Life@Home Oct 2013

October 2013

Help Me‌ Carve a Pumpkin!

Is Your

Fireplace

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Audit Time

Is your home energy-efficient?

Victorian

Thinking An Albany restoration

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TimesUnion.com Paul Block, Executive Producer Life@Home is published monthly. If you are interested in receiving home delivery of Life@Home magazine, please call (518) 454-5768 or e-mail magcirculation@timesunion.com.

For advertising information, please call (518) 454-5358.

Life@Home is published by Capital Newspapers and Times Union 645 Albany Shaker Rd, Albany, NY 12212 518.454.5694 The entire contents of this magazine are copyright 2013 by Capital Newspapers. No portion may be reproduced in any means without written permission of the publisher.

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Contents Home

48

In Every Issue 10 12 14 20

Talk Back On the Web Editor’s Note Window Shopping

In This Issue 24 Victorian Thinking

An Albany brownstone holds onto its history

40 Green Latrine

Save money -- and the environment -- with these 20 tips

46 Hearth Health

How safe is your fireplace?

48 Feeling Fall

Some ideas for cozying up your home for fall

Features October 2013

October 2013

18 @Home

38 DIY Diva

34 Design Defined

51 10 Ways to …

36 Problem Solved

52 Dollars & Sense

Generation love

Life@Home | Ideas and Inspiration for Living

Help Me… Carve a Pumpkin!

Count on counters

Is Your

Fireplace Safe?

www.timesunion.com/lifeathome

Audit Time

Is your home energy-efficient?

Victorian Thinking An Albany restoration

Turning an unused space into a grown-up room

 On the cover: Photo by Colleen Ingerto

New uses for mason jars … make the most of fall!

Bank? Credit Union? Here’s what you need to know

54 Living Green

Is your heat escaping your house?

56 Refurnished Living Mirrors, mirrors

58 Down the Garden Path Bedding down roots and rhizomes for the winter

62 Tech Tips

What’s new in thermostats!

timesunion.com/lifeathome | 7

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Contents Life

In This Issue 66 Going to the Dogs

68

65

How to handle that problem puppy

68 Consider the Felt

This fabric isn’t just for kids

78 The Smell of Success Onion-centric cooking pleases all the senses

Features 65 Help Me …

… carve a pumpkin

71 Kitchen Crumbs Tasty tidbits

72 Dish

Cooking with John Futia of The Capital American Eatery & Lounge

74 Table@Home

A salad to echo the colors around us

76 The Vineyard

Recalibrating the taste buds with affordable Italian classics

81 My Space

Dana Rafferty’s favorite place

82 Photo Finish

Jacks are better

74 timesunion.com/lifeathome | 9

 Talk Back

The story behind the story … from our contributors Read below about how our contributors learned new things while working on this month’s edition of Life@Home.

Home Audit

Ode to Onions Cari Scribner

John Adamian

I own my home, and thought I was pretty knowledgeable about energy loss.

I have upgraded windows and doors and an insulated basement. But I’d never considered the hidden leaks that could be letting heated air out of the house!

I’ve signed up for a home energy audit. See Cari’s story on page 54.

Roots and Rhizomes Colleen Plimpton Gardeners of all ilks and skill levels have been known to be intimidated when it’s time to overwinter tender bulbs and rhizomes. That was my plight until I learned a few of the tricks of the trade. It takes a bit of effort and the proper storage accommodations, but it’s entirely possible to keep muchloved canna, dahlia, colocasia, and more in suspended animation until the warm days of spring arrive once more. See Colleen’s story on page 58.

Come Fall  Brianna Snyder I was already so excited for fall and I thought excitement alone might be enough to bring the autumn vibe to my home.

But then I talked to a few local designers and they gave me the most amazing ideas: pinecones in vases, fluffy throws, firewood and cinnamon candles, mmmmm.

I love this season. See Brianna’s story on page 48.

Green Latrine Laurie Lynn Fischer I always thought that a brick in the toilet tank helped save water, but my research revealed that it’s not always worth it. Another nifty thing I learned was that you can reenamel your bathtub instead of tearing it out and getting a new one. See Laurie’s story on page 40.

We asked … you answered Join the conversation! facebook.com/ lifeathomemagazine

There’s always something happening on Facebook.

Click to add your two cents and enter contests.

10 | Life@Home

• What’s your favorite thing about autumn?

Onions are members of the amaryllis family.

They have lovely flowers. And much of the plant’s energy is packed into those wonderful bulbs (onions), stored in hopes of flowering for the next season. It’s easy to forget that onions aren’t just weird layered balls that grow underground and make you cry. See John’s story on page 78.

Season’s Greetings Melissa Fiorenza For as long as I can remember, I’ve always defaulted to summer when asked about my favorite season. But as I wrote up this issue’s “10 ways,” it hit me that it’s time to officially switch that answer to fall. Especially in the Capital Region … it’s just so beautiful, and there are so many things to do. See Melissa’s story on page 51.

Here’s what our readers said this month on Facebook.

Joanne: I love the crisp air and golden colors.

• What’s everyone thinking for Halloween costumes this year?

Laura: Obviously the foliage, but wearing new fuzzy sweat clothes when it gets chilly is nice.

Rachel: I’m definitely going as one of the girls from the Blurred Lines video. #psych

Brigid: Apples.

Rachel: But seriously, I bet a lot of people will do Gatsbyinspired costumes.

Laurie: Hmmm, not all that much, sadly. The smell of dry leaves, the return of Homeland …

Bonnie: Elmo and a little boy.

Laura: Orange is the New Black group costumes.

Kathleen: I’m thinking Duck Dynasty … or Mayham, ya know the dude from the insurance commercial.

Tom: Yellow hazmat suits.

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more

ONLINE

Find more at timesunion.com/lifeathome Explore more content — photos, stories, recipes, videos and companion blogs — all in once place.

VIDEOS Watch Chef John Futia make smoked whitefish spread. Yummy!

PHOTOS Check out more photos online from this month’s @home feature (page 24).

STORIES Pesky Neighbors Your neighbors are major jerks. What can you do about it? (We’ll give you some tips.)

Tenant Strategies One Window, Many Ways One window can completely change the look of a room. We’ll show you how.

LIFE@HOME ONLINE Pinterest

pinterest.com/ timesunionmags Like our photos? Follow us on Pinterest, where we pin all our original photography and more!

12 | Life@Home

Facebook YouTube

youtube.com/ TimesUnionMagazines Want to go beyond the pictures in the magazine? Check out our behind-the-scenes videos.

Life@Home Blogs timesunion.com/lifeathome

Follow our 518 blog for great local finds and our House Things blog for gems dug up around the Web.

facebook.com/ lifeathomemagazine

Like us! Join in our conversations! Win free stuff! And stay on top of all our latest stories and news.

Neighbors photo: Shannon Fagan/GettyImages.

Renters have annoying neighbors, too. Here’s what you can do.

 Editor’s Note

W

hile I have a general policy prohibiting a fire in the fireplace after April 1 — it’s spring for goodness sake! — a particularly dreary day at the end of April this year made me cave. At least, I reasoned, we weren’t turning on the heat.

My husband had already cleaned out the fireplace for the season so it was pristine. Not an ash to be seen. Our son did the honors and built a mega-pile of kindling and logs, lit the match and walked away.

The fire roared from the first spark and within a few moments, smoke started drifting back into the family room. I stuck my hand in to make sure the flue was open. It was.

But the smoke kept coming, followed by loud cracking sounds and a different kind of roar than the normally cheery one fires produce.

We were confused. What is that popping

sound? Why is the chimney making its own roaring sound?

I grabbed an oven mitt, opened the door to the patio, and reached in for a piece of wood that wasn’t fully on fire. “Call 911,” I said. Then I grabbed our portable copper firepit and ran inside to fill it with burning logs. My husband opened windows and doors.

I emptied the fireplace quickly but the smoke and weird noises kept coming. We all went outside to wait for the volunteer firemen to arrive. By the time they came things had died down, but we were lucky.

Two weeks later, I made an appointment for a full cleaning and a masonry check — and I’ll never light a fire that big or go without an annual chimney cleaning ever again. Read our story on fireplace safety on page 46, and be careful this winter. 

Photo by Krishna Hill.

Fire Safety Janet Reynolds Executive Editor jreynolds@timesunion.com

Experience at: Crossgates Mall Albany 518.452.9170

Spring’s joy starts with the bulbs we plant now!

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Furnishings  Gadgets  Décor

Home 17 – 62

Deep greens and rich mahogany. Photo by Colleen Ingerto. Read more on page 24.  timesunion.com/lifeathome | 17

 Home Life

Generation Love

“G

ot some room there?”

Maxine mumbles, pacifier hanging from the corner of her mouth, belly sticky with raspberries from the bush out back. She is staring up at her great-grandmother, Thelma, a 90-yearold firecracker with — seriously — the best posture I’ve ever seen. Thelma leans down and asks Maxine to repeat herself, putting a hand to her ear while chuckling at how poorly she hears even with her hearing aids in. I suggest Max take her pacifier out and she obliges.

“GOT SOME ROOM THERE?” Max grins while emphasizing each word. She knows her great-grandmother can’t hear very well.

She also knows she’s about to be scooped into her great-grandmother’s lap and have her feet rubbed while listening to stories.

Great-Grandmother always has room and always has time.

“What have you been up to?” Thelma asks Max, putting a pillow behind her back before gently pulling on her little 3- year-old toes.

“I picked raspberries with Mimi,” Max answers, referring to her grandma whose house we are staying at while we look for a new house. Every afternoon after quiet time Max heads into the yard with Mimi.

They feed the fish in the pond and then visit the raspberry bush. The first afternoon they went they brought a bowl. After putting more berries into her mouth than into the bowl, though, Max suggested they just pretend her mouth was the bowl. Now

18 | Life@Home

they stand there each afternoon until Max has eaten her fill.

There are four generations under one roof right now, and Maxine flits about from her great-grandmother to her grandparents to her parents. Her aunt and cousins live up the road and she is often delighted to find them in the house when she wakes up in the morning or from her afternoon nap. After spending most of her first three years far away from this part of her family, within just a few days of arriving she fell completely in love with everyone. There is always someone ready to play dolls or look for bugs in the yard, always a free hand to grab her a snack or pour her a glass of milk. She has entered into a space of endless access and, in the process, is learning about the world through eyes that run from 13 years old to 90. It is, in short, a helluva view.

I

n some cultures so many generations living together is the norm. I don’t come from any of those cultures, though, and so this experience is one I have to talk myself through. Some mornings I wake up feeling like a failure, feeling as if we’ve strayed horribly far from the trajectory we’re supposed to be on. I like a clean, clear path before me and work hard to maintain it.

This detour, then, that has no clear end and that I know no one else following, rises anxiously in my throat sometimes. I miss the tidiness of a day that starts and ends with just my partner and daugh-

ter and me, the ability to walk into the kitchen in my underwear and a T-shirt on humid summer mornings after a sticky sleep, being alone with my partner after our kid is in bed. I have held these things as markers of independence, of self-sufficiency and following the right path. They are all gone right now and even though this was entirely by choice, sometimes I feel horribly lost.

