Independent 12-20-17

E v e ry t h i n g e a s t e n d

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no 17

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December 20/27 2017

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

free

Best Of 2017

Independent/Justin Meinken, Gordon M. Grant, Sandra Geroux, U.S. Air National Guard photo by Daniel H. Farrell

Jerry’s Ink, p 6

In Depth News, p 17

Arts & Entertainment, p 23

Sports, p 66

the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

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2017

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

the Independent

December 20/27

2017

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

Welcome To Our Best

What a year it’s been! Fake news.

Relentless tweets. Immigration.

Devastating hurricanes. We reported the effect of national events on our region, while also bringing you the important local news of our community. We strived to join in mourning our losses and celebrating the accomplishments of our residents, in particular our veterans, our courageous members of the 106th Air National Guard and, of course, our children.

Displaying their art and writing

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America is moving toward a renewable energy future, and Long Island is helping to lead the way. In addition to powering the community with cost-effective, clean energy, Deepwater Wind is committed to being a good neighbor.

WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER. THAT’S WHY DEEPWATER WIND IS COMMITTED TO ESTABLISHING: • Wainscott Infrastructure Improvements • Local Jobs & Economic Development • Improvements for Fishing & the Marine Environment • Energy, Sustainability, & Resiliency

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prowess each year in our Short & Scary contest is a labor of love.

So, too, was our Heroes of the Hamptons and month-long “Girl Power” series honoring East End woman making a difference in their communities.

Our gorgeous (if we do say so ourselves) new layout provided a fabulous platform for an expanded arts section highlighting the genius of an extraordinary array of actors, artists, musicians, gourmet chefs, fine eateries, the bounty of venues in which they toil and the myriad times they toiled to help those less fortunate.

We were proud sponsors of great events like the UNCF Benefit, The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation’s A Hamptons Happening, the Caliente benefit for Long Island Cares and OLA, and the SoFo gala. This year, we’ve signed on the sponsor the annual Polar Bear Plunge to benefit the East Hampton Food Pantry on New Year’s Day – hope to see you there freezing for a reason.

So, as we reflect on the finish of another year at Indy, grab a cup of cocoa or a glass of wine, snuggle up next to the fire and enjoy.

We’re honored to be your local paper and can’t wait to get started on 2018!

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the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Community News

People’s Climate Marchers Urge: Act Now

This article appeared in the May 3 issue of The Independent.

protecting water resources were just some of the facets highlighted.

By Elizabeth Vespe

“You can’t drink oil,” read one placard, while another said, “The Tide Is Rising.” Some young marchers called for protecting bees and butterflies, while their adult companion urged onlookers to stop polluting their yards with pesticides.

“If you’re not alarmed, you’re not paying attention!” fumed Christie Brinkley, renowned super model, fashion icon, and life long environmental activist. Clad in a tall headdress boasting the slogan, “Make Every Day a Good AIR Day,” Brinkley was one of hundreds of people gathering at the windmill on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor on Saturday afternoon to participate in their version of the People’s Climate March.

“Protect Our Planet. Protect Our Future,” read another sign carried by a child. A sign stating, “The Answer is Blowin’ in the Wind,” expressed support for wind power, while another derided, “It’s Not The Heat, It’s The Stupidity.”

That day, millions of supporters took to the streets across the nation to raise awareness of climate change, mirroring the main People’s Climate March on Washington, D.C. At least 150,000 joined the march near the Capitol that ended in front of the White House.

Some marchers used the rally as an opportunity to slam President Donald Trump and local Representative Lee Zeldin. “Hey Lee, There’s no Planet B,” one sign read, while another sent up Trump’s campaign catchphrase with the slogan “Make Earth Great Again.”

Another said, “You Can’t Comb Over Climate Change.”

In Sag Harbor the procession stretched along Main Street’s sidewalks with renowned drumming group, Escola de Samba Boom, leading the charge.

“Pollution is non-partition,” Brinkley told The Independent, “We need to think about our children’s future.”

During President Trump’s first 100 days, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) faced drastic budget cuts and rollbacks, notably those related to fossil fuel regulations. The Keystone XL pipeline will be built on sacred Native American land in North Dakota, after the current administration overturned the Obama administration’s actions.

People on both sides of the aisle are in an uproar on the lack of funding and education about climate change.

“We are past the point of sitting by, climate change is the main reason we are approaching the doomsday

Independent/Elizabeth Vespe Christie Brinkley joined the Sag Harbor version of the People’s Climate March.

clock,” marcher Maria O’Rourke, of Sag Harbor, said.

Former East Hampton Town Councilman Job Potter joined the throng Saturday. Asked why he came out for the March, he referenced the afternoon’s unseasonably sultry temperatures and quipped, “We’re melting.”

Taking a serious tone, Potter asked, “What is our vision for the future of our planet?”

Frank Quevedo, executive director of the South Fork Natural History

Museum, described the impetus for his attendance. “In order to educate, we must be a part of these events.”

Based in Bridgehampton, SoFo hosts an array of environmental education events every week. Last summer, its second annual Climate Change Symposium focused on sustainability.

Whether the planet can be sustained was a key focus of the march. Posters carried by marchers spoke to a myriad of environmental issues of concern – pollution, the loss of important species, and

Moving from specific issues to holistic, several marchers hoisted posters with pictures of the earth and an arrow pointing to it inscribed simply with “I’m With Her.” Zach Cohen of Springs carried a handmade peace sign featuring the words, “Love Your World.”

Honored locally and nationally for her environmental advocacy Brinkley echoed the sense of urgency voiced by fellow marchers Saturday. “This should scare every citizen . . . We’re at a point right now, if we don’t act, we won’t be in a position to make positive changes anymore. We’re past the tipping point. Experts say if we act now, we can reverse things. But we have to act now. We can’t put it off any longer.”

Additional reporting by Kitty Merrill.

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

Jerry’s Ink

by Jerry Della Femina

CHRISTMAS EVE IN BROOKLYN I repeat this column every year. It’s about family and memories.

This Christmas Eve when I’m cooking for over 40 members of my family I will be thinking that, like my grandmother did so many years ago, I will be cooking up sweet memories for my grandchildren to have for the rest of their lives . . .

It wasn’t about Christmas Day for us. Christmas Day was about turkeys and hams and cranberry sauce. That wasn’t our food.

The holiday ads of the time showed illustrations of waspy-looking, Norman Rockwell types bowing their blond heads in prayer before they chowed down the traditional Christmas Day fare. This wasn’t us.

It’s not that we had anything against this. It’s just that our parents and grandparents were still desperately holding on to Italy and the Italian customs they brought to this country.

We knew we had little in common with the people who owned this country, but Christmas was the one holiday equalizer. It was something we all shared. We just chose to celebrate the birth of Christ the night before Christmas instead of on the day itself.

So my memories are Christmas Eve reminiscences, and they’re sweet and

pleasant to recall.

I remember my grandmother starting to prepare the Christmas Eve dinner in early October by pickling cauliflower and onions and peppers and anchovies . . .

The sweet smell of chestnuts as they burned until they were inedible (we forgot them in the oven every year) . . .

My mom haggling with the man who sold Christmas trees on Avenue U . . . She would buy the tree on the night of December 24.

She always wanted to pay 50 cents.

He would always hold out for a dollar. “You won’t be able to sell it in a few hours,” she would taunt.

“I’d rather burn them,” he would reply. Every year they would settle at 75 cents . . .

I remember eels being cut up in little pieces, dipped in egg, and dredged in flour. Then, after they were tossed into a skillet in hot oil, the pieces would start to wiggle. It was right out of a horror movie. It made me wonder about life after death . . .

I remember how I would sneak into our tiny kitchen and sweettalk my grandmother into giving me a taste of the mountain of food she had cooked for our family. The

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meal started with pinkie-sized, crisp little nameless fish that were fried and were to be eaten whole.

Then came the polpo (octopus), which was cooked in a garlicky tomato broth. There was a rich, briny, clam sauce waiting to be tossed with linguini; shrimps baked, fried, breaded; baccala (cod), which had been bought dry and soaked for days, now rested in a platter, smothered with fried onions and capers. A fish salad with every delicious fish in the sea, swimming in garlic and lemon and olive oil. Today, so many, many years later, I marvel that the memory can still make my mouth water . . .

All of our Christmas Eve meals started at 7 PM when my father came home from work. At 11 PM – four hours of solid eating later – it was time for dessert. There was fresh fruit for the faint of heart, but the diehards would dive into the white cardboard boxes that were filled with dozens of Italian pastries with wonderful names like cannoli, pasticciotto, sfogliatella.

We wouldn’t stop eating until the boxes were empty. Each morsel, every crumb, was a way of holding on to the holiday for a few minutes more . . .

I remember one year my grandfather, perhaps a little tipsy from the combination of food and drink, helped me to set aside a glass of red wine for Santa. It was empty when I woke up the next day . . .

We were pretty broke, but somehow Santa managed to bring me everything I ever wanted. The best present I ever got was a new Schwinn bicycle. It shows you what a trip to Beneficial Finance could do to make the spirits bright . . .

I took a chilly subway train ride with my dad one Christmas Eve in search of phonograph needles so we could play an old-fashioned phonograph and listen to some ancient Italian records. We found the needles in a little shop near Coney Island. When we rushed home and tried to play the records, we discovered that the phonograph motor was worn down and Enrico Caruso sounded like he was on Quaaludes. Not that anyone ever heard of Quaaludes in those days.

The only drugs we knew were

December 20/27

2017

called Luckys and Camels and Chesterfields . . .

When I was 16, my parents bought me a 45 rpm record player and gave it to me on Christmas Eve. That night, I had just one 45 record (Doris Day singing “Secret Love”).

I listened to the same song over and over and over and fell in love with the blond, freckled singer. I still can’t hear that song without thinking of that night . . .

Then there was the Christmas Eve night that Manlio “Junior” Fossatti (age 11) decided to tell me (age nine) that there wasn’t any Santa Claus. He told me while we waited in the 86th Street station of the Sea Beach line for our fathers to come home from work. While he was at it, he also told me about sex.

You lose one, you win one, I always say . . .

The Christmas tree ornaments were mostly handmade and had been around since the 1920s. My favorite was a little porcelain Betty Boop character. I realize now it was as close to a family heirloom as we got . . .

Every Christmas Eve at midnight, Mrs. Calabrese from across the street (I was born on the secondfloor apartment of her house – she was the midwife) would bring us a platter filled with hot zeppoli, which was simply fried puffs of dough covered with honey. My brother Joe and I would burn our fingers and tongues racing to be sure to get the last piece . . .

The night before Christmas on West 7th Street in Brooklyn was always the best night of the year.

The food was so delicious – it will always exist in our memories. It was a time when the language spoken was Italian with just enough English thrown in to remind us where we lived. It was a time when young couples walked past our windows as they went to midnight Mass at St. Simon and Jude Church or Our Lady of Grace Church. It was a time when life was easy . . .

The night before Christmas on West 7th Street in Brooklyn. It’s with me at this time every year.

If you wish to comment on “Jerry’s Ink” please send your message to jerry@dfjp.com.

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the Independent

December 20/27

Don Duga

2017

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

Sand In My Shoes

by Denis Hamill

Life Lessons: Lug Nuts, Laundry, And Letting Go This column appeared in the August 30 issue of The Independent.

Ryan had driven his son Rory to school every morning since first grade.

In May he drove his son home from high school for the last time, calculating that they’d driven together some 2100 mornings to elementary school and high school across the years as Rory grew from little boy to the edge of manhood.

Today on the 26th day of August on a glorious morning of 73 degrees with the sun spilling from a blue sky dotted with whipped cream clouds they jolted north toward the Hudson Valley on the Sprain Parkway.

“I wonder why they call it the Sprain instead of the Fracture Parkway,” Ryan said.

“That joke doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” Rory replied in their usual shorthand banter.

They chuckled to ease the rasp of unspoken words jammed in the backs of their throats like paper in a printer.

Then a loud rumble filled the void as Ryan gazed in his rearview and side mirrors for the motorcycle he was certain was overtaking him. He didn’t see one.

“That’s your car, Dad.” “Mine?”

“Yeah, it’s shaking like crazy.”

“Oh.”

Ryan veered to the narrow shoulder as cars whipped past as fast as the years that took them from pre-K to this detour on the road to his son’s independence. Ryan clicked on his hazards, they climbed out, and saw the left rear tire was flat.

They both uttered the same curse that son had learned from father.

“It’s not so bad,” Ryan said.

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“It’s only flat on the bottom.”

“Unlike that joke which is flat top to bottom.”

They laughed, unpacking half the new stuff for his dorm room onto the shoulder of the road so that they could dig out the buried spare tire, jack, and tire iron.

Ryan realized he’d never taught his kid how to change a tire and so this was literally one last father/son life lesson for the road. Ryan loosened the lug nuts with the tire iron then twirled the old-fashioned hand jack, showing his kid how to remove the lug nuts and the tire in mid-air, replacing it with the smaller spare tire that father told son was called a “donut” because it looks like it came from an Entenmann’s box.

“Uh huh,” Rory said, frowning.

When Ryan lowered the car and finished tightening the lug nuts on the donut, Rory gently took the tire iron from his father and the kid who could out-lift his old man by almost 100 pounds in the gym tightened the lug nuts another full turn each.

Father and son climbed back in the car and drove north to the sprawling green campus on the glittering Hudson where 1000 other freshmen were unloading their gear in a designated parking lot. Rory joined a group of pals from high school who were also dorming on campus. They stood eyeing and talking about a group of teenage freshman girls who stood glancing at and talking about them.

Suddenly from the point of view of these young people “leaving home” didn’t look so bad.

Ryan thought it was like Stage II of a journey as the capsule disengaged from the booster rocket.

Ryan and Rory trekked across the campus carrying a TV and

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computer as a campus truck service delivered individual loads to designated dorm rooms. The living quarters were cramped but clean and efficient, and as they unpacked the emotions started to rise in Ryan.

Unlike every other school drop-off, Little League game, and friend’s party, on this trip his kid would not be returning home with him.

“It’s nice,” Rory said looking around his room, after meeting his roommate and four other suite mates.

“Yeah.”

They had a bag of wet laundry that they didn’t have time to dry at home and so Ryan led Rory to the laundry room, teaching his kid how to use the washers and dryers. After grabbing a last burger together Rory received a text that the freshmen had to gather in the gym for a group photo of “the Class of 2021.”

“I gotta go, Dad. Sorry…”

Ryan opened his arms. His son embraced him. Ryan slapped Rory’s broad back.

Rory whispered, “Thanks.”

“For what, kiddo?”

“For everything you ever did for me.

Especially this opportunity.”

Ryan looked in the baby blue eyes of his son who would be 18 in a week, still gripping his kid’s shoulders.

“Don’t blow it.”

“I promise I won’t.”

They exchanged “I love yous” and then Ryan let go of his son like a dangling man letting go of a window ledge.

After driving his son to school for the very last time, Ryan drove south.

He glanced at the passenger seat.

It was empty.

To comment on Sand in My Shoes, email denishamill@gmail.com.

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

the Independent

December 20/27

2017

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i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Community News

The Ecker Family Of Montauk

of 1938 the McDonalds moved to higher ground, in the Shepherd’s Neck section of Montauk. Fran and many family members still reside in the neighborhood.

This article appeared in the March 22 issue of The Independent.

By Kitty Merrill

This week we continue our “Walk Down Memory Lane” series, with an eye on Montauk and one of its most venerated families. Do you have stories and pictures to share about the good old days on the East End? Hit us up at news@ indyeastend.com or call 631-3242500 and ask for Kitty or Rick.

The Ecker family makes history this Sunday, as Ed Ecker, Jr. dons his official top hat and sash and leads the annual Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day parade. His family is the only one in the parade’s lengthy history to boast two generations’ experience helming the procession.

Eddie’s father, the late Ed Ecker, Sr. served as Grand Marshal in 1984 and his mom, Fran, was honored with the duties in 2009.

This week we sat down with members of “the clan,” as Ed, Jr. calls them – Fran, sisters Cheryl

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Childhood activities in the ’30s and ’40s included rollerskating in the church basement and on the only sidewalk in front of what’s now Sole East on Second House Road.

During the summer, she recalled, “We woke up in the morning and put our bathing suits on.” Her father, Leonard, was the express agent for the railroad and her mother, Mary Jane, worked as a cook at the local rectory.

Ed Ecker with 2007 Grand Marshal Pat Keller.

Bloecker, and Catherine Flanagan, and Ed’s wife Roxanne – for a chat about growing up in the Montauk of yore.

Fran McDonald was born in Montauk and grew up on Navy Road in the old fishing village.

Independent / Courtesy the Ecker family

She attended Montauk Public School. It was there, in 1937, she first met Ed, Sr. whose family came to Montauk to run the Trails End restaurant.

When the family homestead was destroyed during the Hurricane

Fran and Ed, Sr. became an item, “in the sixth grade,” she reported, allowing that they didn’t get serious till some years later. In the interval, she dated other boys, but declined to mention them. “They’re readers of The Independent,” daughter Cheryl noted.

The couple married in 1953 and

Continued On Page 65.

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Community News

East Hampton Food Pantry

This article appeared in the August 23 issue of The Independent.

By Kitty Merrill

You won’t see gown and jewelbedecked celebrities and suave millionaires on their red carpet.

They don’t have one.

You won’t get invites to plush galas boasting famed chefs serving fancy cuisine at a tony setting. They can’t afford the upfront cost of mounting a party.

“We don’t have the money to put together a big fundraiser,” said Vicki Littman, chair of the East Hampton Food Pantry. “We need all our money for food.”

And, as well-heeled summer residents prepare to head back to Manhattan and catering trucks turn west, the EHFP will still be here, feeding local residents all year round. It addresses the need with an annual budget of about $200,000, the cost of a couple of tables at the hottest Hamptons events.

For over 25 years, the food pantry has fed an average of 300 families per week, each week. It hasn’t been easy; there have been obstacles aplenty.

In 2004, the pantry found a home in the community center in Windmill Village I. After a story in this newspaper about EHFP’s efforts, a local benefactor stepped up and helped construct thousands of dollars of improvements, including storage, conveyor belts, and even solar panels, to create an efficient distribution center.

For 12 years the pantry operated out of Windmill. “It was ideal for the senior citizens who lived there,“ Littman explained.

In 2010, as the need continued to grow, EHFP established a satellite distribution center in Amagansett at the Presbyterian Church’s Scoville Hall. Sighs of relief didn’t last very long.

Scoville Hall burned down in 2011 and the search for a new satellite location was on. Space was found at the St. Michael’s senior citizen housing complex nearby.

In 2016 the board at Windmill

Independent / James J. Mackin Food Pantry operations manager Mona Forbell, ready to distribute supplies to local needy.

Village evicted the pantry. Officials there said they wanted to convert the distribution space into a gym.

Opponents at the time questioned the logic of offering seniors Zumba classes when what many of them need is food.

Scrambling, volunteers found temporary space for the winter at the Hampton Country Day Camp in Wainscott. “If it wasn’t for Jay Jacobs (owner of the camp), we would have had to close down,” Littman said. But the space was only available for the winter.

This past May the East Hampton Town Board stepped in, offering the food pantry space in an outbuilding on the town hall campus. It’s just a small room with an even smaller office. But, said administrative manager Ricci Paradiso, “It works.” EHFP bought a new stand alone walk-in freezer for $15,000 and rents a trailer for dry goods at an expected cost of

$30,000 this year.

Between eight and 10 volunteers help hand out supplies to clients every Tuesday. During Indy’s recent visit, there was fresh fruit and vegetables, milk and eggs, venison and meat, fresh bread and muffins, plus canned goods. “We buy the fruit and vegetables, the rest is donated,” volunteer Pat said. Like her coworker Roberto, she’s been helping out at the pantry for years.

“It’s rewarding,” said Roberto. “I love to help. Sometimes I need help myself,” said the volunteer who suffers from a heart condition.

The night before pantry day, volunteers gather to pack up bags of dry and canned goods. “We try to give enough for three days,” manager Mona Forbell explained.

Business wasn’t as brisk last week as it can be during the winter. “We have more clients in the winter, when people get laid off from their summer jobs,” Littman said.

The weekly pantry serves a sort of social, and safety, touchstone for some clients. If a senior who’s a regular client is missing, Forbell and volunteers will check up on them and, in some cases, deliver their bag of food.

