WAG Julyl 2016

FREDERIC KIEFFER

Chef’s globally inspired creations

DR. EDWARD HALPERIN’S PROGNOSIS History lives at medical college

DAVID AND CATHERINE KATZ A healthy approach to life

SOUTHPORT’S CULINARY DELIGHTS INTERNATIONAL FARE Mooncakes to caviar

A SLICE OF LIFE

From pizza to the Greek table

CELEBRATING Uncommon delights

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CONTENTS

60

COVER STORY THIS PAGE An epicurean journey.

Photograph courtesy CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa.

FREDERIC KIEFFER’S CULINARY ODYSSEY

12 Celebrating Southport 16 Moonstruck 18 Treasures uncovered 22 Crazy for caviar 24 The not-so-secret life of bees 28 Eat right or else…

30 The marriage of nutritious and delicious 32 Have fork, will travel 34 A grape life 36 Lady marmalade 38 Celebrating the falcon’s ascent at Grace Farms 40 Growing The Granola Bar 42 Wedded to style 46 Greek inspiration 50 Slice of history 54 Farm as life 58 Brant’s sweet tooth 88 Freshness you can taste

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W H I T E

P L A I N S

H O S P I TA L

I S

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M E M B E R

O F

T H E

M O N T E F I O R E

H E A LT H

S Y S T E M

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Chef’s globally inspired creations

DR. EDWARD HALPERIN’S PROGNOSIS History lives at medical college

DAVID AND CATHERINE KATZ A healthy approach to life

SOUTHPORT’S CULINARY DELIGHTS INTERNATIONAL FARE Mooncakes to caviar

A SLICE OF LIFE

From pizza to the Greek table

CELEBRATING JUDGED

BEST MAGAZINE IN NEW YORK STATE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW

JULY 2016 | WAGMAG.COM

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ON THE COVER:

FREDERIC KIEFFER

WESTCHESTER & FAIRFIELD LIFE

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100 WELL Striking a balance in youth sports

Uncommon delights

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Frederic Kieffer in the kitchen of Artisan Restaurant, Tavern & Garden at Four Columns in Newfane, Vt. See story on page 60.

Photograph by Kelly Fletcher.

JULY 2016

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EDITOR'S LETTER GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

I’m no food writer, but I must admit to few greater pleasures than a meal with family and friends — although I also enjoy going solo at mealtime with just my scribbling or a good book for company. Food doesn’t merely punctuate social occasions. Often, it defines them.

So welcome to this edition of our annual food issue, in which we consider the celebratory aspect of food.

We begin with a busman’s holiday to Southport, courtesy of the Delamar hotel and spa, where an unusual Earth Day celebration — created by chef (and cover subject) Frederic Kieffer out of produce from Patti Popp’s Sport Hill Farm and Carla Marina Marchese’s Red Bee Honey — yielded a bounty of stories, including one on sommelier Luis Suarez.

“Wine is a culture,” he says in our profile. “You learn about places, food and people. It’s the easiest way to be exposed to the world.”

So it is with food. July WAG features plenty of food/cultures, from the global palate of our resident Wanderer, Jeremy, to the rarest of Caspian Sea caviars in Top’s piece; Audrey’s nostalgia for the Chinese mooncakes of her girlhood; food blogger Yamini Lal’s relish of Ethiopian specialties at Teff in Stamford (Mary’s story); and the Yankee Doodle Dandy preserves and jams of Eleanor’s Best (Mary again).

If there is one region that stands out here for inspiration, it is one we know our readers love — the Mediterranean.

We range from Greek food with a variety of offerings from teNeues’ new book “A Taste of Greece”; to Italian, with that New Haven landmark, Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana; to Spanish, with Danielle’s visit to Taberna Restaurant Tapas & Wine Bar in Fairfield.

French cuisine is well-represented in our cover story on Frederic, executive chef of the Gallic-flavored l’escale restaurant bar at Delamar Greenwich Harbor and executive chef and managing partner of the countrified Artisan Restaurant, Tavern & Garden at Delamar Southport. Having enjoyed his cuisine and conversation in both locales, we can say Frederic is as pas-

With chef Frederic Kieffer.

Photograph by John Rizzo.

sionate about sharing — be it food or culinary expertise — as he is about farm-to-table.

But French/Mediterranean foods get a twist in the recipes of Frenchborn cooking blogger Catherine Katz, whose Cuisinicity website marries the delicious to the nutritious — just as she wed preventive medicine specialist Dr. David L. Katz, who enthralled us with his literate and literary talk about nutrition’s relationship to health at the American Health Association, Westchester-Fairfield Chapter’s recent “Go Red for Women” luncheon in Stamford.

Katz is passionate about nutritious food as a key to good health. Dr. Edward Halperin, chancellor of New York Medical College in Valhalla, would no doubt add that care of the body must necessarily involve care of the spirit. That’s why, as Laura explains, he unearthed and restored many of the school’s hidden artistic treasures, not only paintings but whimsical statues of characters from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

There's no point in feeding the body without feeding the soul.

Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group) and “The Penalty for Holding,” which will be published next year by Less Than Three Press.

They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” which is the name of the sports/culture blog she writes at thegamesmenplay.com.

Readers may also find weekly installments of her serialized novel, “Seamless Sky,” on wattpad.com.

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Celebrating Southport

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

Southport wears its wealth casually. Less famous than neighbor Westport, the Fairfield enclave nonetheless entices with intriguing shops and galleries; the allowing-you-to-exhale Delamar Southport hotel and spa; and spacious, gracious homes along winding roads that cascade to a creamy coastline.

It was to Southport that we repaired recently for what turned out to be the best kind of busman’s holiday — a VIP press weekend designed to show off Delamar Southport and celebrate Earth Day. Frankly, we’d be happy to celebrate Groundhog Day, Sadie Hawkins Day, whatever. But the thought of spending Earth Day, April 22, in our favorite month on a junket organized by Lisa Johnson of Johnson Media Relations & Development, who treats you like a guest and a friend rather than a reporter — well, how could we resist?

So up we sped I-95 — or at least we sped up I-95 as much as you can on a warm-weather weekend — to a tiny community (some 4,300 people in about three square miles) that is steeped in Federal and Greek Revival architecture and nautical history, which you can research at the Pequot Library.

Our first stop after we wound through town was the beach, where the sight of a sparkling sea and

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milky sands, along with the nostrils-twitching tang of salt air, had both a calming and exhilarating effect that whetted the appetite.

Speaking of appetites, we sated ours at the salad bar at the Spic & Span Market, whose parking lot was the setting for a scene in the 2008 domestic tragedy “Revolutionary Road,” starring “Titanic” lovers Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. (That scene was cut from the film, but another at the beach made it into the movie.)

After that, we toured the “Sea + Glass” exhibit at Southport Galleries, where the blue-green palette and nuanced textures of Ruth Hamill’s encaustic paintings and Maryann Schmidt’s hyper-realistic work echoed the not-too-distant Long Island Sound.

Then it was time to check into Delamar Southport, which is the cozy, country yin to Delamar Greenwich Harbor’s cosmopolitan, coastal yang. In our cheery yellow room, Lisa had left welcoming

Photograph by dreamstime.com.

Outdoor patio of Delamar Southport. Courtesy the hotel.

treats — a split of Chianti and chocolate truffles. But perhaps none was more inviting than the queensize bed with its embroidered pillows. Maybe we’d lie down just for a minute before the afternoon’s main event, OK, maybe 20 minutes….

But we couldn’t sleep, anticipating our visit to Red Bee Honey in nearby Weston. In her sloping backyard, graphic artist-turned-beekeeper Carla Marina Marchese, called Marina, asked us if we wanted to peer into the hives, which were, shall we say, a bit active that afternoon. When one of the two men in our party found a bee nestled in his longish hair, Marina rescued him by corralling it with a hairclip. Another skittish gentleman was curious about the power struggles that might ensue when the queen bee dies, conjuring images of the apiary as “Dallas” or “Dynasty” or even an old Joan Crawford movie (“Queen Bee,” anyone?).

This also led us to consider the sexual division of labor in the hives, with the females doing all the work and the males expiring after sex. Somehow this did not surprise the women in our group, who were generally less worried about “bee-ing” among the hives than our two male companions.

We were all on safer ground metaphorically inside Marina’s barn, or honey house, were she had prepared a tasting of honeys made from various flower nectars — including creamed honey with its finer crystals — spread out on a candlelit table with apple slices. We even tried our hand at cranking the

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extractor to draw honey from its spigot into little hexagonal glass jars as souvenirs. Then it was time for a sample right from the spigot. Had Zeus and Hera descended from Mount Olympus? Here truly was ambrosia of the gods.

With our bottles of liquid gold, we headed back to Delamar, where some of us had booked spa services while the rest chilled on the patio with wine, lattes and cranberry seltzers. Back in our room, we wrapped ourselves in a luxuriant Delamar bathrobe, took to bed and, not trusting ourselves to stay awake, turned on a great travel movie — “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

Smugly, we couldn’t help but think that reporter John Cusack wasn’t having half as good a time as we were, even amid Savannah’s lush gardens, a knowing Kevin Spacey and a hunky Jude Law. Alas, we had to quit them to get dolled up for the main event — dinner in the presidential suite featuring Jackson Family Wines; the bounty of Easton’s Sport Hill Farm, owned by Patti Popp, whom we had met at Marina’s; and the magic of Frederic Kieffer, executive chef and managing partner of Artisan Restaurant, Tavern & Garden at Delamar Southport.

Among the highlights of the bee-inspired tasting menu were light, luscious whipped buffalo ricotta crudités, dressed with linden honey; Patti’s savory local lettuces, quinoa and blueberries, with a lime-raspberry blossom honey dressing; a delec-

table striped bass crudo garnished with avocado, radish, ginger essence and orange blossom honey; a satisfying pork croquette, with oven-roasted veggies and an alfalfa honey, Moscatel glaze; and chocolate-dipped honeycomb. Sommelier Luis Suarez, Connecticut district manager for Jackson Family Wines, was on hand to pair the repast with Galerie Sauvignon Blanc and Windracer Pinot Noir, along with honey-infused cocktails.

Four hours later, we floated back to our room. On the tube, Fred Astaire and Judy Garland were promenading in “Easter Parade.” Why not, we thought as we drifted off to sleep.

The next day was getaway day, but not before a big buffet breakfast of eggs, bacon, pastries, various melons, pineapple juice and more than one cup of one of the best decafs we’ve had.

Needing to work some of this off, we took a short walk into town, where it was hard to resist an oval, sailboat rug at the Fairfield Women’s Exchange, chic accessories at Walin & Wolff and the beadwork and charitable goodwill of Mama Jane’s Global Boutique, featured in June WAG. But resist we did, for we were already laden with Delamar treats, honey, Patti’s fresh, crushed tomatoes and, most important, stories that you’ll find in these pages.

The weekend was a moveable feast — one that we will not soon forget.

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MOONSTRUCK

BY AUDREY RONNING TOPPING

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JULY 2016

Mooncake with lotus-seed paste.

Mooncakes often have the texture and taste of peanut butter.

Photograph by Fanny Schertzer.

To this day, when I bite into a mooncake, I taste and feel the magic of the Moon Festivals I celebrated as a student in China.

The Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, celebrated throughout Asia and in Chinatowns worldwide, falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese Han calendar. This happens within 15 days of the autumnal equinox on the night of the full moon.

(The festival coincides with our Harvest Moon, the most brilliant moon of the year.) After a hot summer, the sun’s powers of light begin to wane. The yin, or female principle, as personified by the moon, takes over from the yang, or male principle, as embodied by the sun. In China, women play the main role in moon- gazing and the worship of the moon, a symbol of harmony and family unity. Families gather in courtyards to give thanks for the harvest and perhaps remember the ancient fable about the sun and moon as a romantic couple. The stars are their children. When the moon is pregnant, it becomes round and full, and then, after giving birth to a star baby, it gradually becomes a crescent.

In China, people gather in the main squares where an infinite variety of paper and bamboo lanterns — usually made by children and shopkeepers in original and beautiful designs displaying rabbits,

birds, fish and flowers — hang in gardens. Sky lanterns float everywhere — rising, falling and twirling.

My three siblings and I would join the parade of young people carrying their lanterns under the full moon.

Some lanterns had riddles written on them. Everyone had a great time guessing the answers. My father, a Canadian diplomat who poured maple syrup on his mooncakes, always wrote the same riddle in Chinese characters: “What goes up the chimney down and down the chimney down but can’t go up the chimney up or down the chimney up?” An umbrella — ha, ha.

In the old days of the festival, Peking opera singers — wrapped in flamboyant robes, emoting in falsetto voices — performed on wooden stages accompanied by a cacophony of gongs, flutes and fiddles.

Acrobats tumbled through the groups of cheering children. Stilt-walkers in weird outfits and fierce masks towered above the crowds.

But nothing captures the harvest festival quite like the making and sharing of mooncakes. Made in early August, they’re gift-wrapped in gaily decorated boxes to be presented to friends and business associates. The cakes are round and firm, made of rich, flaky pastry and filled with various combinations of sugar, honey, figs, apricots, lotus-seed paste, pitted dates, raisins, red-bean paste and sesame seeds.

One tradition is to stack 13 cakes to resemble a pagoda, the number 13 representing the months in the full lunar year.

Although homemade cakes are a few inches wide, imperial chefs often made them with a span of several feet. Their surfaces were enhanced with designs of the lunar deity, Chang’e, worshipped as the Moon Goddess of Immortality. Her image was often embossed on the cakes with the Jade Rabbit, who accompanies her in the Moon Palace.

A myth surrounding the moon goddess — contained in Lihui Yang’s “Handbook of Chinese Mythology” — tells the origin of moon worship some 4,000 years ago. The hero (Hou Yi) was an excellent archer who was married to the beautiful Chang’e.

One year, 10 hot suns rose in the sky, causing great disaster. Yi shot nine suns out of the sky with his bow and arrow but left one to provide warmth and light.

One of the eight immortals, Peng Meng, admired Yi and sent him the elixir of immortality. Yi didn’t want to leave Chang’e so he gave the concoction to her.

But Peng Meng knew the secret. So on Aug. 15, he tried to force Chang’e to return it. Instead she swallowed the magic potion and flew into the sky. She landed on the moon and became its spirit.

Thereafter, everyone would give thanks, eat mooncakes, burn incense, perform dragon dances and have fun being moonstruck.

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JULY 2016

17

TREASURES uncovered

BY LAURA CACACE PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN RIZZO

18 WAGMAG.COM Dr. Edward Halperin

JULY 2016

At first, you might not think that Dr. Edward Halperin, chancellor of New York Medical College, would have much in common with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

But Halperin, a distinguished radiation oncologist, has done for the Valhalla-based college what Onassis did for the White House — recalled its treasures to life.

He uncovered paintings that now hang throughout the campus. He discovered and has displayed “Alice in Wonderland” — themed statues, hidden for years in various locations, which have added a sense of whimsy to the surroundings. One such discovery, the White Rabbit from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 children’s book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” stands over the front door of the Sunshine Cottage, now the administration building. Other EDWARD HALPERIN character statues include the Fish FootUNDERSTANDS THAT man and the Frog Footman.

“When I came to work here in 2012, the rabbit was covered by a wooden box, and there were no statues, there were no pictures or autographs or anything that you see around here,” Halperin says amid his collection of medical instruments, displayed in his office. “My predecessors didn’t think much of all that stuff. I came to work one day in coveralls and I crawled around in the basement and… the attic, and I found about 50 paintings and the statues and started to have things restored and put back up on the walls. I wrote the descriptive captions… and we broke the box and liberated the bunny.”

Celebrating this discovery meant digging a little deeper for more information about the statues.

“We looked into the history of the (Sunshine) Cottage, and found a postcard collector who had pictures of the cottage in the 1930s to (help) reconstruct the images and figure out where the statues were.”

The Sunshine Cottage was originally a children’s tuberculosis sanitarium, only a short walk from the adult tuberculosis facility called The Munger Pavilion. Halperin’s guided tour of the campus leads WAG down into the

HISTORY ISN’T PAST BUT THE STORY OF THE PAST, THAT THROUGH HISTORY WE LIVE WITH THE PAST, NOT IN IT.

tunnel connecting the two buildings, where he discovered the frog and fish statues that have brought us all together.

When asked if he’d brought them right back up into the light of day, he says, “No… they were too heavy to lift.”

But once funds were secured to have them moved and restored, Halperin had the statues placed at what he calls the “crossroads of the campus,” tucked in between dorms and classrooms — where the students and faculty alike can

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HEALING IS A PASSION. BUT SO IS HISTORY. HE BLENDS THE LOVE OF BOTH IN THE REQUIRED COURSE HE TEACHES FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS CALLED “THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE,” IN WHICH THEY EXPLORE THE PAST AS A WAY OF WINNING THE FUTURE.

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Whimsical sculptures are dotted throughout the college campus.

see them every day.

For Halperin, this ties into the belief that a patient’s psyche is as important as his body in the treatment process. For a school dedicated to educating future doctors, such a message is simply and subtly reinforced with the presence of the statues, he says.

“My predecessors, who had them removed, I think missed the point. Why were they put there in 1931? What was the context of why they were there? They were there, because someone thought that you had to heal the patient’s spirit as well as their diseased lung from tuberculosis. That was an important lesson in 1931 and it’s an important lesson now.”

Medicine didn’t have the first claim on his affections. The law did. But, he says, “I decided that lawyers spent a lot of time dealing with trouble that people got themselves into and doctors dealt with more primal evil. So I told my parents I was going to go to medical school, not to law school.”

As for his decision to specialize in radiation oncology, he based it on the advice of an adviser during the course of his studies but found it to be a rewarding field of study and practice. Halperin says he simply wanted to do good and found that treating sick children was the best way for him to make a real difference.

Healing is a passion. But so is history. He blends the love of both in the required course he teaches for first-year students called “The History of Medicine,” in which they explore the past as a way of winning the future: “Let me tell you what doctors did in the event of the yellow fever plague in Philadelphia in the 1790s. Let me tell you what doctors did in the face of the first discovery of AIDS in 1981. Then maybe you’ll know what to do when someone says there’s someone in this town with Zika virus. Will you run away? Or will you stand at your post? Will you panic? Or will

you collect data? Let me tell you what your predecessors did, because they went through the same things you did.

And what are you going to do differently?”

Halperin understands that history isn’t past but the story of the past, that through history we live with the past, not in it.

These are lessons that he and the professors of the college try to impart to their students — watched over by the White Rabbit, the Frog and the Fish — as they learn and grow, not just as doctors, but as human beings.

For more, visit nymc.edu.

WAGMAG.COM

JULY 2016

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CRAZY FOR CAVIAR

BY SEYMOUR TOPPING

BY SEYMOUR TOPPING

I confess to a lust for Beluga caviar — the choicest of pickled sturgeon roe, or eggs. On those rare occasions when my wife, Audrey and I indulge in the delicacy — whose limited production and sale is guided by the Beluga sturgeon’s endangered status — we recall with nostalgia an odd time when I consumed the precious stuff by the handful.

Black Beluga caviar 22 WAGMAG.COM

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The story begins in November 1946, when I served as a correspondent for the International News Service based in Peking, now Beijing, covering the civil war between the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the People’s Liberation Army of Mao Zedong. With the Nationalists retreating before Mao’s Communist onslaught, I flew north to Changchun in Manchuria, the Nationalist-held former capital of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. The city, which had been designed by the Japanese to imitate some features of Washington, D.C., was in ruins, having been looted by Chinese mobs before the Nationalists took over. When I landed, it was under heavy Communist siege. I covered the ground and air battle until Christmas Eve when I headed south on the last train before the city fell. On the train, loaded with Nationalist troops, my companions in a coach compartment were Vladimir Drozdov — who worked for the Russian Daily News in Shanghai, serving the White Russian community that had fled the Soviet regime, and Jules Joelson, a rather nervous correspondent for the Agence France-Presse. Not long out of Changchun, our train jolted to a halt. We were told that Communist guerrillas had blown up the tracks, but not to worry, the rails would soon be repaired. We sat waiting in our compartment in

subzero temperatures without food, growing hungrier as the hours passed. Then I noticed a paper sack, which Joelson held close at his side. When I inquired about it, he admitted that he had been to Harbin, a city not far from the Russian border, and, as ordered by his wife, was returning to Peking with a large pot of the finest black Beluga caviar, which he had purchased in a White Russian shop.

Yielding to our piteous whimpers for food, Jules reluctantly opened the jar and placed it among us. We dipped into it, greedily eating the caviar by the handful, emptying the whole container. After 14 hours, the train moved on to the next large city, Mukden, where I spent the holiday dining out with Drozdov in the superb White Russian restaurants.

Satiated, we did not order caviar.

But in the next years, my lust for caviar took hold. Audrey and I were lucky to indulge in the “Pearls of Luxury” once again when The New York Times posted me to Moscow for a three-year reporting tour. Although fresh meat and vegetables, except for potatoes and cabbage, were hard to find, there was no shortage of Beluga caviar in the Soviet capital, especially at the National Day celebrations and in the Kremlin banquet halls. Our four children also acquired such a yearning for caviar that Audrey and I were forced to sate our

passion for the delicious fish eggs in secret.

When we eventually returned to New York, we found there was a greater variety of rare Russian caviars with strange names in Manhattan than in Moscow, but at a far greater price. Here is an example of what Manhattan’s Caviar Russe restaurant recently offered — Caspian Sea Platinum at $345 per ounce and Caspian Sea Gold at $295 per ounce.

