CNY designers’ take on the polymer clay earring trend. 88 CNY Scout: Silk Naturals indie makeup brand. 91 Farm to Table: Eden’s Roast Chicken with Smashed Potatoes and Spicy Peppers. 94 Down to Earth: A recycling refresher.

Making good

CNY SCOUT

A perfecting powder, right, was the first product Silk Naturals launched with 15 years ago; the powder helps makeup blend better and absorbs some oil. On the left, highlighters, shown in two shades.

The eyes have it and the lips... and the cheeks...

BY AMY BLEIER LONG

From building a regimen to finding just the right color to swipe on, skin care and makeup are pretty personal.

And consumers have a lot of expectations: Ingredients should be effective but not irritating. Products should be long lasting yet easy to remove and offer a literal spectrum of colors. Interest in natural or clean beauty continues to grow — and if it’s affordable, all the better.

Karen Stark understands these demands and works hard to meet them. The founder of Finger Lakes-area indie brand Silk Naturals went through a frustrating search of her own before deciding to enter the beauty industry. “I just started because I was looking for better makeup,” Stark says of products that dried out her sensitive skin and her wariness of the chemicals found in many mass-market cosmetics.

Her experience with product development began at a young

age, guided by her crafty mom who instilled a love of working with her hands. Her later studies in the sciences, color theory and psychology — plus a post-college soap-making business — gave her the practical background she needed to launch her brand. Stark didn’t intend to create a whole line, just a perfecting powder that allowed her skin to breathe. Karen Stark, Friends and family were impressed, so she began sellthe founder of Silk Naturals. ing it online. The powder took off and people asked for blush and foundation, too. As she began to fulfill these requests, she realized that since makeup performs better if the skin underneath is clear and smooth, it would be beneficial to take the time to develop skincare formulas and find lab space to manufacture it. Silk Naturals operates out of the Masonic Building in Trumansburg, just southwest of Ithaca. There, Stark and a small number of employees make every batch by hand. Since 2006, Silk Naturals has amassed an inventory of over

PHOTOS BY AMELIA BEAMISH, KAREN STARK PHOTO BY ALDEN STARK

500 individual items. According to Stark, the brand offers one of the world’s largest assortment of organic lip products and was one of the first indie companies to make a diverse range of foundations, now at 42 shades; eyeshadows come in 285 colors and blushes, 50.

The company’s name comes from the silk protein used in the original formulations. Vegan alternatives are available for many of the items and most are gluten free. Stark takes a small-batch approach, producing what’s needed each week so customers receive brand-new product. “When somebody posts a before-and-after using our products, part of the reason it’s working really well is because it’s super fresh,” she says.

The natural and sustainable active ingredients Silk Naturals uses are selected by Stark only if their results have been backed up by peer-reviewed clinical studies. When communicating with customers, she wants to be transparent about the ingredients and the skin concerns they address. It is important to Stark that the products are friendly to sensitive skin and skin with rosacea, both of which she deals with herself.

Her customers are knowledgeable and educate themselves on the science behind makeup and skin care. Early on, Stark sold samples for 25 cents and customers gave feedback that allowed Silk Naturals to further tailor the products. Quality driven, Stark isn’t concerned with trends: When larger brands release new palettes, Silk Naturals often already has those colors available. Using a loose powder formulation for blushes and eyeshadows lets Stark’s team pack every color with a ton of pigment. She notes that the chemistry of pressed powder, which mass-market palettes consist of, doesn’t lend itself to bold colors, “I like designing what the big boys can’t.”

Though awareness of the brand has mostly been by word of mouth and via beauty influencers, Silk Naturals is well known in natural beauty circles and ships to 70 countries. Selling directly to consumers online allows Stark to price her items at a fraction of the competitors’ cost. Silk Naturals offers samples of nearly all of its products so you can try before committing to a full size.

Over the last year, Stark saw orders for eye products, blushes, highlighters and skin care surge. In response to the way consumer buying has been influenced by the pandemic, Stark shifted her 2021 priorities — less emphasis on the lip products that typically dominate. Going forward, she also wants to become a resource for makeup application tips to help people build their skills and confidence.

“I love working with the customers, I love helping them feel really great about themselves. Giving them that confidence boost, you know? A lot of our products are really simple. It’s just a couple of ingredients but it makes such a difference in people’s lives,” she says.

Bold, loose powder eyeshadows are packed with pigment and available in a whopping 285 different shades.

Serums are some of Silk Naturals best-selling skin care products. Stark notes that Calm Down in particular has been useful for handling the new “maskne” concerns.

Organic and gluten-free lip balms add moisture with no tint. The evocative flavors range from fruity pear to creamy root beer float. For more information, visit silknaturals.com.

Making good

FARM TO TABLE

Eden chef and restaurant partner Rich Strub.

Inside Eden, which offers wood-fired farm-to-table cuisine, the open flame ovens are blazing. Minimally decorated to showcase the building’s exposed brick, steel beams and original wood floors now built into the concrete-and-steel-framed bar, the space speaks industrial, but with an obvious appreciation of nature shown in the dining tables edged with bark and planters of herbs thriving under grow lights.