The pantry currently has enough stock to last through September.

“Come October, we need to come up with $2000 per week to keep operating,” Littman said. Each year EHFP applies for, and receives, grants from Island Harvest and Long Island Cares. Using a concept Littman originated, Bridgehampton National Bank raises money for area pantries through their “Buy an Apple” program.

Individuals who hold events also donate leftover food to the pantry, Littman reported. “We just have to be aware of what day the event is held and how much we can store.

But, basically, we’ll take anything

Continued On Page 58.

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the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Community News

106th Rescue Wings Home

This article appeared in the September 6 issue of The Independent.

By Kitty Merrill

Some 546 survivors rescued, many from rooftops and some from the murky floodwaters, scores of victims suffering chemical burns as gasoline and oil mixed with the torrent in Texas. A one-month-old infant and eight additional family members hoisted through the air to safety.

Two elderly people – a caregiver and dementia patient - saved because one pararescueman saw a tissue waving outside a window.

Stories of heroism abound.

Almost immediately after Hurricane Harvey struck, Governor Andrew Cuomo deployed some 120 Air Guard personnel on to assist Texas National Guard response forces providing rescue and evacuation of flood victims.

Based out of the 106th Rescue Wing at Gabreski airport in Westhampton, the pararescue personnel began operations on August 28 with rescue teams deployed in the Houston and Katy, Texas, areas.

Aircrews and pararescue personnel flew dozens of sorties during the course of their mission throughout the week, with maintenance crews supporting some 30 or more flying hours for the aircraft each day.

Interviewed by CNN on August 30, members of the 106th “Dad Squad,” Staff Sergeant Ryan Dush and Senior Airman John Kosequat

Independent / U.S. Air National Guard photo by Daniel H. Farrell

are young fathers themselves. They told the story of rescuing the infant, bringing it up to the chopper in a papoose, and discovering an entire extended family in danger. Lowered down to the scene, said Kosequat, “We expected to pick up one, two people. I’d swim across the road, which is basically a river and all of a sudden I see a family of nine sitting on a stairwell.” Dush spoke of the rewards in “helping people in their greatest moment of need.”

Captain Michael O’Hagan noted that after Hurricane Katrina, the 106th conducted 162 saves. “This dwarfs any numbers we contended with in Katrina,” he said.

The rescuers used two different platforms for missions: a Pave Hawk helicopter with hoist capabilities and Zodiac boats paired with three additional helicopters.

“The amount of devastation was just unbelievable,” O’Hagan reported. For some victims, the rescue over the weekend was the first time they left their tenuous shelter and the first time they could actually see the scope of the destruction of their neighborhood.

“It was very shocking, very traumatic to them,” he said.

“These guys are living a renegade life as they’re down here literally working sunup to sundown and beyond and then finding an abandoned house to just crash and sleep on the floor to get some shut-eye and then right back at it the next day,” O’Hagan told FiOS news last week. Team members in the boats passed over completely submerged cars, and saw alligators

12

in the water.

Most of all, O’Hagan told CNN, “We’re just floored by the response of every day citizens. Neighbor helping neighbor, stranger helping stranger.”

“We are grateful for the heroism and hard work of the New York Air National Guard, as their efforts have already saved 546 people from the rising waters in Texas,” Governor Cuomo said upon the rescuers’ return Saturday. “I join all New Yorkers in congratulating these tremendous Citizen Airmen who served professionally and bravely to put their unit slogan into reality, ‘that others may live,’ and welcome them back home to their families.”

The New York Air National Guard rescue team included three HH60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopters, two HC-130s and several boats and watercraft. On Saturday the HC-130 aircraft was set to fly back from Texas, while the HH-60 helicopters were loaded and flown back to New York by C-17 aircraft from the New York Air National Guard’s 105th Airlift Wing, based in Newburgh, Orange County.

Continued On Page 58.

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

the Independent

December 20/27

2017

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

Community News

Fatalities Spark Drug Forum

This article appeared in the November 22 issue of The Independent.

had been at a hearing about a controversial development the night before. “This,” he said emphatically, “is life or death.”

By Kitty Merrill

Paul Maffetone wore a hoodie with a shock-value inscription in large letters: “I hate heroin.” After the overdose that killed his older brother at age 29, the North Fork resident founded “Michael’s Hope,” a nonprofit with the mission of raising awareness of the addiction epidemic on the East End.

In the wake of a staggering uptick in overdose fatalities -- nearly triple in 2017 compared to last year -Schneiderman and the town board convened an opioid addiction task force. On November 15, just weeks after its inception, the task force hosted a public forum entitled “It Hits Home.”

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman watched people file into the auditorium at Hampton Bays High School last Wednesday night. He recognized some who

Drug overdoses claim the lives of 142 people every day in America.

In Suffolk County, there’s an overdose every day and in the

Lars Clemensen, Hampton Bays School district superintendent, opened the forum, explaining the task force’s goal -- to develop an action plan to deal with the drug epidemic on the East End. Schneiderman said the 27-member task force wanted to hear “how the opioid epidemic affects our lives personally” from the community.

People don’t want to acknowledge the problem, Maffetone agreed, taking his seat in the audience.

They’re afraid property values would be diminished if people found out that, set among the oceanfront mansions and quaint villages on the Twin Forks, drug dealers and drug addicts lurk.

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“It happened to me, it could happen to you,” said Drew Scott.

The retired News 12 anchor lost his 22-year-old granddaughter Hallie Rae to overdose earlier this year.

Schneiderman related that he ran into Scott after Hallie Rae’s death and, “He said ‘I want to dedicate myself to changing things.’” The task force idea sprang from that conversation.

Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, the president

and executive officer of Family and Children’s Association, a member of the governor’s heroin and opioid task force, the Nassau County heroin prevention task force, and the Suffolk County sober home oversight board, was the evening’s keynote speaker.

He directed audience members to look around the room. There were about 250 people in attendance. By the end of this year, twice as many as those assembled will have died from overdoses, Reynolds said. Still, he noted, the disease of addiction is preventable, treatable, and “recovery is absolutely possible.” There’s no magic bullet but, he said, there are “a whole bunch of things we can do to make progress.”

Continued On Page 57.

the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

Community News

Dementia, Mom & Me

This article appeared in the May 10 issue of The Independent.

By Kitty Merrill

Sooner or later, Mom’s going to die. I think I’m ready. They called me last night to report she tested positive for c-diff.

If I contracted c-diff, it would mean a few uncomfortable days. In frail elderly, it can be a death sentence.

But Mom’s bounced back before.

She’s been at the door five times this year, and didn’t slip through.

Sooner or later, she’s going to go.

My fervent prayer, my middle of the night plea to the gods and the universe and all that is merciful, is that she doesn’t go too late and she doesn’t go too soon.

It was coming on Easter and we hadn’t seen each other since Christmas. We had that kind of (non)relationship. Take too many kids and not enough money and add alcoholism and violence, and you don’t have a recipe for the kind of parent-child closeness I always figured was fiction. I saw Mom on the holidays of obligation – Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day – and never for longer than 90 minutes at a clip.

Now, each visit adds up to more time per single trip than I spent

Our lives – hers and mine – changed dramatically in March of 2016. She went to Mass on Palm Sunday, feeling a little ill with a cough. The next day, Meals on Wheels volunteers called, worried about what they’d witnessed when they arrived with her dinner.

I remember getting the call – right at deadline time. I remember our publisher Jim Mackin saying to me, “If it’s ever a choice between your mother and the paper, pick your mother.” He’s repeated that advice many times over the last year or so.

I remember a frantic drive along County Road 39 in rush hour traffic, trying to get to her in Wading River.

And there have been many, many more than 40 trips this past year.

She was in Riverhead first. The care center she matriculated to from the hospital had alarms on the beds and wheelchairs. She kept forgetting about them and getting up, earning herself the “wanderer” label.

That meant no “regular” assisted living for her. She had to go to what my nephew Nick dubbed “Gramma Lockdown,” a special

Independent / Kitty Merrill Mom enjoys a cup of “real” coffee smuggled into the facility.

Continued On Page 56.

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Too soon would be while she still derives childlike delight from watching the clouds in the sky, from a bird hopping across the courtyard at the facility where she lives. Too soon would be while she’s still cracking jokes, while she’s still flirting with handsome aides and nurses, while she still enjoys a chocolate shake from McDonald’s, while she still knows who I am.

Too late would be when she’s ceased to know me, or herself, or what a fork and knife are for, when she’s completely lost to the world of cognition, when the money is all gone and she’s relegated to a public warehouse for the aged. They call them nursing homes, but from what I’ve seen, there’s no nursing and it’s not home.

with her in any given year – for the prior 40.

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i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

(and we use more of it!) even as our water systems are becoming increasingly polluted due to excess nitrogen loading from inadequate wastewater management systems.

Water Views

By Kevin McDonald

Is Long Island’s Most Precious Commodity Tapped Out? This column appeared in the August 9 issue of The Independent.

Losing something we rely on, but perhaps take for granted, quickly brings us to appreciate its value.

In Suffolk County, many residents now realize that our clean water — both the water we drink and the water surrounding us in bays and ponds — is in jeopardy.

The lack of crabs in our ponds, the dearth of eelgrass and shellfish in our bays, and the increasing concerns about the purity of the source of our drinking water all stem from the same problem: nitrogen pollution from sewage, fertilizer, and other sources.

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Long Island’s way of managing water - with water supply and delivery being the responsibility of one set of entities, and treatment after use being the responsibility of other entities—goes back nearly 100 years, when there were far fewer people on Long Island using less water.

The disconnect between water delivery and water treatment does not reflect the natural state of affairs – water’s path is cyclical.

In fact, the water we flush down our toilets is the same water that comes back through our taps and into our ponds. Human beings’ use and pollution of water represents a massive point of impact within water’s natural cycle.

In contrast to the natural cycle of water, the way it is distributed and treated is disjointed. The water company’s only objective is to sell water, a condition that it comes out the other end is not their concern. Currently, they are still able to directly tap the Long Island aquifers without the cost of importing water from long distances. As a result, water in Suffolk County remains cheap

In Suffolk County, an average household pays about $200 per year for the tap water they use in their homes. That’s less than half what Nassau County residents pay, and one-third what New York City residents pay. What happens when something is so cheap, or nearly free? It’s taken for granted and exploited, rather than properly stewarded. On the East End, where nearly 40,000 residences use private wells, this issue is even more complicated.

In addition to the low cost of tap water is the nearly non-existent cost of wastewater management in Suffolk County. Almost 75 percent of Suffolk County residents don’t pay sewer fees, while NYC and Nassau residents do.

There is a current effort to respond to this crisis caused by nutrient overloading into our water. New York State, Suffolk County and various East End towns are responding and promoting the use of nitrogen-reducing septic systems, with rebate programs and phase-outs of old cesspools that leach directly into our waters.

But we also know that solving the problem goes beyond new technology: how will we pay for and use water to better reflect its value to people and nature?

We would have a very different system — and better outcomes — if the water that each of us uses had to be returned to its original source in the environment clean enough so that it could be used

2017

again without worry. Currently, there is no single regulatory body that is responsible for managing this across the board. If this sounds far-fetched, it’s not. There are many jurisdictions across the United States that function this way.

Recently, a team of analysts from IBM’s Smart Cities challenge studied Suffolk County’s water pollution issues and water management system, and recommended a new business model in which the full cost of returning clean water to the environment after use by consumers would be reflected in its price. They suggested that the revenue created by the price increase be put into a “locked box dedicated fund” to help implement strategies to reduce pollution and ensure safe waters.

In this manner, users of water would be paying to return clean water to our natural aquifer and groundwater systems, rather than robbing future generations of their heritage through ever-increasing water use and pollution.

No one on Long Island wants to wake up with the drinking water problems like New York’s Hoosick Falls or Flint, Michigan. It’s time for the way we value water to be fully reflective of water’s importance to society, indeed, to life itself, and like in other parts of the country that have done just this, residents will adjust how they use and value water. So let’s support restoring our waters and quality of life.

Kevin McDonald is the conservation policy and finance advisor for The Nature Conservancy on Long Island.

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i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

the Independent

December 20/27

2017

In Depth News

Furor Over Fake News Is Real

This article appeared in the January 18 issue of The Independent.

After the election public figures, including President Obama, warned about the dangers of Fake News.

By Rick Murphy

You’re kidding, right?

A Pew Research Center survey found about two-in-three U.S. adults (64 percent) think fabricated news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current events.

Journalists are advised to leave nothing to chance: Big Brother is watching.

The brouhaha is over a term – “Fake News” – which wasn’t in popular usage a year or two ago. Yet it is at the center of an international debate, a new U.S. law, and charges and countercharges of espionage and attempts to rig the presidential election.

Fake News has become the media star in The Year of the Trump.

Some critics fear that those in positions of power will use recent events to suppress and filter the news. In other words, the deadly precursor to the end of a free state: censorship.

The Countering Information Warfare Act of 2016 was passed by the Senate on December 3 and its provisions quietly folded into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which was signed into law in the waning hours of 2016. It could be, if enforced, a powerful tool for those who would censor writers, or anyone who dares to disagree with the party line.

Fake News, deliberately published hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation, became talking

points during the race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Many of the so-called “articles,” which were fiction, were posted to Facebook.

As Fake News became more and more frequent, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was unsure of how to deal with the matter and company policy was unclear.

According to the NPR series “From Hate Speech to Fake News,” several current and former Facebook employees said, “There is a lot of internal turmoil about how the platform does and doesn’t censor content that users find offensive.”

The public was regularly confounded by the company’s decisions, which were at best inconsistent. Some stories were

allowed to stay and some were deleted.

Zuckerberg didn’t sign up to run a media company, especially “One he has to make editorial judgments for,” according to Facebook insiders interviewed for the NPR report.

He and his team have made a very complex set of contradictory rules.

The Ugly Side The campaign brought out the ugly side of Fake News. The Clinton camp was convinced much of the disinformation was targeting Hillary and was coming out of the Soviet Union, which was also accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee email accounts and actively trying to influence the election in Trump’s favor.

The prevailing opinion was Trump was the candidate who benefited most from the misinformation, until earlier this month. It was learned that a 35-page dossier outlining outrageous X-rated exploits by Trump had made the rounds to media companies before the election. None of them, including Liberal flag-bearers like Huffington Post and Mother Jones took the bait: none of the information in the dossier could be verified.

The New York Times reported the hatchet job, which might have killed Trump’s chance to get elected, was authored by a former British Intelligence Officer who received payment from the Clinton camp.

Last week BuzzFeed published the dossier in its entirety although its editor, Ben Smith said, “There is serious reason to doubt these allegations.” His rationale: the changing face of journalism may

Continued On Page 22.

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

In Depth News

Latino Community Shaken

President Obama claimed to have achieved “record” deportations.

But according to the Center For Immigration Studies, “The socalled record deportations were achieved by cooking the books, and the statistics were deceiving.”

This article appeared in the February 22 issue of The Independent.

By Rick Murphy

The Latino community on the East End and nationwide has been shaken by President Donald Trump’s deportation policy.

In a departure from past practice, ICE under Obama began counting in its annual totals the deportations of aliens arrested by the Border Patrol. That masked a big drop in the number of deportations from the interior, which is where most of the alien felons are.

But it is not just convicted felons Trump’s targets - who are fearful.

For those who actually face deportation, the specter for having a family ripped apart haunts them.

Many more undocumented residents fear they will get caught in the net and are unsure what to do next. The fear that somewhere on their records is something that might trigger deportation is fueled by the volatility of Trump.

In addition, there is also the everpresent threat from con men and shysters who prey on the immigrant communities.

Last week New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman issued an urgent fraud alert, warning immigrant communities of potential scams in light of recent reports that fraudsters have been posing as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and demanding money and threatening deportation.

Local citizens rallied in support of the immigration community at several locales Thursday.

Trump struck a chord among voters when he vowed to rid the country of felons who entered the country illegally. To be sure, a problem exists.

“While some illegal-alien advocates have accused Trump of exaggerating the size of the criminal alien population, he’s quite right on this,” wrote Daniel Levine and Kristina Cooke for Reuters. According to ICE there are approximately 1.9 million deportable criminal aliens in the country. It is able to estimate this because, since 2012, ICE has been receiving the fingerprints of everyone who is arrested or booked into a jail, and because ICE has officers screening inmates in most major correctional systems (except some of the sanctuary cities, where they are denied access to inmates).

True to Trump’s claims, the group of felons includes numerous members of violent gangs and thousands of convicted drug dealers, in addition to rapists and a significant amount of murderers.

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The 1.9 million figure does not include nearly one million more felons who skipped out on court proceedings and vanished, though they are believed to still be in this country.

According to the National Review, “ICE’s estimate of convicted felons on the streets does not include those who were deported but returned; that figure is unknown.

Nor does it include aliens who committed a crime but were never convicted (often because they jumped bail or were released by a sanctuary).”

The deportation logistics have gotten worse because during the second half of the Obama administration enforcement of ICE policies slackened despite protestations to the contrary, and border arrests plummeted. In 2015 there were about 337,000 border arrests, less than one-third the total in 2005 and more than 1.3 million less than in the year 2000.

President Obama made a big show of focusing enforcement on criminal aliens. The targets “were felons, not families, he said, `the worst of the worst,’” Levine and Cooke wrote.

As for Schneiderman fraud alert, potential victims should be aware that scammers who pose as ICE agents demand money, which would never be the case with real agents. To report potential fraud or other issues regarding immigration services, contact the Attorney General’s Immigration Services Fraud Unit Hotline at 866-390-2992 or email Civil.

Rights@ag.ny.gov. The Attorney General’s office will never ask for your immigration status or share immigration information with federal authorities if you contact the Immigration Services Fraud Unit Hotline.

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the Independent

December 20/27

2017

In Depth News

Manhattan DA May Open Kilgallen Case

1965. By that time she was the most famous journalist in America, having secured the only personto-person private interview with Jack Ruby, who was accused of murdering Kennedy’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby was subsequently found dead in his prison cell.

This article appeared in the February 15 issue of The Independent.

By Rick Murphy

The long overdue criminal investigation into the possible murder of columnist and TV personality Dorothy Kilgallen may begin shortly.

John Broich, a Southampton native, confronted his superior when he realized the Manhattan ME’s office had overlooked important details, but he was told by a superior to “keep it under your hat.”

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case after a formal request made by Mark Shaw.

Shaw recently released The Reporter Who Knew Too Much a researched and dramatic book that follows the events leading up to Kilgallen’s mysterious death 51 years ago.

The Independent did a two-part series (Visit www.indyeastend.com archives for our November 9 and 16, 2016 editions) about Kilgallen, who was about to release a book that she claimed would identify the real killer or killers of President John F. Kennedy. Instead, the manuscript disappeared and she was found dead in her Manhattan apartment, a victim of a drug overdose.

Joan Vollero, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan DA confirmed that Shaw’s request was received and that a staffer was assigned to read his book.

Chris Broich, a former Southampton Village Sergeant who runs his own security business, Fortress Security, welcomed the news. His father John was a chemist for the Manhattan Medical Examiner at the time Kilgallen was found dead.

The elder Broich, who is now deceased, was spooked enough to quit his job and move to Long Island. He left a videotape about the matter, outlining his concerns.

“There was no evidence that Kilgallen was a drug abuser,” Shaw said Saturday. “Despite the odd death scene and heavy doses, there was no investigation.”

“They asked my father to do some tests a year or two later . . . he found a second barbiturate, Nembutal, that hadn’t been prescribed to her.” When taken with her prescription pills and alcohol, the results can prove fatal, and were in the Kilgallen case, John Broich determined. He suspected foul play and said so.

Curiously, the Brooklyn Medical Examiner was called when Kilgallen was found and not the Manhattan Office. “Everyone knew the Mafia controlled that office,” Chris Broich said.

“I welcomed the news that the NYC DA’s office is investigating Dorothy’s death and I trust it will thoroughly do so by securing documents of interest and interviewing several of the people still alive who know what happened so many years ago,” Shaw said.

“Whether it is Dorothy Kilgallen or Dorothy Doe, victims have rights when there is a homicide and I look forward to working with the DA’s office to get Dorothy the justice she was denied.”

