
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Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king up to now. That only means we women have taken too long to let our voices be heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are. Despite that derisive hooting from the mother country, many other American women joined the boycott proposed by the Edenton ladies. Here we
The English cartoonist Philip Dawe’s satire of the Edenton women’s boycott. “A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina” published by R. Sayer & J. Bennett on March 25, 1775. Library of Congress.
should remember that abstaining from tea was no small sacrifice. The beverage was a staple in many households, and the homemade substitutions generally tasted awful in comparison to the real teas obtained from England. And though the pen may be mightier than the sword, Barker ably wielded both. During the war, when a servant brought her word that British soldiers were taking horses from the stable, Barker snatched her husband’s sword from the wall, ran outside, sliced the reins of a horse being led away by a soldier, and led the horse back to the stable. The officer in charge was so impressed by her courage that he returned the other horses to her and ordered his men to leave Barker’s property unmolested.
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Fervent to Their Cause Today we remember and honor women of the American Revolution like the politically astute Abigail Adams, who so often offered wise counsel to her husband. Most remember
A portrait of Mrs. Penelope Barker, President of the Edenton Tea Party, from “The Historic Tea Party of Edenton” by Richard Dillard, October 25, 1774. Library of Congress.
Martha Washington’s steadfast loyalty to George, and some may recollect the legendary “Mollie Pitcher,” usually identified as Mary Hays who brought water to the wounded during the Battle of Monmouth and who serviced a cannon in her husband’s stead when he was wounded. Penelope Barker and the women of the Edenton Tea Party belong in this company as well. Not only did they strike a blow for American liberty, but their Tea Party is acknowledged as “the first recorded women’s political demonstration in what would become the United States of America.” Their protest should also remind us that many other women were equally fervent in their support for the American cause. Like most of the soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War, the identities of these women, if known at all, are familiar only to their descendants, and yet they played a special part in this drama of liberty. These mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters—all of them were as fervent in their patriotism as the men around them, and sometimes more so. •
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Why I Love America
The American Work Ethic A reader pays tribute to family members who exemplified America’s entrepreneurial spirit By Jeanne Meek
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s a kid, I remember sitting down for family dinner with Mom, Dad, and my sister Susan. The telephone on the wall would ring, and my mom would answer the phone and hand it to my father, who had just gotten home from a long day at work. After a few words, Dad would walk over and start putting his work boots back on. Mom’s question would be, “What happened?” We already knew that his dinner plate would be left in the fridge for later. No matter how long his day already was, someone needed help. If it was a brother-in-law’s hot water heater or a friend with a dead car battery, he was on his way. He would either grab tools before he left the house or stop for supplies on the way. This work ethic and commitment to friends and family were instilled in us as the way all normal people react. I learned later in life that some other people find it strange to drop everything and help with a project when there isn’t anything in it for them. We didn’t have Instagram or Facebook, where he could post a selfie of himself helping someone. No one would ever know how many people he helped. But this work ethic came easy to Tom Teasel, as it had to his father. We continue it, and so do our children. Ours is a family of small business owners. We have generations of small businesses; some failed and some succeeded. But the need to help, the need to try and fix something with a product or service, is ingrained in our family DNA. Small business owners live, eat, and breathe problems and solutions all day—whether at home, at work, in the shower, or at a kid’s softball game. My dad kept a pad of paper and a pen by his bedside table because he said his brain would figure out answers while he was sleeping, and he could wake up and write them down. This need to help is what drives the small business owner. When you raise children in an environment of business owners, they get the inside scoop on the pride, heartache, long hours, and hard work. As a kid, I was at the office with my dad helping, and my children have been called on to help out at our office. Whether we were sweeping floors or helping with crunch time in the
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busy season, we have been drafted into our family business. While many kids opt to The author’s father, Tom stay on and continue their family business, many other kids opt to forge their own Teasel, poses path, follow their own interests, or open their own business. The family business is for pictures like a living thing that is always in the room, always on everyone’s mind; even when with the author (L) on her you are trying to be off work or on vacation, you never truly punch out. Many people wedding day, alongside the who have never had any families who are business owners can’t understand the author’s sister. whole life commitment. It’s like having a second family. The young woman opening a nail salon or a small bakery is working to build her dream, not operating a multi-million dollar business. When a rural farm goes under to build a strip mall, we mourn the loss of that family farm, that family business. But we can celebrate the dreams of the new small businesses who are out there taking a risk to start up a franchise boutique fitness studio or a laundromat or hair salon at that new strip mall. I look at each of these as a person who isn’t playing it safe by applying for a job but is taking a leap of faith to change his or her life while providing a service or product for the community. In the end, if successful, small business owners reap the rewards of their hard work and dedication. They get the benefits that may exceed their expectations. Yet in this modern world, we have people who begrudge small business owners as rich jerks when they are unaware of the investment and personal toll that they have sacrificed to get where they are now. I watched my dad own several businesses—some were started by him, some were with partners, and one was his father’s business. In all of these, he had great years and other years that were a great struggle. I learned so much from these experiences, and I feel I am a smarter owner for the invaluable schooling I received by listening
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and watching what not to do and what works. I understood customer service by a young age. I understood hard work and the pride in completing a job. I saw heartbreak with partnerships that fall apart and learned the importance of documentation and legal agreements instead of trusting a handshake. My dad always believed that the other person he was making an agreement with was as honest and forthcoming as he was. Many times, this proved to be wrong, and he was taken advantage of. While I may be more cynical than he was, I still believe in people, but I learned that I also must protect myself. I feel like each generation of business owners has learned from the last and can hand down its experiences to the next generation. My great-grandfather started a foundry sand and graphite business. It evolved into a concrete gunite business to serve the steel foundries in Detroit’s Industrial Revolution. This led to the evolution of asphalt patching machinery and contracting. While my family owned these businesses, we had great success, but we also saw the economic downturn that can render a product line unprofitable or a deep family rift that could tear apart a business. New businesses started, merged, celebrated success, and some eventually lost to bad partners. Meanwhile, my husband’s family members were also long-time business owners in the manufacturing industry in Detroit. In 1998, my husband started a small machine shop in his parents’ shop, with a service complementary to his parents’ service. They did not want to expand, so he did it on his own, working long hours and missing lots of birthday parties and events. But the September 11 attacks led to a slowdown, and my husband left his family’s business to go to work for my dad’s company while also working the machining company at night. Working two 8-hour
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Mr. Teasel digs with his grandson.