And then I go to check on Maxine and she is painting with her great-grandmother and when I say hello Max asks me to please leave them alone. And then Max tells me when I am kissing her goodnight that she became friends with Auntie Liz immediately when she met her. And then I look out the kitchen window while washing dishes and see Max on the swing with her teenage cousins, laughing hysterically as they hang upside down and teach her how to pump by herself. And then she is swimming with her Mimi, completely caught up in an imaginary world of dinosaurs together, this fantasy land enhanced tenfold

by Mimi’s limitless imagination.

The richness of these interactions is worth the detour from our usual path in spades.

Before we know it, this time spent living together, hanging out in a group that spans four generations and nine decades, will be a memory. We’ll resume visits for holidays and dinner. My hope, then, is that Maxine is old enough to remember this time, if not specifically then as a feeling, because right now she has never known so much love. 

Photo: Hans Neleman/GettyImages.

By Rachel Fiske

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 Window Shopping

Shop Smart Shop Local In each issue, Window Shopping highlights interesting and unique items available at area stores. This month we take a stroll to Schenectady.

Photos by Krishna Hill

Chalkboard Federal Star chalkboard with pegs, $64.99. Available at Kugler’s Red Barn.

Vrrrooom!

Folding Table Folding table, 21" diameter x 18" height is great for camping. Both square and circle shapes are available. $60.

Available at Adirondack Wood Shed.

20 | Life@Home

Children’s rocking motorcycle is made in oak with a cushioned seat. $210.

Available at Adirondack Wood Shed

Kids’ Table and Chairs Oak table and chairs, golden oak finish.

Table measures 17" x 27.5" x 19". $230.

Available at Adirondack Wood Shed.

Nightstand Three-drawer pine nightstand/end table. Unfinished price, $130; finished, $255. Available at Adirondack Wood Shed.

Wine Rack

Chair and a Half

Wall hanging wooden wine rack, $60. Available at Adirondack Wood Shed.

Ontario-style oversize chair by Hallagan, a family-owned upstate New York company that’s been creating American-made pieces for over 100 years. 49” x 37” x 37”, two pillows included. Price dependent on fabric; starts at $1,999. Available at Kugler’s Red Barn.

Featured stores Kugler’s Red Barn 425 Consaul Rd, Schenectady, NY 12304

Adirondack Wood Shed 4020 State St. Schenectady, NY 12304 continued on 22 timesunion.com/lifeathome | 21

 Window Shopping continued from 21

Our Bloggers Shop

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ONLINE

To stay in our bloggers’ design loop 24/7, go to timesunion.com/lifeathome.

Are you a design and décor junkie? We’ve got your fix at timesunion.com/lifeathome. And check out this month’s picks from our local and national bloggers. There’s more where these came from!

Home Décor@518

By Valerie DeLaCruz

Want to spruce up your exterior without the expense of new siding? An easy fix is changing out your light fixtures. Lighting plays such an important part in curb appeal. And I’m not talking about the same old tired lanternstyle fixtures that are so prevalent they’ve become pedestrian.

Finish is important so you can minimize maintenance. This beautiful exterior wall sconce

22 | Life@Home

from Hubbardton Forge Lighting (hubbardtonforge.com) is an updated take on a hurricane lamp. Adding the seeded glass nods toward the traditional while shading inevitable cobwebs and bugs, and the candelabra bulb is now available in LED so you will likely never change it. Hand-forged in Vermont, their metal finishes are gorgeous. This one is Bronze Opaque. Available locally from Wolberg Lighting (wolberg.com).

House Things

By Janet Reynolds

Can’t commit to an entire rug?

Trying to cover an awkward space?

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and when you’re done with yours — because you want more in a different color, of course — you can return them to the company, which will use the materials again.

Pictured here is just one of their many autumnal color options.

The Modern Mix in Brown option includes four tonal variations of a single hue. $80 for a set of 4 design squares. Available at various locations in Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. Visit flor.com.

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Victorian Thinking An Albany brownstone holds onto its history

By Brianna Snyder | Photos by Colleen Ingerto

W

hen Bill Lawrence and Alan Ray bought their downtownAlbany brownstone in 1978, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

The four-story home had been functioning as a rooming house. “It was disgustingly filthy. Each of the bedrooms upstairs had a sink in it and a stove and fridge, and they all shared a bathroom,” Lawrence says. “We were naïve about how much work it was going to be, let me tell you.”

Both Ray and Lawrence, now retired, worked as educators for the state. Ray’s a historian and worked for the New York State Museum. So this 19th-century home was the perfect source of interest and affection for the couple, who’ve invested 35 years in caring for, renovating and restoring.

“One of the reasons we bought the house, even though it was in terrible disrepair, is that virtually all the architecture was intact,” Lawrence says.

Today, the house is a miracle of Victorian preservation. Keeping as true to the aesthetic of the time as possible (Lawrence and Ray scoured books and documents about the home’s history and the style of the house and the era), this home is deep and rich in color; there are hidden-in-plainview details, such as ornate flourishes along the staircase, elaborate doorway arches, ceiling-high mirrors, original moldings, marble mantelpieces and — oh yeah — a dumbwaiter. continued on 26

timesunion.com/lifeathome | 25

continued from 25

The house was built in 1860, Lawrence says, and in 1876, the dining room and third floor were added. (The house is four levels, including a finished basement.)

When the two first moved in, they immediately tackled the banister, a decision that Lawrence says he’s grateful they made; the process of stripping chocolate brown paint from each individual rail (going up three floors) was painstaking and took several days. He says, laughing, that if they hadn’t done it right away — when they were younger and more energetic and ambitious — it probably never would’ve been done.

In the master bedroom, a wallpaper border wraps its way around the top of the

This Victorian-style wallpaper border inspired this room’s décor.  26 | Life@Home

“

We’re not interested in living anywhere else.”

— Bill Lawrence

Alan Ray (at left) and Bill Lawrence (at right) bought this Albany rowhouse in 1978. 

28 | Life@Home

walls, which are painted a dark forest green to complement the paper’s rich, floral design. And as it happens, this border was picked from a shop in California called Bradbury & Bradbury, which makes Victorian-style wallpaper. Lawrence and Ray chose the border pattern and

decorated around it.

What the couple is most excited about recently, though, is their newly-refinished basement. For most of the time they’ve lived here, they’ve rented the bottom part of the house as an apartment. “The first thing we did [when we

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first moved in] was to do this part down here” in the basement, Lawrence says, “because we wanted the extra income.” When they decided they wanted that part of their house back, they did a major renovation: They reinstated the dumbwaiter (that had been there but gutted by the time they’d bought the house) so that the basement could be turned into a gorgeous,

high-functioning kitchen (done

by Bennett Contracting and Builder’s Kitchens, both in Albany). A sitting area, fireplace and fully-loaded kitchen now comprise the lowermost part of Lawrence and Ray’s home, and Lawrence says it’s their favorite spot in the house. It’s also the most contemporarylooking, with stainless-steel appliances and bright new wooden finish, but with subtle

This dumbwaiter was recently restored and is now fully functional.  30 | Life@Home

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Count on

Counters

By Lucianna Samu | Photo by Mark Samu

E

very time I tape a fresh piece of paper onto my drafting table, I follow the same exact process. After so many years, and beginning with the tape, I still can’t even say for sure if my process is correct. But it’s my process; to measure the paper carefully, line up my drafting pencils, gather my erasers.

Then it’s the tiny brush I use to whisk away the remains of mistakes, crummy ideas or impossible-to-execute design whimsy, which gets an unceremonious bashing to clear out the remains of my penchant for working with heavy lead. Next, it’s the tools, many of which I never use, some of which I’m not sure I know how to use. But I lay them out just in case, in a systematic size-placed order, which borders on the obsessive.

At the bottom right hand corner, just above my questionable tape placement, I title and number the creative task at hand: Kitchen #whatever. Running my hand across the blank paper on my drafting table, my process ends in the form of a prediction, stated out loud: “This kitchen will end with a minimum six trips to the granite yard.”

Simply put, every great kitchen comes together at the marble yard, the granite yard, the stone supplier, or the countertop store. Occupying the longest expanse of horizontal surface in almost every kitchen, the counter surfaces take up a good bit of an onlooker’s visual field. The short story is that the counters are a big deal.

Granite is, and has been for some time, the go-to material for counters. That’s not to say many suitable alternatives don’t exist: soapstone, marble, zinc, stainless steel, recycled glass composites, glass, quartz, Corian and similar products and, lest we forget, the Ironsides of counter material, Formica. Prices vary as much as the pros

34 | Life@Home

and cons inherent in each surface. In my experience, when these equally desirable counter surface alternatives are decided on in earnest, it’s not before a pilgrimage to at least three granite suppliers has taken place.

The cost of granite continues to decrease thanks to its ever-growing demand. When hunting for colors, which are nearly as limitless as the dazzling patterns, keep in mind that the bold and the busy will settle back nicely once placed in a horizontal position. Polished and sealed, granite is nearly impervious to the common assaults of day-to-day wear in the kitchen. The inherent shine of an expertly polished stone surface will lend a reflective aspect to the kitchen, another plus for polished materials, especially when a kitchen perimeter is lined ceiling to floor with richly colored wood cabinetry.

The current trend is to hone granite, a method of polishing that appears more dense and matte when completed. Sealed for protection in the same manner as a polished stone, honed finishes will wear as well if not better than polished granite. Since anything matte will show fewer water spots than a shiny surface, a honed surface may be preferable for super busy cooks creating culinary magic in super sunny kitchens.

Another new trend is granite that is finished or polished to what is termed a “leathered finish.” The distinctive layered mosaic-like texture of this finish, brings the simplest materials such as absolute black granite to life with dazzling interest.

Since the shine on a leathered stone sort

of undulates, the surface appears more complex than it really is, and imperfections of any making will be hard to discern under any light.

Even those lucky enough to find a dream granite selection the first time out are not off the hook in contemplating options. Any good granite yard will offer a minimum selection of ten edge profiles. In order of complexity, these begin with the pencil, quarter round, bevel bullnose, double quarter round, half bullnose, ogee, DuPont, Rockefeller, triple pencil, triple lindy, and finally, the very swanky, double ogee. It’s a hard sell to those on their first sojourn to the granite yard, but the edge detail can make or break the budget on a granite installation.

So, if your decision-making skills are poor, it’s useful to make your edge decision before you sheepishly ask that another slab be teetered over your head for inspection. It’s a good day when the counter material can be noted on a finished kitchen drawing, which takes time, planning and creative spirit. But more than anything, finding a dream counter surface takes stamina and some determination. And if my experience or process is to be relied upon for general rules, that dream stone will always appear before the 10th time out. 

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TOP TIP Think symmetrically: “I think when things are offcenter, it’s a little jarring,” Gargano says. “Your brain wants to make sense of things and balance things. … We all have an eye for symmetry in some regard.”