Perhaps this is as it should be for a food, dating from 1240, that was once a religious dish made by Russian Orthodox monks and prized by the czars.

During production, the ripe fish eggs are separated from the ovaries by passing through a mesh screen before being salted. The three most valuable types of caviar are Beluga, Ossetra and Sevruga — from the wild sturgeons of the Caspian and Black seas.

Ossetra ranges in color from dark brown to gray and has a unique taste of hazelnuts. Sevruga, the least expensive and therefore most popular, ranges from light to dark gray.

But the rarest and most prized caviar is created by the Beluga, a sturgeon dating from prehistoric times. In the Caspian, Belugas can live for 100 years and grow as long as a pickup truck. The largest on record weighed 4,570 pounds and stretched 28 feet long.

Now that was one caviar mama!

WAGMAG.COM

JULY 2016

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THE NOT-SO-SECRET LIFE

of bees

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

“My fascination with honey goes back to its floral sources,” says Carla Marina Marchese, founding owner of Red Bee Honey in Weston. “It’s akin to wine: Every grape offers a different flavor.”

And similarly, the color and taste of honey is determined by the nectar of a particular flower, with orange blossom honey being lighter in hue, for instance, and wildflower honey, darker.

Marchese — who trained as a honey sommelier during a threeyear course with the Italian National Registry of Experts in the Sensory Analysis of Honey and founded The American Honey Tasting Society — was recently hired by the National Honey Board to explain the finer points of the food at culinary institutes and conferences around the country.

“It is the biggest honor of my entire life,” she says.

And one that is a long time coming. Marchese was working in graphics and product development in New York City when a neighbor introduced her to beekeeping in 2000. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are 125,000 beekeepers in the United States with more than a million beehives. Most of the

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beekeepers are hobbyists, which is how Marchese began, with one hive. Gradually, however, her hobby began taking over her life and in 2003 she began producing honey formally and selling it wholesale and from her website. Among the companies she has sold her products to are Williams-Sonoma, White Flower Farm and Zingerman’s. Her beeswax lip balm is featured at the Delamar Southport.

“When I started, people were not intensely interested in farmto-table,” she says, “and I had a hard time getting people interested.”

But the farm-to-table movement took off around 2008-09, she says, and about three years later the American public caught up with something that commercial beekeepers had been noticing since 2006: The honeybees were disappearing. This had to do with stress on the hives — which are driven to farms — and the chemicals used on the flowers that the bees pollinate, Marchese

Carla Marina Marchese of Red Bee Honey. Courtesy Red Bee LLC © 2016.

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says. It does not affect the backyard beekeeper such as herself.

Today, she has 13 hives, each of which buzzes with sex — or, more accurately, the sexual division of labor. Each hive has a queen, a fertile female who lives three to five years and whose sole job is to lay eggs. The other females are infertile workers who live for about 45 days. The first half of their lives is spent as house bees tending the queen, the young and the hive. In the second half, they become forager bees — with some serving as scouts — gathering nectar for honey, tree sap for caulking and water and pollen (a protein source) for the young.

A small portion of the colony — about 10 to 15 percent — is made up of males (drones), who fly off to another family to impregnate that hive’s queen and promptly die. During these mating flights, Marchese says, a queen might mate with 14 to 20 drones successively.

Because of the brevity of a bee’s lifespan, “you always have to have a queen,” Marchese says. If a queen dies — or is killed off — the worker bees can create another queen out of a fertilized egg no more than three days old, whom they nurture with

Courtesy Red Bee LLC © 2016.

a secretion of royal jelly in a peanut-size cell.

While the workers continue to store the nectar in the cells of the wax honeycombs — fanning them with their wings to create the thick honey and sealing them with wax — Marchese keeps adding shallow boxes, each of which has nine frames, for their product. In the fall, she harvests the excess honey.

(According to the National Honey Board, a hive will produce on average a surplus of 80 pounds each year.) In her new barn, or honey house, Marchese removes the frames and after scraping the caps off with a knife, places the frames into a hand-cranked extractor, which releases the honey by centrifugal force through a spigot into a bucket. The honey is then strained, bottled and labeled. This is where Marchese’s background in graphics and product development has come in handy.

“I saw an opportunity to take honey to a whole new level with attractive bottling and labeling,” says the author of “Honey Bee: Lessons From an Accidental Beekeeper” and (with Kim Flottum) “The Honey Connoisseur.”

For Marchese, beekeeping is like life: It’s all about the experience. It’s the reason she enjoys New Year’s Eve. “There’s something magical about that time. It’s not a holiday where you have to buy a lot of things.”

Instead, she can kick back with a glass of Champagne, garnished with a piece of honeycomb and a platter of fruit, cheese, nuts and honey.

“A good experience to me is food and friends.”

For more, visit redbee.com.

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Dr. David Katz

EAT RIGHT, OR ELSE…

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

David L. Katz is one doctor who practices what he preaches.

The founder of the True Health Initiative — who addressed the American Heart Association Westchester-Fairfield Chapter’s “Go Red for Women” luncheon in Stamford on the subjects of nutrition and preventive medicine — loves Thanksgiving.

“It’s a secular holiday that invites all, and we have a lot to be thankful for.”

The Katz family heads to his folks in Washington, Conn., for a formal, traditional celebration that also involves a good deal of physical activity — hiking, for one, and, if the weather cooperates, sledding.

Though the Katzes don’t celebrate Christmas, they take the festive season as an opportunity each year to explore one culture through music, table décor and food prepared by David's wife, Catherine, founder of the Cuisinicity website. (See related story.)

But whatever the holiday, culture or activity, one thing is certain: The food will be healthy.

Indeed, even Katz’s romantic celebration with his wife after the birth of each of their five children has been marked with the same whole foods — goat cheese, French bread and a bottle of Bordeaux —

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reflecting not only Catherine’s French heritage but a line from “The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,” “A jug of wine, a loaf of bread — and thou beside me….”

(Katz, no doubt, would appreciate the literary reference. The author of a dozen books, he sprinkles his mesmerizing talks with poetic quotations, references to Dr. Seuss and clever turns of phrases.)

It would seem to be a no-brainer — a diet based on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils and “water when thirsty” is the best for us.

“We have the potential of enhancing longer life and eliminating 80 percent of disease,” says Katz, director of The Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. Instead, he says, “We could be relinquishing the promised land of health,” as more people die prematurely.

And while modern medicine is such that it can

keep sick people alive longer, that only creates the illusion of a healthy population.

“It’s not more years in your life, it’s more life in your years,” Katz says.

The problem lies, he adds, with “most people eating food that is not food but highly profitable junk food — soda, toaster pastries, cereal in psychedelic colors with marshmallows. … Familiarity breeds complacency. Taste buds love the junk they’re with.”

Katz recognizes that those who are just scraping by may not live in neighborhoods where healthy food is available, and that fresh produce is pricey. But studies have shown, he says, that among the packaged goods found in the middle aisles of grocery stores, the nutritious ones are no more expensive than the unhealthy ones — and may cost less. He uses the example of low-fat peanut butter, which is less nutritious than the regular kind and costs more.

Beans, lentils, cooking grains and water don’t cost a whole lot. So it’s not a question of money.

And it’s not a question of will power but what he calls “skill power.”

“People who manage to eat well, despite it all, have the skill set to navigate a menu and eating when traveling.”

This skill power needs to be part of school curriculum and workplace wellness programs, Katz says. To that end, he and his wife have created “Nutrition Detectives,” a free DVD that helps children — and by extension, adults — identify healthy foods.

But even if they can identify these foods, many people either don’t have much time to cook — or don’t know how to. Hence the Cuisinicity website — featuring flavorful, nutritious, easy-to-prepare meals made by Catherine Katz, who is not a professional cook, in the family’s own kitchen.

Food, however, is one half of the equation. The other is exercise. Today, David Katz says, “we are drowning in calories and labor-saving technology,” which was not true for most of human history.

We’re making more progress, however, with exercise than with nutrition, he says, because there’s money to be made in gyms and equipment. But Katz is a proponent of “All movement is good movement.”

Take the stairs, park away from the mall, walk the dog, play with the kids, garden, do housework, go up and down every aisle of the supermarket and consider “the benefits accrued over the course of a day.”

Benefits, he adds, that you can share with those you love.

For more, visit truehealthinitiative.org.

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The Katz family in August 2015 – Gabe, Rebecca, David, Catherine, Natalia, Valerie and Corinda.

The marriage of nutritious and delicious – Cuisinicity

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

Talking with Catherine Katz — founding creator of the website Cuisinicity — is like sipping Champagne.

She bubbles. She sparkles. She’s French. Need we say more?

We must. Being French — she was born Catherine Sananès in North Africa and raised in southern France, where she learned French Mediterranean cooking from her mother and aunt — Katz has always believed that food should be delicious.

Enter David Katz — whom she met more than a quarter of a century ago at Yale University, where he was a fastidious resident in preventive medi-

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cine and she was doing postdoctoral research in the area of learning and memory that would be published in the journal Nature. (This after she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Princeton University, no less.)

“For him, food had to be nutritious,” Catherine says. “But I was never going to give up culinary textures and flavors.”

When David and Catherine married, so did nutritious and delicious.

That’s why she says that though Cuisinicity is a 2-year-old site, it has been some 25 years in the making. Its tagline says it all: “Love the food that loves you back.” (The name is a combination of “cuisine” plus “simplicity” and “authenticity.”)

To create the recipes that would meet his high

nutritional standards and her high culinary ones, Catherine — who worked in research until the fourth of their five children came along — applied a scientific model.

“I would change one ingredient at a time,” she says. Recipes were not only tested on family and friends but evaluated by nutritionists. Many have found their way into “The Way to Eat” by David Katz and Maura Harrigan González (Sourcebooks Inc.) and “Dr. David Katz’s Flavor-Full Diet” (Rodale Inc.), which he wrote with Catherine.

At first, she was reluctant.

“I didn’t write recipes. I made recipes. Who has time to write recipes with five kids?”

But as the children grew up, Catherine realized writing down the recipes was a way to share the meals and the memories that family and friends

had enjoyed. And voilà, Cuisinicity was born.

Asked for examples, Catherine doesn’t want to discuss only desserts but adds, perhaps intuiting us, “My God, who doesn’t love chocolate?”

Her Flourless Chocolate Cake — the mere image of which had guests salivating when her husband mentioned it at the recent American Heart Association luncheon in Stamford — is, she says, “as decadent as it looks. What makes it creamy? Puréed lentils, and you do not know they’re there. I call the lentils ‘humble.’ But they’re a powerful ingredient….”

The cake — which also contains dark chocolate, eggs and sugar — “fills you up with more fiber and protein.”

Another favorite — her Crème au Chocolat, made with dark chocolate, tofu, dates, coconut milk and dark beluga lentils.

But you’ll also find everything from Grilled Orange Herb Chicken to Mediterranean Couscous Salad on an easy-to-navigate website that also contains her homemade cooking videos. And we do mean homemade. Taking a page from “The French Chef” herself, Julia Child — who never let a dropped poulet rattle her — Catherine perseveres in the Hamden kitchen of chez Katz as fire alarms go off and dogs bark. (Her three canine helpers are the

Catherine Katz’s Flourless Chocolate Cake INSTRUCTIONS

INGREDIENTS • 1 15 ounce can organic black lentils, rinsed and drained • 4 organic cage-free eggs • ⅓ cup granulated sugar • 1½ cups bittersweet chocolate chips (60 to 70 percent cocoa)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of an 8-inch springform pan with dry wax paper to fit and "grease" it with a little canola oil.

• Place chocolate chips in a small microwavable bowl and heat on high for 1 minute to melt, stirring until smooth.

• Place drained lentils, eggs and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Process until creamy and smooth.

• Add melted chocolate and pulse again to blend until smooth and creamy.

• Pour the batter in the prepared pan and bake for 15 to 17 minutes. “I leave mine a little soft/molten in the middle. It's OK, as it will continue to ‘bake’ even outside the oven for a few minutes, so do not over-bake.”

• Let the cake cool.

• Unmold by unfastening the springform pan first and take it out of the way, then place your serving platter over the top of the cake and turn over.

• Gently peel off the wax paper and dust with confectioner’s sugar. Serves 8.

Yorkshire Terrier Zouzou, the Shetland Sheepdog Bramble and the Goldendoodle Barli.)

“I happen to love to cook, but I’m not a trained cook,” Catherine says. And that has given her insight into those who are also trying to balance making healthy, flavorful meals with working and

having a family.

“If people are knowledgeable about ingredients, then they don’t need a lot of time.” Hence the simplicity in Cuisinicity.

“If I can do it, you can do it.”

For more, visit cuisinicity.com.

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JULY 2016

31

Have fork, will travel

BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI

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Yamini Lal dines with WAG at Teff in Stamford, where she recommended a JULY 2016 number of Ethiopians specialties (insets).

Yamini Lal will be the first to tell you, accompanied by a hearty laugh, that there are “two interests I have.”

While she’s a self-proclaimed “tech geek,” it’s her passion for — and celebration of — food that has brought WAG to Stamford to dine with the voice behind the Fairfield County Foodie blog.

At her suggestion, we’re at Teff, a family owned-and-operated restaurant serving the cuisines of East Africa.

And it is proving a most fitting backdrop, as Lal gamely walks us through the menu of Ethiopian dishes, describing the flavors, her favorites and the traditional way to eat — by hand.

Oh, WAG is in for something new, and Lal’s enthusiasm draws us right in.

“It is such a great time to be living,” she says, offering her overview of the culinary landscape.

In rapid-fire delivery over the sharing of a few delicious entrées, she’ll tell us all about her childhood in India, her coming to America 26 years ago and most recently, her foray into the blogosphere.

It’s all been quite the journey.

Four years ago, she was working for a boutique real estate company in Westport — and had no social media experience. She quit to study social media and never looked back.

“That’s how it got started, but it has become such an addiction.”

She says if she weren’t blogging, she would be content, like most of us, to go to the same handful of favorite restaurants, having good meals but not any surprises or discoveries.

“This kind of forces me to go out and have new experiences.”

A WORLD VIEW Lal’s is a sophisticated palate, one developed from her earliest days in Delhi and constantly expanded by travel. Trips have even been planned around restaurant reservations, such as the trip to Barcelona and a particular destination.

“I told my husband I need to get into this restaurant. As soon as I get my reservation, you can book it,” she says, shaking her head to assure us it’s true.

Such passion, she says, can be traced back to her earliest days — and food memories.

“I think I owe a lot of it to my mom and my family,” she says. “Forty years ago in Delhi, we didn’t have ovens,” she says. But her inventive mother found ways to make not only cakes but pizza.

Lal talks of the way of life, of compounds where families had their own rooms but also communal areas where they shared meals, stories, songs and traditions.

“Food, in our culture, is totally the thing,” from

traditional celebrations to the street scene. “It’s food vendors every couple of steps.”

She says with a laugh that even if you’re enjoying a meal, you’re already looking ahead.

The attitude is, she says, “It’s so delicious, but where are we going to eat the next meal?”

She talks about world cuisine with a mention of the “strong Asian food scene” in Sydney, which she savored when visiting her son during a semester abroad.

Sure, she tried everything from local favorites to British-inspired meat pies, finally deciding, “I’m not very fond of kangaroo meat… The Asian food was to die for.”

Going out, she says, is just a part of her life, from a quick lunch from a food truck to a marathon meal savored at the famed farm-to-table pioneer Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills.

She loves the local restaurant scene and thinks her travels beyond only add to her experience.

“It gives you a reference point.”

HER OWN WAY Lal, who loves cooking, says, “It’s very hard to juggle the time.”

“One would think as a food blogger all I do is eat out,” she says.

But it’s not true — she just tries to go enough to satisfy her weekly posts.

“It’s a lot of money out of my own pocket,” she says before bursting into another laugh, “That’s why I have to work.”

Her day job is as the social and digital campaigns manager for Carolee. The Stamford-based fashion jewelry wholesaler taps into her technological side, but she can still combine that with her passion for food. Travels to the Carolee showroom in Manhattan always include a food-related stop before or after work.

She takes out her phone to show a map of the city — with what must be dozens and dozens of stars on it, marking “restaurants I need to hit.”

“I have stars all over the world,” she says. She’ll be reading or talking and hear of a place — in, say, Thailand — and it’s added to her list.

But that list has a lot of competition.

“One of my favorite things to do is go to cooking classes,” she says. She loves to see how other cooks and chefs work. “You get such a great insight into every little thing that they are doing.”

Lal will share that busy schedule extends beyond the food world. She is dedicated to Indian classical music and travels to New Jersey on Sundays for her vocal lessons.

GOOD THINGS “My concept and my blog is a celebration of good chefs and food and restaurants,” she says. It’s not

designed to pan places or spotlight bad meals.

“Every kitchen has a bad day. Every chef has a bad day.”

She also doesn’t feel an obligation to be among the first to try out a new restaurant.

She gives it time to settle, to find its groove.

Lal likes to chart her own path and says she doesn’t like to attend blogger dinners where, she says, “All 15 people are eating the same bites, writing the exact same words.”

Her voice is important.

“It’s literally as the thoughts come into my head, because I want (it) to be like I’m talking to you.”

And it’s been proven time and again.

Take the way she describes a dish at a Vietnamese restaurant in Bridgeport: “The steamed fish was another great discovery on the Nom-eez menu. It arrives wrapped in a banana leaf — just slightly opened — bound to intoxicate your senses as soon as it gets near you. I wish I had ordered another of these — it’s that good!”

The blog, she says, is not a place for advertisements.

“It’s my baby. I want to keep total control over it. I don’t want to monetize it.”

DAY BY DAY She posts weekly, though will skip if she’s traveling or otherwise occupied.

“Living life is more important than reporting on life.”

Lal got a degree in English literature in her homeland, coming to the United States and settling in New Jersey (picking up a master’s degree in computers along the way). She and her family moved to Connecticut about a decade ago and live in Weston.

Lal’s husband, who is in finance, travels for business, with Lal often joining him.

While some might find her blog glamorous, Lal says it’s “not as easy as it sounds.

“I’m the writer, the photographer and the editor and I’m also the webmaster.”

She’s also connected with fellow bloggers, people in the food business and, to her surprise, plenty of farmers.

“I’ve found a group of friends who are so real.”

Trends, she says, will keep coming.

“Everybody is interested in the next, the next, the next… To a great degree, you actually find the trends as you go about your merry way.”

And you just know she’ll keep an eye on them all, while still keeping it decidedly personal.

“It’s simply a catalog of my life experiences, from a culinary point of view.”

And we’re glad she takes us along on her travels.

For more, visit fairfieldcountyfoodie.com.

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A Luis Suarez samples Matanzas Creek Winery’s Sauvignon Blanc at Putnam & Vine in Greenwich.

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GRAPE

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

LIFE

Sommelier Luis Suarez — a district manager for Jackson Family Wines — owes his livelihood to a winemaking accident.

In the mid-1970s, San Francisco real estate lawyer Jess Jackson bought an 80-acre pear and walnut orchard in Lake County, Calif., with the idea of replanting it with grapes to sell. Faced with a fruit surplus some seven years later, he decided to turn the grapes into wine, but something went wrong in the fermentation process, Suarez says.

“The (resulting) wine was sweeter than the traditional Chardonnay. People loved it.”

The 1982 vintage Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay from the Kendall-Jackson label went on to win the first-ever Double Platinum Award in the American Wine Competition and wound up across the country at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal.

Today, the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based Jackson Family Wines continues to produce the signature vintage — which has evolved into a drier, classic California Chardonnay — along with Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.

The company also owns 48 wineries around the world — from Oregon to Chile to France, Italy, South Africa and Australia. They include Cambria Winery, La Crema Winery, Matanzas Creek Winery, Silver Palm and Stonestreet Winery.

“Jess unfortunately passed away in 2011,” Suarez says. “But his widow, Barbara Banke, has proved to be an amazing businesswoman.” (In 2014 she became the first woman to receive Wine Enthusiast magazine’s Wine Personality of the Year Award.)

The Guilford-based Suarez is the family’s man in Connecticut, growing sales and overseeing distribution to such businesses as Horseneck Wines & Liquors and Putnam & Vine, both in Greenwich. He also took part in the memorable dinner at the Delamar Southport to celebrate Earth Day (story on Page 12), serving Galerie Sauvignon Blanc and Windracer Pinot Noir, two top Jackson Family Wines.

“The whole menu was created around honey and local produce,” he says. “I selected wines to match that character.”

Looking ahead to the Fourth of July, Suarez recommends Matanzas Creek Chardonnay, a creamy, traditional California wine with flavors of baked apple and Bosc pear and a bit of attitude in its acidity.

But he’ll have to wait four months for his favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, for which he recommends beginning with La Crema’s Pinot Gris before serving Russian River Valley Zinfandel by Hartford Family Winery (part of Jackson Family Wines) with the turkey.

Thanksgiving is Suarez’s favorite holiday not only for the food, the sharing and the gratitude but because he didn’t get to celebrate it until his midteens. He was born and raised in Colombia, then settled in Milford before going on to study business at Quinnipiac University in Hamden. Working in restaurants, he fell in love with wine and wine distribution. Suarez became a certified sommelier through The Court of Master Sommeliers and earned a Wine & Spirit Education Trust certification, which is the equivalent of being a certified sommelier in England.