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jobs—this is the work ethic of family businesses. Our family has many proud veterans, and I believe the military also instills the instinct to help—to be the man rushing toward the danger when everyone else flees. We have generations of veterans and a current active-duty airman to proudly serve this great nation. Veterans own many of this country’s small businesses and continue to help their communities in every way. My son reminds me of my father and my husband in many ways. He is ambitious and hard-working. He has just formed his own small business after seeing a need for repair technicians at the local paintball and airsoft field. He started repairing other people’s equipment and has invested in his tools and now offers services to his fellow players. This drive to help becomes an idea and grows into a vision. But not everyone will take the initiative to make that vision a reality and invest time and money into starting something he or she is passionate about. I wish my dad could see him now. My father passed away suddenly in 2008 at age 57 from a complication with a routine procedure. We were left devastated, having to carry on without him. My husband’s parents passed away in 2020, and we had another family business to manage. We had to make hard choices and eventually close and liquidate it. When you close a beloved family business, it’s like burying another family member, but without a headstone. During the pandemic lockdowns, we saw millions of families make this heartbreaking decision to close restaurants and other small businesses. They are the casualties that have no cemetery. Most small business owners find other owners like a club, and we can strike up a conversation with a stranger because we all have the same stress and problems with staffing or logistics. We understand each other. Next time you see a new small business, try stopping in and giving the owners some support and congratulations on following their dreams. When I cleaned out my dad’s office, I saw he had a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt framed on his wall. It is now on my office wall. It says everything:
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It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. —Theodore Roosevelt, speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910 • Why do you love America? What makes it worth celebrating? What moves you about the people and places that make up our country? Tell us in a personal essay of about 600 to 800 words. We welcome you to send your submission to: Editor@AmericanEssenceMag.com
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Authors
Between Fact and Fiction Bestselling author Brad Thor draws from real-world security threats to craft fictional thrillers that eerily echo reality. Here, he discusses his latest book and reflects on America’s role in the world By Channaly Philipp
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estselling author Brad Thor, who writes a thriller every year, is known to tackle emerging security topics and create novels characterized by assiduous research and imaginative plots—what he calls “faction.” This wasn’t lost on the U.S. government, which tapped him to join its Analytic Red Cell program to come up with plausible scenarios involving threats and attacks on the United States. With his latest novel, “Dead Fall,” he took a different tack, writing about the Ukraine– Russia conflict—as it was happening. We spoke to Mr. Thor about his recent book as well as his views on America’s role in the world. American Essence: What was your experience writing this book in real time? Brad Thor: So it was interesting. There was a certain amount of trepidation on my part that the headlines might get out in front of me, as opposed to me being in front of the headlines, which is what I like to do. But I have to be honest with you, I grew up reading fabulous thrillers that were set in World War II. I always
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About the Author
BRAD THOR
In addition to authoring bestselling thrillers, Mr. Thor has also discussed security threats in various media outlets.
About the Book
DEAD FALL
“Dead Fall” (Simon & Schuster, 2023) takes place in Ukraine, where a mercenary unit of the Wagner Group has gone rogue.
wished that there was a similar setting that I could place my hero Scot Harvath in, and when the war in Ukraine broke out, I thought, OK, this is my opportunity to do my own version of some of my favorite movies like “Saving Private Ryan” or “Fury” with Brad Pitt, or the HBO series “Band of Brothers.” There were very definitive bad guys. There was lots of what we call the fog of war, lots of confusion, lots of difficulties with getting men and matériel to the front lines. It seemed like the perfect setting to put my hero. I like to put him into very difficult situations without a lot of support. I didn’t want to send him into the story with an army right behind him. I wanted to send him in as poorly equipped and undermanned as possible so that that would raise the stakes and the tension. So Harvath had to go by himself. He had to join the Ukrainian international Legion, so that if he got killed or captured, the United States could say, “We have
no idea why he was there.” That was the jumping-off point for “Dead Fall.” What we’re seeing here in Ukraine is very much an echo of the run-up to World War II, particularly when the Republic of France, fascist Italy, and the United Kingdom via Neville Chamberlain decided to allow Hitler to take a piece of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. [They] thought, “Well, if we let Hitler have this, then that’ll be the end of it.” And what do we all know from history? It wasn’t the end of it. It only encouraged him. And that’s exactly what’s happened with Putin. In his 2014 invasion of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, he said he was there to protect ethnic Russians. With my book, I saw all of these parallels from August to October of 1944. Hitler sent one of his worst SS brigades into Poland, and some of the most horrific, the most terrible war crimes of World War II were committed by the SS brigade, so we were seeing a lot of echoes of that with Russian
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A U.S. soldier stands amidst crates of loot stolen by Nazis in Schlosskirche, Ellingen, Bavaria, on April 24, 1945.