36 | Life@Home

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Balancing Act Making a grown-up room

By Brianna Snyder | ‘After’ photo by Emily Jahn

PROBLEM When you’re the parents of two young children, the house gets messy and cluttered with toys quickly. So these Saratoga homeowners and parents decided to give themselves a Grown-up Room, where a glass of wine could be enjoyed and a book read peacefully, without worrying about accidentally stepping on a Lego. But aside from installing wood floors, the homeowner wasn’t sure where to go from there. So she enlisted Jennifer Gargano of Jennifer Gargano Interiors in Saratoga Springs to help her solve the puzzle.

SOLVED One of the first things Gargano says she did was use the big bay window as the room’s focal point. “We centered everything on the window and made [the room] more symmetric,”

Gargano says. That made the room “so much more balanced,” she says. The couple were also interested in having the TV over the fireplace, and they added chairs that swivel around so that if several adults are hanging in the Grown-up Room, everyone can watch TV comfortably. But Gargano wanted a second focal point for the room (besides the TV), so she arranged the furniture around a table to create a space “for chatting.” And to make the room less cluttered, the homeowner took several of the framed photos that had been propped up on tables and made them into photo albums, which rest accessibly beneath the table. “Paring down the number of items in the room and putting some things up that made an impact really opened everything up,” Gargano says. 

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Putting a Lid On It New uses for Mason jars Story and photos by Megan Willis

One day I hope to pickle some peppers, put up a row of sauce or can some dilly beans.

Until then I still appreciate the beauty of these jars and I like having them around. They instantly evoke steamy kitchens where secrets are shared for a day and then sealed up tight.

Whether you’ve got leftover jars or just want to add a little fall flavor to your house, here are a few ideas.

Know your jar • Jars range from tiny 4 to a mammoth 64 oz.

• Sold by the dozen, smaller jars price out just over a buck each.

That is a good old-fashioned bargain that beats the Container Store with a stick.

• Called “Mason” jars after a guy named Mason who started the whole thing, Kerr and Ball are the prominent brands today.

• Modern jars are clear glass but in honor of its centennial, you can buy replica vintage, blue jars that fun-loving canners refer to as “Blue Balls.” I am not making this up.

• Stock up now for holiday gifting. Grocery stores may be out; check hardware stores or online.

38 | Life@Home

Fill ’er up

1

3

2

4

Small 4-8 oz. jars are great for holding small doo-dads of all kinds. Fill with cotton balls, hair bands, clips, tooth brushes, bath salts, razors, scissors, garden herbs, flowers, pens, office supplies or make-up brushes — to name a few options.

Large 16-64 oz. jars work great for storing and displaying things. Fill with bulk rice, beans and grains, flours and sugars, sea shells, pine cones, vintage Christmas ornaments, buttons, bouquets, paint brushes, bobbins or candy.

1

Drinking glasses. Stole this from the Lucas’ Confectionary in Troy. Get your bootlegger hillbilly on with this festive vessel. A jar is now my favorite water glass at home. Fill with cider, ginger ale/beer, ice cream floats, lemonades, ice water or cocktails.

Gift ideas. You can find super easy recipes online for homemade gifts by the dozen. Fill with bath salts, infused sugars, vinegars or vodkas, baked goods or baking mixes. 

3

Megan Willis has a life-long passion for turning trash into treasure. Her blog, The Davenport Chronicles, can be found at blog. davenport.com.

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By Laurie Lynn Fischer

A

long-abandoned two-seater outhouse, complete with the door with a crescent-moon cutout, sits across the yard from our farmhouse. Bathrooms don’t get any more environmentally friendly than that. The idea is to use one side and compost the other.

Indoor bathroom enthusiasts could flush with buckets of rainwater collected in a barrel … but not many of us do. The closest my household comes is using pails of pond water during power outages.

How else could you green up your bathroom? Here are some practical ideas:

1

Displace water in an older toilet tank to reduce water usage per flush. You don’t have to do it with a brick; it could be a gallon container full of water. But don’t obstruct moving parts or weaken your flushing power so much that re-flushing is necessary. That defeats the whole purpose.

40 | Life@Home

2

Get a more efficient toilet, suggests Barbara Vincent, showroom manager at Security Plumbing and Heating Supply in Albany. Switching to a Kohler high-efficiency toilet can conserve 16,500 gallons per year, she says. “They’re saying half of all toilets in U.S. homes are older, less-efficient models,” she says.

3

Modernize your bathroom fixtures, and you could save hundreds of dollars and thousands of gallons of water, Vincent says. “If you use water-efficient plumbing products, you can reduce your daily water use from 70 to 43 gallons,” she says. “That way you are helping the environment.

According to Kohler, if you do all of your fixtures, a family of four would save 39,000 gallons of water per year. That’s the equivalent of 2,000 showers. It’s enough to fill an entire backyard swimming pool and knock hundreds of dollars off your water bill.”

 Efficient toilets can conserve 16,500 gallons per year.

Photos: GettyImages. Green tile, Oleg Prikhodko; Toilet, flush kledge.

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Sink faucets with watersaving aerators cut water use by as much as 45 percent, Vincent says. “You’re balancing your water and air so you still get the full flow of the faucet,” she says. “The older faucets are 2.75 gallons per minute. Most of the ones you purchase now range between 1.5 and 2.2 gallons per minute.”

5

Choose a 1.75 gallon-perminute shower head or hand shower, not a 2.5 gallonper-minute one, Vincent says.

6

doesn’t heat the water all day long. It saves a lot.”

9

Reface your cabinets rather than replace them, suggests Antonio Tozzi, owner of Cabinet Craft Refacer in Clifton Park. “They charge $15 for the first thousand pounds at the Colonie landfill,” he says. “Refacing is three-quarters less in weight. You’re just talking the doors. You don’t have to rip out all their cabinets. They can use their stove and sink. The only things the customer has to do is empty their cabinets. It takes a week or two to replace cabinets and only about three days to reface them.”

Hot showers dry out skin and suck up energy. Use a shower head with a selfadjusting temperature valve, says Ralph Sicko, owner of Capital District Tub Want to know more about Refinishing in Clifton refacing? Check out our more Park. “If you turn the ONLINE exclusive article at tinyurl. shower on, it automaticom/LAH-refacing. cally adjusts to the temperature you want,” he says. “It doesn’t overheat. All Reglaze your tub raththat hot water is money out the er than getting a new window.” one. “It’s more beneficial to the environment to redo,” Sicko Turn down the hot water says. “Reglazing is a lot more heater and you’ll lower economical than gutting an your carbon footprint, power old bathroom. Getting a brand usage and energy costs. It new bathtub means you need can be adjusted to whatever to tear out walls and replace temperature you want, Vincent the plumbing and floor as well notes. “That will go throughout as the tub itself. The materials the whole house,” she says. would go to the dump. Copper pipes could be reused and cast Even better, install a pointiron might be salvageable, but of-use water heater. “It’s fiberglass or vinyl takes quite a a heating unit that goes on the few years to disintegrate back wall and heats it at the mointo the earth.” ment of use,” Sicko explains. “It continued on 45

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11

Got a claw-foot tub? Seal worn spots in your cast iron tub with a lead shield to prevent this toxic substance from seeping into bathwater, soil and groundwater, says Sicko, who does this routinely for customers.

“Most of our products would be fine in a moist environment. Some are made of Greenguard fabric, which doesn’t emit any odors or have any chemicals that are damaging to the environment.”

19

Line dry towels and washcloths.

Sun and wind use no energy at all, but a dryer is typically “the second biggest electricity-using appliance after the refrigerator,” the Consumer Energy Commission

12 13

Hands-free faucets conserve water, Sicko says. “Once you move your hand, the water stops,” he says.

“To save energy, replace incandescent bulbs with LEDs or CFLs [light-emitting diodes or compact fluorescent lights],” says Rebekah Mullaney, spokeswoman for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center in Troy.

14 Photos: GettyImages. Toilet paper, zoomstudio; Light bulb, Dean Turner; Clothes line, Howard Shooter.

The right blinds can save energy, insulate your bathroom windows, let light in and maintain privacy. “We have a variety of products that are very energy efficient and would provide heat protection from ultraviolet light,” says Jinx VanSteemburg, designer decorator with Comfortex Outlet Store in Latham.

15

Use paint that doesn’t off-gas, suggests John Foy, manager of Miller Paint in Albany. He recommends Benjamin Moore’s Natura, a water-based, zero VOC (volatile organic compound) paint. “Use an eggshell finish,” he advises. “It will wipe down easier and help prevent steam marks on the wall.”

16

Paint your bathroom green. It’s serene. Benjamin Moore makes every hue from paler Salisbury green to darker Lafayette green, Foy says.

says. “About 5.8 percent of residential electricity goes towards the clothes dryer,” reports laundrylist.com, citing statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy.

20

Use 100 percent recycled toilet paper. “Recycled tissue products help protect ancient forests, clean water and wildlife habitat,” states Greenpeace. org. “It’s easier on the Earth to make tissues from paper instead of trees.” 

17

In my house, we use homemade vinegar-orange-and-water cleaner or hydrogen peroxide.

If you’re buying commercial cleaners, baking soda products work great, VanSteemburg says. Many eco-conscious consumers choose Seventh Generation and Method brands, she says, advising, “Look for phosphate-free products without perfumes and dyes.”

18

Take showers rather than baths.

The average bath requires 30 to 50 gallons of water, whereas a four-minute shower uses 10 gallons of water with a lowflow shower head or 20 gallons of water with a pre-1992 shower head, according to the Consumer Energy Commission. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 45

Hearth Health How safe is your fireplace?

D

uring an ice storm, Delmar native Carolyn Strasser Humphreys was drifting off to sleep with her 5-year-old when she smelled smoke.

“Campfire,” she thought. It was cozy under the covers. She didn’t want to leave. Then she realized they weren’t camping!

She got up to investigate, and through glass doors, saw cinders falling into the gas fireplace they’d used before bedtime. The plywood around it had ignited the house’s cedar siding. Flames spread to the attic and roof.

“I called 911 and gave her the information,” Humphreys recalls. “I wrapped my daughter in a blanket and carried her downstairs. There was smoke when we were getting out of the house. When I got to the bottom of the driveway, I remember seeing the trees lighting up in back of our house and not knowing what was going to be left.

When the firefighters busted the front door in, there was a backdraft explosion and my whole living room ceiling collapsed.”

They were lucky. Nationwide, there are 3,000 to 4,000 fire fatalities annually, says Guy Swartwout, deputy chief of the Inspections and Investigations branch of the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control. In 2012, 45 fireplace- or chimney-

46 | Life@Home

related fires took place in Albany County, while 49 occurred in Rensselaer County, 44 in Saratoga County and 35 in Schenectady County, he says.

“We use fire for all sorts of positive purposes, but when not used correctly, it becomes a devastating force that can cause loss of possessions, injury and even death,” he says. Here are his safe fireplace recommendations.

DO: • Clean and inspect your chimney annually.

• Install a mesh screen or spark arrestor on top of your chimney to keep hot materials from landing on the roof and igniting it.