Former Manhattan ME toxicologist Dr. Stephen Goldner told Shaw the Mafia did indeed control the Brooklyn ME’s Office.

Weeks before her death, Shaw learned, Kilgallen bought a gun for self-protection and planned a second trip to New Orleans to investigate Mafia don Carlos Marcello. “If the wrong people knew what I know about the JFK assassination, it would cost me my life,” she confided to hairdresser Charles Simpson, one of several witnesses who gave videotaped interviews unearthed

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

In Depth News

Cahill Loses Appeal, Pays $1.1 Million

This article appeared in the April 19 issue of The Independent.

By Rick Murphy

Former East Hampton Town Justice Catherine Cahill denied any knowledge of a questionable business deal brokered by her husband, and then threatened to sue this newspaper for reporting the facts.

What she didn’t know was The Independent had proof that the roughly $950,000 her husband fraudulently obtained was sitting in her personal checking account.

She ended up fighting charges that she illegally obtained the funds about 13 years ago. The bottom dropped out last Wednesday when she lost her appeal in a New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division. She paid $1.1 million to her husband’s former business partner to settle his claim.

Along the way Cahill retired from the bench, was harshly criticized

by an Appellate Court Justice, suffered a considerable loss of credibility, and according to fellow attorneys, put her license to practice law in jeopardy.

Cahill’s husband, Marvin Hyman, is now deceased. The case garnered its share of media attention – Cahill had deep ties to the town’s Democratic Party and at one point the matter became a campaign issue. Critics claimed Hyman obtained a number of significant rulings from the East Hampton Town Board and the town planning Board, which were both controlled by Democrats.

The genesis of the original deal dates back to 2003. Hyman approached Nelson Gerard with an enticing proposition – put up $2 million for the purchase of a 9.6-acre parcel on Green Holllow Road dubbed Buckskill Farm and make a huge return on his investment.

According to court records Hyman, who kicked in $300,000 of the purchase price, bragged that he would use “his connections” to get subdivision approval. The lots created would then be sold, and Hyman and Gerard would divvy up the profits.

Used His Clout

Hyman used his clout several ways. He pushed the subdivision application through the planning process – the planning board was chaired by a Democrat, Brad Loewen in 2003 (he served on the town board the following year) and the co-chair was Sylvia Overby, another Democrat who is currently on the town board.

Hyman also finagled to keep the parcel out of a proposed upzoning, and even got the town board to ease clearing restrictions on the wooded lots within the subdivision he ultimately acquired – an unheard of accommodation.

Hyman carved four buildable lots out of the parcel – worth as much as $1 million each, according to a real estate agent marketing the properties – on the south boundary of the lot. But Hyman wasn’t done dealing.

Much of the remaining 6.8 acre parcel had been a working farm at some point in its past, which meant strict restrictions were in place to keep it from being developed. Nevertheless, the town agreed to buy the land from Hyman for only about $300,000 less than the entire 9.6 acre parcel cost.

Critics say the town’s purchase of the farm was a carefully orchestrated charade.

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Ridiculous Deal

“It was a ridiculous deal,” recalled John Lycke, a planning board member at the time. “It was obvious we didn’t need to buy it.”

Lycke said the town could have simply upzoned the parcel, as it was scheduled to do, and limit development to three lots. Or, the town, which has a history of buying up property that was once the old Dune Alpine farm, could have simply brought the whole parcel a year earlier instead of allowing Gerard and Hyman to purchase it.

Instead the town paid $1.9 million on October 17, 2004, but for only 6.8 acres. However, rather than split the money with Gerard, Hyman cut a check for the full amount to Buckskill Farm LLC, a company he controlled. He then wrote another check for that amount and deposited it in a joint account he shared with Cahill.

Hyman subsequently died – court papers reveal he knew he was dying of prostate cancer at the time of the deal.

Gerard sued to recover an equitable share of the profits from the deal and entered into a protracted eight-year legal battle with Cahill.

In 2007 Cahill asserted her “spousal privilege” and declined to answer questions about the deal.

Later, she reversed field. Gerard’s attorney, Jeffrey Stark of the Uniondale firm Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, Mineo, Cohn, and Terrana, argued ‘adverse influence’ should be taken against Cahill - that in essence allows the

Continued On Page 22.

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i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

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December 20/27

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21

the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

In Depth News

Fake News

Wikipedia a “fake encyclopedia.”

mean publishers have a duty to change their approach to Fake News.

The difference between Fake News and satire depends on who the brunt of the joke is, at least according to Rush Limbaugh, a Republican talking head.

Satire?

Continued From Page 17.

Satire is defined as, “The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.”

Wikipedia says Fake News “seeks to mislead, rather than entertain readers for financial or other gain.”

Then again, some critics call

“Fake News has been blown out of proportion. It is satire and parody that liberals don’t understand because they don’t have a sense of humor, particularly if it’s about them. You can’t laugh at them, you can’t mock them, and you can’t make fun of them like they can laugh at and mock and make fun of everybody else,” he said. Of course,

that was before the news about Trump came to light.

The phenomenon is not happening only in America by any stretch.

Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sweden, Myanmar, and other countries have seen rapid growth in Fake News, primarily on websites that originate, or are promoted, from Russia – and the United States.

One thing for certain: Publications like National Lampoon, The Onion and Mad are satirical in nature yet draw a broad readership. The content is scrutinized, but never with the fervor Fake News has endured.

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Satire has been a part of literature forever; “human folly and vice held up to ridicule,” according to Merriam-Webster. There is certainly no shortage of subject matter nowadays.

Cahill

Continued From Page 20.

court to assume her answers would have been prejudicial to her if she declined to testify.

Less Than Forthright According to the Code of Judicial Conduct a sitting judge has the “duty to be informed. A judge shall use reasonable efforts to keep informed about the judge’s personal and fiduciary economic interests, and make reasonable effort to keep informed about the personal economic interests of the judge’s spouse . . .” Yet Cahill, when she was finally deposed, was less than forthright, according to court records.

Justice Paul J. Baisley Jr. said as much in his 2014 ruling. Given her standing as a lawyer and a sitting judge, “Cahill’s professed ignorance as to matters fully within the comprehension of any lawyer or judge is not credible.”

Baisley ruled Hyman executed the deal with the town to sell the farm for Community Preservation Fund money without Gerard’s knowledge or approval.

Hyman, “deliberately and stealthily carried out his plan to spirit away the proceeds of the sale out from under the nose of his partner,” the court ruled. Baisley also opined “Hyman [also an attorney] committed acts which raise serious ethical questions.”

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Baisley ruled in 2014 Cahill had to repay the money plus interest to Gerard. Another appeal and other legal maneuvers were undertaken.

The clock struck midnight Thursday, when Aprilanne Agostino, the Clerk of the Court, released the judgment from two appeals heard on February 16.

Once again, the court reiterated, the court specifically found that Cahill’s testimony “was not credible.”

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Arts & Entertainment

Reflections With Julie Andrews a laugh.

This article appeared in the June 7 issue of The Independent.

“All of the movies were a discipline of learning for me,” she said.

“Obviously Poppins was learning about what close-ups mean and what medium shots mean, and discovering the world of cinema and one’s place in it. And there were a lot of special effects, which really taught me the patience of waiting,” Andrews continued. “The difference between doing theater – which is starting at the beginning and finishing at the end – and film – which is holding the entire script in your head and sometimes filming completely out of sequence – is enormous. You just hope that the director and the editor can patch it all together into a brilliant jigsaw puzzle.”

By Bridget LeRoy

After ruling Broadway with My Fair Lady and Camelot, dazzling film audiences with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, and reaching over 100 million television viewers in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Julie Andrews in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s was, quite literally, the most famous woman in the world.

(During the same time period, OJ Simpson was the most famous man -- for his sporting proficiency, not the later, darker reasons).

The word “iconic” is overused. But some people surpass fame and simply become part of our makeup, of who we are. Andrews has never stopped dazzling; whether through her other film and television projects, her live concerts, her best-selling children’s books (coauthored with her daughter and Sag Harbor resident Emma Walton Hamilton), her involvement in humanitarian concerns, or her recent turn as theater director. And now the Hamptons International Film Festival, celebrating its silver anniversary, will award Andrews a Lifetime Achievement Award during its October extravaganza, with a showing of Victor Victoria followed by a Q&A with Alec Baldwin, who recently appeared on “Julie’s Greenroom,” a Netflix series where Andrews encourages children to explore the arts.

FR EE

IN SP W EC HO TI LE ON H –C O AL USE LT OD AY

But it’s time for reflection on a gorgeous Thursday afternoon, sipping cups of tea at Andrews’s dining table on the East End. Andrews is working on her second

autobiography, a sequel to Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. This book is about her prime time in Hollywood.

“I don’t sleep very well these days,” she admitted. “I keep pulling in wisps of memories. It’s a long time ago that a lot of this happened, and there’s so much that I want to recall in the right way – separating the true experiences from what have become essentially just stories and anecdotes.”

At the end of her last book,

Andrews hadn’t quite reached Hollywood. “I hadn’t even made a film yet,” she said. “It was such a learning experience. And I want to do justice to the great directors and cinematographers, and what it takes to get it done.” She and Hamilton have been poring over her diaries and datebooks of days past, and have been watching her movies, in the order in which she filmed them. Watching them makes her “alternately amazed, and then quite sad, and then very delighted and sometimes disgusted,” she said with

After Poppins, Julie jumped into a non-singing role with The Americanization of Emily, written

by Paddy Chayefsky. “It’s probably Paddy I mention the most of all [in the upcoming book]. It was his script that was so riveting. I didn’t have to know very much about acting because he wrote the words so well they just fell out of one’s mouth correctly,” she said.

“The Sound of Music was a very tough working experience, and then Hawaii was next, and that was . . .”

Andrews trailed off for a moment.

“Well, it wasn’t just learning your craft, it was battling the elements, and fatigue, and early hours.”

But honing her film presence was an essential part. “Bob Wise [the director of Sound of Music] taught me about close-ups, where to look.

You see, if you try to look into the other person’s eyes during a

Continued On Page 35.

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Arts & Entertainment

This article appeared in the May 24 issue of The Independent.

The Leiber Collection

By Jessica Mackin-Cipro

When you envision the most artful handbag, Judith Leiber should come to mind. To own a Judith Leiber handbag is to own a piece of history. Luckily for East Enders, more than 150 of the creations brought to life by the iconic designer are on permanent display at the Leiber Collection in Springs.

One of the best kept secrets in town, the collection was assembled in 2005 when Gerson and Judith Leiber built the space to house their works of art, offering visitors a retrospective of the works they have created throughout their illustrious careers.

“Visitors can look at all of the bags we made, [I’m] hoping that they will love them,” said Judith.

It’s hard not to love the bags. They are, after all, some of the handbag industry’s finest creations. She is famous for her crystal minaudières, evening purses made of a metal shell often encrusted with Swarovski crystals. Plated with silver or gold, the creations can come in many forms, such as baby pigs, slices of watermelon, cupcakes, peacocks, penguins, and snakes.

This weekend the museum opens for the season, and will be hosting its Opening Celebration Garden Tea Party, on Saturday from 2 to 5 PM. The new exhibition is titled “Magnificent Obsession - Fashion, Passion and Collection.” Located in the main gallery, the exhibit will showcase the collections of three Judith Leiber collectors: Kelly

Gerson and Judith Leiber.

Elliman, Saini Kannon, and Susan Morrow.

Collectors around the world of Judith Leiber handbags have been taking note. Many have been celebrating with their own events to honor the bags. Currently another collector is mounting an exhibit in Phoenix in celebration of the show. “All of these collectors are the satellites of the center, the star right there,” said Gerson, referencing his

wife, who sat across from him in their living room in Springs. The accolades he offered came with a great sense of pride.

Also on display will be “Fashion Series,” a collection of paintings and prints Gerson created in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. The exhibit will feature a “fairly small group of prints that I created. I accompanied Judy, my wife, to all the fashion events and openings,” Gerson explained.

“Being a part of the whole fashion scene, I found it so exciting to become acquainted with American fashion personnel and stars.”

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In the past, Gerson’s paintings were displayed at the Judith Leiber showrooms. When the buyers, many of whom were moversand-shakers in the fashion world, would come to see the new Judith Leiber collection, “They would see Mr. Leiber’s paintings,” said Ann Fristoe Stewart, director and curator of the Leiber Collection.

Many would become collectors

Independent/Sandra Geroux

themselves.

“It was a very natural decision at the museum to include those [paintings] with the collectors’ handbags. Two really important fashion ideas from the two of them are coming together in one place,” she continued.

“I don’t believe there’s been anything like this before,” said Gerson, excited about the show.

“Springs is throbbing.”

Gerson designed charming and intricate gardens that surround the museum. They were created to elicit the vibes of an English garden. The museum itself is a Renaissancestyled Palladian edifice. With great attention to detail and design, the museum and gardens provide the perfect backdrop to display the acclaimed bags and paintings.

Like many artists, the two ended up falling in love with the hamlet of Springs in the 1950s. Gerson would paint and work on the garden while Judith would design patterns for

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her handbags.

“We were invited on a weekend, we liked it so much... Of course at that point this was the hub of abstract expressionism. de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock, and so on. What was there not to like? I was an art student! It was just a natural for us,” Gerson declared.

Their love story is truly amazing and spans decades. Judith and Gerson have been married for 71 years. “She’s the perfect wife,” stated Gerson in a video on the Leiber Collection website.

Born in Budapest in 1921, Judith became the first woman to join the Hungarian Handbag Guild. To avoid Nazi persecution during the Holocaust, her family escaped to a house set aside for Swiss citizens.

Her father, a Hungarian Jew, was able to obtain a Swiss schutzpass, a document that gave the bearer safe passage.

In the flat where Judith survived the war, 26 people were housed.

Her family was later placed in one of the Hungarian Nazi-run ghettos, where they lived in a basement with 60 other people.

The two met while Gerson was a sergeant in the US Army and Judith was making purses for the secretaries of the American Legation in Budapest.

“I was standing with a buddy. Two girls came up to us and began to talk to us,” Gerson recalled. “It seemed that one of the girls had a room in a nearby apartment house, the windows were not broken, and they wanted to find an American to rent it to,” he continued. Judith was one of the two girls.

“She survived [the war] and there she was. When I saw her I knew that this was my destiny,” said Gerson.

Because Hungarian currency wasn’t worth much, the dollar went a long way in Budapest. “We were all paid in dollars; we were very wealthy,” Gerson recalled. In an impressive move, he took Judith to the opera, which she loved. “It was so cheap for us with our dollar. We had a box.”

“It was very good. We were very lucky we met each other. That was 71 years ago,” Judith added, recalling the fond memories.

“Our story was a good one. There

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Arts & Entertainment

were so many bad ones,” said Gerson.

In 1946 they married. They moved to New York City shortly after.

After working as a handbag designer for a few other companies, Leiber founded her own business in 1963.

Her process for designing the bags was a very intricate one, with a fine attention to detail. “If I didn’t like it, I destroyed it,” said Judith.

Samples were made in Italy and brought back to Manhattan for manufacturing.

In the beginning she would create every bag, start to finish. Once the company grew, she would oversee the process of every bag made, going floor to floor in the factory they ran “in the shadow of the Empire State building,” said Stewart. The beading on a single bag would take a one person a whole week to complete. Judith would oversee every job, one Swarovski crystal at a time.

Her favorite bag was the Chatelaine.

“My favorite is my first metal bag that I made. Unfortunately, when we got the design to New York from Italy they couldn’t do a good job on [the plating]. So we had to cover the brass piece with rhinestones. We loved the way they looked,” said Judith.

“It was a very good piece, it looked beautiful. It was very successful.

We sold about 3500 of them,” she continued.

Judith Leiber’s bags including the Chatelaine.

Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers.

While many of her bags can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, East Enders have the unique opportunity to see the impressive collection at the home and garden the Leibers have created themselves over the years.

“Mr. Leiber says that Mrs. Leiber saw the handbag in everything,” said Stewart. Dedicated to her

Independent/Jessica Mackin-Cipro

art form, she was inspired by everything she saw.

“She had a singular vision,” said Gerson with admiration and love.

The Leiber Collection is located at 446 Old Stone Highway in Springs.

It is free and open to the public from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day on Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesdays from 1 to 4 PM, and group tours can be made by appointment. For further information phone 631-329-3288 or email info@leibercollection.org.

The Montauk Lighthouse Gift Shop will be open Saturday and Sunday 12-4 Come get your Holiday gifts and see the beautiful lights

Holding a Judith Leiber bag has become a symbol for many women.

First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower, Barbara Bush, and Hillary Clinton all carried Judith Leiber bags.

When it comes to an evening bag, “All you have to do is put a $100 bill in it, a handkerchief, and a lipstick. That’s all you need because all the rest you already have on before you go out,” stated Judith.

Any advice for up-and-coming designers? “First of all they have to work very hard. You have to learn the trade and it’s very difficult. But once you know how to do it, you have to be able to create something that’s interesting enough to make the customers happy,” Judith offered.

In 1994, Judith received a Lifetime

If you prefer to order from the website www.MontaukLighthouse.org order by Dec 17 for Christmas delivery Museum & Grounds closed for Season.

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Town Guide: Vaughan Cutillo This article appeared in the May 24 issue of The Independent.

By Zachary Weiss

WHO: Vaughan Cutillo, founder of Montauk Brewing Company INSTAGRAM: @ MontaukBrewCo ABOUT: Vaughan was born and raised in Montauk, and after graduating Villanova University in 2007, returned home and started New York’s easternmost brewery in 2012 with two longtime friends Eric Moss and Joe Sullivan.

Vaughan heads up marketing for the fast growing brand. You can find Montauk Brew Co. in cans and on tap throughout Long Island, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Westchester, and Staten Island.

FAVORITE LOCAL SPOTS: Really any beach will do, but I have my secret spot and I’m not telling!

Catching a sunset swim with my dog and an ice-cold Montauk Summer Ale is seriously the best thing in the world.

I love spending weekend afternoons at the brewery. The tasting room is a great place to meet new people; we don’t have a TV so people can enjoy great beer and conversation.

It’s a welcoming and super casual place for locals and tourists to spend an afternoon in the brew barn – just steps from the surf.

Hiking the numerous trails in Montauk is something I do as often as I can. My favorite is the Shadmoor State Park cliff trail that leads from town to Ditch Plains.

The views are incredible and the fresh air and open space out here is very important to me.

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December 20/27

2017

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the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Arts & Entertainment

Jennifer Fisher Jewelry: A Happy Accident

This article appeared in the June 21 issue of The Independent.

the launch of the brass collection, focusing on large statement pieces at a more accessible price point.

Jewelry designer Jennifer Fisher revealed the inspiring story of how she started her famous jewelry brand, through adversity, as a truly happy accident.

Tell us about the upcoming trunk show at Grey Gardens.

By Jessica Mackin-Cipro

On June 30 we will be hosting our annual Hamptons summer trunk show. Given my new partnership with American Express Platinum as a member of the Platinum Collective, I had heard of their takeover of the Grey Gardens estate. I realized this would be the perfect location for us to host our trunk show. There is something truly special about a private shopping experience in such an iconic home that has such a storied past.

The designer will host a trunk show on June 30 in East Hampton.

The show is presented by Amex Platinum, as part of their Platinum Collective, and will be held at the celebrated Grey Gardens in East Hampton. Her flourishing jewelry business continues to grow and last month Fisher even launched her own line of organic salt.

Tell us your story.

How did Jennifer Fisher Jewelry begin?

It was a lucky break. I studied business marketing at USC with a fine art minor. I was convinced I wanted to work on the advertising side at a fashion magazine. During a brief internship of watching the other interns in the fashion department roll racks of designer clothing by as I was crunching ad numbers, I knew I was on the wrong side of the magazine.

At the time, one of my best friends was working under a commercial director who needed a new wardrobe stylist. I took a chance and accepted the job without any commercial styling experience.

After my first commercial with him, I became his regular stylist and we spent the next 10 years working together on major national ad campaigns from American Express to Budweiser. Timing is truly everything.

I was diagnosed with a desmoid tumor while I was living and styling in NYC for an LA-based director. I received multiple rounds of chemotherapy at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and at St. Vincent’s in New York and I continued to work throughout the entire process.

Being diagnosed with anything is always scary but finding out I had a very rare tumor with no guaranteed form of treatment was the scariest time of my life. It changed everything.