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A child waits to be evacuated from the city of Irpin, north of Kyiv, on March 10, 2022.
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troops, and particularly the Wagner Group, part of the mercenary force that Putin was using in Ukraine as well.
pack away and hide their precious works of art because they knew Putin was going to try to steal them.
AE: There is a humanitarian aspect to this book. It involves rescuing a U.S. citizen and orphans. But what’s also at stake are Ukrainian cultural treasures and artwork—and as you mentioned in the book, the identity of a nation. How did that idea come about? Mr. Thor: The Nazis looted treasure throughout Europe. There were only so many things that the Louvre was able to hide and get away before the Nazis came into Paris. A genocide of a culture exists on many different levels. Obviously, when we hear the word genocide, we think of killing people, and that is absolutely the worst. There’s also kidnapping the children and killing the children, consuming them, if you will, pulling them into your culture, which the Russians have done in Ukraine. A final part of genocide is to wipe out any trace of the culture and history, particularly their art. I was inspired by the movie with George Clooney and John Goodman, “The Monuments Men,” where they were trying to rescue pieces of art. That was another pop culture touchstone for me. And I love the book “All the Light We Cannot See,” which was a Pulitzer Prize winner. It starts with a young girl and her father who works at the Louvre and they have to get out of Paris because the Nazis are marching on Paris. So this idea of art and what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, I read lots of articles leading up to the invasion about how different museums throughout Ukraine were trying to
AE: Your books deal with security issues and bad actors around the world. What’s your perspective on America’s role in the world? Mr. Thor: We can start with Ukraine, and we can open up from there. This is not fiction from my books. These are actual historical facts. When the Soviet Union broke apart in the 1990s, one-third of the Soviet nuclear stockpile was in Ukraine. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States was very worried that the Ukrainians would not be able to maintain those weapons, much less protect them. We were very concerned that a bad actor, whether that be a terrorist organization, some sort of a rogue state, would be able to steal these weapons from the Ukrainians and use them against the United States or one of our allies. And so we went to the Ukrainians and we said, “Listen, you don’t have the ability to take care of these weapons, nor do you have the ability to protect them. We will help you dismantle them and get rid of them.” And Ukraine said, “OK, we have one condition. We want you, America, to promise us that if we give up these nuclear weapons, we will never lose one single inch of Ukrainian territory. We will never be invaded. No one will ever take our territory,” and the United States said, “Yes, we will guarantee you that this will not happen.” And they said, “OK, can you also get the Russians to sign this?” The Ukrainians and United States worked together with some other allies and the Russians to sign this agreement in real life. This is called the Budapest Memorandum. So that’s in the 1990s; it’s pre-Vladimir Putin. Everybody agreed and then what happens? In 2014, Vladimir Putin invades Eastern Ukraine, takes the Donbas, and puts the “Little Green Men” in there to do fighting for him. That was the Wagner group. This is a big deal because we have a G7 today, because as a result of that 2014 invasion by Putin, along with our partners in that organization, we kicked the Russians out. It used to be the G8. There were some sanctions and then a very harshly worded letter from the Obama administration. And that was it. And that was the wrong thing to do. We did basically to the Russians exactly what the Republic of France, fascist Italy, and
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not included preview. the United Kingdom did to Hitler in the in the Sudetenland situation. We just gave him what he wanted. And that was a big mistake for the United States. As far as our role in the world, when it comes to Ukraine, we’re doing the right thing now, but we’re not doing it fast enough. We should all want that war to be over and the only way to have that war be over quickly and to take Putin off the table as a threat is to defeat him as solidly as possible, to convince him this was a big mistake and he should never do it again. We should not be agreeing to let him keep territories already. If we don’t give the Ukrainians what they need, and as much as they need as quickly as possible, this war will drag out. Here’s the other thing. Even though … we’re learning a lot by watching Ukraine use our weapons, … China wanting us to weaken ourselves by staying there as long as possible is not a good thing. I think the natural state of mankind is chaos. It is only through encouragement of order and a set of international norms that the world does not slip into chaos. We have a very loud segment of our country that wants the United
States to be isolationist. Well, that’s unfortunately not possible. With great power comes great responsibility. If we don’t take that role of trying to assure democracy and security around the world, we will suffer the consequences when someone else, like the Chinese, takes that role. The Chinese have invested tremendously, particularly in their navy, and we have fallen behind with our Navy. Another good thing for the United States that’s come out of the war in Ukraine is that we’ve seen what a paper tiger Russia’s military is. I mean, Russia really is a “gas station” with nukes. That’s an old term that was used to describe them. I think it was John McCain who coined that but it’s true. So our focus now as we do our military planning can be more on China. Most Americans don’t realize the extent to which China is committed to becoming a world superpower. If we do not wake up and don’t double down and really commit to our national security efforts vis-à-vis China, we’re going to find ourselves left in the dust.
Local residents pass by a destroyed church that served as a military base for Russian soldiers on April 10, 2022, in the village of Lukashivka, Ukraine.
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Welcome to
LIDIA'S TABLE
For the Italian refugee turned celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich, food is the great connector—to her childhood home and family, the country that took her in, and the millions of viewers she’s invited to her table for 25 years on public television By Crystal Shi
Chef Lidia Bastianich cooks up a quick pasta at her home in Queens, New York. 32
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“Food opens all the doors. Food is a common denominator, no matter what culture you are: You sit at the table, you begin to cook together, and you become friends.” Lidia Bastianich, chef, restaurateur, TV host, & author NOV EMBER 2023
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Family photos line the walls of Ms. Bastianich’s New York home of 38 years.