Suarez is now getting ready for the third level of study, to become an advanced sommelier. Completing the fourth level would make him a master sommelier. It’s difficult, but he’s determined to do it.

“Wine is a culture,” he says. “You learn about places, food and people. It’s the easiest way to be exposed to the world.”

For more, visit jacksonfamilywines.com.

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JULY 2016

35

Lady

marmalade ELEANOR’S BEST GETS ITS JAM ON

BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

From the moment we first heard about Eleanor’s Best, we were intrigued.

A blurb on the Cold Spring Area Chamber of Commerce’s website not only describes what the company does but also hints at the manner in which it does it: “We are a scrappy business that makes and sells artisanal handmade jams, jellies, preserves and marmalade in Philipstown, N.Y., which lies in the heart of the Hudson Valley. We started this adventure to share the awesome and intense flavors that we grew up with.”

And the company is doing just that — with a clear vision and a bit of attitude to spare — which we learn during a mid-afternoon visit with founder Jennifer Mercurio as a recent day’s work is winding down.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” she says with a warm smile, welcoming us into her commercial kitchen, a short hike beyond the Cold Spring shopping district. “This is our Jammery with a capital ‘J.’” Mercurio, who grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Rhode Island, has tapped into her

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Jennifer Mercurio

own — and many a family’s — traditions.

“Growing up, it was ‘women’s work’ making jam,” she says. “It was women’s work to make things and preserve things.”

But, at first, it wasn’t to be Mercurio’s work. No, she spent years as a successful intellectual properties and corporate lawyer in the video-game world before the switch.

“Everyone sees me as this really serious Darth Vader attorney,” she says with a laugh, though now her days are more often filled with raspberries and rhubarb, ginger and grapefruits.

EARLY DAYS “I started making jam when we moved up here to the Hudson Valley,” she says of the efforts shared

with family and friends. Soon, “people we didn’t even know starting showing up at our home and began asking for it.”

She began formally selling it — the first sales coming from six jars at The Country Goose in Cold Spring — near the end of 2013.

Since that first success, Mercurio has maintained her focus creating products “slow stirred in small batches,” by a staff that has grown to 10.

“We do it all very purposefully. The jam is literally what you would dream of having, made by your great-grandmother or aunt.”

There’s an inherent respect for ingredients, with Mercurio buying fruits and vegetables from family-owned farms, fields and orchards whenever possible. And that includes her family’s own,

Mercurio Farms in nearby Garrison, her husband Joseph’s domain.

There’s also a dedication to creating a product free of additives, dyes or fillers — all those things that crowd a typical jam label. The products, Mercurio notes, are also naturally vegan and gluten-free. “We don’t want the big chemical load.”

Each of the 14 flavors contains just four ingredients except for the strawberry-rhubarb, which has five.

FROM FARM TO TABLE Though the company gets its natural ingredients at their peak — from farms and farmers markets — they are often frozen to maintain a steady supply throughout the year.

The recipes, which take anywhere from a couple of hours to up to three days to finish, yield a product that is then — no big machines here — ladled into jars by hand.

The commitment to a pure approach extends to the packaging, with Mercurio sourcing jars and lids from historic American companies. The products are packed in fully compostable boxes, with all

packaging designed to be recycled and reused.

And more than just local followers, including chefs who collaborate with Mercurio on custom blends, appreciate the results.

Eleanor’s Best is now sold in “31 states and D.C.,” Mercurio says, with outlets including fine cheese shops, butchers, gourmet stores and larger specialty retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Mrs. Green’s Natural Market and Hannaford.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS Mercurio says a big part of her work also reinforces the idea that food should be about more than flavor.

It should, Mercurio says, transport you.

Quince jam, she shares, turns the spotlight back on a onetime Hudson Valley favorite, while other customers tasting Eleanor’s Best might have their own family associations with flavors such as blueberry or hot pepper.

The tastes and the preparation, Mercurio says, often take her back to her own earlier years.

“When I make flavors, I’m recalling the memories.”

And that’s something she hopes to pass along, with her young daughter already taking an interest in the business. But, Mercurio stresses, making jams and jellies goes beyond the day-to-day efforts and traditions being carried on.

It’s about offering healthier options for families, something she touches on during the small classes she leads. It’s also about giving back, a key element of the company.

Eleanor’s Best and Mercurio Farms donate to many local charities and organizations, working to support organizations that fight childhood hunger, support family farms and promote the use of real and nourishing food. Mercurio and her husband are also local volunteer firefighters.

Throughout, she wants her daughter to see, “This is the way we live in a community.”

Eleanor’s Best, Mercurio explains, is not only named after the 150 years of “Eleanors” in her family but continues to build on their legacy of creating something special.

“It’s real, and real food is just better… It’s accessible gourmet food.”

For more, visit eleanorsbest.com.

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CELEBRATING

the falcon’s ascent

AT GRACE FARMS

BY REECE ALVAREZ

More than 1,600 people attended the Earth Day celebration at Grace Farms, including a raptors demonstration. Photograph by 38 WAGMAG.COM JULY 2016 Vanessa Van Ryzin

Don’t judge yourself too harshly if you’ve never heard of the American kestrel falcon.

The smallest raptor in North America, the kestrel has been a rare sight in Westchester and Fairfield counties due in large part to the loss of habitat amid dense populations.

But at Grace Farms — an 80-acre sanctuary in New Canaan dedicated to the promotion of nature, art, community, justice and faith — the birds are once again calling Connecticut home thanks to the efforts of Mark Fowler, the property’s recently appointed nature and wildlife ambassador and the son of wildlife expert and onetime “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” host Jim Fowler.

“I was lucky enough to travel the world, to experience being chased by elephants, being chased by a grizzly bear — amazing experiences very few people get to have,” Mark Fowler says. “I feel like it’s my job to be a spokesperson and share that excitement with the public and get them as excited about nature as I am.”

A native of New Canaan, Fowler was 8 when he rescued his first bird of prey, an injured baby redtailed hawk whose mother had died from exposure to insecticides.

“That just pretty much changed my life with birds of prey,” he says.

Fowler nursed the hawk to health and released it, igniting a lifelong passion for raptors and the natural world. Before coming to Grace Farms, Fowler built a career producing wildlife films for the National Geographic, Discovery and Travel channels and Sony Pictures Television as well as nonprofits and government agencies that include NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Since joining Grace Farms this past winter, he has

Grace Farms Foundation’s nature and wildlife ambassador Mark Fowler with a Eurasian kestrel. Courtesy Grace Farms Foundation.

Kestrel falcons at Grace Farms. Photograph by Christine Simmons.

had great success in his mission to reintroduce kestrels due in part to the property’s array of resurging ecosystems.

Within eight days of putting up a specially designed kestrel nesting box, the species returned to the area to the complete surprise of longtime kestrel monitoring organizations, which had not heard of a kestrel sighting in the area in three decades, Fowler says.

“Wildlife is thriving in the Northeast where two generations before it was almost all hunted out,” he says. “For the generation before me, there weren’t even deer here. My father-in-law said he saw deer once in his entire life growing up in New Canaan.

Now we see hundreds.”

Paddocks still stand on the property as a legacy of its history as a former horse farm, a reminder the Grace Farms Foundation has committed to retaining while also allowing the land to return to the forests, fields and marshes..

“Back in 1850s, you could see the Sound from right here because all the trees were gone,” Fowler said standing on the property’s crest.

Meadows are particularly important to kestrels, which need the space to dive at up to 40 mph to catch prey such as the insects, rodents and snakes common to field habitats.

As important to the species are the tree hollows found in old, mature forests, the kind uncommon to densely populated regions with relatively young trees.

The kestrel is one of 40 different species of birds in addition to 16 types of amphibians and reptiles that are found within the sanctuary’s 10 ecosystems.

This falcon is also one facet of a larger effort to reconnect children and adults with a magical thinking

lost in the modern, increasingly virtual world.

“We all grew up running around in the woods,” Fowler says. “The unplanned play of what we did — getting muddy in creeks, digging holes, building forts — as a kid it’s the first time you really feel that feeling, that awe and that wonder you experience in nature.”

But for the generations born into the screen-dominated digital era, this perspective may be wholly lost.

“We as humans have never been more disconnected from the natural world,” he says. “Kids are spending between five and 30 minutes outside a day.”

Grace Farms and Fowler are succeeding in drawing people to the sanctuary and closer to the natural world. The property’s centerpiece, an 83,000-squarefoot flow of glass and wood known as the River Building, attracts a steady flow of visitors with its public library, amphitheater and café, among other facilities surrounded by walking trails.

For Earth Day festivities earlier this year, more than 1,600 people visited Grace Farms for events and programs that included interactive displays of birds of prey, such as the peregrine falcon — the fastest animal on earth, reaching speeds of over 200 mph in a dive — a relative of the great horned owl and a redtailed hawk, which now lives on the property.

“We are lucky enough in Connecticut to be surrounded by wildlife, but we often take it for granted and don’t even realize what’s around us,” Fowler says. “Right now on the Grace Farms property and throughout the county we have black bears, coyotes, bobcats, numerous types of birds of prey, tons of hawks, falcons… It just goes to show we can bring back wildlife and coexist with it.”

Grace Farms is open to visitors every day except Mondays. For more, visit gracefarms.org.

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GROWING

THE GRANOLA BAR

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

The Shrek smoothie, with spinach, kale, banana, apple, housemade almond butter and almond milk.

Photograph by Kyle Norton.

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What started as a homemade granola hobby has grown into two busy restaurants in Fairfield County.

Julie Mountain and Dana Noorily launched a new location of The Granola Bar in Greenwich in May, following up on the restaurant’s Westport success.

The Greenwich location features tables up front and a coffee bar and to-go counter in the back. The menu offers mostly items made in-house, plus all-day breakfast.

Mountain says the name can at times create confusion, as the restaurant does serve more than granola. But that’s part of the fun.

“I thought the whimsy of going to a bar and ordering breakfast was kind of cool,” Mountain says, adding that at times people do come in expecting “the Chipotle of granola.”

Excitement for the Greenwich place likely carried over from the popular Westport spot that Noorily and Mountain launched in 2013.

The two met three years earlier at a children’s birthday party. They hit it off, talking about food and what their children were eating.

They were both stay-at-home moms at the time, but Noorily says, “definitely looking for something else.” She had worked in finance in Manhattan, while Mountain was a marketer in the music industry.

They stayed in touch and discovered that next opportunity after Mountain returned home from a trip on which she had “the most yummy granola.” She wondered why they couldn’t buy high quality granola in a store.

So they started producing their own and eventually took that product to market. Their granola landed on the shelves of Whole Foods and Stew Leonard’s. But the wholesale food business was tough, Noorily says. The two found it difficult to maintain a quantity of the product without sacrificing quality.

They shifted away from wholesale to launch a physical location. They found a 2,000-square-foot space at 275 Post Road East in Westport. Initially, the plan was to use the location as a production kitchen, with a counter up front for baked goods.

Noorily and Mountain eventually put together what they called their “dream menu” for the front of the store. Still, the plan was to focus mainly on selling the granola.

“We’d pay our rent with the granola and whatever happens in the front, happens in the front,” Noorily says.

Here’s what happened: The baked goods and other foods in the front were so popular that The Granola Bar didn’t even have enough time to make granola in the back for several weeks.

Mountain thinks the vibe of the restaurant — which she describes as “modern but warm” — and the quality of food engaged people.

“You find this conceptually everywhere for dinner,” Mountain says of the locally sourced approach. “Restaurants pride themselves on making everything right there for dinner, but I think for breakfast and lunch, other than a diner, there isn’t anywhere you can go and get whatever you want.”

The menu is wide-ranging, from a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich to vegan-roasted cauliflower chowder. Pop culture references abound, from The Heisenberg breakfast (Fleisher’s sausage, two eggs, bacon, cheddar cheese and hot sauce on a grilled wheat wrap, a homage to “Breaking Bad”); to the BabaBooey sandwich (roasted turkey, Swiss, bacon, mixed greens, tomato and a signature sauce on grilled sourdough bread, and thank you, Howard Stern).

Head chef Neil Rohricht comes up with new dishes for the menu, then Noorily, Mountain and the restaurant’s creative director, Crissi Grimaldi, sit down to dream up the names.

Noorily’s favorite name is the Portobello Hadid, a portobello mushroom wrap named for the fashion model Bella Hadid.

“We’re very proud of ourselves,” Mountain says with a laugh. “But if Dana has to keep saying it is

INTUITIVE VISIONS Stephen Rose & Irv Suss July 1-July 31

Opening Reception Friday, July 1, 6-9PM

funny, it might not be —” “No, it’s funny,” Noorily cuts in. “I’m declaring it.”

Two years after launching in Westport, Noorily came across an Instagram post for a restaurant space at 41 Greenwich Ave. in Greenwich that would soon be vacant. They decided to move on it, and the new location opened at the end of May. “People are really excited about it, so far,” Mountain says. “Especially being at the top of (Greenwich Avenue) it allows people to get in and out quicker. There hasn’t been anything new up here in some time.”

The 2,700-square-foot space features a much smaller kitchen and has more than double the restaurant space of the Westport location. The Greenwich spot closes at 5 p.m., after which it can be rented as an event space. The Granola Bar also does catering.

Noorily and Mountain view the Greenwich location as opening the restaurant to the Westchester market. If they were to open another one, Westchester would be a likely landing spot, Noorily says.

For now, they’re happily getting acquainted with Greenwich.

“People eat a lot of granola in Greenwich,” Noorily says. “We’ve already noticed that.”

For more, visit thegranolabarct.com.

the sound of discovery!

If you listen, you will hear what Norwalk has to offer.

The sound of...

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WEDDED TO STYLE Burkelman’s gift ideas stand out from the crowd

BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

They’re not just in June anymore.

No, weddings are celebrated throughout the year.

And Burkelman, the Cold Spring home design and accessories destination, has quickly become a noted source for sophisticated and unique wedding gifts.

With an emphasis on artistic finds and handcrafted creations, its statement-making offerings are the ideal options for couples about to create their own kitchens, entertaining spaces — and family traditions.

And the creative forces behind Burkelman — Kevin Burke and David Kimelman — know well about wedding gifts, registries and the like.

They’re here, they say, to help — and avoid those wedding-related clichés. And they know those firsthand, as the Croton-on-Hudson couple marked not one, not two but three toaster ovens among their own wedding gifts.

Sure, they might tell the story with a laugh or

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two, but you know they’d like nothing more than to spare others a similar scenario.

The boutique, which celebrates its one-year anniversary this month, is the brick-and-mortar realization of the Burkelman website that introduced the effort in 2014. It’s a stylish combination of Burke’s experience as a creative executive in the fashion industry and Kimelman’s background in documentary and portrait photography.

To date, it’s not only been a rewarding effort but one that has caught the eye of national publications, including Vogue and Architectural Digest.

Now, with both the shop expanded into all the categories the pair envisioned and the website powering the Burkelman philosophy far beyond its Putnam County locale, Kimelman says Burkelman is truly launched.

“The full concept has been realized.”

FOR THE WEDDING “A lot of people come to us for wedding gifts,” Kimelman says.

And, Burke adds, many of those people come to Burkelman without ideas.

First up is finding out more about the recipients’ ages, interests and styles.

The goal, Kimelman says, is to find gifts that not only please but also will be used — often.

Gone are the days of fancy silver sets being pulled out just a couple of times a year.

“Previously, people used to reserve a lot of their special-occasion stuff,” he says. Wedding gifts came to be considered “really fine things they never use.”

Today’s couples have a very different approach and, so, Burke adds, gift ideas have broadened.

“People register for pillows, blankets, vases,” he says.

Handcrafted ceramics, they agree, are among the most popular picks.

While everyone likes to have beautiful things, it’s less about collecting designer brands than finding a mix that reflects your lifestyle.

“It’s more about how we put it together,” Burke says.

And Kimelman adds that it’s also more about the objects themselves, “how they function, what they feel like.”

That the recipient likes the gift, Burke adds, is the true driving force behind the search.

That search today more often, Kimelman says, focuses on “the maker.”

Things that combine both form and function are ideal, especially for entertaining. A beautiful serving plate or platter, he adds, “goes so far in presentation.”

STOCKING UP At Burkelman, the selection is thoughtfully gathered.

Burke and Kimelman didn’t even carry cocktail glasses at first since they couldn’t find any that appealed to them.

They want to find things that resonate with their customers, which kept them also searching for the ideal decanter, again something unique but fully functional.

David Kimelman, left, and Kevin Burke at Burkelman in Cold Spring.

Images courtesy Burkelman.

“Everything looked so traditional,” Burke says.

But they hit upon an unusually shaped creation that could easily be paired for a set — and it was quickly embraced.

“As soon as we got them in they immediately went on everybody’s registry,” he says.

The same goes for a bowl that he says is ideal for a couple’s “everyday experiences.”

As Kimelman adds, “It’s like a salad bowl you won’t hide.”

But sometimes, you do want to hide a gift.

Burke and Kimelman say they realize that, to the discomfort of some, couples today often ask for a financial gift.

They tell of one customer who knew that such a gift was what the couple really needed but found a clever compromise — presenting the cash in a charming stoneware honey pot that could grace their breakfast table for years to come.

Finding such a collection of unique goods is a never-ending effort, something Burke describes as “constant research.”

“It’s literally the world,” he says. “The Internet, going to the city…”

Though Burke serves as the primary buyer,

Kimelman notes it’s not a personal thing.

“It’s much more beyond what he likes,” he says, adding that keeping up with trends plays into the picture but in the end, it comes down to one thing.

“It’s really important to us that everything we sell is of the highest quality,” Kimelman says, noting they have returned entire orders when products didn’t meet their standards.

And while the options at Burkelman may be many, Kimelman says it’s “a curated shopping experience” designed to offer the best in each category.

“When it comes to gift ideas, you just don’t have time to look through 300…”

Burkelman has done that for you — with the results on stylish view.

Here, are the wedding-gift picks from Burkelman accompanied by their comments: Workaday Handmade Serving Bowl ($198) — “Gifting a large serving piece is always a good idea.

This large handmade bowl is perfect for salads and looks fantastic when not in use. Handmade is one way to give gifts as memorable as the wedding itself.”

Flask Crystal Decanter ($220) — “These elegant,

food-safe, crystal decanters are a perfect way to upgrade the newlyweds’ home-bar experience. These decanters are sold individually but are also striking as a pair.”

Tori Murphy Lambswool Throw ($385) — “A beautifully designed blanket from esteemed British textile designer Tori Murphy will be enjoyed for years to come. Truth be told, you can actually never have too many blankets in the house, and we have plenty of designs to choose from at Burkelman.”

Ethiopian Fair Trade Bath Sheets ($78) — “Soft hand-spun towels have a truly timeless appeal. A set of these can easily transform the happy couple’s bathroom into a personal day spa. Matching hand towels are also available to complete the look.”

Wheel-Thrown Pitcher ($200) — “This is a very popular wedding gift at Burkelman. New York Stoneware creates these gorgeous handmade and glazed pitchers that make a wonderful statement on the table. The couple can use this to serve water at the dinner table or Bloody Marys when hosting a brunch. It also looks fantastic as a vase full of fresh flowers.”

For more, visit Burkelman at 101 Main St. in Cold Spring or at shopburkelman.com.

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45

GREEK inspiration

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

The Mediterranean diet — which draws mainly on fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, fish, unprocessed cereals, olive oil, yogurt and cheese — has long been hailed for its heart-healthy, anti-aging properties. But you don’t have to tell Princess Tatiana that.

Since marrying Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark, the former Tatiana Blatnik, who served as an event planner for fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, says her adopted country has “added a new chapter to my culinary identity and allowed me to redefine what home tastes like.

“Greek cuisine — being simple but never simplistic, un-

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pretentious but still seductive and authentic, but always evolving — taught me an invaluable lesson,” she writes in the introduction to the new “A Taste of Greece: Recipes, Cuisine & Culture” (teNeues Publishing Group, $35, 208 pages).

“There is no need to camouflage one’s true essence and hide behind unnecessary flavors, either in the kitchen or in life.”

Diane von Furstenberg’s Grilled Octopus “I love Greek food! All the elements that make up Greek food are wonderful, from the olives to the seafood to the honey. …Cruising around the Greek Islands means that the fishermen come to you, and they often have fresh octopus. I love it slow-cooked so that it is tender and juicy, and then grilled quickly to give it a char and some smoky flavor. Finish that with some lemon, and it’s perfect.”

INGREDIENTS • 1 2-pound octopus, fresh or frozen (thawed) • 2 bay leaves • 10 peppercorns • ½ cup vinegar (optional) • Olive oil to taste • Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon • Freshly ground black pepper to taste • Dried oregano to taste

DIRECTIONS

Rinse the octopus well. Using a sharp knife, cut the octopus just below the eyes to remove the hood. Squeeze or cut out the beak and the cartilage on the other side of the beak. Rinse the octopus again, drain it, and place it in a large saucepan. Add the bay leaves and peppercorns and, if desired, add the vinegar and 1 cup water.

Cover and cook over medium heat until softened, 30 to 35 minutes. (Alternatively, cook the octopus in its own juices, without the water and vinegar.

It will emit quite a bit of liquid but do keep an eye on it and add water if necessary to prevent it from sticking.)While the octopus is cooking, light a gas or charcoal grill to medium-hot. Remove the octopus tentacles from the head. To expand the grilling surface and help them to cook faster, cut gashes lengthwise in the tentacles. Brush each tentacle with olive oil, place them on the grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Slice the tentacles very thinly, drizzle with a little oil and lemon juice, sprinkle with pepper and oregano and serve. Serves 4 to 6.