28

What are some of your favorites places to go in The Hamptons?

My husband Kevin proposed to me in the middle of my chemotherapy treatment and we were married a year later - six months after I finished my treatment. When we wanted to have children, my oncologist didn’t think it was a good idea for me to carry the baby because my tumor grows from estrogen, so we went through the process of hiring a surrogate to carry for us in California, where Kevin and I both grew up and our families still live. After multiple rounds of IVF where the surrogate was pregnant twice and miscarried twice, I came back to New York and decided to try IVF on my own, against my doctor’s orders.

Unsuccessful yet again, they recommended that we adopt or get an egg donor.

We needed a break from it all and took the summer off. That’s when I became pregnant with my son Shane, naturally. Against the wishes of my oncologist I carried the baby.

A perfectly healthy pregnancy and baby boy later, we learned that my tumor had actually shrunk from the pregnancy. After Shane was born, I began receiving jewelry gifts to represent him in the form of single letters that were very dainty and

frankly not my style. His birth was a major deal for us, and I wanted something to wear that represented him in a way that felt like me.

Being a stylist makes you pretty resourceful, so I went up to 47th Street in the jewelry district in New York and began knocking on doors, working out how I could create something myself.

My first piece of jewelry was a dog tag to represent my son Shane. I was wearing it every day while on set and started to get multiple requests for the same necklace. I then happened to make a necklace for Uma Thurman that she wore on the cover of the July 2006 issue of Glamour magazine. Jennifer Fisher Jewelry was born.

I started a website selling fine jewelry direct very early on. This gave the line global reach. I truly believe that the early timing of this coincided with the beginning of the online shopping boom, resulting in a truly happy accident.

After six years of only selling fine jewelry, I was lucky to have garnered a pretty significant following and in order to offer jewelry to a growing customer base, I decided to expand the line with

Dopo La Spiaggia in Sag Harbor for their ravioli, when I take a night off from being gluten and dairy free. Country Garden, the farmstand on Scuttlehole Road, for the best green hot sauce.

Atlantic Avenue beach for picnics.

Clamman in Southampton for the freshest seafood.

Tell us about some of the celebrities who wear your jewelry.

We have had a ton of success with our hoop earrings on celebrities - they have gained a somewhat cult following. To name a few, we have seen placements on Kerry Washington, Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez, Mandy Moore, and Lupita Nyong’o. When I first started the brand we had a lot of support from celebrity moms who wore our fine jewelry, like Thurman, Naomi Watts, and Nicole Kidman. As the brand grew and we launched the brass collection. Its bold vibe quickly became popular among musicians like Rihanna, Alicia Keys, and most recently Jennifer Lopez, who began to wear the pieces in music videos and to their performances.

Continued On Page 40.

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Arts & Entertainment

Musings With Mercedes Ruehl

This article appeared in the June 28 issue of The Independent.

rather than the performance arising from your inner self. And he’d go, ‘No, no, no….try it again.’

He had that uncanny ability to see your authenticity, even when you couldn’t. He was the most delightful director and the most delightful man.”

By Bridget LeRoy

Mercedes Ruehl – the Tony and Oscar-winning actress who has called the East End her full-time home for the past seven years – will have a busy July in The Hamptons.

Not only is she the honorary chair of the “Caliente” fundraiser for Long Island Cares – The Harry Chapin Food Bank and OLA of Eastern Long Island on July 8, she is also, for the second year, leading a master class in “Acting for Directors” as part of Stony Brook Southampton’s MFA in Film program – a chance for directors to see things from an actor’s perspective and be directed by other members of the class.

Gilliam, Acting, And “Caliente” The role which earned Ruehl an Oscar in The Fisher King brought her under the direction of Terry Gilliam. “He had, like Mike Nichols, the greatest respect for actors. So first of all he asked me, ‘What would you like on the set of your apartment? What would make you feel good?’ I said, ‘A poster by Folon,’ and he said, ‘Done.’

On Nichols and Demme “Acting for Directors” opened the door to discuss a few of the great film directors with whom Ruehl has worked, some very early in her career. One of her first film roles was as a member of a therapy group with the Nora Ephron/Meryl Streep character in Mike Nichols’s Heartburn.

“Mike Nichols was probably the most charming, insightful, and erudite – and funny! – director I’ve ever worked with,” Ruehl said.

“I didn’t have a large role. But we used to play a game during set-up of different shots. Someone would throw out two sets of initials, who were famous lovers, and you had to guess who they were. ‘ASVM’ and ‘EW,’ I remember, was the most difficult one that Mike threw out. And for some reason, I knew that one – it was Edna St. Vincent Millay and Edmund Wilson. And I think that was the first time he actually noticed me.”

“He was a lot of fun to work with.

I was pretty new to the game.

And he was very gentle, and never in any way put an actor on the spot or made you feel in any way belittled. And I will let you know, that there are a lot of directors since then who have done that. They don’t overpower the good ones, but there were a few who were, as Shakespeare said, ‘proud men, dressed in a little brief authority.’

“But just being around Mike was fun -- he was always on his toes, but relaxed enough to play these kinds of games with actors. And he treated everyone the exact same way, whether it was your first movie or you were already successful.

And after that, he came to see everything I ever did, even if it was off-Broadway. And he would talk and listen to all of the other actors.

He had this ease of humility that was so beautiful to be around. And he had great wisdom. There was nobody quite like him.”

Her experience with Jonathan Demme on Married to the Mob was not as smooth – but not because of Demme himself. “I had gotten a perm, a bad perm, as a lot of us did back then, just before we started production,” Ruehl recalled. “It made me a little self-conscious.”

Also, just before filming began, she had the “brilliant idea” of getting back in touch with her inner child and rolling down a hill with a bunch of friends. The hill was covered in poison ivy – and so was

Ruehl, head to toe.

Then on the first day of shooting, she mistakenly locked herself in a bathroom on the set, and wasn’t rescued for a while. “I couldn’t get out and they were setting up my scene. No one could hear me knocking and yelling, ‘Help, help.’

It was so humiliating. Not off to a great start,” she laughed. “It was my first major part in a major film and it’s like I subconsciously did everything I could to get fired.”

But Demme himself was “wonderful,” Ruehl said. “He also had that quality of speaking to everyone the same way – whether it was a gaffer or the guy at the food wagon. He talked to everyone with that same sense of engagement – and that was what was wonderful about him.

“He also had the ability, as a director, to recognize the exact moment when you had stepped out of character authentically, and you were going for an effect,

“When we came to shooting, he always would play and explore impulses – where I wanted to sit, if I wanted to stand – before deciding where the marks would be. He actually cast me without auditioning me. And what I’ve noticed about the great directors is they kind of know what they want right away. So I had the great confidence of having a director that I know believed in me. And when an actor feels that way, the best stuff comes out.” Gilliam became a close friend beyond the film.

Is there a difference teaching acting to actors, and acting to directors?

“When you teach to actors, you want to establish that they would die if they couldn’t act. It’s too hard a life otherwise – it’s too painful, it’s full of rejection, it can be impoverished. So unless you have a unique feel, a calling, it’s better that you do something else with your life.

“Of course, with directors, they should in the best of cases feel something analogous about directing. But when you’re teaching them acting, and how to take direction from other directors, you’re trying to work with the vision of that director, and the playwright, and your own deep vision, and make a result that serves all three. Often, directors don’t really understand the actor’s process Continued On Page 40.

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Musings With Giancarlo Esposito

and I’m hoping that people get a chance to see it.”

This article appeared in the August 2 issue of The Independent.

By Bridget LeRoy

This week, Indy profiles two wonderfully gifted actors with a lifetime of brilliant acting roles behind them, who have, in just the past few years, become known to audiences worldwide in a way only a handful of thespians ever get to experience. Both of them are from AMC smash hits – Tovah Feldshuh from “The Walking Dead,” and Giancarlo Esposito, best known as the Chicken Man, Gustavo Fring, on “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” – the immaculate owner of a chicken franchise who, on the side, is a villainous drug lord not to be messed with.

But Los Pollos Hermanos aside, Esposito has acted in hundreds of films and TV shows, not to mention his time on and offBroadway as well. His directorial debut, Gospel Hill, premiered at the Hamptons International Film

Independent/JIMI CELESTE/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Festival in 2008; The Show is his second turn as director, and offers a just-around-the-corner look at the horrifying future of reality TV. Esposito voices the Narrator on

Netflix’s “Dear White People,” had a role in the Baz Luhrmann series “The Get Down,” also on Netflix, and can be seen, again on Netflix, in Okja, a fantasy film with a twist by the South Korean director Bong Joon-ho.

Esposito has just finished filming The Gift, “a small independent film, with Patrick Stewart as a concert pianist who is experiencing something of a comeback, but first has to overcome anxiety and depression and memory loss due to the death of his wife,” Esposito – who plays Stewart’s manager – said.

“It’s a musical piece, I chose to do it because it deals with mental illness, but it’s also very poetic. It was a great experience.”

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The subject matter of The Show, which was originally titled This is Your Death, appealed to Esposito as a director enormously. “The film is an unflinching look at reality television. I thought it was time to take a look at the sensationalist television that we’ve been making and that people have been enjoying.

We wouldn’t be making it if it didn’t have a gratifying effect on the audience. Most of the time, the unscripted shows are scripted to a point – they’re spontaneous but there’s an idea behind it, driven by a certain feeling or by money or sensationalistic values. I wanted to make a film that took a look at all that. It’s the right time for the film,

Even though Esposito has played hundreds of characters, it is his portrayal of Gus Fring which has pushed him into a place of worldwide recognition. Why has Gus gained the public’s adoration?

“I don’t call him a villain in my book,” Esposito said. “He’s a good businessman, he cares about people, he’s affable, he gives to the Fun Run – he could be your nextdoor neighbor. That was my idea creating this character alongside Vince [Gilligan]. It was supposed to be a guest spot, I didn’t even expect to be asked back. I didn’t want to be a regular. But I had a long conversation with Vince, who welcomed the ideas I had, and I went back and did ‘Breaking Bad.’ Now there’s Bob Odenkirk’s ‘Better Call Saul,’ the prequel to ‘Breaking Bad,’ and I just appeared in the third season on that, and will be back for the fourth,” he continued.

Gus’s return was much heralded on “Better Call Saul,” in fact, the first letter of each of the titles of the second season episodes spelled out FRINGSBACK, a tip of the hat to the franchise’s most popular villain appearing in the show’s third season.

“I think people see a man who is not your average nefarious bad guy, petting the puppy. Gus really does care about people on a certain level, he’s a giver. He’s a taker too, but he gives to people, he supports them.

So I think that’s the appeal of Gus.” Bringing up Indy’s recent conversation with Tovah Feldshuh, and the similarities – both of them having a long and illustrious career and then being catapulted to a new level of fame in AMC shows – brought a smile to Esposito’s face. “I’ve known Tovah since the early days when we used to tread the boards, my background is New York theater,” he said.

As far as the constant recognition, “It changes your life a bit. I have done some of the comic cons in the past to please the fans. It does complicate your life, because you’re stopped everywhere you go. To sum it up for me,” he said with a laugh, “I’m jealous of Gus, because everyone

Continued On Page 40.

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Yektai: An Ascension Through Generations This article appeared in the November 11 issue of The Independent.

matter how close you get them [sculpture and painting], they never become sealed to the other.”

By Nicole Teitler

Nico’s furniture is reminiscent of their father’s brushstrokes. The planks or blocks of wood are in harmony with Manoucher’s thick, layered canvas pieces. In a circle of influence, Darius sculpts with pieces of wood tossed aside from Nico’s cut off pieces, “the negative space.”

Growing up in an artistic household creates unique circumstances. Trips to the ballpark are replaced with excursions to European museums. Patriarch of the Yektai family, Manoucher Yektai’s cultural exploration through Iran, France, and the United States has made him a well-known Abstract Expressionist painter for the better part of the last century. Like father like sons, as Nico and Darius followed in their father’s footsteps years later.

Like many working families encouraging the next generation to follow in their father, or mother’s, footsteps, the possibility of becoming a professional artist was always there for Nico and Darius.

In Darius’s case, it took studying geology at Occidental College in California for him to make the transition. “Geology is f***ing awesome!” Darius enthusiastically exclaimed. “It’s like a puzzle and a clue. A lot of the math and the things I studied in the sciences ended up in my paintings. You can go up to the surface of my paintings and you can see the layering.”

The show “Yektai” is running at Guild Hall through December 31.

After seeing his sculpture “The Ascension,” chief curator Christina Strassfield felt Darius should have his own show. It includes his father’s and brother’s works as well.

“In the art world, people like to believe that lightning can’t strike twice in the same place,” contemporary artist, Darius, expressed. “In a way, I benefitted when my father removed himself from the art world. He had been everywhere and had all the attention that he needed. In fact, he pushed away a lot more attention than he should have. He left room for us to step forward and be artists in our own right.”

As children, Nico, furniture maker, and Darius observed their father working in the studio without distraction. Manoucher’s concentration profoundly relayed

Independent/Courtesy Guild Hall Darius Yektai’s Figure With Three Roses.

the message that a true work needs no approval. “That existential kind of doing of something long enough justifies itself. The ends justify the means,” Darius remembered.

“Growing up and seeing him, the devotion he had to his work -- he was in the studio, very serious.”

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Manoucher’s emphasis of the surface in his works indirectly spoke of art history and the dialogue before him. By leaving the staples on the edge of his work, he reminds the viewer that “it’s a stretched volume.” To his sons, this was an understanding, a lesson based on truth.

Fast forward to today, the language is still being spoken. Darius’s works are open narratives with a magnetic push and pull between sculpture and painting art forms. “In order for a painting to be honest it needs to tell you what it truthfully is. No

It’s through love, respect, and admiration that a father’s passion transcends time and ascends through the generations. Each drop of paint, each new work, a new lesson about life.

Darius smiled. “My father used to say you’re an artist now. You have to get to a place where you’re above all [the drama], that you can be in love with that rock, that tree, and all the love you need is there.”

Be inspired yourself at Guild Hall on November 11 at 3 PM with a panel discussion featuring Nico and Darius Yektai, or on December 2 at 11:30 AM with a poetry reading of works by Manoucher Yektai.

You can follow more stories from Nicole Teitler on Facebook and Instagram @NikkiOnTheDaily.

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Arts & Entertainment

John Alexander: The Work Lives On make it political.

This article appeared in the May 24 issue of The Independent.

How do you feel your work has changed in the past few decades?

By Bridget LeRoy

John Alexander was born in Beaumont, Texas. In the late ’70s, Alexander left Texas for New York.

The artist currently divides his time between New York City and Amagansett.

He also created and designed the skull-shaped bottle for Crystal Head vodka, which is now selling in 60 countries around the globe.

If you weren’t blessed with artistic talent, what might you have ended up pursuing?

In college, I minored in geology. I love the study of lost civilizations.

But even as a little kid, all I ever wanted to be was an artist. In the Smithsonian retrospective, there was a photo of me at about eight years old, under the Christmas tree with my brand-new art supplies.

By the time I was in middle school, I knew I had a talent that the other kids didn’t have. It kept me out of trouble. I got A’s in everything except “Conduct.” That was always a problem for me. Still is.

But art wasn’t part of the culture where I grew up, sadly. So I didn’t truly understand what it meant to be an artist. Frankly, I still don’t know, except that maybe it’s a compulsion -- almost a religious fervor -- to make these things that hopefully are meaningful and resonate with other people.

Independent / Courtesy John Alexander Studios John Alexander with his painting Sailing on the Edge, 2015.

How did the whole Crystal Head vodka thing come about?

That came out of the blue. I’ve had a long friendship with Mr. (Dan) Ackroyd, and he has the Patron distributorship in Canada. He was telling me about it over dinner, how much he loved working with this tequila company. I told him about this idea I had over 10 years ago, using a skull as a vessel. He thought it was great! It took off from there.

What inspired you to paint the American flag?

The American flag is one of the most iconic symbols ever. You cannot drive anywhere in America without seeing flags. It’s a strong, powerful image that has all kinds of different meanings to different people. I’ve used the flag over and over in my work over the years.

I’ve put in graveyards; I’ve put it in the hands of politicians. Childe Hassam did a famous flag. So did Jasper Johns. But in this case I was looking at a flag, simply flapping on a flagpole, and I thought, That’s amazing. I want to paint that.

I wanted to make it my creation, without being corny or kitsch. And I wanted, perspective-wise, for it to be coming toward you. So I kept

screwing around with it until I got what I liked. There’s a stormy sky behind it. I wanted it to invoke powerful emotion, with some sense of dignity and power, and yet not

I think a lot of the change had to do with having a young son we were raising. He means everything in the world to me, and I think it gave me a different perspective.

Continued On Page 40.

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John Alexander has exhibited extensively in the United States and around the world with major retrospectives at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. His work is included in the permanent collections at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Dayton Institute in Ohio, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Guild Hall in East Hampton, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles among others, as well as many distinguished public and private collections worldwide.

There was a dramatic change from the ’70s to the ’80s, as I went from living in Texas to living in New York City. The work in the ’80s – it was demons and devils, dark and foreboding stuff done late at night.

My paintings have always reflected how I perceived life around me, and I was living this Hunter Thompson/John Belushi lifestyle.

When I painted out here in the ‘90s, I was closer to nature again, with access to the gardens and the sea, so in those next years I painted the landscape, flora -- much more about the natural world. So that dominated my work through the early 2000s.

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Arts & Entertainment

Love And Design In The City Of Lights This article appeared in the October 4 issue of The Independent.

over eight years ago, it took a mere five months for an Italian man to convince an American woman to go on a lifelong adventure. “Coming from New York you have that kind of ‘I can do anything’ attitude. I love Paris, it’s an amazing city.”

By Nicole Teitler

It was another gorgeous, warm, sunny day in Westhampton Beach. Main Street was alive with beachgoers, shoppers, and residents strolling through town.

I was on my way to meet Kasia Dietz, Westhampton native turned Parisian handbag designer. At an outside table at Beach Bakery Café, there she sat in a white dress, picturesque like the season. After being connected through famed artist Kevin Berlin, who used Dietz as a model in one of his paintings, I came to learn of her many travels which inspired a successful business.

“I started my bag business [in Paris], which I did a bit on the side in New York. And then I started designing,” Dietz, who lived in New York City for 12 years, explained.

With labels made in Paris, her prints are from Holland. Each bag is reversible, fun, and funky- and they fold up! “The beauty of the bags is that they’re really good for traveling.” Fittingly so, as Dietz finds inspiration through countless countries.

After quitting her job in advertising, Dietz visited 32 countries in 13 months in 2006.

“I’m always inspired by the tiles

Shelter Tails

Walking along the Seine river has become a source of insight for Dietz, sitting alongside the water with paper and pencil during the warmer months. The city of love and lights reveals itself in its evolving neighborhood of the North Marais, awakening her creativity.

With small collections ranging 15 to 25 pieces each, her bags are comparable to art work, “they sell out and then they’re gone.” Having just launched her new Downtown collection, reminiscent of the colors and energy of downtown New York City, Dietz maintains that she is “forever a New Yorker.”

Abroad, Dietz collaborated on limited edition shirts with Parisian boutique Aoshida, expanding her line from bags to clothing.

Independent / Joe Lombardo

in Spain or the colors in Italy.”

Her visit to the Andalusian region of Spain, the southern part of the country, created prints like the Cordoba, Granada, and Seville. Drinking our coffees, we swapped stories about the streets

in Old Marbella; artistic pathways throughout a historic city with an enriched culture.

However, it was love that galvanized a permanent move to Paris. Upon meeting her now husband on the streets in SoHo

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Kenya will be the inspiration behind an upcoming collection, where a portion of the proceeds from sales will go toward saving the elephants in the region. For 2018, fashion lovers can expect more larger totes in stock in addition to expanding her hand-painted collections, incorporating leather as well.

In a world that remains a constant source of creative enrichment, Kasia Dietz follows a “live mindfully and follow your heart” lifestyle. From the beaches of Westhampton, to the streets of New York City and the lights of Paris, this designer is evolving as quickly as the pathway that takes her there.

You can purchase your own Kasia Dietz handbag on the East End at Hope Around the World located at 124 Main Street in Westhampton.

Or shop online at www.KasiaDietz. com.