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t her home in Queens, New York, Lidia Bastianich cooks with a view of the water. Opposite her sprawling kitchen and dining table, wall-to-wall windows look out over her garden to the idyllic Little Neck Bay, where sailboats bob serenely under blue skies. Here is where the Italian refugee turned James Beard and Emmy Award-winning chef, restaurateur, TV personality, and author raised her children and her grandchildren; where she taught Julia Child how to make risotto; where she filmed the PBS shows that introduced millions of Americans to traditional Italian home cooking, inviting them around her table with her signature phrase: “Tutti a tavola a mangiare!” “Everyone to the table to eat!” “I feel very American, and I feel very Italian here,” Ms. Bastianich told American Essence on a recent visit. There’s the proximity to the water, what drew her to buy the house in the first place 38 years ago—“since I came from the Adriatic, my dream was always water,” she said—and the garden lined with Italian fig and lemon trees, rosemary and wild fennel, grape trellises, and potted tomatoes—all echoes of the Mediterranean. “And at the same time,” she said, “I see the Empire State Building from my house.” It’s a dual identity that she’s embraced from a
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This page is n in the p young age. When she was 10, she and her family fled their home in communist-occupied Istria, a peninsula in northeastern Italy handed over to Yugoslavia in the aftermath of World War II. They waited two years in a refugee camp in Trieste, Italy, before finding freedom in America in 1958. Since then, Ms. Bastianich has built her own version of the American Dream: a veritable culinary empire dedicated to sharing her cultural heritage with her new home. It has spanned several restaurants with her former husband, Felice, and now her children, Joe and Tanya; 25 years on air with more than a dozen companion cookbooks; a partnership in opening Eataly, an Italian food emporium, in New York and locations across the United States; and her own lines of pastas, sauces, and cookware. She’s also made it her mission to champion the place that took her in and gave her the opportunity to succeed: “There’s no better country in the whole world,” she said. For an ongoing series of annual, hour-long specials, “Lidia Celebrates America,” she travels to meet, cook with, and share the stories of inspiring people across the country. And at 76, Ms. Bastianich has hardly slowed down. Her latest cookbook, “Lidia's From our Family Table to Yours,” written with her daugh-
ter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali, was released in September. The 11th season of her PBS show “Lidia’s Kitchen” premiered in October, and a special, “25 Years With Lidia: A Culinary Jubilee,” will premiere nationally on December 18 at 8 p.m. EST. Squeezing in our interview on a brief day home between travels—next, to Canada, for her book tour—she talks at the confident, no-nonsense clip of a matriarch and businesswoman who knows how to get things done, and fast. What keeps her going? “I love what I do,” she said matter-of-factly. And indeed, she softens, both tone and expression taking on a grandmotherly warmth, when she speaks about her passions: food, family, and how the two have always been intertwined in her work and life. She spoke with American Essence about her immigrant journey, her sense of responsibility to her adopted home, and the extraordinary power of sharing a meal. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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American Essence: What are your strongest food memories associated with the different places in your life’s journey—from your birthplace of Pola, Istria [now Pula, Croatia], to the refugee camp in Trieste, and finally, to America? Lidia Bastianich: I have to go back to when I was born: 1947, after the war. The Paris Treaty was in the same month, February, and the border came down: Trieste was given to Italy, and Istria and Dalmatia were given to the newly formed communist Yugoslavia. We grew up in a country of radical change. Once the communists came, you could not speak Italian, they changed our name, we couldn’t go to church. My mother was a schoolteacher; my father was a mechanic, and he had two trucks. They took the trucks and deemed
Ms. Bastianich around age 5.
him a capitalist; they put him in jail for it. So life wasn’t that easy. Even food was scarce. My grandmother, who was in a little town, Busoler, outside of Pola, she raised food and animals to feed the whole family, so my mother took my brother and me out of the city and put us with Grandma. And I think that’s where my first basic food connections happened. With my grandmother, we had chickens, we had ducks, we had geese, we had rabbits, we had goats, we had pigs, we had pigeons. Now and then it was a chicken that went into the pot, then it was a rabbit, then it was a pigeon. I would be feeding these animals. In the springtime, the rabbits loved clover, so I would go and harvest clover in the woods. We would milk the goats, make ricotta. We had two pigs every year, and slaughter was in November, so you had to feed them to get them nice and fat. After the slaughter, we made the sausages, the prosciutto, the bacon. The garden was the extension of the house— we had the immediate vegetable garden, and then we had a little wheat field. We had olive trees. I was involved in harvesting the olives in November when the olive oil was made; I remember I would dip the bread in there and taste it. The wheat didn’t get all milled at once; Grandma kept the wheat kernels in a cantina, and she would go to the mill every month or two. We would brine the vegetables and the fruits for the winter; we’d pickle cabbage. Everything had a season: the wild asparagus in spring, the nettles, and then, in the fall, the mushrooms and the squash. I helped my grandmother work the land, so I was aware when things would blossom. I was in tune. The small baby peas, Grandma let them grow because she would get more when it’s a mature pea, but as I would go and collect them, I ate them. I used to
A scene from Ms. Bastianich’s latest PBS special, “Lidia Celebrates America: Flavors That Define Us.” NOV EMBER 2023
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Thanksgiving 2017 at Ms. Bastianich’s home, with all of her grandchildren.