• Regularly maintain all heating equipment and extend vent pipes at least three feet above the roof.

• Fireproof the floor around the fireplace.

• Keep combustibles at least three feet from the hearth.

• Place logs at the rear of the fireplace on an adequate supporting grate when making fires.

• Build fires that are too low to enter the chimney. Wrist-sized branches blaze. Thigh-sized logs burn slow and

hot. Split logs are less likely to roll and throw sparks than full logs.

• Close mesh fireplace screens and open (most) glass doors while burning.

• Water down and cool ashes in a tightly covered metal container 10 feet from any structure and discard far from flammable materials.

• Have working smoke alarms.

• Know two escape routes.

• Keep escape routes unobstructed.

• Have family home exit drills.

• Prearrange an emergency meeting place outside the home so rescuers can account for everyone.

DON’T: • Use flammable liquid to start or increase fires.

• Leave fires unattended. Always extinguish them before leaving the house or going to sleep.

• Burn cardboard boxes, trash or debris.

• Stack firewood outdoors within 30 feet of your house.

• Let tree debris or branches accumulate on or near your roof, chimney, flues or vents.

Photos: GettyImages. Fireplace, David Sucsy; Chimney, majorosl.

By Laurie Lynn Fischer

Chimney Fires

IF THERE IS A FIRE … yy Call 911. yy Get out and stay out. yy Stop, drop and roll if you’re on fire. yy Stay low where air is cooler and safer to breathe. Most people perish from smoke and gases, not flames. yy Close doors to buy time and keep fire from spreading. yy When opening doors, stay low and to the side. Check what’s there before proceeding.

— Guy Swartwout

A chimney fire can rumble and shake like a freight train, says state fire prevention and control expert Guy Swartwout. “In a traditional chimney, it makes a roaring noise,” he says. “You could have one and not know it. If you’re using metal double-wall-manufactured chimneys, you may not hear the fire. It will only be smoky if you get a draft down into the room. The room might not be hotter.”

Chimney fires can reach temperatures of 1,500 to 1,800 degrees, says Tim Smith, owner of Actual Chimney Specialist, based in Averill Park. Chimfex sticks can extinguish them, he says. “You engage it and throw it into the fire,” he explains. “It produces an enormous amount of black smoke and starves the chimney fire of oxygen. The active ingredient is potassium nitrate.”

Use it for escape, not as a first option, stresses Swartwout. “Every minute you take trying to put it out yourself makes things more dangerous,” he says. “Fire doubles every 30 seconds. You easily could find yourself in a situation that’s way beyond control and possibly beyond survival.”

Wet wood is the number one reason chimney fires start, Smith says. “It smolders,” he says. “It creates 10 times as much smoke as dry wood.

When flue gases hit the cool walls of the chimney, they condense and harden. Creosote is the tar that accumulates.”

There’s more build-up if wood’s moisture content exceeds 17 percent, he says. Obtain a moisture meter, he advises. Below 15 percent is best.

Use seasoned hardwood, Swartwout says. “If it’s been sitting on the ground absorbing moisture for a year or getting rained on in a pile, it’s not seasoned,” says Smith. Order seasoned firewood in April and dry it all summer, covering the woodpile’s top and leaving the sides open to the air.

For a proper draft and a clean burn, leave the damper wide open while using the fireplace, Smith recommends. Closing it slightly to reduce the draft and “throw more heat into the room” hinders smoke from escaping, causing soot and creosote to amass, he says.

Exterior wall chimneys are prone to smoking, Smith says. “Cold air is always coming down the flue,” he explains. “A sudden burst of heat is needed to reverse this. Lots of newspaper works, but Smith says other products can also help it light easily and stay lit, such as fire starter blocks, which are made of waxed wood particles, and fatwood, which is real wood treated with a solution. 

timesunion.com/lifeathome | 47

Feeling Fall

Ideas for cozying up your home for autumn

By Brianna Snyder

W

e all have our own special way of celebrating the seasons in our homes. For spring, we might start putting fresh-cut flowers in every room. In summer, we open all the doors and windows and pull out the wicker chairs and the watermelonthemed tumblers. And then comes fall.

The season of spice and warmth and purple and orange.

We chatted with local designers — and with our friends and readers on Facebook — who gave us lots of ideas for cozying up our homes for fall. We also made a 48 | Life@Home

Pinterest board, so check it out and share your own ideas there (Pinterest.com/TimesUnionMags) and on Facebook (facebook. com/lifeathomemagazine). Let the decorating begin!

START WITH THE FRONT DOOR. “The front door can have a wonderful fall-themed wreath or a doorpiece made with fall colors,” says Rudy Grant of Experience and Creative Design in Schenectady.

He likes Indian corn (but be careful: birds love Indian corn and may eat it all up, he warns). Go beyond the front door too, Grant suggests: lampposts and mailboxes

look lovely in fall adornments — leaf wreaths and wraps give guests “a fall-type feeling” when visiting, he says.

SWITCH YOUR DRAPES! Jennifer Gargano, of Jennifer Gargano Interiors in Saratoga Springs, says changing your drapes is “an easy switch.” “I might go to a spicy velvet,” she says, “something with a richer, warmer hue.”

THEN COME THE PILLOWS. Holly Becker, of the amazing Decor8blog.com, writes in a blogpost, “I love to change my pillows with the seasons, that’s

Photos: GettyImages. Curtain, Bengt-Goran Carlsson; Table, Jonelle Weaver; Candle, Lilly Dong; Wreath, Elizabeth Simpson; Glass Container, Jill Ferry; Pillow & Throw, Nick Pope.

WE CALL IT THE BATH-WILL-SHINE-LIKE-NEW-ROOM why when I buy pillows these days I usually buy only the zippered covers and leave the inserts in the store. … I also like to use hues a few shades deeper than what I use in the summer. For instance, lilac and pale blue gets replaced with jewel tones like plum and turquoise or plum and deep sea blue.”

AND THROWS! Fleecy blankets, afghans and quilts are coziness incarnate.

Folded or strategically draped/ tossed over an ottoman or the back of a sofa, they beg sitters to snuggle up.

TABLE RUNNERS AND FLOWER ARRANGEMENTS “Table runners are a good thing,” Gargano says. Golds, reds and oranges slipped subtly onto a table add autumnal warmth to the dining room.

And flowers? “In the fall you can go to berry stems, goldenrod, pinecones and berries,”

Our Readers’ Tips: We asked our Facebook fans and friends how they make their homes cozy for fall. Here’s what they said: Jill: Warm colors spiced candle scents and home cooked comfort foods

Gargano says. Switch out pinks and lilacs for yellows, auburns and purples.

GET SCENTSATIONAL “There’s a lot of wonderful scented votives out there,” Grant says. “There are some that are cinnamon or apple or other flavors that will put the scent in your house of fall.”

Gargano agrees: “Scent has a lot to do with ambiance,” she says. Pine, cinnamon, vanilla, clove and other spicy smells are all perfect for the season.

GO BOWLING Gargano says glass containers — bowls and vases or other oblong shapes — are great vessels for easily-swapped decor.

In the spring and summer fill them with marbles, stones or seashells. Come fall, replace the summer items with colorful leaves, pinecones, acorns or berries. Silver, gold and purple ornaments work well inside a fishbowl, too. 

of butter on and read Henry and Mudge. My daughter just today out of the blue asked to do this, so it must be fallish.

It’s the only time we read H&M anymore! But MY answer is shorter: Malbec.

Bichi: Pumpkiiiiiiiiinnnnnn! I’m ready!

Anika: Change of curtains, couch pillows and candles.

Danielle: I love making roasts in the oven or apple crisp.

Jenny: My kids and I have a ritual of making muffins — either quinoa or apple-carrot — and then when they come out of the oven, we put lots

Ali: I love fall/winter smells so much. I try to have a candle burning, cloves boiling or even something baking.

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10 Ways to …

Make the Most of Fall

By Melissa Fiorenza

W

hile you may already be missing the summertime sunshine, there’s no question that the Capital Region — and our surrounding areas — put on an amazing show in autumn. Between just-cool-enough temperatures, delicious bounty and Halloween, there’s plenty to do around here this time of year. Here are some ideas.

1

Go apple picking

2

Get scared

Indian Ladder Farms, Bowman Orchards, Altamont Orchards … There are literally dozens of U Pick (or Pick Your Own) sites in our corner of upstate New York, and no matter your age, there’s nothing like roaming a beautiful orchard for some fresh produce. Visit nyapplecountry.com to find one near you.

Did you know Ulster Park is home to an award-winning fright fest? Headless Horseman Hayrides & Haunted Houses (headlesshorseman.com) has received national attention from AOL, USA Today, MTV and others, and was even featured on The Today Show. Get your tickets online before they sell out.

Photos: Getty Images/Andrew Dernie.

3

Find the best cider donut

Spend a weekend day going around, doing just that. A few must-hits: Golden Harvest, Zachary’s Pastry Shoppe, Yonder Farms, Indian Ladder and Lakeside Farms.

4

Explore local parks

Got a smartphone? Download the free app, Oh, Ranger! NY State Parks. Based on your ZIP code and interests (hiking, camping, picnicking, etc.), it can show you where to go, how to get there and more.

5

Bake some pies

6

Eat al fresco

7

Hit up a fall festival

Apples, cranberries and pumpkins are currently in season. Use family recipes or find a few online — we love the easy instructions and mouth-watering photos at delish.com. Need some inspiration? Swing

by Grandma’s Pies & Restaurant on Central Avenue in Albany. (Their Southern Pecan is to-die-for.)

Take your brown bag lunch or homemade dinner outside. Your backyard, a picnic table at the park, anywhere you can get settled with your meal, a warm jacket and some light reading.

Chances are your town has its own.

Visit its official Facebook page or website and look for upcoming events.

8

Take a road trip

October is the best time to visit Salem, Mass. You can get to the historic — and eerily beautiful — city in under four hours from the Capital Region. Once there, take a ghost tour, visit the Salem Witch Museum or drop by a costume ball. Check out hauntedhappenings.org for help with your itinerary.

9

Get crafty

Decorating for Halloween doesn’t have to break your bank or your back.

Paint your pumpkins instead of carving them, toss some fake cobwebs in your trees for instant decor and turn to Pinterest for loads of cute DIY projects. Check out our Halloween board at pinterest.com/ timesunionmags.

10

Make it last

Before it all goes to waste, do a quick Google search to learn how to freeze everything from winter squash to pumpkins. The flavors of fall can easily linger into the approaching winter with some careful planning. 

Make your own cider donuts Think you’ve got what it takes to outdo the pros? At homemadesimple.com, type in Apple Cider Donut Recipe.

You’ll find not-too-tough instructions to tackle this fall staple on your own.

Want to join in the 10 Ways fun? Stay tuned to our Facebook page for upcoming questions: facebook.com/lifeathomemagazine. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 51

 Dollars and Sense

What you need to know to choose the right one for you

Bank or Credit Union?

M ost of us would probably agree that stowing your money beneath your mattress is unwise.