Read more about the fascinating life of this designer abroad at her blog www.loveinthecityoflights.com You can follow more stories from Nicole Teitler on Facebook and Instagram @Nikki on the Daily.

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Julie Andrews Continued From Page 23.

two-person scene, your eyes will be constantly dashing back and forth, and it doesn’t look right on film. You either have to focus in the middle, or on the camera eye. That was something that Bob gave me.”

George Roy Hill gave her the gift of stillness. “He taught me how to just sit in silence. It’s a great gift for an actor to not be doing anything, but to be doing it actively,” she said.

Andrews worked with James Garner early in her career, in The Americanization of Emily, then again in Victor Victoria almost 30 years later. “He was delicious to work with every time,” she said.

Referencing her husband, the late Blake Edwards, who directed Victor Victoria, she said, “Blake said to me, ‘Just watch him, Julie. Watch Jimmy. He’s not only a great actor; he’s a great reactor.’ And in that role, it’s pretty much what he has to do...he’s brilliant.”

Are there any roles where she wishes she could have a do-over?

“The Hitchcock movie,” she said, referencing Torn Curtain, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s lesser-known ventures into spyhood and political intrigue. “It was a lovely experience.

Paul Newman was delightful – he called me ‘the last of the really great broads,’ which was such an honor coming from him,” she laughed.

“But to Hitchcock, that particular project didn’t matter that much.

So when we would say, ‘Can we do it this way?’ he would say, ‘Sure, do whatever you want.’ He wasn’t invested in that film the way he was in his other work, so I wasn’t really invested either.” But he did teach her about camera lenses. “Don’t ever let them use this lens on you,” Hitchcock told the young actress.

“It will make your nose grow dreadfully.”

Even the filming of Victor Victoria was another difficult period for Julie. Her two younger daughters, Amelia and Jo, were just settling in to a new school, and she was torn between her duties as an actress and a mother. “Motherhood always comes first,” she said, and added, “Working with Emma now is such a great joy. One of the best times I’ve ever had.”

And working with Edwards was always a positive experience. The

the Independent v couple made many films together, including Darling Lili, 10, SOB, That’s Life!, and others. “I always felt safe in Blake’s hands as a director. I so admired the way he directed – never gimmicky. He never shot through keyholes, he didn’t like that sort of showing off of the ego. He said that hopefully the most important thing was that you would never think there was a camera there,” she said.

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R A T S K ROC

As for the Hamptons Film Festival award, Dame Julie Andrews is “pleased and honored” by the accolades. She and Baldwin are good friends and she’s looking forward to their onstage interview.

“He’s another delicious guy,” she said. “And I know he will ask all the right questions. He’s truly interested in film.”

And Andrews is convinced that it is her natural curiosity and interest in things that keeps her grounded and moving forward. “More than anything, it’s been – all of it – such a great learning experience. I wouldn’t have traveled to the places I’ve traveled to, met the people I’ve worked with – I’m glad I have a curious nature anyway, but to learn about Hawaii, or Austria, and to learn about the directors and their differences, it’s just all been fascinating.”

“So much of work is learning in the moment, and just hoping you’ll do a great job,” she said. “For me, to stop learning is to stop living.

There’s still so much out there,” she said. “I don’t think I would ever be able to stop doing something. I would always have to keep busy, because that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.”

“There’s a lot that I’ve lost,” she said, “but there’s a lot that I’m very pleased and proud of as well.”

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Jennifer Fisher Continued From Page 28.

What are you looking forward to the most this summer in The Hamptons?

Weekends with my best friends Charlie and Lauran at their house in Water Mill. Alongside Charlie, I am the resident guest chef and together we are on call all weekend.

It has become tradition that I bring out a loaf of my mom’s banana bread whenever I visit. I am really looking forward to our trunk show on June 30 and meeting my customers in person.

Tells us about your organic salt.

The salt began like my jewelry collection; it was a happy accident.

I call my salt “Universal Salt” because it can (and should) be used on everything. I was looking for something to season my eggs in the morning that did not contain onion or garlic and when I couldn’t find it I created my own dish of customblended salt next to the stove. I ended up sending jars of salt to magazine editors for holiday gifts and it was such a hit that we started to get requests for refills when the editors used it up. This past year we looked in to packaging the salt in New Jersey so that we could sell it on our website – it was a process but well worth it. I don’t plan on stopping with my Universal Salt so stay tuned for our next launch this coming fall.

For more info visit www. jenniferfisherjewelry.com. To RSVP for the trunk show on June 30 at Grey Gardens email rsvp@ jenniferfisherjewelry.com.

Mercedes Continued From Page 29.

and what the actor has to get through, mentally and spiritually, to make the performance really sing.

So this seminar gives the writerdirectors an opportunity to live in that skin and learn appreciation for the process.”

Ruehl has a strong appreciation for the “Caliente” event she is chairing.

“It’s not just one organization that’s going to benefit from this fundraiser,” she said. “The Harry Chapin Food Bank has been around since 1980, and it’s our area’s first food bank, and OLA is an organization that’s really relevant, especially on the East End of Long Island. We have so many Latino families moving into the area, and OLA is a reference and support place for the issues that Latinos are facing here.” (Read more about the Caliente event elsewhere in this issue.)

As far as the East End goes, Ruehl said, “It is the home of my soul. It’s always been the most comforting place for me, to be surrounded by water. It’s peaceful, even during the height of the summer season.

My shoulders go down; I’m happy here.”

Giancarlo Continued From Page 30.

recognizes him but sometimes don’t even know my name. But that’s good – it separates me from the character.

That’s the guy that everyone knows, and they don’t know that I’m not that guy. That’s actually helped me keep the two separate. That’s not who I am.

But if it gives them pleasure to see me in an airport and ask for a selfie, that’s great. As a friend of mine says, ‘You

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are known for who you are not.’”

So who is the real Giancarlo Esposito? He does yoga and meditates regularly, and appeared in a full-length documentary On Meditation. “That’s the real me,” he said. Esposito frequents inner-city schools to talk to children about meditation and “understanding their own divine light,” he said.

“It’s so hard to see that sometimes, especially when so many of us, including kids, are horrified or feeling hopeless by the direction our world is taking. But if they understand that they can go to this place inside, to center themselves, and then bring that peace forward, it’s a real gift. People say to me, ‘Oh, you’re always flying different places, you’re always working’ like it’s a bad thing. I’m so grateful. I love what I do, I get to do what I love, and as long as I stay centered, I’m happy.”

Esposito will be back in the fourth season of “Better Call Saul.” In the meantime, you can get your Gus on with AMC’s “Breaking Bad” marathon on Sundays, or enjoy the third season of “Better Call Saul” on Amazon for some preHeisenberg Fring action.

John Alexander Continued From Page 33.

As I started to settle down, I changed dramatically as a painter.

I’ve always been, in the back of my mind, interested in politics and

2017

I’ve always been affected by the political climate. I started painting more demonic work again, trying to capture the insanity of man’s behavior. My Ship of Fools, that was used last year for the Hamptons International Film Festival poster, was exactly that. It all stemmed from a general concern, watching the whole country politically unravel, through many presidents and administrations.

Then, when I hit my mid-60s, I started to care less about what people thought, and more about the work itself. The subject matter became more complicated.

I think a lot of painters just do their greatest hits as they get older, so I determined not to do that. I wanted to keep my mind and my ideas fresh. So I painted a field of busted watermelons. A field of oysters. Gigantic piles of seafood and lobsters. That was a totally fresh approach to me.

Now I was painting these strange configurations of stuff, in strange juxtapositions. Who’s obsessive enough to paint over a thousand oysters on a canvas? I’m amazed at my age that I’m as enthusiastic and curious as I was when I was 35 or 40, maybe even more so.

But there’s a point where you become aware that you don’t have all the time you had as a young artist. So what will you leave behind? The work is what lives on.

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Dining

Florence Fabricant Is Stirring The Pot

This article appeared in the August 16 issue of The Independent.

personalities, you don’t have to do a huge amount of searching,” stated Fabricant.

By Jessica Mackin-Cipro

Food and conversation are two of life’s magnificent gifts. Florence Fabricant -- a celebrated food and wine reporter for The New York Times, and the interviewer for the annual Guild Hall series Stirring The Pot: Conversations with Culinary Celebrities – provides insightful conversations about food and the restaurant business with world-renowned chefs and culinary personalities throughout the month of August.

Since its inception in 2011 the series has been a success with East End foodies. “Last Sunday with Jacques Pépin was sold out. There were some disappointed people,” stated Fabricant in an interview with The Independent last week.

The first year garnered some of the same results. “We had Bobby Flay and people were hanging off the rafters for him. Line out the door for getting books signed,” she remembered.

The series was proposed to Fabricant by Guild Hall, and the rest is history. “My initial feeling was ‘I wonder if they’ll get an audience for this? But let’s give it a try,’” she said.

This August the series features four acclaimed chefs. The first was Pépin, the world-renowned French chef. Andrew Zimmern, the TV personality, chef, and food writer, was the guest last Sunday. Still to come in the series are chef and TV personality Michael Symon this Sunday, and Eleven Madison Park chef Daniel Humm on August 27.

Most of the featured chefs in the series have some sort of connection to the East End. Humm opened the pop up EMP Summer House in East Hampton this summer and Symon has a house in The Hamptons. His stepson also owns Grindstone, the doughnut shop in Sag Harbor, mentioned Fabricant.

A Love Of Food

Independent/ Patrick McMullan via Getty Images Florence Fabricant and Richard Fabricant at the Guild Hall Summer Gala.

A meet and greet with the chefs takes place before each conversation.

Those who attend mingle with the chef while enjoying a continental breakfast.

Over the past few years a handful of the world’s famed chefs have sat across from Fabricant on the stage at Guild Hall to discuss their lives and love of all things food. This has led to some standout moments in the series.

“One of my favorites was Anthony Bourdain. I think I asked him one question and he was off and running. He was unstoppable, he was funny, he was outrageous, and it was just amazing. Jacques Pépin I know has a great wit and he is very funny and self-deprecating -- he was every bit of that last Sunday,” Fabricant recalled.

“The one that really stands out in my mind, though, is Lidia Bastianich who told about her childhood, growing up on the wrong side of the border between Yugoslavia and Italy and her family actually escaping, and whether her father would get out, and being chased by dogs ... It was breathtaking to hear her discuss that. Aspects of their personal lives come out in these talks. I try for that. Those are the kinds of things you don’t get in the introduction to a cookbook or TV show,” she continued.

With the rise of the celebrity chef it is no wonder the series has been such a success. “Today, finding food

It’s no doubt that Fabricant is an expert on all things culinary. Her passion started at an early age. “I grew up loving food. My parents were foodies at a time when that term didn’t exist. My mother was a great cook. I cooked alongside her.

As a child, and a young woman, I grew up going to top restaurants all over the city because that’s what my parents did, and took us along. I’ve always had this passion for it,” she recalled.

Even with a passion for the culinary arts, her career as one of the nation’s top food writers was what one might call a happy accident.

“I was kind of between jobs and I seemed to be the one person in our circle that people turned to for ‘How do we make this?’ or ‘Who’s got the best tomatoes?’ or ‘Where can I buy good coleslaw?’ I was the one dispensing this advice. I suggested a food column to Everett Rattray at The East Hampton Star. That started it, and within six months I was getting assignments from The Times,” she said.

Now with droves of young writers trying to break into the field, it’s a very different feat from when she

Continued On Page 56.

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December 20/27

2017

Dining

Guest Worthy Recipe: Tom Parker Bowles

This article appeared in the July 12 issue of The Independent.

By Zachary Weiss

WHO: Tom Parker Bowles TWITTER: @TomParkerBowles ABOUT: Tom Parker Bowles is a food writer and broadcaster, and the author of numerous books including The Year of Eating Dangerously, E is for Eating: An Alphabet of Greed, the awardwinning Full English: A Journey Through the British and Their Food, and Let’s Eat: Recipes from My Kitchen Notebook. Earlier this month, Bowles also released a cookbook in conjunction with British luxury department store Fortnum & Mason, which includes this recipe below for an adultfriendly ice cream float.

Guest Worthy Recipe: Ice Cream Floats For The Young At Heart, But Old

Of Age WHY? If you’re standing with friends in glorious sunshine at a gorgeous beach house, chances are your mood is already pretty good.

But just imagine that somebody then hands you a tall glass of this icy, refreshing, tipsy-making cocktail. It’s the stuff that makes a good day great - and that’s why it’s the recipe I’d always have up my sleeve for moments like that.

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1 g caster sugar (superfine white in the US) 2 ml Cocchi Vermouth di Torino 1 ml Campari

3 ml soda water

2 scoops of orange sorbet

A slice of orange (use blood orange, if in season)

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(It’s worth making a much larger quantity of this syrup and storing it in the fridge to make other drinks.)

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Recipe Of The Week

December 20/27

2017

Dining

by Chef Joe Cipro

Shrimp Pasta With Summer Vegetables This column appeared in the June 14 issue of The Independent.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

16 shrimp (peeled and deveined) 1 large zucchini (diced)

1 lb medium sized heirloom tomatoes 1 lb penne pasta

1/3 c white wine 1/4 c chick peas 2 Tbsp butter

1 clove garlic (sliced thin)

1 can artichokes (cut in half lengthwise) olive oil

salt and pepper to taste Method Begin by bringing a large pot of water to a boil with 3 Tbsp of salt and 1 Tbsp of olive oil, cook the pasta in the salted water for 8-10 minutes. While this is happening gently roast the tomatoes in a 325 degree oven; after about 5 minutes the skin will blister, remove them

from the oven and peel away the skin then return them to the oven for another 15 minutes.

At this point the pasta should be ready. Drain the pasta and run cold water over it. Set aside until you’re ready to assemble the dish. In a large sauté pan or a 2” deep roasting pan, heat 2 Tbsp of olive oil.

Season the shrimp and sear on each side for one minute. Once you’ve finished searing the second side add the garlic and toast in the pan for one minute. Now you can add all the other vegetables. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and let it reduce for about one minute, add the butter and the pasta and stir gently.

If you would like you can add your favorite fresh herbs at the end.

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

Dining

Marcus Samuelsson Honored

This article appeared in the July 26 issue of The Independent.

How did you become involved with the Chefs & Champagne event?

By Jessica Mackin-Cipro

The James Beard Foundation will honor Chef Marcus Samuelsson at its annual “Chefs & Champagne” fundraiser and tasting party on Saturday. Held under a sprawling white tent at Wölffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack, the event will feature flowing champagne, Wölffer Estate wines, and culinary offerings from a select group of over 40 fine chefs.

I was contacted by James Beard Foundation president Susan Ungaro and was thrilled to be honored this year. I think about the previous chefs honored before me -- Mildred, Julia, Jacques -- and what this organization represents and I’m extremely humbled.

What are you looking forward to most at this year’s event?

Local chefs at this year’s event include Stephan Bogardus of the North Fork Table & Inn in Southold, Brian Cheewing of Wölffer Kitchen in Sag Harbor and Amagansett, Philippe Corbet of Lulu Kitchen & Bar in Sag Harbor, Dominic Rice of Calissa in Water Mill, and Galen Zamarra of the Halyard in Greenport.

Funds raised at the event help support the James Beard

Independent/Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Foundation’s wide variety of initiatives, including culinary Japanese RestauRant and sushi BaR

student scholarships and the organization’s annual food conference on sustainability, public health, and nutrition. A silent auction consisting of fine dining experiences, wines and spirits, cookware, and culinary travel packages will also raise funds for the organization.

What are some of your favorite summer dishes?

I always think about summer in terms of mackerel. That was the lunch I grew up with in summer and we caught the fish ourselves.

My sisters would boil the potatoes and I would sear the fish and we’d cook it in the cast iron skillet with butter. We had potato salad with fish, chopped chives, and dill and that was our summer dish.

What are some of your favorite places to go when you’re in The Hamptons?

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I always look forward to seeing my chef friends, and getting to know any new chefs I haven’t yet met.

Overall, it’s just the best day with some of the best chefs around, endless champagne, and people coming together for a great cause to support culinary education.

18 Park Place East Hampton 324-5400 Breakfast - Lunch - Dinner Take Out Orders

When I’m there I tend to spend time at the homes of friends cooking and having a good time.

I’ll hop around to a few restaurants as well. I love to ask the locals where their favorite place at the moment is, and then I go there. I love exploring and going off the grid. The best place might not be the most popular place, you never know.

The event will be held from 5 to 10 PM. For tickets, which start at $200 for members and $275 for nonmembers, visit www.jamesbeard.org/ chefsandchampagne.

the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

Dining

An Authentic Sicilian Experience

This article appeared in the January 25 issue of The Independent.

fully present. Last in our appetizer trial was the roasted eggplant timbal filled with sheep ricotta (a recurring taste), mozzarella, and fresh basil pomodoro.

By Nicole Teitler

When the opportunity arose to experience Manna Restaurant in Water Mill, I knew I’d be in for a flavorful evening. Situated at the reminiscent location of Mirko’s, a restaurant known for catering to a wealthy clientele, that closed its doors in 2013 after a 30 year run, Manna proudly wows its customers.

Chef Marco Barrila grew up in Sicily. Like scenes out of a foreign film, he spent most days working with his grandmother at the family trattoria “La Caraffa,” built in the 1800s. At the age of 24 Barrila moved to New York and began his journey working at culinary landmarks such as Carmines and Fiorello’s Lincoln Center. Then, with the opening of his own location, NOI on Bleeker Street, a love story began.

Customer turned wife Sheila Minkel Barrila soon became a restaurant regular of the operasinging-chef, for the food, for the singing, and for the man who did both. As NOI was closing one night numbers were exchanged and a new recipe for success began.

Together, the Barrilas celebrated Manna’s one year anniversary with the passing of the holiday season in 2016. Yet, this couple is no stranger to the restaurant industry. In 2009 the two started a catering company, Insatiable Eats.

As snow began to fall one Saturday evening, coating the East End in a winter wonderland, I arrived at

Despite the generous sizes of each dish, to our surprise we still had room for more. Sheila, in preparation for our main courses, poured a Sicilian red wine, Tascanta Ghiaia Nera Nerello Macallese.

The choice paired perfectly with the endless flavors bustling around on my palate.

Manna with my equally culinary adventurous friend, Warren. Sheila warmly greeted us and sat us at one of the ten tables in a comfortable room that holds forty seats.

Moments later, Marco delivered the first taste of the night, an amuse bouche of chickpea panella, both crisp yet soft in its base, with sheep ricotta, an arugula puree that introduces a garlic flavoring, and black olive on top.

Already set on the table were Grissini breadsticks, a personal reminder of the classic Italian restaurants I’d enjoy as a child as I’d pretend to be Holly Golightly holding, then biting, my oversized cigarette holder.

A tasting plate came out next, served by 24-year-old Emily who started during the holiday season, and bussed by her brother, 17-yearold Jay. Usually, when trying a new restaurant I try not to fill myself

with bread in preparation for the flood of original tastes to follow, but the spread in front of my eyes begged a bite. A sundried tomato spread, sheep ricotta (a nice flow from our first dish), and Sicilian olives with a house made olive focaccia.

As zealous eaters, Warren and I decided to split three appetizers to start. The grilled octopus with olive chimichurri may shock those who are apprehensive about eating food that looks like, well, what it is, as the dish is served with two full bodied octopuses. That shouldn’t deter a customer from trying it, as it has an ever so subtle spice and lemon taste, being slightly charred and not remotely chewy.

The beef tartare is served with egg yolk, onions, pickles, and bursting capers with small crostinis. The combination of ingredients is matched in a way that each flavor is

While sipping our wines, Warren and I were able to enjoy the atmosphere. It’s a refreshing change to have moments of pure relaxation between courses, time to observe and carry conversation. The anchor patterned carpet, the locally painted seascapes on the walls, and the warm fireplace, all staged a tribute setting to The Hamptons.

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Renato Corosone, and Domenico Modugno played like an old-school Italian playlist. I was taken back to personal memories of Sundays in an American-Italian household, singing songs I didn’t understand and 3 PM dinners of my grandparents endless preparations.

What started as an intimate dining experience to ourselves transpired into a busy restaurant.

Despite it being full there was no sense of overcrowding, no sense of being rushed. One thing that was mutually agreed upon was the freshness of each meal, leaving no desire for added salt or pepper, and

Continued On Page 58.