chew on the pods; they’re sweet, too. The figs, in August when they were plentiful, we would dry them in the sun so we would have them in the winter. I was involved in all of this—and not because she wanted to teach me, but because I was there as a little helper, that’s just the way it was. My grandmother would say, “Go get some rosemary,” and I would run to the rosemary bush, or to the bay leaves. I grew up with all of that. I knew all the smells, and that stayed with me. When you’re in your formative years, that stays with you. But the real recall moment for me came in 1956. I was 10 years old. When the border went down in Trieste, some of my family was left on the Italian side. Supposedly, my aunt [in Trieste] wasn’t feeling well, so my mother and my brother and I went to visit her. They wouldn’t let the whole family go; they held someone as hostage because they knew we wouldn’t come back [otherwise]. The three of us went. The aunt was fine. But two weeks later, at night, my father appeared: He’d escaped the border. Then I realized that I’m not going to go back to see my grandmother. That’s when I really felt that need: I wanted to be connected, and food and smell built that connection. I think that my love and passion for food, my connection with food, goes back to those memories of wanting to be connected with Grandma, who I didn’t know when I was going to see. So I would cook things that I remembered with my aunt, the flavors that my grandmother was cooking. We didn’t have Italian papers because we were under communism, so my parents went to the police and asked for asylum. For two years, we were in a political refugee camp, awaiting
where to go. I remember in camp, we had a little cubby hole, and we had beds on top of each other. I would recall all the beautiful times I had with Grandma that I maybe couldn’t have anymore, and I think that’s why it’s so embedded; it’s so vivid even to this day. People say, “Gee, Lidia, you remember the details.” I do, because I recalled them so many times in those years. Even when I came to the United States, the excitement of being free and having your own home and the greatness of America—still, your roots are your roots.
“I think that my love and passion for food, my connection with food, goes back to those memories of wanting to be connected with Grandma, who I didn’t know when I was going to see.” Lidia Bastianich AE: After you came to America, how did your experiences with food change? Ms. Bastianich: [I remember] the excitement of American food. The Twinkies. Hostess. Jell-O. I’d never had a grapefruit. All these foods—they’re delicious! When we settled, my mother worked late, so she would leave me to do the dinner, and every night [I made] a cake. Those pre-mixes—I couldn’t get enough of them! I was watching the Ed Sullivan show, Elvis Presley, all of that. I wanted every single thing that was American; I wanted to become American as soon as I could. We didn’t speak English when we came, but my brother and I, within a year, we began to. Then, of course, as I went on into my profession, I realized that maybe the connection to real food was the way it’s supposed to be. Big industry took a lot of liberties with creating our foods. What is amazing is that from my formative years to my professional years, I reverted back to what we did [in Busoler] and how important it was. It’s like 360 degrees, now and then. I think us chefs, we have a big role to play, and I think that’s why with my show and my books, I feel that I share the authenticity that I grew up with. AE: In addition to your regular show, your series of specials celebrates America. How did the idea for these specials come about?
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(L–R) Ms. Bastianich; her mother’s companion, Giovanni Bencina; her former husband, Felice Bastianich; her mother, Erminia Motika; and her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali gather in her home kitchen in this old photo.
Ms. Bastianich: I wanted to share my gratitude and my curiosity in understanding America better from my point of view, having been a young immigrant, having been given the opportunity to come to America. America has been sort of knocked down. You’ve got to rally against this. So it’s my way, as an immigrant, of telling Americans, “Listen, there’s no better country, I can tell you that.” Food opens all the doors. Food is a common denominator, no matter what culture you are: You sit at the table, you begin to cook together, and you become friends. And when you talk with food, the conversation is mellow. So I use food to sort of penetrate messages. I did two veteran specials, because I don’t think people realize how our soldiers are out there giving their lives to protect our freedom. I visited with veterans, and we cooked together. I did one thanking all the first responders. The last one was on immigrants, because I think immigrants are maligned now, but we’re all immigrants. I went around to different ethnic communities: I went to South Carolina, to a Ukrainian son and mother; then I went to Houston, to the Afghan community. My Vietnamese friend Christine Ha, she’s a blind chef, she was born here but her parents were from Vietnam. She says, “At home, I was Vietnamese, but outside, I was American.” As an immigrant, you’re lucky enough to have
these cultures on top of being an American. America is made out of different ethnicities: It’s like a quilt, and it’s beautiful, and it’s strong. And what’s amazing about this is that within this context, we can all be who we are culturally: We can practice our religion, speak our language, sing our songs, have our social gatherings. But what immigrants need to also understand is that they’re given this great opportunity, and you need to take opportunities that you think fit, and you need to work hard at that. You need to make it happen, and really be responsible, and at the end, you need to give back to this country. [In the special] there’s this family from Bhutan, where they were persecuted, so they were in Nepal as immigrants for over 18 years. When they came here, he [Bhuwan Pyakurel] was still a young man. He ultimately became an assemblyman for his community [in Reynoldsburg, Ohio]. You have to become part of society, and you have to appreciate it. Certainly, I feel that way: As an immigrant, I feel very grateful for the opportunities that my family was given. In turn, I had my children here, my grandchildren, and I never stopped telling them that. I took them back to the refugee camp and the trip that I took—and not just I, but many other people, whether from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, to escape dire conditions. What parents do to NOV EMBER 2023