Rita Wilson’s Greek New Year’s Cake “There is a special ritual observed in the cutting of this cake, which has had a good luck charm or coin inserted into it,” Tatiana and Louis write. “The head of the household makes the sign of the cross over the cake three times with the knife, cuts it in four and then starts slicing it. The first slice goes to the Christ Child; the second to St. Basil (Ai Vassilis), the Greek Santa Claus; the third to the poor; the next for any absent relatives. Only then does he portion out the pieces for himself and the family members present, in order of age. But you don’t have to wait until the holidays to enjoy this.”

INGREDIENTS • 3 cups all-purpose flour • 1 teaspoon baking soda • 16 tablespoons unsalted butter • 2 cups sugar • 4 eggs, at room temperature • 1 cup finely ground blanched almonds • Grated zest of 1 lemon plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice • 1 cup milk, scalded and cooled slightly • ½ cup brandy

DIRECTIONS Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan and set aside. Sift together the flour and baking soda. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, add the sugar slowly, and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until each egg is completely absorbed. Stir in the ground almonds and the lemon zest and juice. Then beat in the flour and the milk alternately, a little at a time. When you have finished the milk, start trickling in the brandy. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 minutes to 1 hour.

Let cool, turn out onto a plate, and serve.

Serves 8 to 12.

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The book is, however, no mere cookbook. Rather, Tatiana, working with co-author Diana Farr Louis, has created the work to shine a light (and profits) on Boroume, Greece’s largest food rescue organization, which has provided more than 4.5 million meals to those in need since its founding four years ago.

But who says food rescue can’t be fun? In the pages of this book, you’ll find notable names — including the princess’ former boss, Von Furstenberg, actress-singer Princess Tatiana Rita Wilson, novelist Victoria Hislop and The Huffington Post founding editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington. Greek either by ancestry or affinity, they share with us their passion for a culture that is the backbone of Western civilization and their memories, along with their love of a cuisine that is not all fruits and vegetables. There are Huffington’s Christmas cookies and Wilson’s Greek New Year’s Cake.

“Once in a while we all need to add a bit of spice,” Tatiana writes.

To say nothing of a sweet treat.

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C SLI E OF HISTORY

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY THOMAS MCGOVERN PHOTOGRAPHY

Gary Bimonte’s favorite holidays are Memorial Day and Fourth of July. They allow the Wallingford, Conn., resident the opportunity to make a barbecue or take in a car show. But more important, these are days for him to attend memorial services and show his support for our servicemen and women as well as veterans.

Tradition: It has served Bimonte well as co-owner of Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana and one the founder’s seven grandchildren.

(The rest are also co-owners with varying degrees of involvement.

Bimonte oversees daily operations for the business, whose flagship is in New Haven.)

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“We’re adhering to the way our grandfather did things,” Bimonte says of the recipe for continuing success. “We use the best quality ingredients we can get.

We use his recipes, the same imported cheese and tomatoes, the same locally made sausage.”

No wonder, Pepe’s has been called “America’s Best Pizza” (The Daily Meal) and one of “The Most Influential Pizzas of All Time” (Time magazine).

Patron favorites include the signature white clam pie, which has fans lining up around the block in New Haven; sausage; and the zesty pepperoni — all washed down with Foxon Park Soda. (Try the refreshing White Birch Beer.) Foxon Park began in East Haven in 1923 — two years before Francesco Pepe opened a bakery in neighboring New Haven. Pepe, Bimonte’s grandfather, was an Italian

immigrant who worked in a macaroni factory and a bakery. Flattening dough out and topping it with sauce, he began selling it from a cart but couldn’t keep track of who owed him money for his tasty creations. Then his wife wisely suggested that he make the customers come to him.

Thus, the Francesco Pepe Bakery was born. It wasn’t until Pepe moved to what is now the New Haven flagship in 1936 that the company changed its name to Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. Today, there are locations in Yonkers; Chestnut Hill, Mass.; and Fairfield, Danbury, Manchester, West Hartford and Mohegan Sun — all in Connecticut. Each contains a recreation of Frank’s coal-fire brick oven, which yields the crisp yet doughy crust.

The adherence to tradition that Bimonte speaks about doesn’t preclude innovation and enterprise. To celebrate its 10th anniversary recently, the Fairfield location teamed with Susan G. Komen Southern New England in the fight against breast cancer.

“Susan G. Komen felt like a good fit,” Bimonte says. “A lot of people we know have been affected by cancer.”

Then Pepe’s in Yonkers joined Yonkers Brewing Co. for a pizza and beer fest.

Beginning July 1 and running until the end of September, Pepe’s Pizzerias will be offering its fresh tomato pizza to take advantage of the summer growing season. The pie features mozzarella, basil, garlic and fresh tomatoes in Pepe’s special marinade.

Next year, Pepe’s will open in Waterbury. For the last 10 years or so, Pepe’s has been launching a new restaurant every 18 months but only after careful strategizing, Bimonte says. It’s no accident that the flagship is near Yale University.

Pizza and students have long been a winning combo.

And perhaps with a nod to Frank’s pushcart ways, Pepe’s goes where the pizza lovers are.

For more, visit pepespizzeria.com.

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FARM

as life

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

So how does a woman who worked for an orthopedist in Bridgeport wind up with a farm in Easton and go, as she says, “from bones to beets”?

“Sleep deprivation from two young kids and my husband’s idea,” Patti Popp says with an infectious laugh before impersonating said sleep-deprived self: “Oh, sure, honey, you want to start a farm.”

That was at the birth of a new century. For the past 16 years, Popp and husband Allan, a former landscaper, have been the owners of Sport Hill Farm — a 30-acre spread. The couple raises pigs for meat and chickens for eggs while growing an assortment of spring greens (lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, collard, arugula, broccoli rabe), cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes and the two biggest farm sellers — corn and tomatoes.

Popp gets the produce out in three ways — with an on-site market that also features dairy and baked goods, wholesale distribution to restaurants such as the Delamar Southport and participation in commu-

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nity-supported agriculture, a 20-week program in which families give farmers money for needed materials and in turn get “first dibs,” as Popp puts it, on the crops.

The farm employs 10 people. The couple’s two sons — now 20 and 16 — are working on it this summer. And Popp offers internships to two Westport High School students with an interest in agriculture whom she trains during the last four weeks of the school year.

“They are the future,” she says. “They have to be shown the correct way to do things.”

What they also learn is that farming is “a lifestyle not a job,” with days that begin at 5:30 a.m. and end

Patti Popp. Photograph by Shira Friendman.

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Patti Popp’s Classic Tomato Soup around 8 or 9 p.m. The rhythm of those days becomes its own clock — and its own calendar. The year begins with preparations for what needs to be planted and purchased, then moves on to spring planting, summer growing and the fall harvest.

Not surprisingly, Halloween is Popp’s favorite holiday.

“My favorite season is fall,” she says. “I know I can slow down a bit and reflect on the journey I’ve been on.”

From Thanksgiving to Christmas, Popp takes a break — cooking and catching up with friends “to let them know I’m still alive” and the dreaded paperwork.

But some things are 365. “I can’t tell the chickens it’s Christmas and they’re not going to be fed.

“Farming,” she continues, “is hard work. It’s not for the faint of heart. But then I look back and see what we have accomplished each year, and it’s pretty amazing. It really is a miracle.”

For more, visit sporthillfarm.com.

INGREDIENTS 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 tablespoon butter 1 onion, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, smashed and peeled 2 tablespoons flour 3 cups low-sodium chicken broth 1 24-ounce jar Sport Hill Farm crushed tomatoes 1½ teaspoons sugar 1 sprig fresh thyme Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS Combine ingredients in a stock/soup pot and allow to cook on medium heat for 30 minutes. Add thinly sliced basil, chives or dill for extra flavor. Serves 4 to 6.

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C E L E B R AT I N G 1 0 Y E A R S

BRANT’S

sweet tooth

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVEN PROBERT

Care for a little à la mode with your pie, Mr. Brant? Or perhaps we can top it with a little whipped cream?

Art journalists could be forgiven the culinary quips in reporting that Peter M. Brant recently bought Claes Oldenburg’s “Four Pies in a Glass Case” (1961, mixed media) for more than $1 million from the Paula Cooper Gallery in Manhattan. The work might more appropriately be called “Four Slices of Pie in a Glass Case.” At about $250,000 a slice, the pieces certainly look luscious enough, conjuring the texture of chocolate cream pie and the palette of red velvet cake. (Don’t get your hopes up: The work is made of muslin soaked in plaster over chicken wire, painted with enamel. But then chocolate cream pie wouldn’t hold up very well now, would it?)

Brant is better known in these pages as the founder of Greenwich Polo Club, whose season is in full swing, and the patron of its White Birch Team. But he is also a serious art collector, always ready to share that passion with others. (On Father’s Day, The Brant Foundation Art Study Center invited children attending a polo match to take inspiration from the center’s Jonathan Horowitz exhibit to create presidential-style portraits of their fathers or male role models.)

Well-known for his sculptures of everyday objects, Oldenburg is no stranger to food as muse.

His “Giant BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwich)" (1963), part of the Whitney Museum of American Art collection; his oversized “Floor Burger,” among the food works in The Museum of Modern Art’s 2013 retrospective; and his “Dropped Cone” (2001), which tops a shopping center in Cologne, Germany’s Neumarkt area all speak to the sculptor’s love of simplicity and a de-

sire to venture beyond artistic convention.

At the same time, curators have noted, these works — often made of soft materials — convey contemporary art’s complex fascination with mimicking one medium or discipline with another.

Oldenburg may be using muslin, plaster, chicken wire and enamel, but he knows how to make us hungry.

The Paula Cooper Gallery — actually two galleries on 21st Street in Manhattan — began life in 1968 as the first art gallery in SoHo. The gallery hosts performances as well as exhibits and was for years well-known for its New Year’s Eve reading of James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” and Gertrude Stein’s “The Making of Americans.”

On view through July 15 at the 521 W. 21st St. gallery, works by multimedia artist Bruce Conner. For more, call 212-255-1105 or visit paulacoopergallery.com.

Claes Oldenburg’s “Four Pies in a Glass Case” (1961), muslin soaked in plaster over chicken-wire, painted with enamel in glass case: 5 3/4 by 30 by 9 inches, 13.3 by 76.2 by 23 centimeters. Each pie is approximately 2 1/2 by 8 by 5 inches. Copyright Claes Oldenburg. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.

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FREDERIC KIEFFER’S

culinary odyssey

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

Though he was raised just west of Paris, chef Frederic Kieffer’s favorite holiday is a classic American one.

“Thanksgiving represents the harvest,” he says. “You go through the whole season to celebrate the bounty of the land, which you’re sharing. The field of cooking that we’re in, it’s all about sharing.”

He’s talking at l’escale restaurant bar, the elegant white-on-white French restaurant at Delamar Greenwich Harbor, where he’s the executive chef. (He’s also executive chef and managing partner of Artisan Restaurant, Tavern & Garden at Delamar Southport.) With his brunet coloring and clear-cut features, Frederic resembles a younger, taller Jacques Pepin. But his bonhomie, wit — as dry as white wine — and cuisine are all his own.

Recently, he prepared a “Babette’s Feast” at Delamar Southport, featuring products from Red Bee Honey in Weston and Sport Hill Farm in Easton. (See related stories.)

“The honey gets more powerful as the dishes go on,” he observed that night of a menu that included a suc-

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culent crispy-skin Scottish salmon with an English pea purée, spotlighting Dijon-clover honey and a corn bread, with ruby red grapefruit and orange cream, highlighting buckwheat honey.

Now at l’escale, we were treated to equally delectable but different fare that included a savory tuna crudo (see recipe), a rich, creamy crabmeat corn chowder and — How could we resist? — a Georgette’s salad of kale, frisee, quinoa, carrot, radish, avocado, blueberries and pumpkin seeds in a light Dijon mustard dressing.

The two restaurants reflect the difference between Delamar Greenwich Harbor and Delamar Southport and, perhaps, between Greenwich and Southport themselves.

Frederic Kieffer. Photograph by Kelly Fletcher.

Frederic Kieffer Photograph by John Rizzo.

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L’ESCALE’S TUNA CRUDO L’escale, where Frederic helms a kitchen brigade of 35 to 40, is a sophisticated French restaurant modeled on the jet-setty La Petite Maison Nice in southern France. In the United States, however, “you can’t be 100-percent French. You have to adapt.” So l’escale’s signature bouillabaisse — flavorful without being too fishy — contains lobster, which no French bouillabaisse has. The lobster is a nod to l’escale’s New England locale.

With its pewter, copper and glass accents and a kitchen brigade of about 25, Artisan has the cozy, comfy, country feel of a New England inn and a cuisine that reflects the farm-to-table movement that Frederic is so passionate about. Again, he says, you can’t be 100-percent organic farm-to-table in the northeast, where the growing season is shorter than in other parts of the country. But Artisan is about 90 percent organic, he says, with much of the produce coming from places like Sport Hill Farm and Gilbertie’s Herbs & Garden Center in Westport, which Frederic says has “the largest northeastern USDA-approved organic greenhouse.”

Seasonal Artisan menus have included Gilbertie’s organic mesclun greens, Hamden, Conn. ricotta ravioli dressed with Sport Hill Farm’s summer tomatoes and a cheesecake made with goat cheese, tomato marmalade and a rosemary biscuit.

Local ingredients will play a big role in Artisan Restaurant, Tavern & Garden at Delamar West Hartford, opening in 2017. This Artisan will have a greenhouse that you’ll walk through to get to the restaurant as well as its own compost center.

When Frederic talks about sharing, however, he’s talking not merely about local cuisine but about expertise. This means handpicking and mentoring a staff that may not necessarily come out of the French tradition of cooking school, discovering which members really have the passion for food and teaching them a respect for the basics and for produce.

“It’s not just a zucchini, it’s a certain zucchini,” Frederic says. “And there’s a beauty to it.”

This is a philosophy that Frederic began to absorb when he was 14 years old. His family was not

in the restaurant business, but they had a friend who had a restaurant. So Frederic went to work in his kitchen, washing dishes. He studied cooking for six years — apprenticing at Taillevent, Le Chiberta and Hôtel Lutétia, all in Paris; and graduating from L’École Supérieure de Cuisine Française, where he learned the business side of cooking.

“Sometimes someone can be a good chef, but not know anything about management,” he says.

Frederic was supposed to work at a hotel in Paris that was still under construction. But he got a visa to come to the United States and thought he would “kill time” here.

That was 22 years ago. His culinary odyssey has taken him from coast to coast, embracing Tentation Potel & Chabot Catering and the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan and The Music Center in Los Angeles.

He was one of three chefs involved in the 1996 reopening of Windows on the World after the first bombing of the World Trade Center. The restaurant would be destroyed during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“A lot of people, I brought them in,” he says of the staff there. “Such a tragedy. I knew them all. It’s not something you forget.”

After working in South West NY in Battery Park City and Water’s Edge Restaurant in Brooklyn and serving as the original chef for the now-defunct, celebrity-powered Man Ray, Frederic launched l’escale, which gave him an opportunity to return to his French roots in a cosmopolitan, marine setting.

He was also the original chef of Gaia (now Morello Italian Bistro) in Greenwich, where he honed the farm-to-table philosophy that he seeks to impart as well to the staff of Artisan Restaurant, Tavern & Garden at Four Columns in Newfane, Vt. Today, Frederic lives in Fairfield with wife, Anita, and their three sons. She’s a good cook. And the boys?

“They’re good eaters but picky” he says, before adding, “we didn’t have a recipe for a girl.”

For more, visit l’escalerestaurant.com and artisansouthport.com.

Preparing the apple cream: • Peel and dice 4 Granny Smith apples.

• Combine the diced apples with the juice of 1 lemon, 2 ounces of apple cider vinegar, 1 ounce of butter and 1 pinch of salt.

• Bake for 30 minutes at 325 degrees or until brown and soft.

•Refrigerate.

• When cold, stir in 4 ounces of crème fraiche.

• Mix well and season with salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Preparing the dressing: • Combine 2 ounces of date molasses with 1 ounce of apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons of pumpkin seed oil.

Preparing the tuna tartare: • Dice 24 ounces of fresh tuna and combine in a large bowl with 1 diced Granny Smith apple, 2 diced shallots, 2 tablespoons of toasted pumpkin seeds and 1 bunch of chopped chives.

• Season with sea salt, black peppercorn and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

For the presentation: • Place one spoonful of the apple cream in the center of the plate.

• Place the tuna tartare mix over it in a ring mold to give it a round shape. Remove the mold.

• Drizzle the date dressing around the tartare and sprinkle a few toasted pumpkin seeds around.

• Garnish the tuna with micro greens.

Serves seven or eight.

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WAY

Courtesy Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty.

CURSES!

Harry Frazee’s Larchmont home hits the market

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

Did a lovely Queen Anne home in Larchmont ignite the most famous curse in sports and the birth of a baseball dynasty?

The 5,554-square-foot house — whose many amenities include a fully updated country-style kitchen with an original butler’s pantry — once belonged to Harry Frazee (1880-1929), the Boston Red Sox owner who sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees after the 1919 season, giving rise to “The curse of the Bambino,” Ruth’s nickname, and adding a particularly juicy chapter to one of the longest and greatest rivalries in sports.

After that trade, the Red Sox fortunes plummeted. The team would not finish above .500 until 1934, would not win another pennant until 1946 and would not win another World Series until 2004 — the third-longest drought in MLB history. The Yanks’ trajectory was the exact opposite as they have gone on to become the most successful franchise in North America (although Bosox fans can take comfort in the knowledge that the Sox have won more World Series than the Bombers in this still-young century).

Frazee — who was also a theatrical agent, director and producer — sold the robust, rascally, Rabelaisian Ruth to the Yanks because he needed cash to fund his Broadway musical, “No, No, Nanette.” Or so the legend goes. And, in the words of the 1962 film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance": “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” But historians now agree that Frazee has gotten a bum rap. “No, No, Nanette” didn’t open until 1925, (although its nonmusical predecessor, “My Lady Friends,” did bow on Broadway in December 1919). The brilliantly talented Ruth was a handful. And Frazee’s trade options were hampered by World War I, which had depleted rosters and American League rules. It appears Frazee’s hand may have been forced.

(Or maybe he was giving Ruth a chance to play for a team he wouldn’t have to carry by himself.)

Ah, but is it possible that a certain Victorian — with its glass-en-

closed wraparound front porch, lordly porte cochère, coffered and plaster ceilings and stone fireplaces — played a role in the intrigue? It’s interesting that Frazee bought his Sound Shore home, which sits on .70 acres, just a few months after unloading the Babe for cash. (He lived there from 1920 to 1924.) What is certain is that Frazee’s ties to the Great White Way made him more of a New Yorker than a Bostonian. He needed a home that was, in the words of the George M. Cohan musical, “Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway” — and a short stroll to the train station.

With its original butler’s pantry, formal dining room and seven bedrooms and five and a half baths — now all restored and updated — the house must’ve been ideal for entertaining his Broadway pals on weekends.

Clearly, Frazee thought so, because he later sold it to playwright Daniel Kussel (“The Party’s Over”). Kussel deeded the house to his mother and to his brother Milton, who lived there for 47 years.

Today, the house is on the market for $2,993,000. And Frazee is a permanent resident of another Westchester community, being buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, not far from the Gate of Heaven grave of … Babe Ruth.

For more, contact Arlene Gibbs at 914-420-3344 or Arlene.

Gibbs@Juliabfee.com.

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debuted in 2014 as a website that collected various venues and vendors “to streamline the planning process and help give parents new ideas.”

The site, which is expanding into Fairfield County, caters to parents of children up to the age of 16 and includes bar/bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras and Sweet 16s.

So what was her background that enabled her to attempt this feat?

“Over a decade of experience in the events, public relations and personal assistant roles working for the likes of Dan Rather at CBS News, and then at David Yurman, John Hardy and L’Oréal USA.” The Chappaqua resident explains that Booked Parties is not a traditional party-planning business. “The platform provides parents with a centralized location to research, review customer testimonials, contact and book vendors and venues and helps parents create the perfect party for their child.”

Earlier this year, Meryl Lefkowitz — a PR veteran ¬— joined Booked Parties as its director of marketing and development.

Together, Gilvar and Lefkowitz took time out to answer some questions for us:

What are the trends now (rock climbing, swimming, etc.)? Do they vary by age group?

Meryl Lefkowitz and Claire Gilvar. Photograph by Jessica Paschkes of Pretty Pictures Photography.

PARTY ON

BY BOB ROZYCKI

Your young one’s 6th birthday is coming up in a couple months and she’s already informed you she’s moved past backyard parties with Uncle Fred dressed as a clown.

The au courant tyke wants it to be cool and different. There has to be music — a DJ, if you please.

And a “bar” stocked with retro candies — gummies be gone. And tattoos — henna will suffice. Balloons

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— mylar, to be considerate of the latex-intolerant guest. And did you hear her? She said cool.

It has to be a birthday party to set a benchmark for the first-grade set.

Is that agita you feel? Angst? An anxiety attack?

Where do you start?

Do not fear, Claire Gilvar is here.

Gilvar had a similar experience and “realized there was a need for a hyperlocal planning tool for children’s birthday parties.” The result was the Westchester County-based Booked Parties, which

“Sports-themed birthday parties continue to be popular across all age groups.