What should you do with it instead? Credit unions are one alternative. Banks are more popular. Here are some contrasts between the two so you can make a more informed choice on the best option for you:

GENERAL SETUP Banks are for-profit businesses focused on maximizing profit for investors. They’re privately owned by shareholders and more often involved in mergers and corporate takeovers. Credit unions are all nonprofit financial cooperatives whose members lend each other money.

Congress chartered the first credit unions during the Depression “to improve the financial stability of American consumers and create a better financial situation for their members,” says William Mellin, CEO of the Credit Union Association of New York.

52 | Life@Home

INCLUSIVENESS

PROFITS

Banks place fewer restrictions on who can open an account. “Anyone can bank with KeyBank,” says University Heights Branch Manager Jerome Bond. Credit unions are more like clubs. Funeral directors can finance hearses through Director’s Choice, a credit union whose members are all in the funeral business. Firefighters and EMTs obtain loans for certification courses through FASNY Federal Credit Union.

Other credit unions are more diversified.

Anyone who lives, works, worships or attends school in Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Watervliet, Cohoes, Green Island, and many other Northeast locations, for instance, may join SEFCU, says Chief Marketing Officer John DeCelle.

Capital Region consumers can identify which credit unions they’re eligible to join by calling 800-342-9835 or visiting www.

Smarterchoice.org.

Bank profits go primarily to investors.

Credit union profits go mostly to members in the form of cash, services and better interest rates.

“We typically keep our rates low,” says FASNY Federal Credit Union manager Todd Stevens. “We tend to have less overhead because of the credit union structure.

We can extend loans to people with more questionable credit than a bank.” Since 2008, SEFCU has granted $9 million to local nonprofit organizations.

DECISIONS Credit unions are democratic; all members vote equally. A bank is usually operated by a board of shareholder-elected directors.

As a KeyBank stockholder, for instance, I may vote at its annual meetings.

TAX STATUS Banks pay income taxes. As nonprofits,

Photo: Bank sign, artpartner-images/GettyImages.

By Laurie Lynn Fischer

credit unions are exempt from income taxes, though they do pay payroll, property and school taxes. Congress is contemplating legislation that would revamp the tax code to trim the number of tax exempt organizations. Banks are lobbying for credit unions to be taxed.

CONVENIENCE Because banks are more common nationwide, you’re generally more likely to find branches and automatic teller machines with a bank than a credit union. Kathy Speck of Rensselaerville keeps a bank account because it’s the only financial institution near home and it has an ATM. My family uses a Vermont credit union begun by General Electric employees for direct deposit and automatic bill paying, although we left the state 12 years ago. We make transactions via computer, phone and mail.

My children can put money into their CAPCOM accounts at school. CAPCOM puts $10 in their accounts for each report card and $3 for every book read.

use of other banks’ ATMs. If other banks impose ATM fees, KeyBank waives up to $6 per month, Bond says.

COOPATM is a surcharge-free ATM network for credit unions, with nearly 2,000 ATMs in New York. At cuservicecenters. com, you can learn if your credit union has teller sharing with other credit unions. This means you can walk into a credit union you don’t belong to, show a photo ID, and deposit money into your credit union account.

FEES While each bank is different, banks tend to charge more fees, and higher ones, than credit unions. KeyBank charges most clients for bank checks, Bond says. Thomas Krebs of Clarksville gets them monthly from CAPCOM for free.

“There are definitely fewer fees,” he says.

KeyBank and First Niagara charge checking account inactivity fees after three months, unless clients have direct deposit or a balance of hundreds.

SEFCU share draft (checking) accounts can be dormant for three years before the funds must legally be considered abandoned and relinquished to the state. The minimum balance for opening a SEFCU account is $1, says DeCelle.

RECIPROCATION Banks collaborate with each other. So do credit unions. KeyBank doesn’t charge for

toward cash back, travel, merchandise and gift cards, Bond says. CAPCOM members have access to a free coin counting machine. “They don’t take a cut like they do at the Coinstar machine in the grocery store,” Krebs says.

ASSETS Collectively, banks have more assets than credit unions ($14.4 trillion versus $1 trillion). Forty percent of Americans belong to credit unions, but credit unions hold only six percent of all financial assets, according to donttaxmycreditunion.org.

“Credit unions are nice and personal, but they’re not going to fund Global Foundries,” says Rensselaerville accountant Kevin McGrath.

Smaller, regional banks “generally have a larger percentage of their capital in lending operations than do the larger banks that are heavily invested in securities and the like,” says Huntersland resident Philippa Dunne, co-editor of The Liscio Report, an independent newsletter on the macro-economic outlook.

INSURANCE The U.S. Government backs both bank and credit union accounts for up to $250,000. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures banks and the National Credit Union Administration insures credit unions.

INTEREST Across the board, credit unions offered better interest rates than banks in a 2013 comparison by Informa Research Services, which contrasted personal savings, interest checking, money market deposit, one year certificates, reward credit cards, home equity, new and used auto and personal loans.

CONSUMER SATISFACTION

PERKS

The banking sector scored 68.6 percent and credit unions scored 79 percent in the 2013 Temkin Experience Ratings. This customer service study, performed by the Massachusetts-based Temkin Group, surveyed 10,000 Americans concerning 19 industries, ranging from supermarkets to parcel delivery chains. 

Both banks and credit unions offer freebies, such as lollipops, coffee, and hands-free soap dispensers for opening an account. KeyBank clients can earn points through everyday banking activity

Bethlehem native Laurie Lynn Fischer is a regular Life@Home contributor who bought her first car, began her investment portfolio and launched her professional journalism career as a teenager. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 53

 Living Green

Audit Time Is your heat escaping your house? There’s a solution for that.

By Cari Scribner

54 | Life@Home

Scarafile, a Building Performance Institutecertified building analyst with Butler Building Performance and Contracting Corp., in Clifton Park.

Energy auditors use blower door tests to help determine building air tightness and pinpoint leaks in a house. Establishing the proper building tightness helps reduce energy consumption due to air leakage, among other benefits.

Air flow through a building can have a powerful impact on comfort, expense and air quality. Blower doors provide a way to quantify air flow and the resulting heat loss,

along with a way to pinpoint specific leaks.

A blower door is a powerful fan that mounts into the frame of an exterior door.

The fan pulls air out of the house, lowering the air pressure inside. The higher outside air pressure then flows in through all unsealed cracks and openings. A pressure gauge measures the pressure differences inside and outside the home. These tests determine the air infiltration rate of a building based on the size and volume of the home.

Energy auditors then produce a report with recommendations for the homeowner on where to make improvements

Photos: BanksPhotos/GettyImages.

O

utdoor temperatures are dipping, and, alas, it’s time to turn the thermostat on after a long, hot summer. We all want to make sure every dollar we spend to keep our homes toasty stays indoors rather than seep outdoors.

If you continuously turn up your thermostat, but still experience cold spots or drafts in your house, it’s time to have your home audited. A certified technician will arrive at your home and do a meticulous inspection from basement to attic, looking for areas where cold air is infiltrating, and where warm air is leaking out. Common trouble spots include the attic, walls, crawlspaces, windows and doors, and basements. Heat sources, such as the furnace and hot water tanks, are also tested for safety and efficiency.

Along with a visual inspection, technicians use state-of-the-art equipment. A blower door test measures the extent of leaks in your home’s structure and reveals those hard-to-detect areas of air infiltration and missing insulation.

“This test allows us to see how the whole house is working as a system,” says Lori

to their homes to save them ing on the size of your home. money on their utility costs.

Although there is an income Home owners are often surcomponent to qualify, most prised at the results.

New York residents will qualify “Many people think what for a free home-energy audit. they need is new windows, but Also, NYSERDA is offering they can spend $15,000 to put grants, incentives and lowin new windows and still be cold inside,” Scarafile says. “We advise them where to spend money so they’ll get the best return on their investment.”

Recommendations typically include upgrading insulation in the attic and walls and any other parts of the house that are leaking, and switching to more energy efficient hot water tanks, appliances and heating systems. The report also lists costs for the improvements and the actual payback period for those upgrades in utility  Infrared thermal imaging system being used during a home energy audit. expense savings.

“Winter is a great time to have an energy audit done, interest loans that can help pay because there are signs homefor all or most of the improveowners can look for in the cold ments you make to have a more weather,” Scarafile says. “If your energy efficient home. To find home has icicles, if there are ice out more, visit www.nyserda. dams forming, or if the snow ny.gov/Residential/Programs. melts right off the roof, heat is Scarafile says it’s intriguing escaping from somewhere.” to visit homes and investigate Concerned about the cost of how they can be made more an energy audit? For a limenergy-efficient. “Every house ited time, the New York State is different,” Scarafile says.

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Whether you use a large mirror to reflect a window and open a space up or simply hang as one piece of art, a mirror can make all the difference in a room.



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Alison Grieveson is a graphic designer who enjoys exploring the greener side of the design and decorating industries. For more green tips, check out RefurnishedLiving.com. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 57

 Down the Garden Path

Nighty Night Story and photos by Colleen Plimpton

M

y husband, an upstanding, energetic member of our local United Methodist Church, is not generally given to rebuking his wife.

However, lately he’s uttered more than a few grumbles at the state of our garage. It seems one whole bay is taken up with assorted dirt-encrusted tuberous plants.

Can’t be helped. After 33 years, you’d think Jerry would understand that a mess in the garage is necessary during October. By then Jack Frost has finally blackened the foliage of tender cannas, elephant ears, gladioli and dahlias, and it’s time to store them for winter.

I adore having summer bulbs in my ornamental garden for the color, cutting possibilities and drama they offer. For instance, my favorite dwarf pink dahlias decorate the edge of the driveway each year, attracting plenty of beneficial insects. I first acquired my little dahlias 15 years ago at a farmers market and have kept them going ever since. They get good sun exposure and a

58 | Life@Home

Bedding down roots and rhizomes for the winter

Elephant Ears (Colocasia)  rich soil, and their location also makes them simple to deadhead, which is essential to a nonstop floral show.

Glorious stands of canna Tropicana reign in my pond and among the monarda, butterfly bushes and phlox in the backyard gardens. I grow these for their fabulous leaves, striped in bands of orange, burgundy, pink and green. The exotic foliage is a counterpoint to the outstanding feisty orange flowers atop the statuesque plant.

I wax and wane on gladiolus. Some years I covet this member of the iris family, and purchase a springtime boxful. Their fluffy flowers show off in many colors and I admire their vigor in the vase. But then a well-meaning garden visitor will refer to them as “funeral flowers” and I won’t plant

them the following year. I always go back, however. The combination of color, ease of care and presence in the vase is difficult to withstand. And here’s a tip: to keep them coming all season plant a row every two weeks from May until July.

Elephant ears, aka colocasia, are fairly new to me. I was given a large tuber two

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 Dwarf Dahlias years ago at a gardening symposium and planted it the following spring. I was shocked at how large and how quickly it grew. Unfortunately, I’d lost the tag (not an uncommon occurrence in my plus-sized garden), so its name remains unknown.