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“What parents do to better the lives of their children! Kids need to know, immigrants need to understand the gifts that they’ve been given and make the most of it.” Lidia Bastianich
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Ms. Bastianich harvests sprigs of fresh rosemary from her garden. 38
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better the lives of their children! Kids need to know, immigrants need to understand the gifts that they’ve been given and make the most of it. AE: You’ve written a new cookbook of your own family’s favorite recipes, in part a tribute to your late mother, Erminia Motika, known to your family and fans as “Grandma.” Can you talk about who she was to you? Ms. Bastianich: My mother passed away two years ago at 100. We lived together; she lived upstairs, I lived down. She was matriarch. She helped me raise my children, and in turn, we helped to raise my children’s children. They all remember her vividly—we all do. When you think about this woman, 30-some years old with two young children, going into the world not speaking the language, not having anybody in the States, not having money—how much strength it took for her and my father to do that so that our lives could be better. She was a strong woman who appreciated, loved America. She realized what America could be to her family. She was the pole that held everything together. Nothing was done without Grandma, so she automatically came right into the shows and articles; the viewers loved her. People said, “She’s my grandma, she’s the grandma I lost.” She became kind of everyone’s grandma. We still give her a tribute, I want her in the show:
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At the end, we have little clips where we sing together, and people love that. AE: What upcoming projects are you most excited about? Ms. Bastianich: The continuation of my show. I pulled back a little bit from the restaurants— my kids are running the restaurants, and I have new projects going on. I have more freedom. We’re just finishing my 25-year special, and then I’m working on another book. The next one is all about pasta: fresh pasta, dried pasta, making it, cooking it. I’m excited about it. AE: What is the most important life advice you want to pass on to your grandchildren, and other young people? Ms. Bastianich: Eating together at the table is an extraordinary place to be. Because when you’re eating, your defenses are down, you can talk. As human beings, we’re smart, we’re defensive, we are protective. But when we’re eating, that’s one of the few things that we take into our bodies—food—and our defenses are going to be down to take it in. Especially when parents want to talk to children about life, the table is the ideal place because children are open, are receptive, and they’re taking in what you’re saying, too. You don’t need to make a festive meal. A nice plate of pasta, it’ll get people to the table. •
THANKSGIVING AT LIDIA’S For Lidia Bastianich, Thanksgiving is a holiday about “celebrating the country that took us in,” she said. Her family gathers in her New York home, joined by a few regulars who have no family of their own and have been part of the Bastianich holiday celebrations for years. “We fill the whole house,” Ms. Bastianich said—and of course, she does the cooking. “For me, cooking for 20, 30 people? Not a big deal.” The meal starts with a “never-ending” antipasto buffet: “We like fish, so it’s octopus, it’s mussels, it’s calamari, it’s baccala.
… And then, of course, all the cold cuts—mortadella, prosciutto, gorgonzola, parmigiana. Then all the cured olives and roasted peppers, lots of roasted vegetables, salads, a lot of greens, cured anchovies, mozzarella.”
TIPS FOR HOME COOKS
Then comes a soup or pasta course (“We make it a little Italian,” Ms. Bastianich said) followed by the turkey with all the fixings, served family-style at the dining table. Dessert is again buffet-style: The kids usually bring pumpkin pie and bread pudding, while Ms. Bastianich makes an apple strudel or cheesecake.
Glaze your bird: Ms. Bastianich
Use your oven space wisely: The turkey gets priority, with some sides delegated to cook on the stovetop instead. “Us Italians, we do a lot of garlic-and-oil vegetables in the pan.” simmers balsamic vinegar with bay leaves, rosemary, a couple of garlic cloves, and honey in a pan on the stovetop until reduced by about half, then strains the resulting syrup and brushes it on the turkey in the last half hour of roasting. “That gives it a nice Italian touch and some sweetness.” NOV EMBER 2023
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Eric Hollenbeck, in his signature lumberjack shirt, stands in front of the Blue Ox Millworks office in Eureka, Calif.
The Makings of a Master Craftsman Eric Hollenbeck, master woodworker, on the beauty—and healing power—of his craft By David Coulson
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n a chilly morning on the edge of the redwoods at the back of Humboldt Bay, Eric Hollenbeck sat on a worn wooden bench with a cup of coffee in his hands and an adopted calico cat curled up at his feet. A scavenged potbelly stove radiated warmth into the rustic reception room. In his lumberjack red plaid flannel shirt, the woodworking wizard drew solace from puffing his billiard pipe, billowing tobacco smoke. In sizing up Mr. Hollenbeck, the descriptors that stick like wood glue are grit and mettle. In 1973, he started a salvage logging company in the northern California coastal town of Eureka with a $300 bank loan and a leap of faith. A half-century later, the eighth-grade dropout is the successful proprietor of Blue Ox Millworks, one of the last Victorian mills in America employing traditional tools and techniques.
The tools in Mr. Hollenbeck’s millworks date from 1866 to 1948.
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“If you work with [your hands], you’re a tradesman. If you work with your hands and your head, you’re a craftsman. If you work with your hands, your head, and your heart, you’re a master craftsman. When you put all of them together, you’re putting your soul into what you’re doing.” Eric Hollenbeck, master craftsman & co-founder, Blue Ox Millworks
An exhibit at the millworks displays elements of the reproduction of Abraham Lincoln’s hearse, a project completed by a team of 23 combat veterans.