Food carts and trucks and party trucks are other popular options. Parents want the convenience of having the party at home minus the cleanup.

For example, one of our newer partners, The Art Truck, which is Connecticut’s only mobile art studio, delivers fun, educational birthday parties and events to your home, school or office. Their inspiring menu of hands-on projects offers creative experiences for all ages.

“We also have a number of ‘animal experience’ businesses on the Booked Parties website, including Two by Two Zoo and Curious Creatures. These parties are always popular with all age groups.”

Are there any Dos and Don’ts to putting together a successful birthday party?

“While every party is different, there are a few standard things to follow to ensure a successful birthday party all around.

“Do always know your audience, make sure that birthday activities are age-appropriate and be aware of any food allergies among the kids invited.

“Don’t try a new activity you are not sure your

child is going to like. This day is about them and you want to make sure the happiest kid at the party is yours.

“Do communicate with your party venue and vendors so they are aware of your wants and needs in order to make the party special for your child and your family.

“Don’t go above your budget. Stay within what makes you comfortable. It will be a much more enjoyable day for all of you.

“Do always have fun. Birthdays are a day to celebrate, so once the party starts, sit back and enjoy the fun, smiles and laughter.”

Why did you choose to expand to Fairfield County? Why not New York City or farther north up the Hudson Valley?

“As we looked at our expansion plan for Booked Parties, we felt as though it was a natural next step to reach into our neighboring county of Fairfield.

With many like-minded parents and businesses as well as lots of crossover between Westchester and Fairfield, we felt as though it would be the best as the next market we entered.

“Booked Parties has already begun plans for expansion into many more markets in the surrounding areas before the end of the year, including Rockland County, Long Island, northern New Jersey and, yes, New York City.”

vides mental health and wellness resources to hundreds of traumatized and grief-stricken children and adults, as well as grants to support the long-term quality and sustainability of services and organizations serving the community.”

How did you come to choose the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation for a portion of your proceeds?

We see you’re branching out with Booked Camps. Tell us how that came about.

“Booked Parties is not only about birthday parties. We are committed to giving back to the community by supporting local child-focused, not-for-profit organizations. With that said, we felt as we extended our business into Fairfield, we wanted to support a cause and in turn an organization that has resonated so deeply with us as well as so many others.

The Newtown-Sandy Hook Foundation does such great work within their community to help to further and support the operations and activities which address the short-term and long-term unmet needs of individuals and the Newtown community since the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. The foundation oversees the Sandy Hook School Support Fund, which pro-

“Yes, we are planning the official launch of Booked Camps toward the end of 2016. In the meantime, we are constantly updating information about camp-related opportunities on our Booked Camps Facebook page.

“Booked Camps is an online resource for parents to connect with local businesses providing camp programs for children in Westchester, Fairfield and surrounding areas.

“Many of the venues we partner with for Booked Parties also run camp programming. Whether it be traditional summer camping or school-break camps, we felt as though centralizing this information for parents to research and connect with these camps with be another helpful tool.”

For more visit bookedparties.com.

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WEAR

FROM FARM to FACE with skincare purist Tata Harper

BY DANIELLE RENDA PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

Tata Harper’s beauty products use only natural, organic and nontoxic ingredients, a rarity in modern skincare.

“With our products, you can ensure that you’re taking care of your skin with the best and the latest anti-aging technology,” Harper says. “But also that you’re not putting any industrial, synthetic chemicals into your skin.”

Tata Harper.

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She’s talking to WAG at Neiman Marcus Westchester before a skincare master class in “Tata’s Garden,” as the temporarily transformed space on the store’s Level Three is being called. It’s sunny and cheery as is Harper, a vibrant blonde in a country chic gingham pantsuit. Her skin glows with little makeup.

Harper’s look suits her eponymous line, in which equal attention is paid to a formula’s active ingredients, which purify the skin, and to its additives, designed for consistency, texture and lasting properties.

Her products are 100-percent free of synthetics, genetically modified organisms, fillers, gluten and synthetic fragrance.

And to ensure product purity, the line — which includes face and body skincare, aromatherapy oils and cosmetics — is produced at Julius Kingdom Farm, the Harper family property in Whiting, Vt. “We make it all there,” she says. “We don’t subcontract anything.”

Harper never anticipated becoming a beauty entrepreneur. But following her stepfather’s cancer diagnosis in 2005, she learned about toxic load when doctors suggested replacing his hygiene products with all-natural alternatives.

“Toxins from our lifestyle just tend to accumulate from what you eat, what you put on your skin, what you clean your house with and the chemicals you just

get in touch with,” she says. “When toxins penetrate our skin, they just accumulate in all sorts of fatty tissue and organ tissue, and that’s where the concerns begin.”

These toxins are found in everyday items, including skincare products.

“Oftentimes in the industry, the ingredient that gives the results is natural, but there are also ingredients that no one talks about,” she says. “Typically, the cheapest industrial chemicals are used, like ethylene glycol, which is (the prime ingredient in) antifreeze.”

To counter high costs and satisfy market demands in skincare, Harper says, additives often contain chemicals, which may go unnoticed by clients.

“We don’t necessarily think that natural is the answer to everything, but it’s really not a good idea to be putting cheap, industrial chemicals that belong more in car engines and in heavy-duty equipment around your eyes and on your body, every day, twice a day, for years,” she says. “If there’s an option, you shouldn’t just fall to the lowest common denominator.”

Though Harper was new to the beauty industry, she wasn’t new to a beauty regimen. Originally from Barranquilla, Colombia, Harper grew up helping her grandmother with weekend spa parties, in which family and friends enjoyed facials, homemade body scrubs, hair masks, manicures, pedicures and hairstyling.

“I really enjoyed the self-love activity,” she says.

“A lot of people don’t see it that way. They see it as a chore, that it’s annoying and they don’t have time for it. While for Latin women, it’s about self-love, pampering yourself and feeling great.”

Harper spent five years refining her products before launching the brand in 2010, relying on the work of eight chemists to develop the perfect formulas. Her organic 1,200-acre farm, which serves as the company’s headquarters, also cultivates many of the essential ingredients used in every product. This includes the Estate Grown Beauty Complex, a concentrated blend of five organic herbs — arnica montana, calendula, borage, meadowsweet and alfalfa flowers — that is infused in every product.

By using raw materials, such as these, Harper’s skincare is multi-active, packing between nine and 29 active ingredients into every product. According to Harper, the market average is between one and three active ingredients. This means that clients can experience similar benefits from one product as opposed to six separate products.

“As a producer of beauty products that are all-natural, I can tell you that all-natural beauty is the ultimate luxury,” she says.

For more, visit tataharperskincare.com and neimanmarcus.com.

Westchester Philharmonic

Dream Kitchens and Baths CRAFT-MAID ■ BIRCHCRAFT ■ HOLIDAY ■ CABICO ■ STONE ■ QUARTZ ■ CORIAN ■ DECORATIVE HARDWARE

October 23 at 3pm Jaime Laredo, conducing Bella Hristova, violin Weber, Brahms & David Ludwig (premiere).

December 18 at 3pm Sperling Ashley Brown, vocals Ji, piano

Winter Pops! with Ted

Broadway hits, Bernstein, Tchaikovsky and more.

February 12 at 3pm Ted Sperling, conducting Julia Bullock, soprano

FA M I LY

O W N E D

A N D

O P E R AT E D

S I N C E

Glinka, Mozart, Bernstein, Gershwin & Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite.

19 6 5

April 9 at 3pm Jaime Laredo, violin soloist-leader Joseph Kalichstein, piano Sharon Robinson, cello

KITCHEN & BATH, LTD. 164 Harris Road, Bedford Hills, NY 10507 914.241.3046 | www.euphoriakitchens.com H O U R S : T U E S - F R I 10 : 3 0 A M - 5 P M S AT 11 A M - 4 P M

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Mozart, Bach, Beethoven.

June 18 at 3pm Andrew Litton, conducting Conrad Tao, piano

G C L I C . # W C - 16 2 2 4 - H 0 5

Weber, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak.

Bella Hristova

Subscriptions and Tickets: (914) 682-3707 or westchesterphil.org

Concerts are presented at: Performing Arts Center, Purchase College 735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY. Programs, artists, dates and times subject to change. ©2016 Westchester Philharmonic, Inc.

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WEAR

FASHION FIT

BY DANIELLE RENDA PHOTOGRAPH BY JORDAN BEYER

From left, Erica Russo and Lilliana Vazquez.

White, stripes and lots of denim are rocking the racks at Bloomingdale’s in White Plains.

Along with pastels, beach weddings and festival-inspired fashion (a twist on boho chic).

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At a summer preview hosted by the store, Bloomingdale’s fashion accessories designer Erica Russo and guest Lilliana Vazquez, style expert and contributor to the “Today” show, discuss the season’s hottest trends.

The show’s styles feature “Today’s Take on Denim,” “A New Look at Nautical,” “Every Day is a Festival,” “White From Head to Toe,” “Pretty in Pastel” and

“Beach Wedding and Beyond.” The offerings include luxe leisure wear and a cool spin on casual clothing, along with feminine dresses in flattering colors, textiles and prints and standout accessories.

Vazquez is perfectly dressed for the occasion, her outfit complementing the show’s denim and nautical looks. She wears a flirty denim skirt with ripped detailing and a color-block blouse in white and navy.

She accessorizes the outfit with a white, pointy-toe, high-heel sandal bearing an ankle strap and an orange lipstick that pops against her blouse.

Her look is playful, but chic, or as she likes to say, “feminine, with a little bit of an edgy twist.

“I always lean more toward skirts and dresses, but I like to do so with a little bit of edge,” she says. “The edge can come through accessories, like a great bag or really cool jewelry, or shoes.”

She is most enthusiastic about the season’s play on white, stripes and festival-inspired wear.

“I think those (categories) are traditionally summery and now that summer’s here, I’m excited to play with them and wear them.”

The preview also features tassels and textured jackets as well as off-the-shoulder tops that Vazquez considers must-haves.

“Donna Karan said it best when she said, ‘Shoulders never age.’ Every woman’s shoulders look good and, luckily, there are so many options,” she says. “I think the more practical something is, the more wear I’m going to get out of it. And for the modern woman shopper, that’s what she’s looking for. I love a coldshoulder top because you can still wear a bra with it and it still feels sexy, current and fashion-forward.”

But regardless of trends, fit remains at the top of Vazquez’s checklist.

“If something doesn’t fit, don’t try to make it fit,” she says. “I think you really have to understand what works for your body and your body type. It’s amazing how much more you can get away with when the fit is accurate.”

Our top takeaways from the show are: 1) Wear white; 2) Experiment with stripes of different colors, width and direction; and 3) Rock festival fashion, but with a global traveler-inspired spin.

Of equal importance, she stresses proper underpinnings (for white outfits in particular) and warns against — gasp — ugly shoes.

For more on Vazquez, check out her Twitter and Instagram social media handles, @theLVguide and @LillianaVazquez, and her blog, The LV Guide, at thelvguide.com. For more on the styles featured in the show, visit bloomingdales.com. And for more about Vazquez’s style tips, visit wagmag.com.

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WEAR

WHERE EVERYONE REALLY KNOWS YOUR NAME

BY DANIELLE RENDA

Guys, get ready for Noland for Men, a barbershop planned for the Christopher Noland brand.

“The barbershop is going to be an old-fashioned barbershop,” says John Castagnetti, co-owner of Christopher Noland Salon & Beauty Spa. The Greenwich-based salon, which offers hair care and esthetic services, purchased Do’s Blowdry Bar in 2014, a wash, blow-dry and styling salon; and opened Teddy’s, a children’s salon, in 2015. The addition of Noland for Men will make the company an all-encompassing brand.

“We’ll be servicing men, women and children,” Castagnetti says. “There are four different locations, but it’ll all be within the same family.”

With a background in product development, Castagnetti spent 20 years designing eyewear for high-end companies, traveling nationwide and internationally to Asia and Europe.

But when Noland — then a stylist in Ridgefield — decided to open a salon in Greenwich in 2010, he needed someone to help manage the business, and Castagnetti fit right in.

The two purchased a salon that was on the verge of closing, trained its staff and added new stylists. Nearly all of Noland’s clients followed him to the Greenwich location.

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Noland and Castagnetti then took over Do’s Blowdry Bar — “a walk-in blow-dry bar,” Castagnetti says. “They also do ponytails, braids and keratin express, which is a six-week keratin treatment.”

He calls Teddy’s “the only place in Greenwich that cuts kids’ hair.”

But what really sets the brand apart, he says, is its customer service.

“We hear horror stories all the time of people going into businesses and being treated poorly,” he says. “Everybody that comes into our salon is

Christopher Noland

treated like a friend. They come in, they’re offered a drink, they’re greeted by their name and everybody says ‘hello’ to them.”

But most important, “When people come in, they’re happy to be there.”

Christopher Noland Salon and Beauty Spa is at 124 Greenwich Ave.. For more, visit christophernoland.com or call 203-622-4247.

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CHIC

WAGMAG.COM

JULY 2016

GIFTS AND NEW PRODUCTS IDEAL FOR ANY OCCASION COMPILED BY MARY SHUSTACK

1

2 HIT THE BOOKS

SPOON FED

(1) Nectar, the Hudson Valley company sourcing products from around the world, offers selections ideal for the kitchen – or table. Here, the rustic-yet-elegant collection of utensils from Sir Madam, suitable for daily use or specialized tasks. Selections ($16 to $93) work for both preparation and serving, with each piece cast in 100-percent food-safe, solid brass.

Visit shopnectar.com.

Photograph courtesy Nectar.

(2) Cookbooks are a source of endless inspiration. A handful of new (and upcoming) titles may have you actually attempting the recipes instead of leaving them in your “someday” file. From top, “Appetizers,” (Ryland, Peters & Small, $19.95), which features “more than 100 deliciously simple small dishes and sharing plates to enjoy with friends;” “Cooking with Cheese” (Ryland, Peters & Small, $21.95), filled with “over 80 deliciously inspiring recipes from soups and salads to pasta and pies;” “Mashed: Beyond the Potato”

by Holly Herrick (Gibbs Smith, $24.99); and “French Desserts,” by Hillary Davis (Gibbs Smith, $30), which spotlights comfort foods the French make for themselves.

For more, visit gibbs-smith.com or rylandpeters.com.

Photographs courtesy Gibbs Smith and Ryland, Peters & Small.

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CHIC A FLAVOR OF ITALY

(3) An attractively rustic copper finish might catch the eye, but the cutting-edge technology and stainless-steel interior make the Lagostina Martellata Hammered Copper Cookware collection the ideal choice for the serious home chef.

Opt for the lavish 10-piece set ($599.99) or the 5-quart covered casserole ($179.99), shown here, from the Italian premium cookware company.

3 4

For more, visit lagostinaUSA.com.

Photograph courtesy Lagostina.

RETRO FUN

(4) Who hasn’t turned to “The Joy of Cooking,” that beloved classic, at some point in his or her cooking life? Out of Print Clothing takes the iconic publication — continuously in print since the Depression era — and spins it into yet another incarnation with a collection that includes tea towels, T-shirts, totes and here, a delightfully retro apron ($22) based on the 1943 cover design. (And with each purchase, a book is donated through Out of Print’s partnership with Books for Africa.)

For more, visit outofprintclothing.com.

Photograph courtesy Out of Print Clothing.

5

SALT OF THE EARTH

(5) Summer and the Hamptons just go together.

Get your pantry in summer shape by replacing potentially unhealthy processed salts with the all-natural selections from Hamptons Salt Co. Sourced from around the world, the sea-salt selections include raw, flavored and smoked varieties, all unrefined and free of unhealthy additives.

With a selection topping 30 varieties (from Bali Pyramid to Vermont Maple Syrup to Black Truffle), the company offers individual jars (from $9.99) and gift sets (including The Collector, 20 varieties of mini jars for $149.99).

For more, visit hamptonssalt.com.

Photograph courtesy Hamptons Salt Co.

SET A PLAYFUL PLACE

(6) WAG continues to appreciate the efforts of Kim Seybert, profiled in our September 2015 issue for her “couture for the table.” Here, we spotlight the New York-based designer’s Fête placemats ($112 for a set of four), reversible options that bring a whimsical touch to entertaining.

For more, visit kimseybert.com.

Photograph courtesy Kim Seybert.

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6

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WANDERS

Crispy seviyan rice pudding at Indian Accent, New Delhi.

Courtesy Indian Accent.

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S E V E N

WONDERS OF THE GASTRONOMIC WORLD

BY JEREMY WAYNE

What are the best restaurants? It’s a question I’m frequently asked though one I find almost impossible to answer. But I’ll say this much: Like the “best” hotels, great restaurants always reflect their wider environment. They are of the moment but they are of the past and future, too, and they are comfortable in their own skin. They also display a developed sense of noblesse oblige, meaning they’re as gracious to the one-time, outof-town visitor as they are to their local, loyal fan base. Most important of all, they leave you not just satisfied in the gustatory sense but also a little wiser and better informed about their locale. Yes, that’s really it: They have a sense of time and place.

For WAG’s food issue, here are my eclectic Lucky Seven, by which I mean seven of the “best” I’ve been lucky enough to eat in over the past year:

LE GABRIEL, PARIS Opposite the Palais Royal on the Avenue Gabriel in the heart of diplomatic Paris, La Réserve Hotel, Spa and Apartments — which looks like a grand 19th-century private club but has none of the rules or stuffiness — is home to the two-Michelin-starred restau-

rant Le Gabriel. Helmed by chef Jérôme Banctel, it offers an extraordinary weekend brunch, a kaleidescope of breads, patisserie, charcuterie, soft-boiled eggs with chanterelles, blue lobster with onion carbonara, veal sweetbreads with sage gnocchi and exotic fruits and desserts, with each dish exquisite and jewel-like. And with its marble columns, Beardsley-esque etched windows and Pre-Raphaelite art, Le Gabriel is not just a bonne-bouche, but a seriously beautiful one. Count me in. (lareserve-paris.com) WAGMAG.COM

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kins. But heavens do you eat well. Even with seating for 300, you’ll still find long lines here almost around the clock, because the Taiwanese know a thing or two about good food. And you will never eat dumplings this good anywhere else, I promise you. So go pack a bag. EVA Air will get you to Taipei from New York in 16 hours. I’m telling you this because some things are worth crossing a continent and an ocean and then waiting on line for. (dintaifung.com)

AUBERGINE AT THE DAVID INTERCONTINENTAL, TEL AVIV Quinoa and squash at Aubergine, Tel Aviv. Courtesy Afik Gabay / David InterContinental Tel Aviv.

ARNAUD’S, NEW ORLEANS You haven’t lived until you’ve tried the piping hot soufflé potatoes served as hors d’oeuvres at Arnaud’s. How on earth can anyone do something as extraordinary with a potato, I asked myself, as I recently singlehandedly worked my way through a plate of them, the plate, I think, intended for the entire table. Located in the heart of the French Quarter and at nearly 100 years old, Arnaud’s isn’t the oldest restaurant in New Orleans, but it’s still one of the best, a classic and a survivor. The paneled rooms are formal but the vibe is utterly friendly. As for the food, it’s right up there — shrimp Arnaud, with a Creole remoulade dressing, and Veal Chantal, in a wild mushroom sauce, being two standouts. And though the wine is good and relatively inexpensive, I go another route, washing it all down with a couple of the signature French 75 house cocktails instead. (arnaudsrestaurant.com)

SPAGO, LOS ANGELES Spago is not new, which in Tinseltown, the land of disposable everything, is precisely what makes this restaurant so special. Talk about a scene: You could sit at Spago all night without eating or drinking a thing and still go home buzzed. My dear, the people: Taylor Swift is sitting diagonally opposite and Bradley Cooper almost sends the butter dish flying as he edges past our table. But it’s rude to stare, so we stare at the food instead, including wonderful bluefin tuna poke with seaweed and fava beans, Wolfgang Puck’s amazing 80

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wiener schnitzel — the size of an atlas — and those brilliant mini-pizzas. (Try the smoked salmon and crème fraiche.) And this being LA, there’s kale, of course — lots of it. I don’t really do kale, but at Spago I make an exception. (wolfgangpuck.com)

INDIAN ACCENT, NEW DELHI Indian Accent is the most-talked-about restaurant in India. Adjoining The Manor, a hotel-cumspa retreat in the frenetic city’s sequestered Friends Colony, chef Manish Mehrotra reworks classic Indian dishes using carefully sourced produce, much of it local and all of it seasonal. The result is sparkling modern Indian cooking, lots of it vegetarian, which effortlessly crisscrosses the subcontinent. And if you’re not passing through New Delhi any time soon, there’s good news: Earlier this year, a branch of Indian Accent landed in Manhattan. So now you can head to West 56th Street for wonderful sweet pickle ribs and duck chettinad with foie gras and pearl onion chutney, along with extraordinary desserts like crispy seviyan, rice pudding with coconut jaggery ice cream. (indianaccent.com)

DIN TAI FUNG, TAIPEI Nowadays you can eat xiao long bao, those heavenly, ravioli-like filled dumplings at branches of Din Tai Fung throughout Asia and even in California. But earlier this year, I was lucky enough to visit the original Din, in Taipei, and this joint takes some beating. Talk about no-frills: You eat on Formica tables under bright lights, with paper nap-

Take quinoa and acorn squash salad, or seared fillet of grouper with arugula and pickled lemon tahini sauce, add top-drawer, prize-winning Israeli wines and throw in a major political figure for a bit of razzle-dazzle — former President Shimon Peres was at the next table — and you have the makings of a wonderful lunch or dinner. Aubergine chef Alon Hinterstein, believes everybody can incorporate healthy dishes into his everyday life and his Health & Harmony menu, a celebration of superb local produce, leads the way. Although Tel Aviv’s restaurant scene is now known as one of the hottest in the Middle East, for me Aubergine has to be a first stop to take the pulse of this extraordinarily vibrant city, of which good food is such an integral part. (aubergine.rest.co.il)

AZZERA RESTAURANT AT FOUR SEASONS RESORT, MARRAKECH Those clever Four Seasons people are at it again — this time in Marrakech, the Red City of the Moroccan south. Chef Sylvain Nicolas’ first job was as a pastry chef before being appointed executive sous chef at Four Seasons Resort Marrakech, so it’s not surprising that he totally gets pastilla, the exquisite Moroccan dish that coalesces elements of the classic French mille-feuille (the Napoleon) with an English game pie. Rich with pigeon meat, the werqa dough is also filled with cinnamon and almonds and dusted with confectioner’s sugar, the sweet-savory elements combining to almost ethereal effect. Chef Nicolas does superb Turkish and Lebanese dishes, too, but for me pastilla is always the star. To eat a freshly made one in the hotel’s Inara lounge or at the shaded poolside restaurant Azzera under the date palms, must truly rank as one of life’s great sybaritic experiences. (fourseasons.com)

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THE REAL

Fantasy Island

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA PHOTOGRAPHS © 2015 VELAA PRIVATE ISLAND. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

A few short years ago, Velaa Private Island in the Maldives was an uninhabited place. Now as charted in the new “Velaa: Island for All Senses” (teNeues Publishing Group, 220 pages, 135 color illustrations, $65), it’s a resort lover’s paradise — perfect for any family celebration.