I now grow my purple-leafed variety in both pots and in the borders, and it makes a statement no matter its home.

All these tropical tubers require loads of sunshine and ample water. In return they reward with sumptuous color until frost. Since I generally wish to enjoy them for another year, I bed them down for the cold months. Here’s how:  Gently unearth the entire clump, making sure the garden fork is far enough away from the heart of the plant so no damage occurs. Shake off as much dirt as possible, and haul the mass to the garage or storage area.  Let the clusters dry for several days before clipping and composting the withered foliage, leaving several inches of stem protruding. If any tubers are soft, toss before storage.  In the meantime, prep your containers. Back in the early days of my current garden, I’d plant hundreds of hardy bulbs each autumn and would save the ventilated cardboard cartons in which they arrived for use as winter bulb storage.

Once full, these cartons would be placed on a shelf in the garage — a garage, it should be noted, that neither freezes nor gets too warm. One memorable

winter, however, I lost the whole kit ’n’ caboodle when my husband inadvertently discarded them in an unanticipated spate of garage cleaning.

Nowadays I use plastic storage bins, which apparently don’t look as disreputable as dirty cardboard boxes. Each bin is labeled as to what type of tender bulb lies within and each grouping is labeled with colored yarn. (There’s nothing worse than unearthing a mess of tubers come spring and having no idea what color they are!)  Fill the receptacles with everso-slightly damp peat moss. A layer of peat covers the bottom, and on that goes a layer of rhizomes, carefully placed so they don’t jostle each other.

Add more peat, then more cannas or dahlias, etc., or until all are situated and no sign of them is visible. I then cover the tub and mark in bold lettering the following: “Colleen’s Bulbs!!

Do not open, disturb, remove, or discard, under threat of gardener’s wrath!”  In mid-January lift the lid and apply a little water. In March exhume the contents, discarding the deceased and potting up the 75 percent remaining.

These are hardened off prior to planting out.

That’s all there is to it. By wintering over, I save both my favorite cultivars and a few dollars. As of next week I’ll have finished snugging the dahlias, glads, colocasia and cannas into their winter quarters.

Then I can work on my marriage. 

Garden communicator Colleen Plimpton writes about, lectures on, teaches and coaches gardening. Visit her web site at colleenplimpton.com

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 Tech Tips

Climate Control H

You can oversee the temperature in your house from anywhere

By Brianna Snyder

62 | Life@Home

ty-heated homes use thermostats as a kind of power hub, whereas houses heated with oil or gas use the thermostat as a control device. So, electricity-heaters, keep an eye out in the future for smart thermostats for your home.

Oil and gas users, here’s the breakdown:

grocery-store parking lot and come home to a cozy house.

 THE NEST The Nest is “like any other programmable thermostat,” Murray says, in that you can customize the settings to automatically turn on and off depending on time of day. What the Nest does, however, is slightly different: It starts to learn your behaviors.

Do you come home every day at 6 and set the temperature to 65 degrees?

After a two or three days, the Nest will start doing that on its own. It also monitors humidity in your home, Murray says, and factors that in when adjusting the climate to keep you comfortable. Additionally, the Nest will ping you when it’s time to clean your filters.

This device can be controlled from your cell phone. Know you’ll be home in 20 minutes and don’t want it to be freezing when you get there? Fire up the heat from the

 THE HONEYWELL The Honeywell does many of the same things the Nest does. It, too, learns your preferences and behaviors and adjusts them independently, lets you know when you air filter needs changing and can be controlled remotely. The differences? Honeywell can be controlled from your desktop (whereas the Nest can only be tweaked through a smartphone). Another notable feature of the Honeywell, Murray says, is that you can change the background color of the screen. That means no more eerie blue light on the wall — match the color to your paint or, as Murray suggests, the color of your favorite sports team. 

Illustration: © iStockphoto.com/aleksandar velasevic.

ave you ever gotten to work and thought: “Oh no, I forgot to turn the heat down”? Or did you? Now you can’t remember. The rest of the day you consider driving back home to check, picturing your astronomical utility bill. It stresses you out all day.

Friends, those days can be over. Thanks to technology and innovation, it is possible to own a thermostat that can be controlled over the Internet. Not only are these devices convenient and futuristically neat, but they’re also money-savers. Having control over the heating (and air conditioning) in your house means you get to micromanage every degree of temperature.

We spoke with Brett Murray, operations manager at Home Depot in Albany. He gave us a rundown on the two best-selling “smart” thermostats (both, interestingly, the exact same price: $249) and gave us a few tips: If, for instance, your house is heated electrically, these thermostats won’t work for you. Murray says electrici-

Family  Food  Wine

Life

Photo: GettyImages/Alexandra Grablewski.

63 – 82

Crates of Concord grapes. Read more on page 71.  timesunion.com/lifeathome | 63

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Help Me …

Carve a Pumpkin

By Jennifer Gish

Y

ou want trick-or-treaters to stand in awe of the glowing carved pumpkins on your steps — a witch so detailed they start wondering if the wart on her nose is real. But instead, your jack-o’-lanterns look more as if they were crafted by a preschool class armed with plastic knives. Don’t get scared just because you’re using produce as your canvas. Our experts are here to help.

GO BIG: Novice pumpkin carvers will have an easier time if they’re not trying to cut into the side of a tiny pie pumpkin, says Katrina Swartz, of Swartz Dairy & Produce in Castleton, who has carved hundreds of her farm’s own pumpkins. You’ll want a large canvas, she says, and big glowing pumpkins set a dramatic scene anyway.

Photo: Tetra Images /GettyImages.

CHECK THE SPECS: “Aladdin is a bigger pumpkin and is my favorite variety. The stem is nice, the color is really nice. It grows to a good size that it’s easy for carving,” Swartz says. She says one of the bonuses of purchasing pumpkins directly from a farm is that you can get recommendations on which varieties are best for carving. And every farmer has his favorite, so be sure to ask.

LOOK FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT: “It’s got to be heavy for its size because that determines the thickness of its skin,” says Brian Bateman, a professional pumpkin

carver from Clifton Park who’s been creating custom pumpkins for a decade (custompumpkins.blogspot.com). Of course, because Bateman is carving on the surface of the pumpkin, just as if you’d carve into a piece of wood, thick walls are necessary so some of the pumpkin’s flesh stays behind. If you’re looking to punch holes all the way through and create the old triangle-eyes, zig-zag-mouth version, you may want to choose a pumpkin with thinner skin.

traditional jack-o’-lanterns, so she finds that a pumpkin-carving kit does the job.

CARVE IN THE RIGHT SETTING: If you’re carving a design just onto the surface of the pumpkin’s sides, you’ll want to do it in low light, and place a bulb inside your pumpkin so you can see how thin or how thick you want to leave each carved area to get the right effect with the light. “I carve to let out certain degrees of light rather than just trying to speculate what it’s going to look like,” Bateman says.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE AN ARTIST: “You can start out just printing a picture off the Internet, if you want, and then tape it on your pumpkin and use a sharp tool to make outlines around your image,” says Bateman, who once carved an image of Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia onto a giant pumpkin and has made strikingly realistic pumpkin portraits of candidates during presidential elections. “Even if you’re not good at drawing, use the printout as a guideline, and then you take the paper off and start carving along the dotted lines that you made.”

REALIZE YOUR TIME WITH YOUR PUMPKIN IS FLEETING: Your carved pumpkin has a shelf life of about five days to a week before it starts to shrivel, Swartz says. And none of the home remedies you’re told you can slather on your pumpkin to extend that shelf life are going to buy more time.

“We have tried everything. We have tried Vaseline. We have tried WD-40. We have tried cinnamon. We have tried Clorox,” she says. “Basically, the only thing that works is cooler weather.”

EXCEPT … : “There is a spray that you can BUT YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS: “My earlier pumpkins were pretty rough because I was just using knives, but I started finding that I could use chisels, and then I found some wood-carving tools and clay-carving tools that are really useful,” Bateman says. Swartz says her designs are pretty

order on the Internet — Pumpkin Fresh (pumpkinfresh.com). It really works. It makes a pumpkin last more than a week after you carve it,” Bateman says. “But you have to spray it on every day. That’s the only thing I’ve found that works.”  Jennifer Gish is the Times Union’s features editor. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 65

Going to the Dogs

How to handle that problem puppy

T

ina Tronetti Hotvet of Colonie loved Sophie, her 2-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, so much that she wanted to get her a companion.

“It’s the sweetest, gentlest breed in the world,” she says.

But soon newcomer Jake was biting Hotvet when she tried to put a harness on him, attacking any dogs that came to the house, and biting Hotvet’s husband when he dared to climb into bed. The new dog was straining Hotvet’s marriage — her husband hadn’t wanted another dog, but Hotvet had insisted. But what she felt worst about was the way the situation was making life miserable for Sophie.

While Hotvet never considered relinquishing Jake to a shelter, many stressedout pet owners do choose this option — and a dog’s future there is far from assured.

According to statistics from the Humane Society of the United States, approximately half of the animals that enter shelters every year are euthanized. “[Owners] expect us to be able to find someone else

66 | Life@Home

who is willing to take on the problem that they are unwilling or unable to manage,” says Marguerite Pearson, communications director of the Animal Protective Foundation in Scotia.

But most of those relinquishments don’t have to happen, says Dr. Holly Cheever of the Village Animal Clinic in Voorheesville.

While some dogs are just too dangerous and cases of mismatches exist, as when a dog bred to chase leopards or herd cattle in the plains of Argentina is cooped up in a small apartment, in most cases behaviors can be prevented, or at least managed, if owners are proactive.

Prevention is key, Cheever says. “Ideally, what every veterinarian hopes for is that a prospective owner will call and say, ‘This is my family situation, this is my lifestyle, this is my lack or presence of a fenced-in yard, these are my hours during the day. What kind of dog would work for me?’ You hope that you can give them good advice about what breed would be a good match.”

Certified dog trainer Jody Diehl runs a

training company called Dog’s Best Friend in Delmar, where she offers behavior consultations, puppy socialization classes, and good manners classes. She also writes a blog for the Times Union called “Dog Training with Jody Diehl.”

Diehl emphasizes the importance of socializing puppies early, before they have completed all their vaccinations. This is the critical developmental period when they must learn to be comfortable with variety and novelty, they must learn that other puppies and dogs are fun, and they must learn “bite inhibition,” or the art of always biting softly during play.

The experts we spoke with agree that aggression can come in many forms. If you have a dog that stops eating and freezes up when you walk by her while she’s eating, that’s a red flag, says Diehl, and one that requires more than a “good manners” class.

Start with a private consult with a certified trainer experienced in gentle methods of behavior modification. Ask your vet for the name of a good trainer.

Photos: GettyImages. Dogs, Ken Gillespie Photography; Walking dog, Kane Skennar.