Behind a counter, stacks of wood sit underneath the ovens of the open kitchen. Here, Eden chef and restaurant partner Rich Strub seasons the chicken he’s preparing for CNY Magazine. He sprinkles high over a cast iron pan, slides it onto the grate and watches. “The challenge is to keep your eye on it and get a feel for what the actual temperature is.”

Not that he’d like to add any more challenges to his plate. It’s been a tough year for restaurants — one in which adaptation became a common theme. Open just seven months before the pandemic shutdown, Eden switched from running just as a restaurant to also running an online program that provided home cooks with a curated list of ingredients from local farms delivered right to their door. The program was and continues to be a success. Now, with restaurants allowed to open to 75 percent capacity, Strub says he’s planning to expand the program while operating Eden and continue his mission of bringing people fresh, local food.

HOME GROWN

At Eden, about 86 percent of the ingredients come from local farms, says Strub. Among the offerings in today’s dish of Roast Chicken with Smashed Potatoes and

What does it pair well with?

Try a dry or semi-dry Riesling, “because the peppers are going to be spicy.” Strub likes Forge Cellars and Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard.

Spicy Peppers: fresh herbs, microgreens and edible flowers from a farm in Fabius, chicken from Local Roots in Cazenovia, peppers (normally from Grey Rock Farm in Tully, but picked from Wegmans at press time), potatoes from Grindstone Farm in Pulaski.

“Our menu changes daily — depending on what’s available and what we can get from our farmers,” Strub says. “We use what’s left over from our online program.”

The late spring/early summer menu at Eden will incorporate arugula, spinach, mushrooms, peppers, peas, baby carrots and baby beets and ramps, if available.

But despite an ever-changing menu, Strub says his most popular dish is consistently the restaurant’s scallops and steak. “Probably half the entrees we serve are steak entrees. People come in and sit down and they see a woodfired grill and they want a steak.” This version of roast chicken might give that steak a run — especially when prepared right.

Strub finishes slicing fresh peppers and garlic and adds them to the pan of smashed potatoes. “When the oil is still hot, add the garlic and peppers,” he says. “You’ll get a lot more aroma when it’s still cooking.”

He places the chicken onto a bed of greens with the potatoes and peppers and dots the plate with edible flowers — just the right touch for a late spring dinner.

“It’s high pepper season and this is the proper way to roast a chicken so that the skin gets crispy and the meat inside is moist.”

ROASTED CHICKEN WITH POTATOES AND PEPPERS

This recipe serves one, but you can adapt for more servings

Potatoes and Peppers

2 - 3 red potatoes 1 habanero 1 Italian long hot pepper 2 shishito peppers 2 cloves garlic 1 shallot 1 Tbsp. butter 3 Tbsp. canola oil

Chicken

1 chicken breast (bone, skin on) Salt Pepper 1 Tbsp. butter 2 Tbsp. oil

» Add potatoes to a sauce pot, big enough to fit them all below the top. Fill pot with cold water and add salt until the water tastes like ocean water. Bring potatoes and water to a boil and cook until potatoes are fork tender. Drain potatoes and place them in the refrigerator to cool. » Once the potatoes are cooled enough to handle, tear them into bite-sized pieces and place them back in the refrigerator. » Mince garlic, shallots and peppers and set aside for later. » Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. » Heat a pan over medium high heat and add 1 Tbsp. of butter and 3 Tbsp. of oil. Once the butter is melted, add torn potatoes and season them to taste. Coat the outside of the potatoes with the butter and oil and put them in the oven to bake. Turn the potatoes occasionally, allowing the outsides to get crispy (about 20 to 30 minutes). » Warm a skillet over medium high heat on your stove top. Cast iron skillets work best for this, but a saute pan will do in a pinch. Add oil and butter. Salt chicken breast to taste and place in the skillet skin side down. Immediately put the skillet in the oven and allow to cook skin side down until cooked through. Once chicken is cooked through pull it out of the oven and allow it to rest on your cutting board. » When potatoes are crispy on the outside, remove them from the oven and add the minced garlic, shallot, and peppers. The oil and butter in the pan will still be hot enough to cook these ingredients through. » Slice chicken breast. Arrange potato and pepper mixture and chicken attractively on a plate. Enjoy!

Visit edencny.com.

Making good

DOWN TO EARTH

Mind your bin-ness

BY MJ KRAVEC

Dear readers: Thank you for letting us know in our recent survey that you’d like to see a feature on how to be more environmentally friendly here in CNY. With this new column, we hope to bring you real-life ways to waste less and feel better about doing good for the earth. So we went to OCRRA, whose motto “Save the world a little each day” perfectly coincides with our mission here. There are several topics we could start with (and no doubt will address in future columns), but we chose something we could all use a refresher on — curbside recycling.