You’ve got your thatched roof luxury poolside villas, your Clarins spa, your golf, tennis, squash and diving, your turtle nursery (the island is named for the sea turtles that are its signature residents) and about 50 shades of turquoise.

We haven’t forgotten the culinary delights.

At Tavaru, the boutique restaurant housed in a modern ivory tower, gourmets can savor Chinese, Korean and Japanese cuisine, along with a wine cellar that is the largest wine collection in the Maldives, boasting more than 500 bins. (Vintages include 1956 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Salon

Champagne and 1870s Blandy’s “Vendelho Solera.”) Or you can take a walkway to Aragu, Velaa’s trademark restaurant, and feel as if you’re floating above the teal beauty of the Indian Ocean as you dine on minimalist creations and fusion fare.

Credit island owner Jiři Šmejc and Czech architect Petr Kolář for the irresistible result.

“We wanted to create a place where people will be happy to return time and again – a home on

a small rise of earth in the middle of the azure ocean,” Šmejc says in the introduction. (The text is in English, Chinese and Russian.)

May we dive in now?

For more, visit teneues.com and velaaprivateisland.com.

11th Annual

Join the National MS Society at our

LUNCHEON to increase awareness about multiple sclerosis and raise funds for research and programs and services for people affected by MS. Wednesday, September 14, 2016 10:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Tarrytown 455 South Broadway, Tarrytown, NY Ticket proceeds benefit the New York City – Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society www.womenonthemove.msnyc.org

THANK YOU TO OUR LOCAL PRESENTING SPONSOR

MEDIA SPONSOR

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TREAT YOURSELF TO GOOD EATS WAG puts the spotlight on a few local eateries

121 RESTAURANT

2 Dingle Ridge Road North Salem Phone: 914-669-0121 Website: 121restaurant.com Cuisine: globally inspired dishes featuring seasonal ingredients from Hudson Valley farmers Amenities: private dining available Hours: Tuesday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m.; Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5-10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. and 5-10:30 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

CAFE HUDSON

1 Van Der Donck St. Yonkers Phone: (914) 338-7542 Website: cafehudson.com Cuisine: American grill fare, including burgers, chicken and beef tacos, shrimp skewers and tomato bruschetta Amenities: outdoor seating with

panoramic views of the Hudson Hours: Monday through Friday, 4-11 p.m; and Saturday and Sunday, noon-11:30 p.m.

CREW

280 Railroad Ave. Greenwich Phone: 203-340-9433 Website: crew280.com Cuisine: New American-style food Amenities: occasional live music and group events, including paint night Hours: Tuesday through Thursday, noon to 2:30 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m.; Friday, noon to 2:30 p.m. and 5-10 p.m.; and Saturday, 3-10 p.m.

DOLPHIN RESTAURANT, BAR & LOUNGE 1 Van Der Donck St. Yonkers Phone: 914-751-8170 Website: dolphinrbl.com Cuisine: seafood dishes with

Texas de Brazil

Mediterranean accents Amenities: waterfront views, patio seating, special events and a second floor dining room to accommodate up to 80 guests for a seated dinner Hours: Monday through Thursday, 11:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4-10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4-11 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 3 p.m. and 4-9 p.m.

EQUUS RESTAURANT

Castle Hotel & Spa 400 Benedict Ave. Tarrytown Phone: 914-631-3646 Website: castlehotelandspa.com Cuisine: New American cuisine based on locally sourced ingredients Amenities: garden, Hudson River Valley

..Curated to Captivate..

At Eklectíco Café our collection is sourced locally and globally. It has been curated by founder Jenny Mezzapelle and her insatiable passion for travel, art, culture, creativity & customization. We invite you to visit one of our pop-up shops or check us out online to browse through our latest collection of men’s & women’s accessories including our signature bamboo sunglasses, home décor, jewelry, fair-trade baby toys, bibs, and more!

At every pop-up, we donate a portion of our proceeds to a charitable organization so please be sure to share what causes are meaningful to you. If you are an artist looking to have your work featured or are interested in custom orders, please email us at: info@eklecticocafe.com. www.eklecticocafe.com

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@eklectico_cafe

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Get 10% off! Use promo code: Summer16

Contemporary Seafood Restaurant Causal Fine Dining Atmosphere Metro Chic Bar/Lounge Alla Fresco Dining Overlooking The Hudson River Private Parties from 15 to 200 Guests 1 Van Der Donck Street ] Yonkers, NY 10701 914.751.8170 ] www.dolphinrbl.com

and Manhattan skyline views, in addition to a bar and lounge area Hours: breakfast served daily from 8-10 a.m.; Monday through Friday, noon to 2 p.m. and 5:30-9 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:30-9 p.m.

MUSCOOT TAVERN

105 Somerstown Turnpike Katonah Phone: 914-232-2800 Website: muscoottavern.com Cuisine: old-school tavern known for its thin-crust pizza, steak and seafood dishes Amenities: casual, rustic-style atmosphere featuring live music every Saturday night, happy hour held 4-6 p.m. daily and again from 9-11 p.m., Thursday through Saturday Hours: Monday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Tuesday to Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 9 p.m.

TERRA RUSTICA

77 S. Moger Ave. Mt. Kisco Phone: 914-666-7005 Website: terrarusticadue.com

Hours: Monday through Thrusday, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

TEXAS DE BRAZIL

Ridge Hill 1 Ridge Hill Blvd.

Yonkers Phone: 914-652-9660 Website: texasdebrazil.com Cuisine: Brazilian-American steakhouse Amenities: private dining available for up to 40 guests, audiovisual rentals, buyout options and catering and takeout available Hours: Monday through Thursday, 5-9:30 p.m.; Friday, 5-10 p.m.; Saturday, 4:30-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 4-9 p.m.

THE WATER’S EDGE — GIOVANNI’S

2748 Boston Post Road Darien Phone: 203-325-9979 Website: watersedgeatgiovannis.com Cuisine: Italian-American steakhouse and seafood Amenities: five private suites and a VIP wine room, meeting planners available, audiovisual experts available upon

Cafe Hudson

request and direct water views Hours: Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m.; Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5-10

p.m.; Saturday, noon to 4 p.m. and 5-10 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. and 5-9:30 p.m.

1 VAN DER DONCK ST, YONKERS, NY 10701 • CAFEHUDSON.COM • (914) 338-7542 86

WAGMAG.COM

JULY 2016

DON’T YOU LOVE...

A NICE PIECE OF MEAT?

GIOVANNI’S

“A SERIOUS STEAK HOUSE” WE MARRY THE SUBTLETIES OF ITALIAN CUISINE WITH THE BOLDNESS OF AN AMERICAN STEAKHOUSE TO CREATE A DINING EXPERIENCE UNIQUE IN ITS BALANCE AND COMPLEXITY.

2748 Post Road, Stamford/Darien Border • 203.325.9979 • WatersEdgeatGiovannis.com

FRESHNESS you can taste

BY DANIELLE RENDA

Seafood paella.

Photograph courtesy Taberna Tapas & Wine Bar. 88 WAGMAG.COM

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Small dishes pack a powerful punch at Taberna Restaurant Tapas & Wine Bar in Fairfield.

This is because Daniel Lopez, chef and owner of the Spanish-style restaurant, uses only fresh ingredients sourced locally.

And he flavors his dishes with herbs handpicked at the eatery.

“I grow basil, mint, cilantro, parsley and rosemary,” he says.

The menu ensures that no two trips to Taberna are alike. Though the restaurant’s signature dishes, like the classic paella Valenciana — a pungent combo of chicken, Spanish sausage and saffron cebolla rice — are available year-round, Lopez may incorporate other, less traditional ingredients, like lobster, shrimp or clams.

“The dishes change according to the season or what is fresh,” he says.

But natural flavors remain the chef’s signature.

“I love cooking and I love Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine,” he says. “It’s my passion.”

Lopez, originally from Ecuador, worked in the restaurant business for two years before taking his passion north. In 1994, he immigrated to the United States with his brother, Jaime, and worked in a series of restaurants to gain firsthand experience. In 2008, Lopez and his brother opened the first Taberna Tapas & Wine Bar in Bridgeport, which remained in business for nine years. Lopez then relocated Taberna to its current spot, which celebrated its one-year anniversary in June.

To salute the summer months, Lopez is featuring variations on two popular dishes on a weekly basis — ceviche, using raw, marinated fish, and gazpacho, a spicy cold tomato soup. Lopez is also offering a summer salad, dubbed Chef Daniel’s Salad, which consists of baby arugula, endive, pears, nuts and mustard seeds dressed in a citrus vinaigrette. Summer cocktails include fresh-fruit martinis made with mint from the garden.

During my visit to Taberna, Lopez suggests that I taste a few popular plates. He first presents two versions of crostini (thinly sliced and toasted bread) — one served with grilled strip steak, Manchego cheese and chimichurri sauce and one with smoked wild salmon, Manchego cheese and a Mediterranean vegetable relish. There’s also a shrimp and bay scallop ceviche, featuring a delicate mélange of fresh tomatoes, red onions and

From left: grilled strip steak crostini with Manchego cheese and chimichurri sauce and a smoked wild salmon crostini with Manchego cheese and a Mediterranean vegetable relish.

Chef Daniel’s Salad. Photographs by Danielle Renda.

freshly squeezed lime juice. Lopez then presents Chef Daniel’s Salad, the epitome of summer fare, and a vegetable empanada, made with a flaky crust that is both rich and light.

Though each plate is different, they share one quality — a purity of flavor. Biting into the skirt steak crostini, I expect the meat to leave a lasting impression, but instead, it is the savory chimichurri sauce. The juices from the homegrown tomatoes in the ceviche delectably meld with the fish, while the sweetness of the salad’s pears are a satis-

Vegetable empanada.

fying surprise in that palate-cleansing dish.

And though the intense, organic flavors awaken my taste buds, the portions are not overwhelming, creating a comfortable balance.

Taberna Restaurant Tapas & Wine Bar is offering a complimentary bottle of white, red or Rosé wine or a pitcher of white, red or Rosé sangria with the purchase of five tapas plates. It is in the Brick Walk Promenade at 1229 Boston Post Road in Fairfield. For more, call 203-3380203 or visit tabernarestaurant-ct.com.

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WONDERFUL DINING

FULL SPEED AHEAD The reinvigoration of the Peekskill dining, entertaining scene

BY ALEESIA FORNI PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI

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Chef Kevin Wong creates a spectacular sushi dish.

There’s a lot happening at The Hudson Room.

Walk into the Peekskill restaurant, on the corner of South Division and Broad streets, just down from the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater, and you’re met with a few different options. Are you looking to unwind with a craft beer at the bar while you take in the game on one of the largest TVs in the area?

The restaurant’s got you covered. How about dinner while enjoying a hometown cover band? Done.

You’re in the mood for sushi, you say? Don’t worry.

The restaurant has that, too.

This eclectic yet cohesive mix of styles is the brainchild of Hudson Room owner Louie Lanza, a friendly, fast-talking California native and Garrison resident.

I’m dining tonight with Lanza, his web and brand manager Mike Ford and John Ford, Mike’s father and a good friend of Lanza’s. We meet at the bar and grab a beer — Ithaca Flower Power, Louie’s choice, before he leads my party to our booth near the stage.

Though empty on my visit save for a single red piano handcrafted by the elder Ford, owner of the neighboring Ford Piano, that stage hosts live music every weekend and is capable of holding an 18-piece band.

“We want to give people a New York City experience without the attitude,” Lanza says.

Opened in 2014 and recently named one of the top restaurants in the country by OpenTable, The Hudson Room was Lanza’s first foray into restaurant ownership in Peekskill. Prior to that, he ran a dozen restaurants in New York City over a 25-year span.

“I got burned out of Manhattan,” Lanza says.

He took the money he earned from selling his Manhattan holdings and bought a number of buildings in Peekskill. He also owns Taco Dive Bar at 55 Hudson Ave., a taco and tequila venue sporting views of the Hudson River, and has two restaurants set to open in the coming months — Eagle Saloon, which will sit next to The Hudson Room, and a Buns-N-Bourbon place next to Taco Dive Bar. Lanza is also working

Louie Lanza

on converting a 14,000-square-foot space along the Hudson into an event-catering venue, restaurant, brewery, distillery and amusement center called The Factoria at Charles Point.

“He’s got two speeds — fast and faster,” John says of Lanza.

Our dinner starts with what can only be described as an array of appetizers. Creamy guacamole sits on a baked flour tortilla crisp and a succulent piece of shrimp topped with sweet mango salsa and Sriracha sauce. Steamed edamame is tossed with spicy seasonings. Nachos are smothered with white beans, asiago cheese and tender smoked pork. And butter — glazed dumplings, my personal favorite, are stuffed with creamy butternut squash and a bacon garnish.

Lanza set the entire menu himself, spending 15 months in the kitchen prior to the restaurant’s opening to make sure everything was just right — and it shows. He also puts an emphasis on local ingredients.

Some of those ingredients, like the goat cheese topping our nachos, are even sourced from his 40-acre farm in Garrison.

At Lanza’s suggestion, I opt for the Ying & Yang Roll, one of The Hudson Room’s most popular dishes, and for good reason. The shrimp and avocado roll is topped with pan-seared filet mignon that nearly melts in your mouth. It only takes a few tries for me to realize, along with some urging from Louie, that it’s time to ditch the chopsticks and decorum, to use my fingers. The dish is just that good. Mike shares his choice, a shrimp and lobster salad roll with avocado and a mango-yuzu sauce, with me. I also sample bites of salmon, yellowtail and tuna sashimi dipped in soy sauce.

Between bites, Lanza talks excitedly about what drew him to the city.

“It’s the sixth borough,” he says, adding that Peekskill has both the mom-and-pop storefronts and the big-city grit other Westchester communities lack.

“You don’t want it to become American white bread,” he says.

Despite multiple protests of being too full to even think about a dessert, Lanza insists our table indulge in an after-meal sweet treat. Besides, who can say no to ice cream? We’re served a stemmed glass filled above the brim with espresso caramel crunch and walnut vanilla custard with maple marshmallows, each of us digging our spoons into the decadent and delicious ending to the evening.

As our meal comes to a close, we discuss Lanza’s vision for the future for Peekskill.

“In five years, I don’t ever want to have to go back to Manhattan again,” he says. “Let my wife go and see her Broadway shows. Me? I want this to be the new place to hang out in the Westchester County area.”

The Hudson Room’s Celebration Salad FOR THE VINAIGRETTE

Ingredients »» 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard »» 1 ½ tablespoons Lanza Farms maple syrup »» ¼ cup unfiltered apple cider vinegar »» 2 tablespoons expeller pressed mayonnaise »» 6 tablespoons virgin olive oil »» Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions »» Place all ingredients in a bowl except for the olive oil. »» Blend with an electric hand blender and slowly drizzle in the olive oil. »» Season with sea salt and pepper.

FOR THE SALAD

Ingredients »» 1 5-ounce package baby organic arugula »» 1 head Belgian endive, cleaned and thinly sliced »» 4 ounces Lanza Farms goats milk feta cheese, diced »» 1 Anjou or bosc pear, peeled, cored and diced »» 1 ripe Hass avocado, medium diced »» ¼ cup dried cranberries »» 2 tablespoons toasted sunflower seeds

Directions »» Place all salad ingredients except sunflower seeds together in a large mixing bowl. »» Add the vinaigrette, mixing well with tongs. »» Divide into four to six plates. »» Sprinkle the sunflower seeds over the salad just before serving.

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WINE & DINE

Celebrating an American

SUCCESS STORY STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH

BY DOUG PAULDING

Joseph Carr has arrived: I was recently invited to a media dinner hosted by Carr, creator of Josh Wines, at David Bouley’s Bouley Botanical, a sensory events space at 281 Church St. in Lower Manhattan. Carr was positively giddy about how far he had come in a relative short while.

“If someone told me a decade ago I would be hosting a wine event alongside David Bouley, I wouldn’t believe them.” This is a true American success story. Carr worked his way up the restaurant ladder until he was drawn to the wine cellar, where he began to explore the world of wine.

He became Bouley Botanical’s sommelier and learned to present impressive wines to its well-todo patrons. This planted a seed in his mind that there was a need to fill in the domestic world of wine and he could do it.

In Europe, there are the big and well-known high-quality producers. France has the famous first growths of Bordeaux, Petrus and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti of Burgundy, among others. Spain has Pingus. Italy has Sassicaia. You can spend a big chunk of money on any of these wines.

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Chef and restaurateur David Bouley, left, toasts Joseph Carr, creator of Josh Wines, in Manhattan.

But these countries also produce vins de pays or essentially, country wines. These are the everyday drinking wines that most people readily open for any visitor or event or meal. In 2005, Carr began collaborating with winemaker Wayne Donaldson.

They bought grapes from several growers in California and vinified, bottled and sold the resulting product. “In 2007, I sold 1,000 cases of wine out of my station wagon. Today we sell a million.” That’s impressive by any standard.

Carr named this affordable, drinkable wine after his late father, nicknamed Josh. Carr and Donaldson still do not own any grape vines but choose to source their grapes from all over California. I asked him if this was a production liability, if buying grapes from many sources and many regions led to any kind of inconsistency in his wines. He said, “Absolutely not. We source our grapes from some instantly recognizable vineyards known for their high-quality grapes and wines. Our wines compare favorably with some of these known wines for a fraction of the cost.”

Josh Wines now offers six vintages, all on the

market for between $14 and $19. They are the typically found noble varieties — Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot and also Legacy, a blend of Merlot, Zinfandel and Petite Sirah. There are no real flavor surprises here. But all of them over-deliver for the price. Oak aging is employed in all of these wines, except the Sauvignon Blanc. And the oak influence is soft and subtle, presenting a more textural mouth feel and finish experience rather than big oak flavors.

Josh Wines are easy to find in stores and restaurants. Go to joshcellars.com, key in your ZIP code and enjoy the map of your region as it gets populated by local establishments offering these wines.

It would also be an excellent way to learn about wines and taste typical flavor profiles for the varietal. There are so many good reasons to taste these wines, which offer big flavor, restrained oak and a great price-to-value ratio. But I also like to support American success stories. This one feels like it’s just hitting its stride.

Write me at doug@dougpaulding.com.

E R OA R I N

G

2

0’

N

TH

S

SI

CE

MUSCOOT

Voted!

TAVERN

One of New York States Top 15

Best Hole In The Wall “ Restaurants That Will Blow Your Taste Buds Away

”

Lea Monroe-onlyinyourstate.com

STEAK

|

CHOPS

|

PIZZAS

| SEAFOOD & RAW BAR

Stop in and experience the charm of this historic eatery, a neighborhood favorite since the Roaring ‘20s! Enjoy our cozy tavern where it’s always lively and cheerful or relax on our patio overlooking our horseshoe and bocce ball courts.

Live music on Saturdays and some Fridays On Sundays, enjoy outdoor live music from 4 to 8:30 Happy Hour Daily from 4-6 and again from 9-11 on Thurs, Fri and Saturday nights.

105 Somerstown Turnpike, Katonah, NY (Corner of Rt. 100 and Rt. 35) www.muscoottavern.com 914 • 232 • 2800

WHETTING THE APPETITE

PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI. Tableware courtesy Casafina.

Salmon Ingredients Wellington »» »» »» »» »»

BY JACQUELINE RUBY

I had seen this on TV and decided to try it myself. The recipe had called for a cream sauce, which I was not crazy about. So, I decided to make up my own. It is divine and perfect for the hot weather. This is a light dish that will have people coming back for seconds. Enjoy.