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the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

Rick’s Space

December 20/27

2017

By Rick Murphy narrow?”

suspiciously like my fifth-grade nun, the one that tried to kill me three times.

“Son, we fix trucks here. What do you know about trannies?”

RICK’S SPACE

by Rick Murphy

The Worst Of Rick’s Space 2017 Ants Ants are “social insects,” which is why they drop by for a snack.

The ones we have can apparently make themselves invisible (perhaps by putting a magic ring on their little fingers). We’ll clean the entire counter with bleach. Then we’ll take out a plate of food from the refrigerator and put it on the counter. Then we pick it up, and there are ants underneath it. Guys with one peanut and three shells have made a fortune doing a similar trick.

They secrete pheromones -- I don’t know what that means and I don’t like the sound of it. (I probably do the same thing, though.)

Karen is convinced they are in our food -- the ants, not the pheromones -- and I have to convince her they aren’t. But they are, of course. When we used to bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the beach as kids, the sandwiches would always have ants in them. That’s life in the country -- go to the beach, eat some bugs, get stung by a couple of wasps, pick up a tick or two, get infested with sea lice, and then go home. This is why people pay so much to live in the Hamptons.

No wonder I have nightmares. I can’t bear to even look at the people in the pictures but I feel their eyes following me no matter where I go in the house. I’m convinced Karen put them there to spy on me, to make sure I don’t actually sit on any of the chairs or take a nap in the bed when she isn’t home.

Here are a few observations I’ve made: Ants move in single file, all in the same direction. They never go back to where they came from -they just keep going forward until either you kill them, eat them, or they get in your underwear or the peanut butter jar.

It’s too bad my grandfather is dead and buried. We could have propped him up in the corner of the living room and told people he was Louis XIV and take bids on him.

People age poorly. We know this because a significant amount of us die. Furniture, though, becomes more valuable the older it gets. It just doesn’t seem right.

Antiques

Camping

Once at a yard sale Karen became obsessed with buying a desk, stating it was Beidermeier, obviously from the period directly before Wiener schnitzel and right after Budweiser.

“It’s worth $20,000!” she said.

Once every August a few of my friends and I would go camping for a weekend and live off the land.

We would gather our own firewood and catch and kill our food. Of course, in those days cans of pork and beans roamed free on the vast prairies that are Noyac today.

We bought a bed from the Federal period, which sounded like a savings and loan company. It was really expensive, but extremely delicate. Put another way, if you twist and turn in bed like I do -hey, I fight my demons -- the thing will break. So now we have a table we can’t eat on and a bed we can’t sleep in. It gets worse. We have pictures of old people in antique frames all over the house. These are ugly people and they wear frills and lace and have pursed lips -- and that’s just the men. The women are stern and serious and look

Heaven

“Maybe that’s what it costs new but it’s really old now,” I pointed out.

Anthony Bennett

Who among us doesn’t want to go to heaven?

From what we’ve seen of it, people lay around on clouds, dressed in white nightgowns and eating fruit.

The clouds are plush and comfy, at least 450-thread count.

The fruit is always ripe. There are no screaming babies, because they are in Limbo, which is an undiscovered planet out where Pluto used to be My College Degree “So tell me Rick, what skills do you bring to the table? How can you help us here at Acme?”

“Well. I speak Latin,” I said. “Or should I say, Linguam latinam

“Well, my Uncle Frank once lost a bet and had to wear a bikini to Jones Beach and liked it way too much!”

“We’ll call you.”

“OK but I am going to need five weeks vacation and green M&Ms in my dressing room.”

“By the way, my cosine said this would be a good day if I didn’t go off on a tangent. Get it?”

The guy shook his head sadly.

Needless to say, the call never came, nor did countless others. While me and the other smart kids languished in the schoolyard, Tony, Ralphie, Paulie and the like -- the kids we thought were dumb -- grew up and became rich. Tony is a builder.

Ralph is a mechanic. And Paulie – jeesh! Paulie is a plumber. He’s like, a millionaire.

But there are very few openings for linguists, or Trig or Physics majors.

The truth is I never had a shop class. Being in Catholic School, it was more important for us to learn about things that we could use in our grown up years, like how many thousands of hours you have to spend in purgatory if you get caught stealing cigarettes from Murray’s Candy Store.

It’s hard to believe another year has passed but if you are reading this be thankful we made it! This is the 30th anniversary of my first column. That changed my life—after making a living scraping the bottom of boats, painting houses, mowing lawns, tending bar and a dozen or so other jobs, I’ve been writing for a living ever since. Life’s been good. As always a sincere thank you to Linda Sherry and Helen and David Rattray for giving me a chance, even though I only got paid $25 per column!

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the Independent

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December 20/27

2017

A Celebration Of Native American Culture

These photos appeared in the Septemer 6 issue of The Independent.

Photos by Justin Meinken

This Labor Day weekend, the Southampton Shinnecock Nation celebrated its 71st annual Pow Wow. The Shinnecock reservation attracted hundreds of visitors who bustled through beautifully decorated shops and were amazed by the many dances that the tribes performed. Generations from all around Absolute 12-13-17:Layout 10:44 Page 1 the worldAces wereAds more than happy1to12/11/17 represent andAM honor their heritage.

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i n dy e a srytt hei nn .c om EvE g Ed ast End thE

December 20/27

2017

1826

THE

Best Of: Is It Just Me?

1826

Publisher

Is it just me?

James J. Mackin

© Karen Fredericks

No more Fourth of July beach fireworks! How sad!

Associate Publisher Jessica Mackin-Cipro

I suppose it’s that problem with the endangered species.

Executive Editors:

Main News & Editorial kitty merrill In Depth News Rick Murphy Arts & Entertainment Jessica Mackin-Cipro

The Piping Plover?

No, the middle class.

Writers Bridget Leroy, Peggy Spellman Hoey, Nicole Teitler, Justin Meinken

Copy Editors Bridget LeRoy, Karen Fredericks

How inconvenient.

Karen was chosen Best Cartoonist by the New York Press Association in 2017. She’s also the recipient of multiple awards for her illustration of the international bestseller How To Build Your Own Country, including the prestigious Silver Birch Award. Her work is part of the permanent artist’s book collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Columnists / Contributors Jerry Della Femina, Denis Hamill, Zachary Weiss, DOMINIC ANNACONE, JOE CIPRO, KAREN FREDERICKS, Isa goldberg, Laura Anne Pelliccio, MILES X. LOGAN, vincent pica, Ashley O’Connell, Elizabeth Vespe, Justin Meinken

IS IT JUST ME?

No . . . you won’t have a Popsicle.

You’ll have a Momsicle.

The Feminist Ice Cream Cart

Advertising

Sales Manager BT SNEED

Account Managers TIM SMITH

JOANNA FROSCHL Sheldon Kawer Annemarie Davin Art Director Jessica Mackin-Cipro Advertising Production Manager John Laudando

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Contributing Photographers Morgan mcgivern , PEGGY STANKEVICH, ED GIFFORD, Patty collins Sales, Nanette Shaw, Kaitlin Froschl, Richard Lewin, Marc Richard Bennett, Gordon M. Grant, Justin Meinken

© Karen Fredericks Karen was chosen Best Cartoonist by the New York Press Association in 2017. She’s also the recipient of multiple awards for her illustration of the international bestseller How To Build Your Own Country, including the prestigious Silver Birch Award. Her work is part of the permanent artist’s book collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Is it just me?

© Karen Fredericks

The pharmaceutical industry is the richest segment of our economy. As a cartoonist I find myself wondering, if laughter is the best medicine . . .

Shouldn’t I be rich?

Bookkeeper sondra lenz

Office & Classified Manager Maura Platz

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Karen was chosen Best Cartoonist by the New York Press Association in 2017. She’s also the recipient of multiple awards for her illustration of the international bestseller How To Build Your Own Country, including the prestigious Silver Birch Award. Her work is part of the permanent artist’s book collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

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Turn those scowls into smiles at your Thanksgiving table!

The Turkipede guarantees no one will ever go without a drumstick again!

© Karen Fredericks Karen was chosen Best Cartoonist by the New York Press Association in 2017. She’s also the recipient of multiple awards for her illustration of the international bestseller How To Build Your Own Country, including the prestigious Silver Birch Award. Her work is part of the permanent artist’s book collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Karen likes drumsticks best. Which part is your favorite? Go to the comment section of isitjustme.com & tell her!

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the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Best Of: Photos By Ed Gifford

The new year saw early morning commuters plying East Hampton’s North Main Street Undaunted by the season’s first snow storm.

The Fall season was ushered onto the East End by the iconic Bridgehampton Road Rally and Tour D’Hamptons. Starting and finishing at Corwith House Museum Grounds, Christopher McMahon pilots his 1974 Volkswagon “Thing” down Butter Lane in Bridgehampton. Driver McMahon is assisted by Navigator Irina DiCunto.

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the Independent

December 20/27

2017

Winter’s Here With Lots To Do

Compiled by Peggy Spellman Hoey Some say winter is when the fun really starts for the locals. Check out our top picks for winter vacation activities and beyond: Ice, Ice Baby

If you are looking for a little time on the ice why not check out a pair of skates? Once the weather gets cold, Buckskill Winter Club in East Hampton offers public skating sessions on the weekends and holidays, lessons, and has junior, high school, and adult hockey leagues. Day skate passes run from $10 to $27 depending on the day of the week and age of the skater. The rink is located at 178 Buckskill Rd., East Hampton.

For more information, go to www. buckskillwinterclub.com or call 631-324-2243.

Southampton Ice Rink offers public skating sessions, lessons, children’s and adults hockey programs, and a teen night with a DJ every Friday.

The rink also has a snack bar with sandwiches, sides, drinks, and ice cream. Skate passes run anywhere from $10 to $20 also depending on the time of day and age of the skater. The rink is located at 668 CR 39, Southampton. For more information, go to www. southamptonicerink.com or call 631-218-2158.

Stars and santa Visit Greenport Village for ‘Last

Night’ holiday shopping, dining, special libations, storytelling, and a visit with Santa at the Little Red Schoolhouse starting at 2 PM on December 23. While you’re there, don’t forget to check out the carousel and camera obscura.

For more information, visit www. greenportvillage.com.

In Southold, drop by the Custer Institute Observatory to view the night sky. Now’s a good time to view the Geminid meteor showers, but if you miss them, don’t worry, the winter sky always provides ample opportunities for stargazing.

For a schedule of open viewing times and other events, visit www. custerinstitute.org.

Candlelit Mansion Take a self-guided candlelit tour and enjoy a holiday reception with light refreshments at the Rogers Mansion in Southampton from 4 to 5:30 PM on December 30. Peruse the mansion’s parlors and sitting rooms festooned with garlands of fresh winter greens and flowers with Christmas trees decorated with colorful antique holiday decorations. Don’t forget to make extra time to take in the last day of the mansion’s exhibit, “Hunting the Whale: The Rise and Fall of a Southampton Industry.” Admission to the tour is $10 for adults, but free for members and children 17 and under. For more information, call 631-283-2494.

Polar Plunge It

Practice Your Swing

Kick off the New Year on January 1 with a refreshing dip at one of the following locations:

Get your swing on every Wednesday with two-for-one mini golf at the Children’s Museum of the East End, 376 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton. Putting time is from 3 to 5 PM. For more information, call 631-537-8250.

Gurney’s private beach at 10:30 AM. Suggested donation to The Retreat in East Hampton.

Complimentary hot beverages will be served. For more info, call 631668-1771.

Main Beach, East Hampton from 1 to 2 PM. Registration begins 11:30 AM. Plunge benefits the East Hampton Food Pantry. For more information, visit www. easthamptonfoodpantry.org.

I Dos

Those of you ready to take a different kind of plunge this spring or summer can meet with top event professionals offering the latest in fashion, floral design, photography, and entertainment while you tour the grounds of the Inn at East Wind in Wading River and taste culinary creations from 12 to 3 PM on January 14. There will be gifts and promotions throughout the event. Admission is $20 per person. For more information, go to www.eastwindlongisland.com.

On the North Fork, the Long Island Aquarium is also holding a bridal showcase on February 21 from 6 to 8:30 PM. Consult professionals, who will make saying “I do” the easiest part of your big day, while you tour the aquarium, Sea Star Ballroom, and the Hyatt Place Long Island/East End, and its waterfront suite. Tickets are $15 per person with a reservation; $20 at the door. Reservations are required. Call 631-572-8008 ext 125 for more information.

HarborFrost The frost is back for 2018! Ice and fire come together not for “Game of Thrones,” but for Harborfrost on February 24 from 1 to 6 PM. HarborFrost celebrates all things winter with its two key elements -- ice, followed by fire to keep warm -- by highlighting ice carving demonstrations, ice sculptures along Main Street, musical performances, indoor children’s activities, the Hysterical Society’s culinary stroll, and fire jugglers and dancers.

The day ends with a bang thanks to Fireworks by Grucci over the harbor. For a schedule of events, visit https://sagharborchamber.com.

Wine Down Wine tours aren’t only for the spring and summer. Try taking a tour of the East End’s prolific wineries this winter -- some are more laid back, others have live music on the weekends. Then settle down to a nice feed at a nearby eatery with a fireplace. Ahh! For more information, visit www. liwines.com.

Seal Cruises and Walks Join the Coastal Research and Education Society of Long Island in a guided tour of Cupsogue Beach County Park in Westhampton to view seals in their natural habitat, Continued On Page 61.

BURKE & SULLIVAN PLLC Attorneys at Law Est. 1970

Real Estate • Zoning & Land Use / Permits • Code Violations Personal Injury • State Liquor Authority • Estates • Wills

DENISE BURKE O’BRIEN, ESQ. • JOSEPH M. BURKE, ESQ. HON. EDWARD D. BURKE, SR. (Former - NYS Supreme Court & Southampton Town Justice) TEL: 631-283-4111 • CELL: 516-885-7420 • FAX: 631-283-7711 Web: www.burkeandsullivan.com • Email: DOBrien@burkeandsullivan.com

41 MEETING HOUSE LANE, SOUTHAMPTON, NEW YORK 11968 3348 NOYAC ROAD, SAG HARBOR, NEW YORK 11963

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East End Business & Service

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2017

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TO ADVERTISE IN THIS DIRECTORY, CALL THE INDEPENDENT @ 631-324-2500! • DIRECTORY 1

AIR COND. & HEATING

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“Because you don’t want to do it�

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AUTO BODY V.A.V. CLASSICS Fine Paint and Body

The Ultimate in BMW and Mercedes Bodywork Foreign and Domestic

Spray Booth and Unibody Repair Detailing and Waxing

283-9409 www.vavclassics.com

BUSINESS SERVICES  ď€Ąď€›ď€žď€šď€˘ď€€ď€Žď€›ď€Ąď€˜ ď€œď€•ď€–ď€˜ď€€ď€‘ď€— ď€?ď€?ď€? ď€&#x;ď€žď€ ď€€ď€?

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ď€ƒď€ˆď€ˆď€‡ď€’ď€‹ď€Žď€‰ď€€ď€?ď€?ď€ˆď€‡ď€“ď€“ď€‹ď€?ď€?ď€?ď€?ď€?ď€? ď€?ď€‹ď€”ď€˜ď€€ ď€?ď€„ď€‹ď€’ď€“ď€ ď€€ď€‚ď€Šď€‡ď€…ď€Œď€€ď€?ď€? ď€Ľď€Ľď€Ľď€ƒď€–ď€•ď€Ąď€Ľď€›ď€˘ď€˜ď€ƒď€–ď€&#x;ď€?

AWNINGS Canvas Awnings Marine Boat Covers

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PAYCHEX Payroll • HR • Retirement • Insurance

Zackary Will

Small Business Consultant 631-258-3491 zwill@paychex.com

CHIMNEYS

ALL TYPES OF CONSTRUCTION/ HOME IMPROVEMENT Residential & Commercial Chimney Service & Repairs • Masonry Bricks • Roofing • All types of Roofing • Gutters Siding • Skylights, Soffits Fascia & Wood Trim Removal & Repair

Free Estimates

631-772-2221 www.universalroofingny.com

Lic #52276-H • Southampton Lic #L004369 • East Hampton Lic #8629-2015

• Custom Renovations & ConstRuCtion speCiaList • aLL CeDaR • mahogany • CumaRu + ipe DeCks DesigneD + BuiLt W/WiRe RaiLing • FinisheD Basements + BathRooms • siDing • painting • tiLe • masonRy • DRaFting & FuLL peRmits pRompt • ReLiaBLe • pRoFessionaL QuaLity DanWLeaCh@aoL.Com

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CE King & Sons Inc. www.kingsawnings.com

10 St. Francis Place, Springs East Hampton, NY 11937 631-324-4944 • FAX 631-329-3669

Custom Crafted Awnings, Pergola Covers, Sun Shades, Screens and Hurricane Shutters • Fast Installation • Over 150 Fabric Patterns & Colors • Superior Quality & Construction sunesta.com

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December 20/27

East End Business & Service

2017

www.indyeastend.com

DIRECTORY • 2

DECKS

FENCING

EAST HAMPTON FENCE & GATE

FLOORING

CR Wood Floors Installations Sanding Refinishing Free Estimates

Driveway Gate Specialists Cedar Fence • Aluminum Deer • PVC • Pool Picket • Gate Service Complete Design Installation and Service

631-324-5941

www.easthamptonfenceny.com ehfence@gmail.com

Help-When You Need It! Errands, Small Jobs, Pick-Ups to NYC Extensive Knowledge of East End Westhampton to Montauk

Marshall & Sons Fuel Oil Delivery Plumbing, Heating & AC

Montauk

www.marshallandsons.com

631.668.9169

30 Years Experience-Owner Operated

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Cell: 631-599-2454 631-849-1973

house cleaning

Lic’d

Ins’d

GENERATORS

www.indyeastend.com www.indyeastend.com ESTATE MANAGEMENT

HEATING & FUEL OIL

GENERATORS Residential • Commercial-Industrial Custom Wood Fence (All Styles) • Electrically Operated Gates Arbors • Pergolas • Deer Fence • Bid Estimates for Contractors Ornamental Estate Rail • Fencing for Tennis Courts Chain Link • Pool Enclosures • Baby Loc PVC Fence • Railings

631-682-8004 • www.fenceworksli.com Design-Build-Install • Serving the North & South Forks Family Owned and Operated 39162

SALES-SERVICE-INSTALLATIONS

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GLASS & MIRROR FENCING

BUILDERS OF CUSTOM DRIVEWAY GATE SYSTEMS PROFESSIONAL FENCE INSTALLATION SCREENING TREES - POOL DEER CONTROL SPECIALISTS

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FLOORING

Robert E. Otto,Inc. Glass & Mirror Ser ving The East End Since 1960 350 Montauk Highway • Wainscott

537-1515

Glass, Mirrors, Shower Doors, Combination Storm/Screen Windows & Doors

HANDYMAN

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52

the Independent

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December 20/27

East End Business & Service

2017

www.indyeastend.com

DIRECTORY • 3

LANDSCAPING

PEST CONTROL

POOL SERVICES

ROOFING

A FULL SERVICE POOL COMPANY

• WEEKLY MAINTENANCE $74 • OPENINGS/CLOSINGS $369 • NEW GUNITE CONSTRUCTION • NEW VINYL CONSTRUCTION • PROPERTY MANAGEMENT • CERTIFIED SERVICE TECHNICIANS • REPAIRS & LINER CHANGES

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TREE SERVICES PLUMBING • HEATING • A/C

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OUTSTANDING 24-HOUR SERVICE FREE IN-HOME EVALUATIONS FINANCING OPTIONS AVAILABLE WHATEVER IT TAKES

Propane & Heating Oil Service & Delivery Available Plumbing & Heating

Heating & Air Conditioning www.HardyPlumbing.com info@HardyPlumbing.com

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*Cleaned *Repaired *Installed Family Owned & Operated 855-339-6009 631-488-1088 SunriseRoofing@Outlook.com www.SunriseRoofingAndChimney.com Licensed & Insured

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Compiled by Peggy Spellman Hoey

December 20/27

2017

New Year’s Selections

If you think the party stops on Tumbleweed Tuesday, think again.