In 2022, 2,000 visitors came to the mill for guided tours and hands-on workshops. Mr. Hollenbeck oversees their tutelage on the intricately designed and highly decorative woodwork of Victorian architecture, from spandrels to sunbursts to doll balusters. He’s also become a television celebrity, showcasing his restoration projects that range from a lumber baron mansion to his childhood movie theater on the Magnolia Network series “The Craftsman.” His authentic reproductions are found as far afield as the White House and the Mascot Saloon in Skagway, Alaska, but the primary focus of the show is on historic homes and forgotten treasures in Eureka. “I grew up just 10 blocks from the mill,” Mr. Hollenbeck said. “I work on buildings I took shade under on my way to school. There is a personal history in that, which is really important for me.” As is bringing recognition to his hometown: “It excites me to share with the outside world what an amazing place we live.” A Passionate Perfectionist The 76-year-old artisan shared his insight and passion for his pursuit. “If you work with these,” he said, holding up his hands, “you’re a trades-
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This page is n in the p man. If you work with your hands and your head, you’re a craftsman. If you work with your hands, your head, and your heart, you’re a master craftsman. When you put all of them together, you’re putting your soul into what you’re doing.” Mr. Hollenbeck’s mastery is a testament to his spiritual communion with the forest in his backyard. “The tree is perfection in the woods,” he said, exhaling a plume of sweet tobacco smoke. “And the challenge for a woodworker is to make a product as close to that perfection as possible, thereby treating the wood with the reverence it deserves.” Gently caressing a spiral specimen, he continued, “I enjoy the feel of finely crafted wood, the redwood smell of the workshop, the pleasure of cutting, shaping, and joining wood with hand tools and human-powered equipment.” In a matter of minutes, shavings from a new project masked his workbench and the floor. Mr. Hollenbeck accomplishes his 19th-century restoration methods with tools dating from 1866 to 1948. He pulled most of the antiquated machinery out of blackberry bushes and abandoned sawmills. He built a foundry and blacksmith shop to fix and maintain them and to produce ornamental ironwork. Such self-suffi-
ciency was born out of necessity. “Nothing was too good for us,” he said with a husky laugh about him and his wife of 46 years, Viviana, “and that is exactly what we had to work with—nothing.” It was in 1976 that Hollenbeck turned his salvage logging company into a custom millworks. “I was always good with my hands,” he said, “so manufacturing wood products was a natural evolution. I was still working with saws and tape measures, just on a smaller scale.” Healing Through Craft Mr. Hollenbeck is philosophical, humorous, and a natural storyteller. There’s more to the makeup of the man than woodworking—he’s also dedicated to helping combat veterans and troubled youth. In 1969, returning to civilian life after fierce firefights in the jungles of Vietnam, the anguished former Army Airborne corporal had a meltdown. “We didn’t know anything about shell shock back then,” Mr. Hollenbeck said. “I always thought it was just me.” He believes Native Americans understood post-traumatic stress disorder. “They knew it took a year to train a villager to become a warrior,” he explained. “They also knew it took a year to train a warrior to become a villager again.” Focusing on woodworking, the 23-year-old gave himself the space to begin healing. During the process, he said that he gained a deep respect for his ingenious Victorian predecessors and their innovative tools. Mr. Hollenbeck started a program at Blue Ox a decade ago to help fellow veterans redefine themselves in the wake of coming home from war. He maintains they have one job: to find a new identity. He encourages them to make
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something they can hold up and say, “That’s me. I did that.” He proudly pointed to one project in particular: Relying on the single known photograph, 23 combat veterans created a genuine replica of Abraham Lincoln’s horse-drawn hearse, which had been destroyed in a fire. The replica was the centerpiece of the 150th anniversary commemoration of Lincoln’s funeral in Springfield, Illinois, in 2015. Mr. Hollenbeck is planning the development of a 5-acre historic craftsman’s village; its construction and operation will be a therapeutic training ground for returning veterans.
IF YOU GO BLUE OX MILLWORKS AND HISTORIC PARK 1 X Street Eureka, CA 707-444-3437 BlueOxMill.com
The Next Generation One reason Mr. Hollenbeck does the television show is to raise young people’s consciousness about craftsmanship: “To tell them being a craftsman is an honorable and profitable way to make a living,” he said. He insists that the schools and media are not telling them that. “The trades are screaming at the top of their lungs: ‘We need people. We’re paying big money.’ And nobody’s hearing it.” He has established a vocational charter school at Blue Ox for at-risk teens. As part of their high school curriculum, they take five-week courses to develop marketable skills and a sense of accomplishment. “I’ve got empathy for these students,” the headmaster said. “I couldn’t read. That’s why I left school.” He revealed that he read his first book at age 50. He chose a 250-page chemistry text to learn how to make varnish. “It took me six months to read it with a dictionary by my side,” he admitted. “The school system told me I was stupid. I am ignorant, but not stupid. I do amazing things.” • Earlier this year, Mr. Hollenbeck oversaw the preservation of a World War II Higgins landing craft designed to shuttle a platoon of soldiers from ship to shore. It was so integral to the invasion of Normandy that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower claimed the conflict was won because of the boat. Retrieved from the bottom of Shasta Lake in north-central California, the Blue Ox craft was trucked to its new home at the Nebraska National Guard Museum in time for Fourth of July ceremonies.
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A Storied Grand Hotel Set against sweeping views of New Hampshire’s mountains, the Omni Mount Washington played a unique role in the history of the world By Cary Dunst
The Omni Mount Washington Resort offers sweeping views of the White Mountains.
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s guests take the long driveway up to the Omni Mount Washington Resort, its white façade and gleaming red roof come into full view, backdropped by New England’s largest mountain. Set in a forested green valley with the Ammonoosuc River streaming through, the vastness of the hotel’s grounds blends into the endless landscape of the White Mountain National Forest and Mount Washington State Park. It seems right out of a fairy tale, like an impenetrable castle surrounded by a ruggedly beautiful landscape. And while it wasn’t a monarch that built this dreamy castle, its founders were very much like royalty from the Industrial Age.