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6 ounces baby spinach Sea salt and freshly ground pepper 2 sheets puff pastry 1 large egg beaten All-purpose flour Nonstick cooking spray

6.

1.

2.

7.

4.

5.

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»» »» »» »» »» »»

Directions: 3.

For more, contact the Saucy Realtor at jacquelineruby@hotmail.com

2 pounds skinless salmon filet 2 teaspoons olive oil 2 tablespoons chopped sun-dried tomatoes 2 medium finely chopped shallots 9 ounces of cleaned cremini mushrooms, plus 1 ounce shitake mushrooms

Sauce:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Heat oil in sauté pan over medium heat. Add shallots and cook about 2 minutes.

Add mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes and cook until liquid evaporates. Add spinach for another 4 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper and cool.

Dust a flat working space with flour. Roll out sheets of puff pastry to 12 by 12 inches. Lay the pastry sheets sideby-side overlapping by about ½ inch. Brush overlapping sheets with beaten egg. Press seam with a fork and transfer to baking sheet.

8.

»» »» »» »» »» »» »»

1 ½ cups fresh orange juice ½ cup fresh lemon juice 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 star anises 2 tablespoons honey 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger 1/8 teaspoon vanilla sugar

Spoon the cooled mixture over one side of the puff pastry.

Trim salmon evenly to have a straight line. Season the salmon with salt and pepper on both sides. Place salmon filet over mushroom mixture and fold over.

Seal with beaten egg mixture and crimp edges.

Bake 25 minutes till crust is golden.

Sauce: 9.

Add all the ingredients to a pan and reduce for about 25 to 30 minutes until syrupy.

10. Slice salmon Wellington and drizzle sauce over it.

Serve with cooked jasmine rice.

A modern Italian restaurant and cocktail bar, offering an environment where you can eat great food, enjoy superb wines and drink fantastic cocktails.

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Mon-Thurs 7am-10pm Fri & Sat 7am-11pm Sun 7am-9pm

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Daily Fresh Homemade Pastas Gluten Free & Vegetarian Dishes!

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Your Best Choice For Showers•Engagements • Communions

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Clockwise from left, Rendezvous Bay Beach; CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa’s beachfront accommodations; CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa.

FROM TEE TO TABLE

BY LAURA CACACE

Set amid the white sands of Anguilla and blue waters of the Caribbean, the CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa is a destination within a destination. It has “everything you need to stay in,” says vice president and general manager Stephane Zaharia, “and everything for people to really indulge in celebrations at the resort.”

When WAG last wrote about CuisinArt in June 2014, the resort had just been chosen to host the Great Golf Resorts Around the World (GGRW) meeting in 2016. But this isn’t the only event CuisinArt will be hosting this November. Its third annual Epicurea (Nov. 2-6), mixes food, wine and golf. Recently, WAG caught up with CuisinArt to find out how the resort is preparing for GGRW and Epicurea, and thus what guests can expect should they want to head to the resort in Rendezvous Bay for a little celebrating of their own.

“Great Golf Resorts Around the World is more of a professional meeting,” Zaharia says of the invitation-only event (Nov. 6-9). “It basically reunites all the great golf resorts of the world and brings them to one location… to discuss business trends, golf trends and what’s going on in the world regarding golf and golf resorts.”

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That CuisinArt was chosen as host speaks to to its growing reputation.

“It’s a very exciting event for us, because Anguilla, unfortunately, is not really known as a golf destination,” he adds. “We have a very reputable (18-hole) golf course, which is a Greg Norman signature golf course… but it’s not considered to be a destination golf course because of the fact that we have only one.”

Nevertheless, the course is becoming one that golfers are putting on their bucket list.

“Golfers want to have a good golf experience but also want to ensure that they have a very strong auxiliary experience such as cuisine, spa and, obviously, a great beach.”

All of which CuisinArt can provide, Zaharia says. Golfers who attend this year’s GGRW event will also be among the first to experience a sister hotel on the estate called The Reef by CuisinArt

— a contemporary complex on some 10 acres that will offer 80 spacious rooms along with several dining options.

Food is essential to a place called CuisinArt. Hence, Epicurea.

“We’re bringing in some experienced chefs that are working at very, very influential golf clubs in the U.S.,” Zaharia says of this event, to which the public is welcome. “They bring their members to come and join them at the resort. They can play golf, obviously because we have a tournament that is designed just for them. And, in addition, every night there’s a different chef that will be cooking their menu and their food for the guests.”

The chefs — including Paul Bocuse and his right-hand man, Christophe Muller — will create meals using local fish and fresh ingredients from the resort’s own hydroponic farm. Tuscany’s Marchesi Antinori, an event sponsor, is providing the wines.

“It’s an experience that has sold out in the past and is quickly selling out this year,” Zaharia says.

“And why wouldn’t it? It’s a great atmosphere, great golf, great food… and basically the DNA of what CuisinArt is all about.”

For more, visit cuisinartresort.com.

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©2016 Alzheimer’s Association. All Rights Reserved.

©2016 Alzheimer’s Association. All Rights Reserved.

This advertisement is supported in part by a grant from the New York State Department of Health

What about (the) bob?

WEAR

BY BRIAN TOOHEY PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

I think to create beauty there must be love for what you do. Bill Blass shared, as I was cutting his hair in preparation for a fall runway show, that “A beautiful environment is essential for creativity.” We had 21 models to prepare for the show (including the divas, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell) and 2 ½ hours in which to do it. Needless to say, the pressure was intense. Yet out of the chaos, there was beauty unfolding all around us.

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In fashion, change is the only constant. Presently, waistlines are rising and in beauty, hair length is following suit. Ashleigh Singer, my model for this issue, asked for exactly that and, so, we took her long hair to a bob just below her chin. She said that a fresh new style has the power to make her feel like a new person and she liked the idea of not having long hair sit on her neck, especially on a hot summer day. Ashleigh is always stylish and on-trend and I suspect that seeing the bob featured so prominently in the media also influenced her decision.

We planned for her makeover to take place at the Warren Tricomi Salon in Greenwich. After the valet parked her car, we walked into the salon together. The salon is a gorgeous, open space awash with natural light. It was the perfect setting for a makeover. And, as I was returning to work there after a few years’ absence, it was a wonderful homecoming for me as well.

We headed straight for the color department as Ashleigh’s highlights needed to be refreshed. I was greeted there by old friends, real pros, and all the best products to use. I felt at home like I never left town. I refreshed her highlights with Balayage. A glaze after highlights is important to restore some pigment and smooth your hair. My choice is Dia Lights Richesse by L’Oréal for a deep shine, vibrant tone and smooth finish.

In the styling area, I was struck by the intensity of the talent in the room. Everyone had focus and a great attention to detail. There it was on full display — love and beauty. Blass had it right.

Ashleigh’s haircut evolved with the proper balance and proportion into the perfect bob. The line should flow unbroken from the back to the front. If the angle and lift in the back is too high, it can create what I call the “beagle ear” look — something you’d want to avoid at all costs. The graduation and line should have a symmetry in order to be elegant and sophisticated. For a short bob, the line should fall above or below the chin line to be most flattering. A longer bob with the proper balance should swing and have graceful movement.

When Ashleigh’s hair was finished, we went straight to the makeup department. Monica Robinson is a super talent. She created a look that was fresh and young and ready for the shoot.

Here are a few tips to keep your bob (or any summer haircut), looking healthy this season. Before diving into the pool, wet your hair with spring water. This will leave less room for chlorine to do its damage. While sunbathing at the beach, why not use the time to deep condition your hair? Warren Tricomi Hair Mask with Argan Oil is the perfect restorative treatment. Just shampoo it out once you get home.

As I’ve said before, hair can be your best accessory. Treat it with love and it will never leave you.

Visit Brian at Warren Tricomi Salon, 1 E. Putnam Ave., Greenwich. To book an appointment with him, call 212-262-8899.

WELL

STRIKING A

BALANCE

IN YOUTH SPORTS

BY GIOVANNI ROSELLI The author with nephew and niece Mark and Jessica Reo.

“Your child’s success or lack of success in sports does not indicate what type of parent you are. But having an athlete that is coachable, respectable, a great teammate, mentally tough, resilient and tries their best is a direct reflection of your parenting.”

—Coach Bruce Brown of Proactive Coaching Our world continues to evolve and sports are no exception. Athletes are bigger, faster and stronger.

Professional athletes in particular display phenomenal skills. Equally mindboggling is the potential money to be made for simply playing a game.

Thus, the competitive nature of youth sports and athletics has reached new heights. Some would say not for the better. A common misconception in the fitness industry is that more is better. The same holds true for sports. Travel teams and year-round sports have become the norm. But is this better for our children?

It seems that in today’s world we have two contrasting situations: Either your child needs to get off their iPads, iPhones — iEverything — and move more, or he is constantly being shipped to this practice, game or recital. Can we find the right balance?

LISTEN TO THE DOCTOR Orthopedic surgeon James Andrews has become so alarmed by the latter trend that he is issu-

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ing written and verbal warnings to anyone willing to listen. Andrews, who has practiced medicine for nearly 40 years, is most famous for his ability to put professional athletes back together. In 2010, Andrews was the only doctor to be named among the top 40 most powerful people in the NFL by Sports Illustrated.

He’s found that overuse of the body followed by lack of recovery time is one of the main contributing factors in sports injuries: “Professionalism is taking these kids at a young age and trying to work them as if they are pro athletes, in terms of training and year-round activity ... They’re thinking, ‘What’s more is better,’ and they’re ending up getting the kids hurt.”

Andrews gives this advice to parents: “The first thing I would tell them is, their kid needs at least two months off each year to recover from a specific sport, preferably, three to four months. Example — youth baseball . . . let the body recover in order to avoid overuse situations. That’s why we’re seeing so many Tommy John procedures, which is an adult operation designed for professionals. In my practice now, 30 to 40 percent of the ones I’m doing are on high-schoolers, even down to ages 12 or 13. They’re already coming in with torn ligaments. Give them time off to recover. Please. Give them time to recover.”

WHAT SPORTS CAN TEACH US The highs and lows of sports are like an emotional roller-coaster. We learn from striking out with the bases loaded and from getting the game-winning hit. There are great benefits to both. Some of the most successful people on the

planet will tell you that past failures are the reason for their ultimate success. They help us mold our character, build resilience and acquire perseverance.

But we are also products of our environment.

Certain qualities, or lack thereof, are instilled in us by what we see and hear. This past April at a high school baseball game in Cooper City, Fla., a brawl erupted between two parents, who fought each other to the ground before being separated.

The stunned children stopped playing and stared at the violence in horror.

During elementary school youth sports, I’ve witnessed many parents pacing and yelling at the umpires and referees, telling them how to do their jobs. Is this the type of behavior we want for our children? What are your children learning about sportsmanship and character from his/her triumphs and defeats and from your reaction to them?

WHAT NOW? CELEBRATE INNOCENCE It seems like childhood is being cut short. Let your children be kids. Let them celebrate the joy that comes along with being a child. As we have learned as adults, the world only becomes more complex and stressful as we get older.

Kids will lose in sports. They will win in sports.

Let’s model the behavior we want our children to learn and encourage safe playing limits so that they can benefit the most from their sports activities.

Reach Giovanni on twitter @GiovanniRoselli and his website, GiovanniRoselli.com.

PET OF THE MONTH

Lovable

BANKIE PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

If you’re looking for a party animal, Bankie is your pooch.

This 1-year-old Retriever/Collie mix, rescued from a highkill shelter, is off-the-charts friendly. She loves people and other dogs alike. She’s a high-energy girl, so she’d like a home with lots of fun opportunities. Bankie’s a sharp girl who’s doing well with her training at the shelter, so she would also benefit from a place where she can continue to learn new things. As she can be exuberant during play, a family with kids around age 10 and up would be a good fit for her.

To meet Bankie, visit the SPCA of Westchester at 590 N. State Road in Briarcliff Manor.

Founded in 1883, the SPCA is a no-kill shelter and is not affiliated with the ASPCA. The SPCA is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. To learn more, call 914- 941-2896 or visit spca914.org.

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MOLLY, BY GOLLY

ELIZABETH BRACKEN-THOMPSON — who with husband Geoff Thompson is the principal owner of Thompson & Bender, a public relations and advertising agency in Briarcliff Manor — sent us a portrait and an action shot of “our precious Molly.

PET PORTRAITS She is just adorable, gentle and sweet. Molly — a 3-year-old Border Collie/Rat Terrier mix — is a Mississippi lass by birth. She is a rescue dog we feel very fortunate to have gotten almost three years ago from the SPCA in Briarcliff Manor. Whatever the mix, she is lightning fast, inexhaustible, could play shortstop for a major league team and is smart, pretty, obedient and very affectionate. She often comes to our office and is happy to have any staff member or random visitor kick or throw her a tennis ball, and virtually everyone does. She has also perfected barking at the UPS man — with a tennis ball in her mouth.

“We also own a four-acre home with an apple orchard in Croton-on-Hudson where our 500 antique apple trees help us produce the greatest apple cider every fall. We sell the cider and apples to the public at our cider mill (Thompson’s Cider Mill) on weekends from September through December every year. Molly is the mascot at the mill and has come to love apples and apple cider.”

Photograph of Molly by MaryAnn VanHengel.

A REAL GEM LOLA CHEN, the museum educator at Wilton Historical Society, has sent us this provocative pic of Sapphire that captures her temperament to a T. “She is super cute although a bit bossy,” Lola says.

No doubt that serves Sapphire well as a model for the World Wrestling Federation (stage name, The Undertaker). With 13,000 Instagram followers, this is one Sapphire that sparkles.

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PET PORTRAITS

THE WACCABUC TWO-STEP LIA GRASSO, a Waccabuc resident, sent us this robust photo of herself with her 2-year-old Goldendoodle, Winston. “When they talk about ‘man’s best friend,’ they must be referring to the Goldendoodle. Winston endears himself to everyone he meets. He is highly intelligent, affectionate, gentle and patient.”

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plores the fascinating and tumultuous decade. Tours at noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays, 295 West Ave., Norwalk; 203-838-9799, lockwoodmathews-

WHEN & WHERE

mansion.com

JULY 1 THROUGH 3 Historic Hudson Valley presents “A Night on Fire,” with

THROUGH AUG. 7

a fire-juggling comedy troupe. 8:30 p.m. Friday, 8 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday and 8 p.m. Sunday, Philipsburg Man-

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts continues its

or, 381 N. Broadway, Sleepy Hollow; 914-366-6900, hud-

76th annual season with offerings for every musical taste

sonvalley.org

— including an Independence Day celebration July 2; Rossini’s opera “Aureliano in Palmira” July 16 and a Jazz

JULY 4

Festival presented with Jazz at Lincoln Center July 23.

149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah; caramoor.org

The Village of Mamaroneck Arts Council presents "A July 4 Concert Celebration." St. Thomas Orchestra will per-

THROUGH AUG. 8 “Pages From Pequot: The Birds and the Bees — Pre-

form musical favorites, followed by a fireworks display and Firemen’s Carnival. 8 to 9:30 p.m., Harbor Island Park, 123 Mamaroneck Ave.; 917-379-2260, storchestra.org

serving Their Habitat Exhibition” — Featuring items from the Pequot Library’s Special Collections that chron-

JULY 7 AND 21

icle the history of beekeeping in America. 720 Pequot Ave., Southport; 203-259-0346, pequotlibrary.org

The New York Botanical Garden is hosting “Sip and Sketch Evenings,” filled with art and music, in conjunc-

THROUGH AUG. 15

tion with its “Impressionism: American Gardens on Canvas” show. Special event tickets are required. 6:30 p.m.,

“Robert Rauschenberg: ‘Spreads’ and Related

2900 Dr. Theodore Kazimiroff Blvd., Bronx; 718- 817-

Works” — Paintings and works on paper chosen to com-

8700, nybg.org

plement the painting “Recital (Spread),” which Philip Johnson purchased in 1980. Tours are available Thurs-

'DEFYING LABELS: NEW ROLES, NEW CLOTHES' THROUGH SEPT. 25 LYNDHURST

days through Mondays. Tickets are required for admis-

JULY 9

sion and advance reservations are highly recommend-

Pleasantville Music Festival — An all-day rock festival,

ed. The Glass House, 798-856 Ponus Ridge Road, New

now in its 12th year. Music lovers set out their chairs,

Caanan; 866-811-4111, theglasshouse.org

blankets and tents for a day of live entertainment, food

digital art, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, mixed me-

and drink, a beer and wine garden and activities for chil-

dia, glass/ceramics, jewelry and wood are displayed

dren. Noon to 9 p.m., Parkway Field, 48 Marble Ave.,

along the Saugatuck River. The event also features live

Pleasantville, pleasantvillemusicfestival.com

music, special performances and children’s activities. 10

THROUGH SEPT. 10 Bullseye Glass presents “Cosmic Pessimism,” a solo exhibit of new work by glass artist Michael Endo. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

a.m. to 5 p.m., Parker Harding Plaza; westportfineartsfestival.com

Tuesdays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays,

JULY 13

Bullseye Glass Resource Center New York, 115 Hoyt Ave.,

The city of White Plains Recreation & Parks presents a

Mamaroneck; 914-835-3794, bullseyeglass.com/newyork

Shakespeare in the Park free performance of the come-

dy “As You Like It.” 7 p.m., Turnure Park, 26 Lake St. 914-

“The Invisible Hand” —

422-1336, cityofwhiteplains.com

Akhtar’s play about an American futures trader held hos-

THROUGH SEPT. 25 Lyndhurst presents “Defying Labels: New Roles, New

Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad

tage in Pakistan, who uses his wheeling-and-dealing skills

Clothes,” an exhibit that explores revolutionary changes

JULY 14 THROUGH 17

in women’s clothing from the 1880s to 1940s. 10 a.m. to

New Rochelle Council on the Arts offers New Rochelle

4 p.m. Fridays through Sundays, 635 S. Broadway, Tarry-

Jazz Festival, an annual festival featuring free concerts.

town; 914-631-4481, lyndhurst.org

Times vary, Ruby Dee Park at Library Green, Library Plaza; 914-235-9027, newrochellearts.org

THOUGH NOV. 20

JULY 19 THROUGH AUG. 6

to save his life. Performance times vary. Jason Robards Theatre at Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court; 203-571-1287, westportplayhouse.org

JULY 20 Katonah Museum of Art presents Caramoor@KMA: Jake Hertzog Band — An outdoor performance by a young jazz-

“Demolish or Preserve: The 1960s at the Lock-

JULY 16

wood-Mathews Mansion” — A multimedia exhibit with

The 43rd annual Westport Fine Arts Festival — Orig-

Fest. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.; concert at 6:30. 134 Jay St.;

photographs, costumes, artifacts and music that ex-

inal juried works in painting, watercolor, photography/

914-232-9555, katonahmuseum.org

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rock guitarist, part of ArtsWestchester’s Arts & Craft Beer

Don’t Miss These Great Shows!