The party never stops here on the East End. Whether you are looking to go hard, finishing the year off dancing on the bar this New Year’s Eve, or if you are looking for something with a little less recovery time, say a romantic dinner and some cheek-to-cheek on the dance floor, we’ve got you covered. There are even some family-friendly shindigs.

In Southampton DJ Loki will spin 2017 away at Southampton Social Club where revelers can choose from three different packages ranging from hors d’oeuvres to dinner and a table with bottle service for your friends. There will be party favors, a champagne toast, and live coverage of the ball drop at Times Square at midnight. Tickets range from $95 to $200 apiece.

For more information, go to www. southamptonsocialclub.com.

75 Main’s party runs from 10 PM to 4 AM with DJ Eren AB spinning tunes from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and Top 40. Food and drink

packages run from $75 to $150. For more information, call 631-2837575.

Almond in Bridgehampton will serve a special, locally-sourced five-

East End Business & Service

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DIRECTORY • 4

WINDOW WASHING

WINDOW WASHING

WE CLEAN WINDOWS Reasonable Prices Call for Free Estimate

631-241-9465 Proprietor-Conrad East Hampton Serving Montauk -Watermill 54

TIMELY ESTIMATES BECAUSE YOUR TIME IS VALUABLE

CALL TODAY

631-283-2956 WWW.CCWINDOWS.NET 31654

course prix fixe menu -- featuring faves like Fishers Island oysters, Peconic Bay scallops, and Strong Island duck -- beginning at 9 PM. Tickets are $115 per person plus tax and gratuity, for dinner, party favors, champagne toast.

For a more casual option, the bar will offer bar snacks and specialty cocktails. The a la carte menu will be offered earlier in the evening alongside holiday specials.

For information or to make reservations, contact Almond at 631-537-5665 or visit www. almondrestaurant.com.

Union Cantina in Southampton is offering a Grand Fiesta package with music by The Tres Amigos, a four-hour top shelf open bar, hors d’oeuvres, a dinner buffet, dessert table, party favors, and live coverage of the ball drop at Times Square from 9 PM to 1 AM. Tickets are $75 in advance, $90 at the door. For more information, call 631-3773500, or go to www.unioncantina. net.

How about New Year’s Eve with a little bit of a social conscience? Try Page at 63 Main in Sag Harbor where the staff serves up delectable delights from locally-grown farms

and fisheries combined with their own aquaponic produce. The restaurant is offering two seatings: 7 and 9 PM for a four-course prix fixe menu. The second seating includes champagne toast and live music. For more information, go to www.page63main.com

Looking for something west of the Shinnecock Canal? Try ringing in the 2018 at the Mill Roadhouse in Westhampton Beach. The roadhouse is offering a range of packages from $50 to $115 with choices of prix fixe dinner, open bar, or both. Call 631-684-9413 for more information.

In East Hampton Gurney’s Montauk Resort and Seawater Spa offers to two options for revelers. You can ring in the New Year under the disco ball at the Regent Cocktail Club with an open bar from 9 PM to 1 AM, light bites, live music by The Rakiem Walker Project, DJ set by Vikas Sapra, and casino games. Tickets are $165. To RSVP, go to https:// newyearseveatgurneys.splashthat. com/ Or, enjoy a prix fixe dinner at

Continued On Page 55.

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New Year’s Continued From Page 54.

Scarpetta Beach, choosing between an array of delectable fetes of the kitchen starting off with Beausoleil oysters, and moving on to appetizers such as turbot; pastas such as mascarpone cappellacci; entrees like creamy polenta with fricasseed mushrooms, and a choice of desserts including coconut panna cotta. Dinner is $125 per

person, $45 for wine pairing. For reservations, email holidays@ gurneysmontauk.com or call 631668-1771.

Rock into the New Year with the Nancy Atlas Project at Stephen Talkhouse. The show starts at 10 PM. Tickets are $40 apiece. 21 and over, please. To purchase tickets, visit www.stephentalkhouse.com

For holiday detox, the resort is offering yoga and hip-hop flow classes from December 30 to January 1. Sign up can be completed through the concierge or spa. And if you are looking to take it further, try the polar bear plunge from the shore of the private beach at 10:30 AM on January 1.

HELP WANTED

SEASONED FIREWOOD $350 Cord (Delivered and Stacked) $290 Cord (Dumped) $180 1/2 Cord (Delivered and Stacked) $150 1/2 Cord (Dumped) Call Jim 631-921-9957.

office in East Hampton.

Must have excellent communication skills, be able to multi-task and type fast with efficiency. Office experience necessary. Must be fluent in English. Responsibilities include answering the phone, booking appointments & filing. Mon-Fri 9-5. Starting at $16 hour. Please e-mail resume to HamptonsHelpWanted@gmail.com 15-4-18

39-45-31

HELP WANTED TREE SPECIALIST-Topping for view and sunlight. Tree removal, pruning, etc. 631725-1394. UFN LANDSCAPE SPECIALIST- Custom design and installation.

Planting of trees and shrubs.

Hedge and bush trimming, etc. 631-725-1394. UFN PLUMBER: Plumbing and heating Company in Mattituck looking for a F/T plumber with 5 years experience. This includes service, Small alterations, repairs.

Must have a valid driver’s license. Excellent salary, medical benefits, commission, 401(k), $2,000 sign on bonus.

Great working environment.

Please contact 631-2980147. 15-4-18 RECEPTIONIST WANTED for fast paced, service industry

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE /PAYABLE OFFICE MANAGER in East Hampton wanted. Interested candidates must be fluent in English, have excellent organizational skills and experience managing an office setting. Responsibilities include A/R (invoicing & collections), A/P, Estimates & Follow ups, Filing & help answering phone. Quickbooks experience is necessary.

Qualified individuals please send resume, references and salary expectations to HamptonsHelpWanted@gma il.com. 15-4-18 DENTAL ASSISTANTHampton Dental Group seeking enthusiastic chair side dental assistant to join our expanding team. FT/Benefits.

Fax resume to: 631-2830382. Call Jean 631283-0352. 15-4-18 www.indyeastend.com

HELP WANTED Director of Media Advertising The Independent Newspaper is currently seeking to hire an experienced media company sales director with proven management, strong digital and print sales history to join our growing media company. This position is full time, year round and is based in East Hampton N.Y. Please send letter of interest and resume to Publisher James J. Mackin – Jim@indyeastend.com. All inquires held in confidence.

UFN

SECRETARY- Full time, Benefits: Local Bridgehampton Contractor needs what every office is looking for: An experienced professional, upbeat, energetic person that is competent at their job! Must possess a sense of humor! Our down to earth company needs YOU! Please send resumes to BHContractor2017@gmail.com.

17-2-18

GARAGE SALE GREAT RATES CALL

631-324-2500

2017

winter truffles, a grilled calamari salad appetizer, rack of lamb for a main course, and profiteroles with Nutella ice cream for $12, $16, $32, and $11, respectively. For more information, call 631-324-8555.

If you are just looking to wet your appetite with some a la carte specials, Rowdy Hall is right up your alley. The restaurant is offering New Year’s Eve choices including potato leek soup with

CLASSIFIEDS ARTICLES FOR SALE

December 20/27

On The North Fork Put your detective skills to work at a New Year’s Eve murder mystery show, dinner, and dance at Hotel Indigo East End in Riverhead.

Continued On Page 70.

Call The Independent for more info 324-2500 Fax: 631-324-2544 Classified deadline: Monday at noon

PETS

MICHELLE IS A VERY SWEET 3 YEAR OLD GIRL that was rescued from life on a a chain in the Fall of 2016. Her puppies were taken away and sold for profit, and she lived a sad and lonely life until RSVP's Community Outreach intervened. She was finally surrendered and started her new life as an inside dog at RSVP headquarters, where she blossomed! She bounds with happiness each time our volunteers visit her and take her for her 3 daily walks.

Michelle would be best in an adult dog savvy home (older children will be considered).

She's very happy to lay next to you and relax, and a belly rub is her favorite thing! She doesn't bark much and is house trained.A single pet home is preferred, but with a proper and slow introduction she MAY be OK with another dog (this would be evaluated by our trainer with any potential adopters). No cats please. too. Please contact RSVP Inc at 631-533-2738 or or fill out an adoption application. Please call 631-5332PET “Sponsored by Ellen Hopkins” .R.S.V.P. (631) 728-3524 UFN

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REAL ESTATE FOR SALE/RENT

HOUSE FOR RENTSouthampton, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. $2,200 per month. Available January until June.

917-916-9158. LAST MINUTE, WILL NEGOTIATE 17-2-18

PRIMELINE MODULAR HOMES, INC. Builders of Customized Modular Floor Plans that Fit Within Your Budget.

Licensed & Insured.

Locally Owned Since 1993.

Steve Graboski, Builder Amagansett, N.Y. 11930 Tel: 631-267-2150 Fax: 631-267-8923

email: primemod@aol.com www.primelinemodlarhomes.com

LVIS

1895 BARGAIN BOX AND BARGAIN BOOKS THRIFT SHOPS 95 MAIN STREET EAST HAMPTON, NY

46-26-20

HALF-OFF SALE! COMMERCIAL FOR RENT SPEONK-INDUSTRIAL ZONE 2,000 Sq. Ft. 21 ft height, 12x16 electric OD 200 amp 3 phase.

Completely painted, nice bathroom & office. 2 months security & reference. $2,200 monthly.

631-287-1618 14-4-17

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50% OFF ALL WOMEN’S CLOTHING, SHOES, BAGS AND SCARVES 50% OFF MEN’S CLOTHING 50% OFF PREMEASURED FABRICS & HARD GOODS IN THE ANNEX 50% OFF SELECTED KNICK KNACK ITEMS 50% OFF EVERYTHING IN THE BARN 50% OFF ALL BOOKS, INCLUDING COLLECTIBLES DECEMBER 27-JANUARY 10 STORE HOURS: 10AM. – 5PM TUESDAY – SATURDAY 17-1-17

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Dementia

Continued From Page 15.

ward for the euphemistically– described “memory impaired.”

She moved in in April. There was a transition phase that was pure hell. Staff called any hour of the day or night when Mom couldn’t calm down. They took her suitcases away because she’d stay up packing “so I’m ready to check out in the morning.”

She wouldn’t stop asking the same question over and over, growing increasingly agitated, till I got on the phone and ran through “the script,” giving her a blow by blow account of how she got sick and lost her memory. Each time I started to recite, “On March 19, you got sick . . .” it felt like spears of ice piercing my throat.

Last spring was mostly a blur. Calls from her, calls from the place, calls about emptying her home, her doctors, her money, her insurance.

No one task could be completed with a single phone call. Jim came to the rescue again, lending me the Indy van so I could close out her condo. The famed charities wouldn’t take her furniture, they wanted brand new stuff in perfect condition. So one afternoon, I watched two men break her beloved dining room table into small pieces to carry off to the dumps. It cost $776 to haul away her life.

Another day, a stranger came along and helped me as I stood crying in front of the Indy van, trying to figure out how I was going to lift her oak sideboard into the vehicle.

We stuffed it in, along with books

fo r e r k He laces Loo at P !

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and a million chatkes, dishes, glasses, kitchenware, linens, her clothes.

I delivered it to The Salvation Army in Riverhead, where a group of men watched me unload the van, telling me about the sideboard, “Oh, we don’t take furniture; that’s the Patchogue location.” I gave it to some ladies running a second hand shop nearby.

When I began packing up her house, I found Mom’s diaries. Same as her mother, she kept a sort of almanac with entries like, “Rainy day today. I went to Curves.” I couldn’t resist looking for my birthday among the pages, just to see if she ever had anything to say.

The entry read, “Kitty’s birthday.

Called and left a message on the machine.”

Driving back to East Hampton that night, I tried to remember a time – any time – she and I had spent alone together talking. I couldn’t conjure a one.

These past 14 months there have been so many. So many moments “just us two” talking. I learned it’s not unusual for families to abandon their loved ones with dementia once they find a decent facility. They “can’t bear” to see what’s happening to them. They can’t stand to observe the other patients in the unit, so many a grim snapshot of their future.

Only once have I driven to Islandia, sat crying in the parking lot, then turned the key in the ignition, threw it in drive, and headed back to East Hampton. I’m pretty proud about that.

And Mom’s proud of me. This I have learned, as she takes me around to “show off ” to other

dementistas, sometimes four or five times to the same four or five people during the same visit.

They’re always pleased to meet me.

She’s affectionate now, warm and so, so funny.

Being with her, being with the other residents, isn’t the soul crusher for me. It’s the bureaucracy, the medical system, the abject stupidity and incompetence on behalf of supposed professionals, the dozens of chores related to her care that take me away from her that make me cry these days. Did I mention the paperwork? I haven’t seen the surface of my own beloved dining table in months.

But the visits? I wish I could go more. I wish she were closer.

Driving to Smithtown, I blast music, careening down the 495.

Sometimes the radio sends me a present, a song with lyrics that bless, that resonate, and tell me I’m doing right. Like these yesterday: “I get so tired working so hard for our survival. I look to the time with you, to keep me awake and alive.”

I wouldn’t wish dementia on my worst enemy. Stricken with it, patients suffer. They know something’s radically wrong. They know they don’t know.

I wouldn’t wish taking care of a loved one with dementia on the devil himself. It’s all consuming.

It’s relentless. It’s heartbreaking, financially crippling, terrifying, and often, really smelly.

But sometimes it’s a warm day. And you go outside. And mom looks up at the sky and trills, “Blue!”

And we both laugh.

Sooner or later, Mom’s going to die.

I’m not ready.

December 20/27

2017

Fabricant

Continued From Page 41.

started. “Believe you me, I did not grow up wanting to be a food writer.

What was a food writer anyway?” she recalled. “They ask me ‘Well, how do I get started? What can you tell me?’ I can’t tell them a thing.”

Hamptons Dining There’s no question that the landscape of Hamptons dining has changed over the years, with the influx of pop up restaurants, seasonal locales staying open later in the season, and celebrity chefs opening year-round establishments. The dining choices for East Enders are plentiful. But like they say, history has a tendency to repeat itself.

As the population of the East End and year-round weekend crowds grow, “They want to eat out, and so you have more restaurants,” said Fabricant. “Now, in terms of what The Hamptons represents for restaurants -- if you cycle back 40, even 50, years The Hamptons was a magnet for great chefs. East Hampton in particular. You had Henri Soulé at The Hedges. You had Michael Field and then Tom Cowman at The Maidstone. I mean, these were great names at the time when the only thing you could buy from a farm was corn or potatoes. You didn’t have farms growing arugula and the like.

So it’s sort of like a plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose [the more things change, the more they stay the same].

You’ve kind of cycled back to an area that is attracting some top chefs,” she noted about the new resurgence of celebrated chefs on the East End. “The fact that Topping Rose was able to attract Jean-Georges, I think is fabulous,” Fabricant opined.

As for the pop ups, “The pop up phenomenon, that’s a little newer.

It’s occurring everywhere. It’s global,” she said.

One cuisine Fabricant would like to see more of in The Hamptons is Asian. “If you look at the New York restaurant scene, Asian is everywhere. I’m hoping that at some point there will be an influx of Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and different kinds of Japanese from just sushi arriving. I think there should be a market for that.”

For more information and tickets to Stirring the Pot, visit www. guildhall.org.

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Drug Forum Continued From Page 14.

Reynolds recalled working during the AIDS crisis, wearing pins that said “Silence = Death,” and vowing “Never again.” But, he said, “We’re doing it again.” The stigma attached to addiction was a recurrent theme throughout the forum.

If her son had cancer, there would have been spaghetti dinners stacked up in her fridge, Linda Ventura said. Instead, her son Thomas, became “the scourge of the community.” The founder of the Thomas Hope Foundation, Ventura travels the county telling her son’s story. “I’ve been where you are,” she told audience members. “I don’t want you to be where I am.”

Thomas started with marijuana and alcohol and in three short years died of an overdose. “When everyone else was packing their kids off to go to college, I packed mine off to go to rehab. That shouldn’t happen,” Ventura said.

“We know better. We should do better. No more sweeping it under the rug,” she continued. Families need to be educated, teach their children coping skills, and how to handle their emotions. Kim Laube of the youth development program HUGS, agreed. “Kids know drugs are bad. We have to take the conversation further.”

Father Constantine Lazarakis from

★

the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons built on Laube’s comment. It’s the responsibility of the community and adults to commence a “very aggressive” community campaign challenging adults to look at and tackle their own issues and attitudes towards alcohol and drugs. The priest was not alone in mentioning that partying is a cultural norm in the Hamptons. “We need to shake people up,” he said.

“Dropping Like Flies” The conversation has changed in law enforcement, STPD Chief Steven Skrynecki informed.

Without ignoring the petty crimes perpetrated by addicts, cops are also trained to look at them as people who need treatment. Officers are called to conduct NARCAN saves on a daily basis and sometimes confront addicts they’ve brought back from the brink two or three times before. “We try to connect them to treatment,” the chief said.

“Good luck with that,” was the message a number of speakers offered, once the microphones were turned over to the audience.

Attorney Lisa Logan articulated a litany of stumbling blocks she faced when trying to get her son help. She has “the best insurance,” and still couldn’t find a place for adequate treatment. “Stop saying we have programs. We don’t,” she declared.

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Waiting lists of three to six months, private pay facilities only the wealthy can afford, and programs that don’t provide what’s promised – Logan criticized area treatment programs as “useless,” prompting Southampton Town Justice Barbara Wilson to fire back in support of her town’s drug court. Logan said the program is “not a legitimate solution” and the pair verbally sparred until Schneiderman interceded.

“This is a no judgment zone,” he reminded, encouraging speakers to step forward.

Several speakers, including Meesha Johnson, pointed to a lack of minority and young people on the task force. She offered to be a representative for the Shinnecock Native American community.

“We’ve been dealing with addiction for decades,” Johnson said. Her mother, Michelle, affirmed, “We’ve lost a lot of young men to drug overdose.” Members of the nation are “dropping like flies,” she said.

Schneiderman said the committee just started recently and, speaking

2017

to the audience said, “You are all part of this task force.”

Johnson wanted to know how police are responding to drug dealing on the reservation.

Marie Guerra Tooke offered how police responded to it in her community – they punished her as a whistleblower and refused to take action against dealers.

“Police protected them and hurt my family,” she charged, making reference to the conviction on drug-related charges of former town councilman Brad Bender and the scandal surrounding a member of the police’s Street Crime Unit’s drug use while working undercover.

The town and its police have been part of the problem for 20 years, Tooke said. Noting the new police chief, she said, “It’s time to drain the evildoers of their power.”

Before opening the forum to the audience input, Schneiderman said the town would likely host another forum next spring. Patti Brushi said the next forum needs to happen sooner. “They’re dying left and right. We need help.”

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Food Pantry Continued From Page 11.

we can get.”

The future is looking a little brighter for the scrappy charity that can. East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell has promised EHFP a permanent home in the new senior citizen center planned on Springs Fireplace Road. “That location will be so convenient,” Littman predicted.

But for now, the group is working to recover from moving expenses.

And they are planning a fundraiser.

Tonight, EHFP will hold an outdoor movie screening at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett. The flick picked is Boss Baby, featuring the voice of local philanthropist and actor Alec Baldwin. “We chose Boss Baby, because Alec Baldwin has been such a big supporter of our community,” Littman said. “We hope he’ll come.”

EHFP’s fundraiser is different from glitzy galas in another way: admission tonight is free.

Volunteers are just asking for

donations. “Whatever people can afford,” Littman said.

Littman expressed gratitude to the evening’s major sponsor Saunders & Associates, which is helping to underwrite the upfront costs for movie night. She favors having even a modest fundraiser during “the season” to inform visitors about East Hampton’s hungry families.

“Our summer community is unaware of the need,” she said. “It’s their landscapers, their nannies, their housecleaners that we’re feeding. And yes,” she added. “One day we’d like to have a gala.”

Movie night at Indian Wells opens at 7 PM, with screentime at 8 PM. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Bring beach chairs and blankets . . . and your wallet.

106th

Continued From Page 12.

“I am proud to join the governor and all New Yorkers in welcoming home our Airmen who spent this week showing Texas and the nation that the value of our hard training

SEASONED PROFESSIONALS

December 20/27

and dedicated personnel pays off at home just as much as the warfight overseas,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony German, the Adjutant General for the New York National Guard.