HELP SAVE THE WORLD WITH A REFRESHER ON CURBSIDE RECYCLING

It’s tricky this recycling bin-ness. You can’t rely on the markings on plastic clamshell berry containers to tell you what’s accepted in our local recycling program (clamshell berry containers are not). So how do you know for sure what goes in (and stays out) of the blue bin?

Bin there, done that

OCRRA’s Public Information Officer Kristen Lawton says she often gets calls and emails from people confused about what does and doesn’t go into the bin. But our community does “a fantastic job” with over 35,000 tons of household material being recycled annually in Onondaga County. “Which is insane,” she says. “It’s really a great number and it shows the environmental commitment of our community.”

It’s worth nothing, however, that the innocent mistake of so called “wish-cycling” or throwing unrecyclable items into the blue bin (because we hope they’re recyclable) only contaminates the good recyclable materials and adds to sorting costs for OCRRA.

“People are well intentioned but that’s the reality of it,” she says. “Anything residents can do to reduce contamination [in recyclables] will help us keep the [sorting] costs down and the curbside recycling program going strong,” Lawton says.

DRAWING BY MAX KRAVEC

TO MAKE CURBSIDE RECYCLING EVEN MORE PRODUCTIVE, FOLLOW THESE RULES:

1. When in doubt, throw it out. “If you’re having a dialogue with yourself, if it’s recyclable or not, throw it out,” Lawton says. 2. Don’t bag your recyclables or separate paper from containers. Materials should be loose and empty/rinsed. (If you’re afraid of materials being blown around the neighborhood, place another blue bin on top to contain recyclables). 3. Ignore the numbers and symbols on plastic containers. Pay attention to the shape of plastic items instead. Only plastic bottles, jugs and jars go in the recycle bin. “If the base of [the container] is larger than the opening, that’s what we call a bottle or jar... It doesn’t matter if it’s square, round or cylindrical,” says Lawton. Think toiletry bottles and other oddly shaped bottles — those go in the blue bin. Keep OCRRA’s “what goes in” list (printed here) as a handy reminder. The simplest way to keep recycling productive is to place only cardboard, paper, boxes and plastic shaped like bottles, jugs, jars and stackable dairy tubs in the blue bin. If you’re wondering if something is recyclable, it probably isn’t – trash it.

“Ensuring you keep the wrong things out of the blue bin is just as important as putting the right things in. The more correct items that are in the blue bin, the more recycling actually happens. When too many non-recyclable items end up in the recycling, entire bales of material can end up as trash.”

To see a video of how OCRRA sorts recyclables, visit ocrra. org/services/recycle. Learn how to reduce, reuse and recycle more at www.OCRRA.org; www.facebook.com/OCRRA or by calling (315) 453-2866. Join OCRRA’s email list by entering your address in the “Join our Mailing List” section at the bottom of www.OCRRA.org. WHAT GOES IN

» Cardboard and paperboard boxes; e.g., pizza boxes (takeout and delivery only), pasta, cracker and cereal boxes — flattened. Note that frozen food boxes go into the trash. “Those all contain a plastic/ wax coating that makes the box unrecyclable,” says Lawton. » Newspapers, magazines, papers, mail, soft cover books. » Plastic jugs and bottles, including shampoo and conditioner bottles, laundry detergent bottles — empty and rinsed. Avoid crushing plastic bottles and jugs; this makes sorting easier at the recycling facility. NOTE: Plastic caps on bottles, jugs and jars must be reattached otherwise they cannot be recycled (spray caps should be removed and thrown in the trash). » Cans and jars — emptied and rinsed with labels on, think peanut butter, pickle jars and soup cans. If the cap/lid is the same material as the container, reattach and recycle. If it’s a different material than the container, toss the lid in trash. » Plastic dairy tubs (butter, yogurt, cream cheese, etc. rinsed). Note tubs must be stackable or able to nest inside themselves. » Clean, dry foil pans and aluminum foil — do not fold foil as it ends up contaminating paper. Ball up foil and toss in bin. “Make it 3D, something that’s not flat to help with sorting” Lawton says. » Milk and juice cartons, half and half cartons, rinsed (spouts and caps are okay).

WHAT STAYS OUT

» Film or stretchy plastics (clean and dry) such as retail plastic bags, plastic outer wrap on cases of paper towels or sports drinks, dry cleaning bags, newspaper bags, plastic shipping pouches, even the plastic bag wrap around this magazine. Recycle these at grocery stores, chain pharmacies and big box retailers such as Target and Walmart. Remove any stickers. » Clothes and textiles — donate clean, dry materials to Salvation Army and Rescue Mission. Even if they’re not wearable, they can still be recycled into industrial wiping rags or fiber for insulation. » Electronics, including TVs (recycle at various locations in our county. Visit www.OCRRA.org.) » Crackable plastics (berry “clamshell” containers, salad tubs, etc.) are not accepted as they end up contaminating paper. These go in the trash. » Egg cartons » Styrofoam (trash it) » Latex paint cans (if the paint is dried and the lid is off, these go in your trash) » Food scraps (can be dropped off at OCRRA Compost Sites) » Household batteries (return to OCRRA kiosks at Wegmans and Green Hills Farm)