No Expense Spared With the completion of railroad networks into northern New England in the late 1800s, it became fashionable for the gentry to escape the heat of New York and Boston to the cooler temperatures and fresh mountain air of New Hampshire. As demand grew, dozens of daily trains carried travelers to a new crop of increasingly luxurious hotels. Joseph Stickney, an ambitious tycoon who made his vast fortune before the age of 30 in the rail and coal industries, set out to not merely outdo his hotelier peers, but also create one of the world’s most ambitious hotel projects. He spared no expense, bringing in 250 Italian
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This page is n in the p The Grand Hall of the hotel.
stone masons, a steel superstructure, Tiffany glass windows, and a dedicated power plant, and he outfitted every guest room with its own hot and cold running water. It was a marvel of its time in every respect. At the opening ceremony in 1902, Thomas Edison personally turned on the lights. The hotel was an immediate success, and the rich and famous came by the trainload to play golf and tennis, ride horses, paint watercolors, and enjoy the sumptuous fine dining and stiff cocktails. Celebrity sightings were a normal occurrence, and the hotel’s success was also a boon to the local economy. Stickney joked at the opening ceremony that the labor of opening the hotel would “be the death of him,” and ironically, he did pass away within a year.
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Young, rich, and beautiful, Stickney’s widow Carolyn assumed ownership. Despite remarrying a European prince and living in France throughout the year, she returned to New Hampshire to oversee the hotel in the summer season during which it operated. She was the face and personality of the resort. The staff and guests found her eccentricity endearing, and the hotel continued to flourish through the Roaring ’20s. However, the economic headwinds of Prohibition, the Great Depression, and finally World War II could not be endured, and the hotel was shut down in 1942, a few years after Carolyn’s death. A New Role in History Serendipity would come, as the hotel was selected to host the United Nations Monetary
and Financial Conference, more generally known as the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, after the conclusion of the war. No less than 730 international delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered in the secure, remote location; the mild summer temperatures were viewed as a desirable alternative to the humidity of Washington, D.C. The conference achieved its goals when the final documents—establishing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and selecting the American dollar as the standard—were signed on Carolyn Stickney’s personal dining room table. With the cash infused from hosting the conference, the hotel was able to re-open. It would change ownership several times over the next decades, eventually becoming a yearround resort and expanding to include New Hampshire’s largest alpine ski area. Omni Resorts would take ownership in 2010, investing in the storied grand hotel to return it to its original glory. Always a fixture on the lists of the top hotels in the Northeast, the resort counts Carolyn’s personal bedroom with its original bedposts as one of its top rooms. It’s rumored that her ghost still frequents the halls, bedrooms, and ballrooms of her beloved resort. Imagine the excitement of arriving on a train after the resort opened in 1902. Guests were awed by both Mount Washington and its name-
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From this storied veranda, guests can take in views of Mount Washington, the highest mountain in New England.
sake resort. Joseph and Carolyn Stickney incorporated all of the latest technologies, luxuries, and comforts to entice city folk to have a marvelous experience amidst this rugged setting. Over 120 years later, that tradition lives on, and the hotel’s spirit and character continue to enchant, as guests take in the opulence of the grand lobby and the cozy elegance of the verandah, juxtaposed against surreal views of the mountains. And of course, the history is a draw: Carolyn’s original bed, her dining room table, and maybe her spirit still enchant those that make the trek up to this majestic valley in northern New Hampshire. • A grandfather and grandson bond over a round of golf.
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Your Happy Place Dr. Esther Sternberg offers tips on creating workspaces that are conducive to wellness By Amy Denney
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he opening words to Dr. Esther Sternberg’s new book, “Well at Work: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace,” beckon us to reimagine our workplaces. “Close your eyes and imagine your happy place. I’ll wager it’s not your office, or your workspace wherever you work! What if you could turn your workspace into that happy place? What if it felt more like a spa than a row of cramped cubicles?” American Essence chatted with Dr. Sternberg, who has studied the intersection of health and spaces for more than two decades and holds many titles, including founding director of the University of Arizona’s Institute on Place, Wellbeing, & Performance. “You can do your head-down work at home. We need spaces to go to that can foster a sense of community, to brainstorm together, and socialize. That works better when you’re physically in person rather than on a video conference call,” Sternberg said. Why Work Environments Matter “You need to have good ventilation to clear away all the bad stuff that can be in the air—the viruses, the mold, the allergens, the toxins. That’s a starting point. It’s not good enough to just have that, and that’s why I wrote the book,” she said. “You need to design spaces that enhance emotional wellbeing as well. If you’re spending most of your day in a space that is stressful, you’re going to end up being less resilient. You’ll be more susceptible to more frequent and severe viral infections. You can get burned out.”
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Most Surprising Research Finding A study comparing 60 office workers in a building being retrofitted revealed that those people working in dark offices with high cubicle walls had elevated stress—not just at work but through the night at home, Dr. Sternberg said. They measured heart rate variability with a wearable device, and salivary cortisol levels were captured five times throughout the day. A follow-up study of 225 office workers years later found that those working in an open office plan with lots of choices were less stressed and had better quality sleep. “Other things were surprising, too, for example that too little noise can be stressful as well as too much noise,” she said. “When we asked people whether they were stressed or not in various places, they weren’t aware of it.” •
Dr. Esther Sternberg.
TIPS FROM DR. STERNBERG FOR IMPROVING YOUR WORKSPACE Incorporating some of these ideas can offset a less than ideal environment, no matter where you work: • Sit near a window, preferably one facing the rising sun. • Keep humidity between 30 percent and 60 percent. • Consider an ergonomic chair (some even have temperature settings) to facilitate correct spinal posture. • An ideal work setting will take into consideration the domains of integrative health in the workplace: reducing stress, getting sufficient quality sleep, eating a healthy diet, maintaining social connections, engaging in some form of spiritual reflection, getting plenty of exercise, and making sure the environment is toxin-free and the air you breathe is clean and fresh.
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