“These Airmen showcased the value of our National Guard as always ready, and always there.”

The 106th Rescue Wing supports the Air Force’s personnel recovery mission. The wing is manned by more than 1000 military and civilian personnel and also performs civil search and rescue missions as well as assisting state disaster relief and other state emergencies as directed by the governor.

The wing’s most recent rescue mission prior to Hurricane Harvey was the launch of pararescue personnel in the Atlantic Ocean to save two badly burned commercial sailors on board the 625-foot long bulk cargo carrier Tamar near the Azores on April 28, 2017.

Authentic

Continued From Page 45.

the olive oil having smooth and nuanced flavoring.

Marco came out from the kitchen to check in on us.

“Marco, your ingredients!” I exclaimed, “They’re so fresh!”

“You taste the product,” he reacted.

“If you use cheap paint, you cannot paint!”

“But the olive oil,” Warren inquired, “what kind is that?”

“If I tell you e’rrybody gonna use it,” Marco winked as he kissed his fingertips and then tossed them to the sky. I may have been in Water

w

.no ww

rsic

. co

Mill but in that moment I was certainly in a Sicilian home.

My special of the day, pan roasted American rack of lamb arrived in a borolo wine reduction, truffled mushroom ragu, with a side of crispy parmesan polenta. In every bite a hint of rosemary. I ate the entire thing.

Warren’s meal, a braised short rib pappardelle with handmade pasta, made on premises, and vegetables.

Soon after, his plate was empty as well.

Glancing over at each other, our eyes intuitively begged the question -- to dessert or not to dessert?

Inevitably, two Sicilian treats came out. Trapanese, a crispy pastry similar to a calzone filled with sheep ricotta and wild berry sauce, and cassatella, a pistachio sponge cake with ricotta and marzipan. Without hesitation, I proclaimed the cassatella was my favorite dessert in recent memory, and I have eaten my fair share.

With a menu that changes nightly based on how Marco is feeling, customers can always call ahead and request any international dish they’d like and the chef will prepare it “no restrictions.” Year round plates are lobster or seafood risotto, lobster FraDiavolo and truffled veal chop.

If the food is indicative of Manna Restaurant’s longevity, I expect years of success. Run by love and filled with families, it is a welcomed addition to the culinary scene on the East End. You can follow more stories from Nicole Teitler on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram as Nikki On The Daily.

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Winter

Continued From Page 50.

or take a cruise with the Viking Fleet to Plum, Great Gull, and Little Gull islands. Walks are available by reservation until April.

For more information, go to www. cresli.org. Montauk State Park also offers guided seal walks throughout the winter. The first one for 2018 is New Year’s Day at 1:30 PM. For more, go to the state’s website www. parks.ny.gov and click on the link for Montauk.

Just Hike It Friends of the Long Pond Greenbelt runs hikes led by experienced guides throughout the winter. The group is meeting up at 9:30 AM on December 24 at the nature center, 1061 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike, Bridgehampton for a moderately-paced three-mile hike through oak/hickory forest with views of Crooked Pond, Long Pond and Deer Drink to the Truman Capote Stone. For more hikes further down the road, go to www. longpondgreenbelt.org.

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society has its fair share of hikes to burn off calories this winter. Hike Shadmoor State Park on December 23, White Pine Forest and Chatfield Hole on December 30, and Hither Woods on January 1 to name a few. The group can be followed on Facebook and Meetup.com.

Culture Club The Southampton Cultural Arts Center is showing the portraits of Michael Halsband Thursday to Sunday from 1 to 6 PM until December 31. Admission is free. Watch a screening of White Christmas on December 22 at 7 PM for $5, a price that includes holiday refreshments. Bring a gift for a child and get one free admission.

Or consider learning to play chess or just play with the free program, The Art of Chess with Ulysses Tapley, on December 31 from 2 to 5 PM. And for the kids, on December 28 the Winter Vacation Workshop features New Year’s Eve Crafts with Andrea Cote is from 3 to 4:30 PM for $15 per child (ages 5-11) and includes all materials.

Children must be accompanied by an adult.

SoFo The South Fork Natural History Museum has several programs to choose from this winter including one-hour programs with nature educators from December 26 to 29 from 10:30 to 11:30 AM for children of all ages. Programs include talks on subjects such as whale anatomy, shrub adaptation, a listening walk through Vineyard Field on December 26 to learn about animals active in winter, and a natural scavenger hunt. An animal origami class will be given at 10:30 AM on December 30. For more programs, go to www.sofo.org.

Y-M-C-A There’s always some fun at the

C

YMCA in East Hampton. Take a swim, take a new fitness class, or start a new exercise regimen at the state-of-the-art gym. There’s also the STEAM program for kids four to 13 every Saturday, encouraging youngsters’ love of science and technology. Winter Break Camp for kids four to 14 will be held from December 22 to 28. The camp includes activities such as swimming, sports, arts and crafts, and field trips. For more information, call 855-2YMCALI. Oy, you Brit lovers!

The Westhampton Free Library has a few picks for the anglophile in all of us -- it’s all about the accent,

December 20/27

2017

really. First off, children in grades K to 3, can celebrate the British holiday, Boxing Day, on December 26, at 1 PM, at 7 Library Ave., Westhampton Beach. The program will feature a story and a special ‘outside-of-the-box’ craft, according to organizers. “Downton Abbey” has ended (sigh) but there will always be time for tea and the BBC, this time with a bus trip to visit the “Downton Abbey” exhibit in Manhattan on January 6. The trip costs $55 per person, including bus transportation and entrance fee. Registration required. The bus leaves parking lot behind library at 10 AM. For more information, call 631-288-3335 or visit www.westhamptonlibrary.net.

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Smash & Burn

These photos appeared in the March 8 issue of The Independent.

He got charged with DWI, plus tickets for speeding and failing to stay in the designated lane of travel. His victims got a rude, and terrifying, awakening. On Sunday morning, just after 1 AM, Alec H. 62

Wasser, 21, of Water Mill crashed the Mercedes he was driving into a home on Hayground Road.

The car burst into flames. Police and emergency responders were alerted to the crash by residents of the home, none of whom were injured. Southampton Town Police, the town fire marshal, and fire

departments, fire rescue, and EMS personnel from Bridgehampton, Southampton Village, Sag Harbor, and East Hampton deployed to the scene. The two adults and one child in the house emerged physically unscathed. The house?

Not so much. Officials say it suffered significant damage. A

Independent/Michael Heller

passenger in Wasser’s car was taken to Southampton Hospital for treatment of a minor injury. Wasser was taken to HQ for processing and held for morning arraignment.

Cops say the driver was heading north on Hayground “at a high rate of speed” when he lost control of the car and crashed into the house.

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2017

Overcome!

These photos appeared in the January 8 issue of The Independent.

Photos by James J. Mackin

The First Baptist Church of Bridgehampton hosted its annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday afternoon. Excerpts from the famed “I Have a Dream� speech were among the readings, with preachers from Brooklyn, Cutchogue, and Southold on hand to share the message of unity.

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Ecker

Continued From Page 10.

Ed, Jr. was born in 1954. According to Fran, he was an “exceptional” baby. “He was so good, when I had a girl, I thought that was going to be a snap. Boy, was I surprised,” she said, garnering raised eyebrows from Cheryl and Catherine. Catherine joked she didn’t remember much about Ed’s childhood because, “I was so much younger.”

Fran took the kids to the beach every day during the summer.

Ed attended St. Therese Catholic school until the eighth grade.

Classes were tiny at the private school; at the public school Ed was able to enjoy participating in sports teams. “I liked all sports.”

He was a scout, with his mom the den mother of a Cub Scout pack that included Peter Bell, Jim Nicoletti, and Richie Balcuns, among others. Vinnie Grimes was his scoutmaster when he moved up to Boy Scouts.

Childhood days weren’t entirely carefree. “You went to work early, you didn’t mess around,” Eddie recalled. When he was 10, his father got him his first job at the golf course. “I found out years later, my father paid the pro to have me there working,” Eddie said.

Ed, Sr. was the family focal point.

Despite hectic work schedules, “Dinner was at 6 PM every night,” Cheryl informed, “And Dad sat at the head of the table.”

“He was the best storyteller in the world,“ Catherine added. “We could sit at the dinner table for hours . . . and we still tell the same stories when we get together.” The family lost their patriarch, Ed, Sr., in 2003.

Ed, Jr. couldn’t pick just one standout story to describe his childhood in Montauk in the 60s, but Cheryl had one: the day Eddie taught her how to dive.

“She was brave and we could talk her into anything,” her brother said.

The diving board at the Surf Club was high and Ed told Cheryl to run as fast as she could and be sure to land with her body spreadeagled and flat. She followed his commands without question because, “Eddie was my hero.

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Anything he said was gospel . . .

The lifeguard had to pull me out.

You could barely hear my gasping over his laughter.”

Eddie graduated from East Hampton High School in 1972.

He recalled high school years filled with dances, pep rallies, and work – pumping gas and mowing lawns.

Kids saw movies at a theater on Newtown Lane.

After two “undistinguished” semesters at college, Eddie recalled returning home and getting an invitation from his Dad to meet up at the family restaurant for a beer.

“I guess he saw my report card or something because Dad sits down and asks me, ‘Would you rather live in a foxhole or go to sea?’ . . . and that’s when I joined the Navy.

a core group of friends.” He said it’s hard to describe life in a small town where there are members of its oldest families – the McDonalds, Burkes, Joyces, Pitts, and Prados – still living nearby and still friends.

“If you haven’t lived with that, it’s hard to understand, but it’s very important to me. It really means something.”

These days, Ed and Roxanne have the chance to travel. “We’ve taken some trips I always wanted to.”

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He drives the ambulance for the Montauk fire department -- Ed, Sr. was a charter member -- and dotes on his five grandchildren, two of whom live nearby. “I babysit a lot,” he said.

“And you take my garbage to the dump,” Fran reminded.

The annual Friends of Erin parade steps off in Montauk on Sunday.

See elsewhere in this edition for the 411 on all the weekend’s doings.

Insight

The decision to enter the service set a course for his life, bringing him to the love of his life, Roxanne.

They met while he was on tour in Washington State in 1974. They married in 1976, settling back home in Montauk that year. Kari was born in 1979 and Karli in 1982.

Before joining the East Hampton Town Police force in 1982, Ed continued to work at Montauk’s restaurants, the Trails End and the Blue Marlin. He’d worked at Frank Gaugler’s eatery during college breaks, learning how to bartend from Dick McKee, and bussing or waiting tables alongside hostess Sue Brown, before moving into the kitchen to work behind the lines as an assistant chef.

When the kids were young in the 1960s, Ed Ecker, Sr. was elected East Hampton Town Supervisor.

“We were so young, we didn’t realize what that was, we just knew it was something special,” Eddie said.

“Catherine used to walk down Main Street, asking, ‘You going to vote for my father?’” Fran reminisced. Cheryl was fond of visiting her dad’s office in town hall.

“He had a chair that swiveled.”

“When I became a cop,” said Ed, “There were still people who worked for my father in town hall.”

Ed rose through the ranks to chief, while raising his family. He retired from the force in 2014.

While he misses the camaraderie of the force, he offered, “All these years, I stayed tight with family and

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Best Of: Sports Photography

Independent/Gordon M. Grant

October 25 issue: The Westhampton Hurricanes won perhaps the biggest game in the school’s history Friday, besting mighty Sayville. This page: Liam McIntyre, injured most of the season, made an immediate impact, scoring in the first quarter.

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Sports

Independent/Gordon M. Grant September 13 issue: The East Hampton boys soccer team has talent – the Bonackers just need to find a way to score a few goals and unleash it. Zane Musnicki (#18).

November 8 Issue: Darcy McFarland helped the team pick up 28 points in the 200-yard medley in the championship meet.

Independent/Gordon M. Grant

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Sports

Independent/Gordon M. Grant November 8 issue: Caroline Brown dropped two and a half seconds from her all time best in the 100yard backstroke.

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Sports

October 11 issue: The Bonac Booters are peaking. Manfred Barros helped lead the team to a 2-0 victory over Westhampton Friday.“It was a great team effort as the boys worked hard the entire match,” said coach Don McGovern.

Independent/Gordon M. Grant

At Your Service On The Holidays Adult Clinics TBA Inquire Within

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New Year’s Continued From Page 55.

Start the night off at 7 PM with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, then sit down for a four-course meal including soup, salad, your choice of five entrees, followed by a decadent dessert. The Killing Kompany returns to host this year’s venture into a world of clandestine clues, red herrings, and clever gumshoes.

Tickets are $125. For more information, call 631-369-2200.

You can also book a room and take part in the New Year’s Day bistro brunch. To find out more, visit www.indigoeastend.com.

Laugh, dine, and dance with a performance by comedians Scott

Wholesale 725-9087 Retail 725-9004

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Schendlinger, Eric Haft, and Carie Karavas and then stay on for the after-hours dance party with DJ Phil at the Suffolk Theater in Riverhead this New Year’s Eve. After the show, there’s complimentary champagne toast at midnight. 21 and over only. The show starts at 8 PM. Tickets range from $44 to $55. Food is available for an additional cost. For tickets or more information, go to www. suffolktheater.com

The Inn at East Wind’s annual gala kicks off the new year from 8 PM to 1 AM with a premium open bar, buffet, dancing to DJ Tommy’s tunes, and champagne toast and live simulcast of ball drop at Times Square at midnight. Tickets are

Prime Meats • Groceries Produce • Take-Out Fried Chicken • BBQ Ribs Sandwiches • Salads Party Platters and 6ft. Heroes Beer, Ice, Soda

Open 7 Days a Week

If you’re looking to celebrate for a good cause, consider the Greenport American Legion, which is kicking off the New Year with its grandopening fundraiser at 8PM. There will be music by Jukebox, a cash bar, and a champagne toast. For more information or tickets, visit www. greenportamericanlegion.org or call 631-333-2644.

Sleep It Off Ring in 2018 at Southampton Inn from 7:30 PM to 1 AM, and enjoy a leisurely stroll to your bed.

The evening will include an open

Janice D’Angelo, Owner

Jeffrey Yohai, Rph, Owner •AHAVA •Dr. Hauschka •ALIXX Candles (France) •Mason Pearson (London)

$125 per person, packages are available for overnight stay and breakfast. For something quieter, the inn’s restaurant, Desmond’s, is offering a three-course prix fixe dinner including coconut-crusted shrimp and mountain berry crostini appetizers; stuffed salmon and grilled boneless ribeye entrées and berry martini mousse and Oreo cheesecake for dessert just to name a few; children’s menu is also available. Dinner is $49.95 plus tax and gratuity; beverages are not included. Seating is from 5 to 10 PM. Call 631-846-2335 for reservations. For more information, go to www.eastwindlongisland.com

•Crabtree & Evelyn •Thymes •Douglas Plush Toys •Lilly Pulitzer

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Phone: (631) 725-0074 Fax: (631) 725-8672

December 20/27

2017

bar, dinner, dessert, and dancing, as well as a champagne toast and live screening of the ball drop in Times Square at midnight. In the morning, guests and the public can enjoy a ‘Best of the Best’ breakfast at the Inn’s restaurant, Claude’s, from 9 AM to 2 PM. Tickets are $495 per couple and $350 for singles for overnight say; New Year’s Eve celebration open to the public from 10:30 PM to 1:00 PM for $75.

For The Whole Fam Two family-friendly ball drops are scheduled for 10 AM to 12 PM and 1 to 3 PM at the Children’s Museum of the East End. Throughout the day, children will be able to create noisemakers, share resolutions for the upcoming year, and mark the end of 2017 -- and the start of 2018 with a confettifilled countdown. The cost is free for museum members, $14 per person for non-members (including adults and any children over 12 months old). Space is limited, and pre-registration is strongly encouraged. Museum members can register anytime. Non-member registration begins December 26.

For more information or to register, call 631-537-8250.

The Long Island Aquarium’s Fishes and Wishes Celebration from 6:30 to 11 PM will feature a meet and greet with a penguin, a cocktail hour, buffet dinner (beer and wine for Mom and Dad!), followed by dessert including an ice cream bar.

There will be a DJ and dance floor, crafts for the kids, and a mockmidnight champagne and sparkling cider toast at 10:30 PM. Tickets are $55 for members’ children three to 12 and $89 for members over 13; $60 and $99 for non-members. No admission is required for children under two years old. You can also spend the night at the Hyatt Place Long Island/East End with packages starting at $229 plus tax.

Reservations are required -- call 631-208-9200, ext. 426.

Tweens and teens can celebrate the New Year at the Westhampton Free Library, 7 Library Lane, Westhampton Beach, on December 30, starting at 3:30 PM. There will be action-packed games, appetizers, and beverages. To register for the program, call 631-2883335 or sign-up online at www. westhamptonlibrary.net.

the Independent

i n dy e a s t e n d . c o m

December 20/27

2017

Sports

Indy Fit

by Nicole Teitler

Thank You 2017 I’d like to start by thanking all of you. As a long-time writer, it was rather risky to begin a fitness column. After all, who am I? Why would you want to read what I have to say about health and wellness?

Even without fully knowing who I am, you have embraced me and all I have brought to IndyFit. Allow me to officially introduce myself. I’m Nicole, aka Nikki On The Daily, a 28-year-old living on the South Shore of Long Island.

I enjoy being active, trying new things, and surrounding myself with positive, open-minded people.

Initially, writing this column was a way to interact with the East End wellness community -- likeminded individuals form stronger bonds. Although that mission has been accomplished, as the weeks progressed so have I. This undertaking has become a continuous life lesson. Now, it has turned into the best part of my week.

In January, I dubbed 2017 as “The Year of My Fittest Self.” As I approach 30, there are many in my age group starting to already see the latent effects of their decisions -- excess drinking, late nights, and other unhealthy habits. Having always been more health-conscious, I wanted to see what my body could do if I dedicated myself to truly toning it up and taking care of myself. I wanted to look like the girls in the fitness magazines, true, but my overall goal was to stop wanting to look like someone else and to be the best Nicole I could be. My fitness journey this year has fluctuated between the best shape I could possibly be (around July) to going weeks -- yes, weeks -- without working out and overindulging in foods that were way too tempting to turn away.

While I’ve always had a slender appearance, I literally eat everything

-- I’m an equal opportunity eater. Which is why the hashtag #FitnessFoodie has become synonymous with my fitness endeavors. Part of it is genetics, another part going through health kicks to combat certain toxins, and the final part is working out.

Another hashtag, almost a mantra, has been #StrongNotSkinny.

Being unhealthy on the inside, both mentally and physically, isn’t based on appearance. Health issues aren’t biased if you’re a size two or 12. I might wear a size four, but in January I couldn’t last an hour in spin class. Today, I make cardio a priority for my heart in addition to lifting weights to maintain a physical strength. I am strong, not skinny.

Above all, this year I finally understood that feeling my best was far more important than looking it. I’m proud to say that I have rid myself of all self-hate and selfloathing, a lifelong goal. Rather, I have learned to completely accept my body in its every version.

Whether I can fit into my favorite outfit or not, I still love the person reflecting back at me despite what I wear. A lot of that has to do with the countless fitness articles I have written. By making fitness fun it has opened up a world of new experiences in addition to seeing a personal transformation.

But that’s not even the best part.

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The best part is walking through town, from Westhampton Beach to Greenport, and being approached by somebody who recognizes my face from the column. Hearing that they tried one of the exercises I wrote about, or how they discovered something new, is almost like having a wellness buddy without the commitment but all the motivation.

That’s what all of my readers are.

You are the motivation behind every step of what I do, not only for myself but for everyone else in our community. While my personal goals have been accomplished and then re-accomplished after falling off the wagon for a few weeks, 2017 has made me happier, healthier, and more motivated than ever. To all of

the companies that have been on my journey with me, from business owners to personal trainers, wellness companies and all those in between, I want to thank all of you for inspiring me to inspire others.

As I write my last column for the year in my first year as a columnist I cannot promise where the next year will bring us. But I can promise you this. As long as you believe in yourself, I will believe in you. Because I believe in this community and that no matter what age, shape, or size, we are all strong together. In Omnia Paratus (prepared for anything)!

You can follow more stories from Nicole Teitler on Instagram and Facebook @NikkiOnTheDaily or email comments to NTeitler@gmail.com.

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December 20/27

2017

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