By Elizabeth Floyd Mair

An important component of any training program will be reconditioning the pet owners to make sure they don’t give the wrong cues, Cheever says. She offers the hypothetical example of a miniature Schnauzer that thinks he’s king of the roost and will bite if you try to shoo him off the couch. “That’s going to be a dog who does not get to have furniture privileges anymore,” she says. “That’s going to be a dog who you can’t play tug-of-war with anymore, because it makes him feel like, ‘I’m pitting my strength against the human’s, and I’m going to win!’ You can play fetch with him, but not tug-of-war.”

Additionally, she says, he needs gentle reminders throughout the day that the owner is in control. If he’s going to get something nice, such as a walk or a pat or a meal or a biscuit, he has to sit and then lie down first. The owner who does that consistently — say 15 to 20 times a day for different tasks — shows the dog that obeying him brings pleasurable results.

H

otvet asked Cheever, her veterinarian, for advice about Jake. Cheever recommended veterinary behaviorist Dr. Ellen Lindell, who encouraged Hotvet to use only “positive training” with Jake.

Cheever says this is the antithesis of the old-school “me alpha, you beta” approach exemplified by television’s “Dog Whisperer,” Cesar Milan.

Lindell told Hotvet that she and her husband were never to raise their voices to Jake, or take away the treats or toys

that he had stolen from Sophie. Instead they were to give Sophie another one and ignore Jake. When it was time for Hotvet’s husband to get into bed, Hotvet was to give the dog a treat on the floor to distract him.

When Jake would try to keep the older dog from entering a room, Hotvet was to pick Sophie up, carry her into the room, and set her down because once she was in the room, Jake would ignore her. Hotvet’s husband also made a commitment to walk Jake for an hour every day to get rid of the dog’s pent-up energy.

To Hotvet, the entire approach seemed completely counterintuitive. “I felt like we were rewarding bad behavior,” she says.

But it worked.

If a dog shows aggression toward other dogs or people, Cheever says a veterinary behaviorist — a vet who specializes exclusively in behavior — is your go-to. These vets have completed medical school and also have a doctorate in behavior. There are none in the Capital District, but several travel to the area and see clients at local clinics a couple days a month.

Veterinary behaviorist Dr. Tracy Kroll says she looks at “the entire dog, internally and externally.” This includes taking a detailed history, doing an exam, observing the animal, talking with the client about the home environment, and treating the dog medically if necessary.

Veterinary behaviorists can address underlying medical issues — perhaps leg pain is making the dog nervous when other dogs approach. Or if a dog is so

anxious that training is impossible, a shortterm prescription of anti-anxiety medication, combined with training, can make a dog “turn around beautifully after a couple of months,” says Kroll.

During a consult, Kroll shows clients how to modify the dog’s behavior. The consult also includes six months of followup counseling by e-mail and phone. When clients want ongoing in-person support, they’re referred to a certified trainer. Her role and that of the trainer, she says, are complementary.

Jake is not quite a year old. It’s been a long year for the Hotvets, and especially for Sophie. But Jake now allows Sophie more space as he realizes he won’t get any positive attention from bad behavior. The two dogs are also becoming bonded in interesting ways, Hotvet says. Jake follows Sophie around in the yard, as if he’s a little uncertain. Inside, he curls up next to her to sleep. 

Local resources CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL DOG TRAINERS

VETERINARY BEHAVIORISTS

(845) 473-7406, or e-mail ellenmlindell@gmail.com

Jody Diehl Dog’s Best Friend

Ellen M. Lindell, V.M.D.

Tracy Kroll, D.V.M.

Diplomate, American College of Veterinary Behaviorists 6 Brenner Ridge Road, Pleasant Valley lindellvetbehavior.org

 Regularly travels to our area and sees clients at Shaker Veterinary Hospital (shakervet.com)

Classes held at: Healthy Pet Center 154 Delaware Ave., Delmar (518) 966-5684 dogswithjody.com Christine Danker Hemlock Hollow Dog Training

Albany County (518) 495-7387 hemlockhollowdogtraining.com

 Regularly travels to our area and sees clients at Parkside Veterinary Hospital (parksideveterinaryhospital.com)

 To make an appointment with Dr. Kroll, call Shaker Veterinary Hospital, (518) 458-9669

 To make an appointment with Dr. Lindell, call her office,

timesunion.com/lifeathome | 67

Consider the Felt This fabric isn’t just for kids

Another interesting felting technique: spiral layers condensed into earbobs. These require a little embroidery, but just a little.

68 | Life@Home

By Brianna Snyder | Photos courtesy Chronicle Books

I

t’s possible you’ve passed over felt as a material of choice in your crafting. It’s got a kind of kids’ crafts feel to it. Stiff, staticky, scratchy. But Amy Palanjian wants you to reconsider this underused fabric.

“During one of my first magazine jobs years ago, I learned firsthand the intricacies and nuances of felt,” she writes in her book, So Pretty! Felt. “[T]he thick, supple 100-percent wool felt from Germany … was like nothing I had ever worked with.

It wasn’t thin and flimsy; it was thick and ever so slightly variegated in color. It had character, body, and a tactile quality that was irresistible. I was sold.”

So sold, in fact, she wrote a book comprising felt-based projects put together by crafters all over the world. “I was looking for women whose projects fit our aesthetic,” Palanjian says. “We also wanted

These tightly-wrapped felt wreaths are  customizable for any occasion. Just pick the colors you like, get a glue gun and go to town.

Pillows are prettier with felt flowers. These little blossoms are a unique way to make a pillow stand out and complement other features of a room.

geographic diversity, so finding people who lived all over the country and the world [was our goal].”

This isn’t Palanjian’s first book; that would be So Pretty! Crochet. She’s a chronic crafter. Palanjian likes simple projects, and the crafts in the book include ideas such as felt-flower flourishes on pillowcases, felt-woven wreaths, felt-lined headbands, and — this is neat — felt giftwrapping ideas.

“I really like the flower projects,” Palanjian says. “I love them because you can use them in a lot of different ways. They look really great and they’re incredibly easy and you don’t have to cut perfect circles to make them.”

What’s really interesting about So Pretty!

Felt is that your ideas about felt — primarily as Christmas-tree floor lining, etc. — morph wildly. Tightly-spiraled felt earrings, for instance, hardly look like the material they’re made from, and your mind starts considering other ways to use this neglected textile.

Never worked with felt? Not sure where to begin? Palanjian says no problem.

“There are a lot of projects in this book that are a good place to start,” she says.

“You don’t need any specific place to start.

You need basic sewing skills, but very basic. It’s a nice entry-level crafting opportu-

nity.” A few simple stitches come in handy, but it’s overall pretty basic.

She has a few tips, though: Make sure your scissors are sharp, for instance, “because if they’re not, they can catch on the material and you won’t get a straight cut. So if you have a pair of fabric scissors, don’t use them on anything else and make sure everyone in your house knows not to use them too.” (She suggests labeling them and putting them somewhere out of sight.)

And, as with all crafting, take your time.

Be patient. “When you’re tracing and cutting, take your time,” she says. “Sometimes you want to just get to the finished project and you rush a little bit, but that can cause you to mess up. Just relax. Have fun.” 

So Pretty Felt, by Amy Palanjian, Chronicle Books, 152 pgs., $22.95

timesunion.com/lifeathome | 69

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Kitchen Crumbs 

Tasty Tidbits

to brighten up your cooking

By Caroline Barrett

 Get cooking

Courtesy Amazon.com

Get ready to hunker down in cold, blustery weather with a big slice of pie. With gorgeous photos and step-by-step instructions, you’ll be a pro before the first snowflake flies. A Year of Pies: A Seasonal Tour of Home Baked Pies by Ashley English; about $19.95 in bookstores and on Amazon.com.

 Cuckoo for grapes!

Photo: GettyImages/Alexandra Grablewski.

October is the month for local Concord grapes!

Find pints of these dark purple beauties right now at the farmers market for about $4. These grapes are rich in antioxidants and fiber.

Press the grapes for a dark purple juice, bake them into a pie, make jelly or take the easiest way — and our favorite — eat them out of your hand.

Photo by Paul Barrett.

Kitchen sponges do all the hard work: wiping counters and appliances, scrubbing pots and pans, and cleaning spills. It’s important to toss the sponge now and then for a fresh one. Use this method to increase the life of your sponge in between new sponges: Rinse the sponge well. Microwave on high for 2 minutes (careful removing it; it will be very hot) and cool. Heating the sponge kills 99 percent of harmful bacteria.

Of course, never microwave a sponge that contains metal. Visit tinyurl.com/ LAHoct13-sponge.

Photo: GettyImages/Alexandra Grablewski.

 Kitchen Tip

 Pumpkin pickin’: Quick Tomato Sauce Make an easy sauce for weeknight dinner with the very last of the season’s tomatoes.

Core and chop 6-7 large ripe tomatoes. Pour a bit of olive oil into large skillet set over medium heat and add 2 cloves of thinly sliced garlic. Stir until the garlic just begins to soften. Add the tomatoes. Use a masher to press the tomatoes and stir often. Cook for 2-3 minutes and season with salt and lots of black pepper. Pour over pasta and pass plenty of grated cheese.

It’s time to pick pumpkins! This most cherished event for children and adults alike is at its peak right now. Children love to ride the tractor and choose their own just-right pumpkin. For area farms and picking information, visit tinyurl.com/ LAHoct13-pumpkin. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 71

 Dish

At home with …

John Futia

By Steve Barnes | Photos by Paul Barrett

W

hen John Futia was developing the menu for The Capital American Eatery & Lounge, which opened over the summer in downtown Albany, he knew he wanted a few dishes that offered a strong connection to New York. The restaurant’s draft beers are all craft brews produced in New York, a number of the wines by the glass are from New York producers, and the menu features ingredients grown or produced regionally.

Futia’s smoked whitefish spread, essentially a coarse trout paté, is meant to evoke the classic whitefish salad served at Jewish delis. Served with bagel chips, the dish is among the appetizers on The Capital’s menu that are intended as shareable plates for late-night grazers or people out for a drink with friends. (The restaurant also features goat-cheese rolls, chicken liver-pork

72 | Life@Home

paté, fried dumplings and a board of New York cheeses.)

The chef uses Idaho trout that are smoked locally for him, but smoked trout is available in the seafood case at most supermarkets. Smoked salmon may be substituted if you prefer, but the texture and flavor will be different than with smoked trout or lake whitefish, which is the source of most of the product sold under the generic name whitefish.

Bagel chips further the Jewish echoes of the dish, which has its roots in the cuisine of the Ashkenazim of Eastern Europe.

“It’s so simple,” says Futia, who for 14 years has owned a Pine Hills home with a flower-filled front yard. He says, “You need a food processor and ramekins or a bowl to put it in to let it chill for a few hours, but that’s about it. It’s great food to do in advance for a party.” 

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Smoked Whitefish Spread 1 pound smoked trout 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 1 /3 cup finely chopped onion 1 /4 cup finely chopped fresh dill 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 /2 teaspoon Tabasco or hot sauce of choice 1 /4 teaspoon black pepper 1 cup cold water

more

ONLINE

Method Remove skin and flake trout.