THE RIDGEFIELD PLAYHOUSE for movies and the performing arts

80 East Ridge • Ridgefield, Connecticut 06877

203.438.5795 • RIDGEFIELDPLAYHOUSE.ORG

Non-profit 501 (c) (3)

Kenny Rogers - Final World Tour The Gambler’s Last Deal with Special Guest Linda Davis

Saturday, September 17, 2016 Gala and Silent Auction at 5:30pm | Performance and Live Auction at 8pm

July

august

13 Trombone Shorty

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& Orleans Avenue

Partially underwritten by Adam Broderick Salon, Benchmark Senior Living at Ridgefield Crossings & Laurel Ridge Health Care Center

Special Guest Funky Dawgz Brass Band

15 The Bacon Brothers 16 Jim Messina

Loggins & Messina, Poco, Buffalo Springfield

17 10,000 Maniacs Great Hits Tour Live

19 Graham Nash This Path Tonight Tour 2016 Partially underwritten by Sturges Brothers, Inc.

Glenn Miller Orchestra

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Grand Funk Railroad Special guest Doug Wahlberg Band

14 Diamond Rio Special guest Lines West

19 Johnny Winter

All Star Band

& D.A. Foster and The Shaboo All Stars

22 Kevin Costner

and Modern West

22 SNL’s Colin Jost

23 An Evening with TOTO

24 Galactic ft. Erica Falls

24 Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Special Guests Argonaut & Wasp

30 Brian Howe Former lead singer of Bad Company

26 The Bangles 28 Al Di Meola Elegant Gypsy Meets Romantic Warrior

31 KC & The Sunshine Band Partially underwritten by Hastings, Cohan & Walsh, LLP

Electrictour 2016

31 Capitol Steps “What to Expect When You’re Electing”

Chapbook winner, as she reads with her mentor, Sean Singer. 7:30 p.m., The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, 300 Riverside Drive, Sleepy Hollow; 914-332-5953, writerscenter.org

JULY 30 The Long Island Sound Swim, in support of the Swim Across America organization, seeks to “Make Waves to Fight Cancer.” Starting at the Larchmont Yacht Club, participants will swim along the shore and end at the Larchmont Shore Club. 6 a.m. to noon, 1 Woodbine Ave.; 914834-2440, swimacrossamerica.org  You won’t want to miss the Lighted Boat Parade at Hudson Park, creating light displays as it passes Hudson and Neptune Parks. Boats from all marinas are welcome. 8 to 10 p.m., Hudson Park & Beach, 1 Hudson Park Road., New Rochelle; 914-654-2000

JULY 31 KC and The Sunshine Band — Find those bell bottoms and

'CONTEMPORARY COLOR' JULY 26, JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER

strap on your boogie shoes, as these kings of disco hit the stage with “Get Down Tonight,” “That’s The Way (I Like It)” and “Rock Your Baby.” 8 p.m., Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org

JULY 20

White House and the Olympics, recorded 15 albums

Following in his father Gregg Allman’s footsteps, rock

and now brings the sounds of Éire to Yonkers. 8 p.m.,

guitarist Devon Allman takes the stage, channeling ev-

Hudson River Museum Amphitheater, 511 Warburton

eryone from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Jimi Hendrix. 7:45

Ave.; 914-963-4550, hrm.org

p.m., StageOne at Fairfield Theater Company, 70 Sanford St., Fairfield; 203-259-1036, fairfieldtheatre.org

JULY 24 Italian Heritage Festival at the Kensico Dam Plaza —

JULY 21 THROUGH 24

Food vendors, arts and crafts and live entertainment celebrate Italian history and culture. Noon to 7 p.m., Kensico

Little Radicals Theatrics presents “Oliver!,” a retelling of

Dam Plaza County Park, 1 Bronx River Parkway, Valhalla;

the musical theater classic based on the Charles Dickens

914-328-1542

novel "Oliver Twist." Dates and times vary. Grinton I. Will Library, 1500 Central Park Ave., Yonkers; 914-589-1669, littleradicaltheatrics.com

JULY 26 “Contemporary Color” — A music documentary of a

JULY 22

collaborative live event organized by Talking Heads’ lead singer David Byrne. Color guards perform choreography

“Songs America Loves to Sing” by Music from Copland

to original music by Nelly Furtado, Byrne and more. 7:30

House ensemble is a wide-ranging program inspired by

p.m., Jacob Burns Film Center, 364 Manville Road, Pleas-

the sounds of country, jazz, folk, ragtime, tango and spiri-

antville; 914-773-7663, burnsfilmcenter.org

tuals. 8 p.m., The Spanish Courtyard, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah; 914232-5035, caramoor.org

JULY 29



Hudson Valley Writers Center presents its 23rd annual

Cherish the Ladies — This Grammy-nominated,

Sanger-Stewart Reading. This year’s event features

Irish-American group has toured the world, played the

HeidiLynn Nilsson, the Center’s Slapering Hol Press

Photograph by Tom Nycz

'A NIGHT ON FIRE' JULY 1-3 PHILPSBURG MANOR

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DELBELLO, REID SALUTED

More than 200 guests were on hand to honor two outstanding individuals during the Children’s Dream Foundation’s annual “Supper at the Shore” at the Shenorock Shore Club in Rye. CDF recognized Mary Louise Reid for her lifetime commitment to improving the quality of education and educational opportunities for children and adults. Dr. Damon DelBello, attending pediatric orthopedic surgeon at the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital and Westchester Medical Center, was awarded CDF’s 2016 Medical Service Award for his dedication to finding the best and often most innovative solutions for his patients’ care and for his pioneering accomplishments in the field of pediatric scoliosis and deformities.

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Photographs by Tim Grajek.

1. Damon DelBello 2. Daniel, Alexandra and Gabriella DelBello 3. Bruce Roseman 4. Bill and Lucille Losapio and Terry and Jerry Feldman 5. Mary Louise Reid and Ogden Reid 6. Irina Zhabinskaya, Barbara Moss and Timothy Haydock 7. Dick DelBello and Richard Fontana 8. Laura and Gerry Holbrook 9. Gregg McNelis and Jon Otis 10. George Coles, Emil Nigro and Judith Watson 11. Matthew Vacca and Katherine Reid Vacca 12. Catherine Valentino and Matt Murphy

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DOCTORS IN THE HOUSE

The 2016 Fairfield County “Doctors of Distinction� awards honored 10 physicians in seven categories on May 3. Some 140 people attended the annual ceremony, hosted by the Waveny LifeCare Network in New Canaan and co-founded by the Fairfield County Business Journal and Citrin Cooperman. Keynote speaker Jeremy Richman, a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology, spoke about the Avielle Foundation, which he founded with his wife after the loss of their daughter in the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown. The doctors followed with speeches about defining moments in their careers and relationships.

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Photographs by Reece Alvarez.

1. Zane Saul 2. Romelle Maloney 3. Kyle Bilodeau 4. Douglas McHugh 5. Paul Sethi 6. Linda, Taylor and Craig Werner 7. Jeremy Richman 8. Noel Robin 9. Albert DiMeo 10. Francis Walsh 11. Stephen Winter

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HAVING A BALL AT THE BRUCE

The Bruce Museum recently hosted its Renaissance Ball, a blacktie fundraiser. Sachiko and Lawrence Goodman were honored for their long-standing support of the museum. Proceeds from the evening went to support educational and science initiatives at the Bruce. Photographs by Big Picture/Kyle Norton.

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12. Lawrence Goodman, Sachiko Goodman, Motohide Yoshikawa, Corinne Yoshikawa and Yukiko Suzuki 13. Pam Biddle, Cynthia BellBucha and Deanna Mulligan 14. Mary Russell, Marc Sklar, Leora Levy, Steve Levy, Audrey McNiff, Roy Salame, Melissa Salame, Jieun Wax, John Russell, Sara Mushegian, Dan Mushegian and Dee Dee Sklar 15. Chris Finlay, Jeanine Kennedy, Kathleen Finlay, Tracy Yort, Monty Yort and Bobby Kennedy 16. Kamie Lightburn, Teru Clavel and Felicity Kostakis

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OUT IN NATURE AT KMA

Recently, the “Forces of Nature” took over the Katonah Museum of Art at the museum’s annual themed spring gala. The event featured a cocktail hour in the Marilyn M. Simpson Sculpture Garden followed by an open fashion runway, dinner and after-party dancing under the stars on the museum campus.

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Photographs by Margaret Fox Photography.

1. Rita Carrozza 2. Rudy and Jen Niles 3. Shauna McManus and Jack Starr 4. Julia and Steve Goldberg 5. Audrey Heckler 6. Andrew and Natasha Wixom and Paris and Steve Serpico 7. Trey Tomlinson and Ashley Norwalk 8. Ellen Conrad, Tara Coniaris and Chris Burdick 9. Judy and Roger Widmann 10. Marshall and Anna Peris and Whitney and Jason Wasserman 11. Bernie and Ani Mindich 12. Pam and Steve Hootkin 13. Andrea Raisfeld 14. Melanie and David Warby 15. Abbe Heller 16. Maria Fields, J. Alan Clark and Marilyn Glass 17. Heather and Kristoffer Durst 18. Chris Grazul and Shannon McPhee 19. Kim Latham, Susan Sandlund, Midge Iorio and Ellen Lynch

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WORLD CLASS PARKING PROUDLY SERVING WESTCHESTER, ROCKLAND, AND FAIRFIELD COUNTIES FOR OVER 20 YEARS.

wcparking.com dcheitel@aol.com 914-683-1992

“PRIVATE HOME PARTY SPECIALISTS” Call us for your next home event. We provide valet parking services to Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, memorial services, private home parties and more.

“We make your parking issues a non-issue.”

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM | @WAGMAGAZINE

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ART, MEET RETAIL

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Legislators and community leaders were on hand for an event at 530 Nepperhan Ave. in Yonkers to celebrate zoning that will allow firstfloor retail space in the Carpet Mills Arts District (CMAD). Event attendees had the opportunity to tour some of buildings in the CMAD area to see the art, history and future of this arts district.

WATCH

Photographs by Mario Mirabella, MSM DesignZ 1. Mike Spano and Michael Sabatino 2. George Huang 3. Jordan, Austin and Harlan Rose 4. Randolph Rose and Jonathan Shorr

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HAPPY 80TH, JAMES DENMARK 8

Recently, The Mackey Twins Art Gallery presented an exhibit of works by James Denmark in celebration of his 80th birthday. The artist is best-known for his vibrant collage work and watercolors capturing black life in America. Photographs by John Brathwaite and Sheldon Neverson.

5. James Denmark and Barbara Felke 6. Laura Gadson, Karen Mackey Witherspoon and Sharon Mackey McGeer 7. Bob and Taryn Hill 8. Stephanie Penceal and Edwin and Katherine Jack

WAG PUBLISHER HONORED

More than 200 were in attendance as the Westchester County Medical Society and Westchester Academy of Medicine held their annual meeting and awards ceremony at Westchester Country Club in Harrison. This year’s “Friend of Medicine” award was given to Dee DelBello – publisher and creative director of WAG and owner of its parent company, Westfair Communications Inc. – for her contributions to the medical community in Westchester. The WCMS is the oldest society of its kind in America, advocating, educating and communicating to and on behalf of its physicians.

9. Thomas J. Lester, Dee DelBello, Janine Miller and Louis McIntyre

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ONLY 2 SPOTS LEFT! GUEREWOL FESTIVAL IN NIGER OCT. 3-15, 2016 Travel with us in small group photo tours to Ethiopia, Kenya and Niger. Just getting back to photography? Our clients come from all skill levels, including beginners. Lessons are tailored to help you progress, no matter how much experience you may have. Working in the field, learn photojournalism, portrait photography, location lighting, editing and workflow with new topics daily and personal one-on-one instruction. Updated 2016-2017 itineraries, dates, testimonials and tour fees are posted online at www.johnrizzophoto.com

of 2Winner Alive016 Art fo r W G ra n s S ol oun de t Prodjeiers d ct

“OUR TRIP WAS ONE OF THE MOST INTENSE, ASTONISHING AND INCREDIBLE TRAVEL EXPERIENCES I’VE EVER HAD. THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE WAS MAGICAL. I CAN’T WAIT TO JOIN JOHN ON ANOTHER TRIP.” Annie Chester, Los Angeles

The Guerewol is an annual courtship ritual competition among the Wodaabe Fula people of Niger. Young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, each vying for the attentions of single young women. The Guerewol occurs each year as the traditionally nomadic Wodaabe cattle herders gather at the southern edge of the Sahara before dispersing south on their dry season pastures. The actual dance event is called the Yaake, while other less well-known elements, such as bartering over dowry, competitions or camel races among suitors make up the week-long festival.

This festival is a colorful and unforgettable spectacle. Our camp will be set among them, giving us the opportunity to photograph their daily life, watching the care of their animals (zebu and cows), their preparations for the festival, and intimate tribal life.

John Rizzo Photography | 405 Tarrytown Rd. Suite 1302, White Plains, NY 10607 | (646) 221-6186 worldwide mobile | www.johnrizzophoto.com

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AN ALL-STAR FAMILY SALUTE

More than 340 guests gathered to honor Westchester philanthropists and Harrison residents Jody and Mark Rollins, New York Yankee pitching great Andy Pettitte and coach Bob Knight at the Family Services of Westchester’s annual STAR Gala. Guests enjoyed bidding on items during the live auction, conducted by Super Bowl XXV MVP Ottis Anderson.

The evening also featured a live performance by Grammy Award-nominated Bernie Williams and his All-Star Band. The event exceeded its fundraising goals, ensuring that the organization will continue to innovate and adapt to serve the evolving needs of the Westchester community.

1. Brandon Steiner and Andy Pettitte 2. Kelvin Joseph, Kevin J. Plunkett, Bob Knight, Bill Mooney and Robert Weisz 3. Ottis Anderson and Jody Rollins 4. Christine Wayne, Rudy Ruettiger and Susan Wayne 5. Adam Goldsmith, Blakely Brodbeck, Alison Chader, Bernie Williams, Staci Ramachandran, Karen Beatty, Leslie Chang and Monique Guesnon Kandel

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HIGHLIGHTING POVERTY

“Poverty, Inc.” was shown at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville as part of the ongoing “Community Matters.” This series includes films and discussions on topics that affect us locally. Photograph by Jacob Burns Film Center.

6. Shari Turitz, Magatte Wade and Laura Rossi

ARTISTS OF TOMORROW

In recognition of “Take Your Child to Work Day,” ArtsWestchester hosted a program to inspire young adults to reach their career goals. As an extension of ArtsWestchester’s spring exhibit, “SHE: Deconstructing Female Identity,” the event featured female leaders from a cross section of area businesses talking about their career paths and how to succeed.

7. Preya Ananthakrishnan, Kaitlyn Corbett, Shari Mason, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Nancy Silberkleit and Hope Salley

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Cross River, NY

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residing over 96 private acres is one of Westchester’s premier equestrian properties. This secluded property has bucolic green pastures, lush woodlands, and majestic views. Included is a stately 6500 square foot, 6 bedrooms, 6.5 bath colonial with heated pool & tennis court. The outstanding professional 20 stall equestrian facility has an attached indoor ring, a 100’ x 180’ outdoor sand ring, 7 large paddocks, & 3 run in sheds. The farm’s proximity to the 4700 acre Pound Ridge Reservation offers endless hours of recreational horseback riding and hiking trails! MLS# 4617285 Price Upon Request.

A

A private horse farm on 5.4 acres in the heart of Bedford. This lovely property includes a charming 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath cape, 6 stall barn, run in shed, multiple paddocks and access to the renown Bedford Riding trails. Distant views of the countryside and your private pond creates a serene and bucolic setting close to town and convenient to train station. MLS#4622458 Price:$1,695,000

Bedford, NY

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et back from one of South Salem’s scenic lanes, this front-porch Colonial encompasses 3,600 square feet of living space. Anchored by its great room, the house incorporates a large eat-in kitchen, living rm, & FDR. High ceilings, large windows & French doors throughout the space provide an airy feeling, warmed by maple cabinetry, granite countertops, hrdwd floors & a wood burning fplc. The master suite has tray ceilings, wic & a mbth, this generous space truly feels like a retreat. 3 additional family bedrooms & a hall bth completes the upper level. The guest suite has a LR, bth, & bedrm providing comfort and privacy for guests. Adjacent to consevancy land, the property’s grounds evoke a sense of rural New England, with a gently rolling lawn giving way to a large meadow and then the river hollow. Fenced gardens promise fresh produce all summer long! MLS# 4608442 Price: $899,000

South Salem, NY

A South Salem, NY

beautiful sun-filled Colonial that combines elements of traditional architecture with the feel of an open floor plan. This four bedroom home features a Center Entrance Hall, formal Living Room, formal Dining Room, Family Room with granite fireplace, a welcoming Sunroom and full amenity eat in Kitchen.

A brand new kitchen, stainless steel appliances and granite countertop make this home move in ready. Newly renovated bathrooms now boast elegant Carrera marble countertops. Every detail has been thought of including custom closets throughout the home. Located on over an acre of lush and beautifully landscaped property, this listing features a picturesque mahogany deck and lovely flat backyard. The perfect family home or weekend retreat! MLS#4612432 Price: $698,000

ONTHEGREEN•BEDFORD•NEWYORK•914.234.3642•VINWHIT.COM

WATCH

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FINE FARE

Approximately 550 supporters attended the 17th annual spring luncheon for Food Allergy Research & Education at Cipriani 42nd Street in Manhattan. The event raised more than $830,000 to benefit the national nonprofit, whose mission is to improve the quality of life and the health of individuals with food allergies and to provide them with hope through the promise of new treatments. Photo-

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graphs by Julie Skarratt Photography 1. Arthur Backal and Liana Silverstein Backal 2. Nicole and Isaac Lenner 3. Lori Stokes 4. Luca Padovan, Jim Kaplan, Amanda Palin and Amanda Backal 5. Dawn Levy-Weinstein, Alicia Sands, Stacey Saiontz, Jeanne Feldman, Patti Albert and Amy Gostfrand 6. Melissa Rosenbloom, Harriette Rose Katz and Claudia Warner 7. Scott Sicherer and Rosanna Mirante 8. Julie and Scott Leff and Laura Tisch Broumand 9. Lianne and Karen Mandelbaum 10. Roxanne and Dean Palin 11. James R. Baker Jr., Helen Jaffe and Mary Jane Marchisotto 12. Julia, Steven, Abbey and Heather Braverman 13. Carolyn Schenker and Tracy Pollan

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SHOWCASING GREENWICH BIZ

The Greenwich Chamber of Commerce hosted its annual Business & Culinary Showcase, its largest networking event of the year, at Eastern Greenwich Civic Center. The event attracted almost 500 attendees, who sampled culinary delights provided by local food and wine vendors.

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14. Suzanne Lio and a raccoon friend 15. Pippa Leigh, Miss Greenwich 2016 16. Kendra Farn and Marcia O’Kane

GREENWICH COMPOUND | $4,299,500 | Web ID: 0068045 This ultimate 6-bedroom estate combines classic architecture with entertainment galore. Pool, tennis and indoor basketball courts.

Amy Marisa Balducci | 203.618.3157

MID-COUNTRY ON ROUND HILL ROAD | $3,495,000 | WEB ID: 0067988 Handsome Colonial with great room scale on a stunning 2.5 acre property with pool and gardens. Located south of the Merritt. www.282roundhillroad.com.

Martha Drake | 203.249.8713 | Barbara Hindman | 203.964.7670

CLASSIC COUNTRY COLONIAL | $3,250,000 | WEB ID: 0067954 Enjoy privacy in this country Colonial located in a gated enclave abuting Babcock Preserve. The traditional layout features generous room scale & wonderful flow.

Barbara Hindman | 203.964.7670

CHIEFTANS | $2,795,000 | WEB: 0068029 Turn key living in private gated community of Chieftans. This classic stone and shingle manor home is nestled on a peaceful cul-de-sac.

Krissy Blake | 203.536.2743

NEW CONSTRUCTION | $2,495,000 | WEB: 0067977 Charming and easy comfortable living with 5 beds, 4 baths, and 2 powder rooms. The house also includes a beautiful patio, balcony & 2-car garage.

Kim Ferraro | 203.618.3142

INDIAN GLEN | $1,695,000 | WEB: 0067989 Pristine 4 bedroom, 4.5 bath Colonial located in the Indian Glen Association, a private cul-de-sac off Glenville Road. Minutes to schools & shopping.

Marijane Bates Hvolbeck | 203.983.3832

GREENWICH BROKERAGE | 203.869.4343 One Pickwick Plaza | Greenwich, CT 06830

sothebyshomes.com/greenwich

Sotheby’s International Realty and the Sotheby’s International Realty logo are registered (or unregistered) service marks used with permission. Operated by Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Real estate agents affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. are independent contractor sales associates and are not employees of Sotheby’s International Realty, Inc. Equal Housing Opportunity.

WIT WONDERS:

WHAT’S YOUR CELEBRATORY TREAT?*

Michelle Barbero

Jacqueline Cassagnol

Omisha Elliott

Michele Lafond

Brian Megher

Kevin Mia

Timi Mohanty

Brenda Moynihan

Barbara Robinson

Laura Schroeder

Dina Grace Sciortino

Jamal Smith

“Cupcakes. Nothing says ‘celebrate’ better than a huge chocolate cupcake.”

– Michelle Barbero,

student, Thornwood resident

“I love to spend a day at a relaxing spa.

I like to try a new one each time and can get some great deals with Groupon. It’s definitely a great way to celebrate.”

– Jacqueline Cassagnol,

professor of nursing and founder/ president, Worldwide Community First Responders, Spring Valley resident

“Red velvet cupcakes. I used to work in a bakery part time, so I would eat the cupcakes.”

– Omisha Elliott,

associate, Theory, The Westchester, Stamford resident

“I like to dance and go to the spa, have a facial or manicure. Or go out with my girlfriends. And it’s always wonderful to travel.”

– Michele Lafond,

president, Evolution by Kembali, Yonkers resident

“When I’m happy and want to celebrate, I sing. I sing at the top of my lungs, anything from ‘Happy Birthday’ to ‘Go for It.’”

– Brian Megher,

retired NYPD officer, now a professional bagpiper, Clarkstown resident

“I would say frozen yogurt. I love it, because I can indulge as much as I want and not feel guilty, because it’s not ice cream. I love (froyo franchises) Red Mango, 16 Handles and Pinkberry.”

– Kevin Mia,

assistant manager, Theory, The Westchester, Port Chester resident

“Caviar. I love the taste of it and I’ll have different vehicles to put it on, but I love it on its own.”

– Timi Mohanty,

in finance, Briarcliff Manor resident

“When I really want to celebrate, I put my culinary skills to work and I cook a delicious meal for family and friends.

They all say I am a great cook.”

– Brenda Moynihan,

director of marketing and outreach, Kensington Assisted Living Residence, Yonkers resident

“Watermelon, a huge slice of watermelon. It’s comforting, refreshing, hydrating and healthy (since I have been cutting back on sweets). It’s my favorite treat.”

– Barbara Robinson,

“I would go to The Frick Collection, my favorite museum and then to one of the nicest restaurants, around the corner, Caravaggio. That would be my idea of a treat.”

– Laura Schroeder,

president, Cultural Pursuit, Stamford resident

“When I’m celebrating, I love a good Rosé Champagne. And my other go-to is falafel, preferably from a New York City street vendor.”

– Dina Grace Sciortino,

editor-in-chief, westchesterwoman.org

“My celebratory treat is huge slice of apple pie – à la mode.”

president, Back to Basics Tutorial Assistance, Ossining resident

*Asked at the 10th annual “Above the Bar Awards,” Pace Law School; ArtsWestchester’s “ArtsBash & Open Studios”; and the You Can Do Better Than That event at Theory, The Westchester; all in White Plains.

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– Jamal Smith,

chef, Pace Law School cafeteria, Hartsdale resident,