Transfer 2 cups to a food processor, then blend with butter, onion, dill, lemon juice, hot sauce and pepper until smooth. Reserve remaining trout. With motor running, add water to trout purée in a slow stream and process until water is absorbed. Transfer to a bowl and fold in reserved trout. Cover bowl and chill. Serve with crackers, toast points, bread or bagel crisps.

Want to see how this recipe was made? Watch our exclusive video at timesunion.com/lifeathome or scan the QR code at left to link directly to our Life@Home video playlist on YouTube.

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 Table@Home

Autumnal Splendor A salad to echo the colors around us

By Caroline Barrett | Photos by Paul Barrett

I

’m at my best in the fall. My kids boo and hiss and shake their heads when I say this. Summer is over, they say.

School is starting, they whine. Who could possibly love fall?

It’s funny to tell this story of loving fall and the bounty it brings because it starts out in the most unlikely of places: a beauty parlor. Once, long ago, my mother-in-law took me to a fancy salon where I had my hair done and after that, a lady came over to show me how to properly apply makeup.

74 | Life@Home

After the makeup lady left, yet another woman came with a special book, full of color swatches. She set about showing me which colors I should wear and which I should avoid.

I sat and enjoyed all of this attention.

I liked being fussed over even though the hair and makeup stuff is lost on me.

No matter what I do to my hair — the products, the blow dryer, even expensive shampoo — and it looks the same. Mousy brown, slightly frizzy. A few grey hairs

bouncing out on top.

I’m hopeless with makeup, too. It doesn’t stay on for long, and I always feel like a kid wearing her mother’s lipstick.

Even after the lesson, I still don’t get it right and sometimes my teenage daughter has to fix what I’ve done to my eyes before I go out to a party.

Despite the lesson on how to properly do my hair and apply makeup, I always look kind of … messy, I guess. No matter what. Maybe I didn’t listen closely to what they told me.

Wild Rice Salad for Fall Lovers

Method

with smoky-sweet vinaigrette

degrees. Toss the squash in a bit of olive oil and roast in the oven for 25 minutes, or until just barely tender. Too-tender squash will smoosh in the salad. Allow to cool.

serves 4-5 with leftovers Ingredients olive oil 1/2 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces 2 large leeks, trimmed, washed and chopped 3 cups cooked wild rice 1/4 cup whole raw cranberries, chopped 1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped Dressing Ingredients 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 1 teaspoon honey sea salt and pepper to taste

 Preheat the oven to 350

 Heat a large skillet over medium-low heat and cook the leeks in a few tablespoons of olive oil until golden brown.

 Cool in a large bowl, gently toss the rice with the leeks, squash, cranberries and pecans.

 Pour the dressing over and allow to sit for at least an hour. Serve at room temperature.

But the lady with the color swatches made me sit up and pay attention. What she said resonated. First, she opened her big book and had a good look at me. Mousy brown hair. Brown eyes. She squinted at my freckles and held my hands, checking my skin tone. “Fall,” she announced, “You are fall.”

Yes, I thought, I am fall. Yes. And with a flourish she threw swatches of fabric over my shoulders: raspberry and pumpkin and cranberry and plum.

There was the deep yellow of ripe pears, the rich red of apples. She was showing me the sweaters and scarves and lipstick colors I should wear but really, she addressed something deeper. These colors were like coming home to a warm house and a big dinner with family. They were the colors of warm butternut squash soup, cranberry relish and pumpkin pie.

While she talked on about wearing dark red shirts with deep orange jewelry, I

smiled and thought of feeding my son a beautiful fall vegetable curry with rich orange squash and dark red peppers. Of stirring bright cranberries into golden bread batter with my daughters and my husband, making pot after pot of sweet, warm applesauce.

“Now,” she went on, “for your accents.”

I had no idea what she meant but as she pulled out smaller swatches of deep green, olive and warm brown I imagined thick pieces of kale doused in olive oil. Roasted garlic.

Toasted pecans. “Fall,” I whispered, “that’s me.” She had sold me. Not on new lipstick or scarves but on an autumn salad. A squash pie and a warm loaf of brown bread.

Walking through the farmers market at this time of year is like having a consultation with the woman who did my colors all over again. I stand and look out over all the baskets filled with squash and pumpkins, leafy greens and crisp red apples. We go so well together.

This salad is made with all the colors that complement my hair and complexion.

Butternut squash and cranberries add beautiful fall color, while the warm brown wild rice is an accent color, a mild, nutty background to the other bright fall colors and tastes. I don’t like this salad just because it complements my skin tone. I love the warm sweetness of the onions and the earthy squash. It’s a lot of flavors and yet somehow it works.

My family kind of turn their noses up at this type of dish. For my kids, it’s too much stuff mixed together in a bowl. They eat it, but it’s more like an “eh” than a “wow.” My husband will take a serving but won’t take leftovers for lunch the next day. He won’t exclaim at the colors the way I do or talk about the contrast of color and flavor. I know that it isn’t about my salad; it’s about him. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he doesn’t understand.

His color palette is spring.  timesunion.com/lifeathome | 75

 The Vineyard

Coming Home Recalibrating the taste buds with affordable Italian classics Story and photo by Alistair Highet

P

robably we all have a “safe” place in our private wine world — a sanctuary where we know we will always be received with warmth, and the only surprises will be pleasant ones — and where we can slip into a Proustian reverie, drifting with the current into the intoxicating embrace of the past.

Or, if not, we have some wines that we always like — that’ll do I suppose.

For me, it is the red wines of Italy. The reasons for this are personal: My first great wine experience was in an aptly named restaurant called La Cave, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was after 2 a.m., and I was a waiter from a neighboring restaurant. I believe I had ordered the steak au poivre.

My companion was a co-worker, lovely, with long, curling hair, and silver earrings in the shape of beech leaves that sparkled in the candlelight. We sat on benches in a stone alcove. I felt rich — cash in my pocket — tired, young, hungry, and in love.

What could be better? We ordered a bottle of Dolcetto D’ Alba.

Now, in those days even very good restaurants would rarely have Italian wine on the menu. If it was a very good restaurant, it would have French wines. Otherwise, the wines were Californian or Australian.

(Barbaric I know; the past is a distant land is it not?) What I remember was a wine glass with a deep bowl and the first gulp — it was a gulp — the soft tannins and the heady flowers and long draw of ripe berries, the aroma of wood smoke rich as opium. It all came together — the wine, the candles, the company, and I felt like a changed person.

Fancy prose aside, I truly mean that.

There have been many trips to Italy since then and countless bottles, but that was the moment when I understood how wine worked.

Many years later, I sat in a cold kitchen in Torrington, Conn., with a man named Luigi Bauchiero. Would you believe me if I told

76 | Life@Home

you that he looked like Marcello Mastroianni? He was from Asti. The British had shot down his torpedo bomber over the Mediterranean and he had spent the war in a British camp, escaped, and then was in a German concentration camp. All true. After the war he came to Connecticut to work in a factory, but his true love was the wine he made in his basement. I was just learning and he said he would teach me. We sat in his cold kitchen. He poured me a glass of wine, and put out a plate with provolone and soft bread. He said, “Have some bread, a little cheese, and then drink.” I did.

“What do these all have in common?” he asked.

I didn’t know.

“They are all alive — the bread, the wine, the cheese, they are still alive when you take them in. They are living things,” and he beamed at me, knowing he had imparted a great truth.

So, there you have it. Italy is home to me in the wine world and a constant reminder that wine is a living thing. Recently, to get my bearings straight, I sampled a few great and affordable Italian classics.  Alistair Highet is a former editor, restaurant manager, and vinedresser, and has written about wine for over 20 years.

Castelo Banfi, Col Di Sasso, Toscana, 2010 ($10) Can’t beat the price. This winery in the Montalcino zone is an upstart, founded 20 years ago by an American family. They are big producers now. This is a drinkable, low end blend of Cabernet and Sangiovese and as good a wine as you’ll ever find for the price —“mint, tart cherry, red cherry, soft tannins, juicy, vibrant, clean, unusually fruity and transparent,” those were my notes.

Fattoria dei Barbi, Morellino di Scansano, 2008, ($15) Scansano is a terrific town that hangs off a Tuscan cliff not far from the coast in the Maremma region on the Ligurian sea. The cool evenings here give the wines a brighter acidity.

A blend of Sangiovese with bit of Merlot, this was creamy and velvety, with black cherry fruit, licorice, a bit of leather, and refreshing notes of granite and stone.

Ca’ du Rabaja, Poderi, Lorenzo Alutto, Dolcetto d’Alba, 2011, ($16) Renzo Alutto took over this piece of land in Piedmont after his father died in 2004, and puts out affordable classics in the Piedmontese style. Dolcetto is a softer, less tannic grape than its neighbors here. Strawberry, cloves and spice, blonde leather, rich berries, and a deep, lush finish.

 Food Trends

The Smell of Success Onion-centric cooking pleases all the senses

T

he smell of sauteing sliced onions in hot oil or butter elicits exclamations of ecstatic anticipation from guests. Few other basic kitchen tasks do that. Onions frying — like bacon cooking, only a little more subtle — are basically the smell of deliciousness. Add to that the elusive olfactory harmonies of cooking carrots, celery, garlic, parsley, thyme or any number of other combinations and you’ve got the groundwork for serious gustatory success. Cooking — and eating — after all, is about more than just what triggers our taste buds. Good food stimulates our other senses; it looks, smells and feels like what we want. Even the sound of a sizzling saute pan or a crackling wood-fire grill can excite hunger for some of us.

It’s odd that onions should convey all this culinary oomph. Onions are among the most basic, earthy, and affordable vegetables out there. You can track down boutique, hard-to-find heirloom onions, but the workhouse varieties, the kinds that come in those net bags, are just fine. A humble yellow onion has that wonderful aroma — biting and bright at first, but then mellow and sweet and pleasing once it’s broken down just a bit by the heat and oil.

78 | Life@Home

Onions are members of the lily family.

They’ve been cultivated for their underground bulbs for thousands of years.

Those bulbs basically store energy for future growing seasons, and that’s one reason onions (as well as garlic and shallots) store so well and keep naturally for months. Many types of onion can be left in the ground to resprout in the summer or fall, and many onions make pretty flowers, fitting nicely in an ornamental garden — one more reason to love them.

The fresh greens of onions and related plants are edible — and delicious — as well. The manner in which onions are cooked greatly affects the flavors and aromas of the vegetable. Baking or microwaving onions will make a cabbage-y smell.

No one will be rolling eyes and moaning in pleasure when they come up against that aroma. The sugars inside an onion are what allow it to brown and caramelize and emit those sweet and enticing smells as it cooks in fat or oil.

A

s the weather turns autumnal, we seem to naturally begin to crave root vegetables, and the comforting, filling feeling they provide. Onions get put to work overtime. The aroma of onions is a foreshadowing of pleasing flavors. And each fall when we start making things such as soubise, onion gravy, fried frizzled onions (to put on top of lentils) or onion relish, we’re reminded of how simple and cheap delicious food can be.

Soubise is a word that we don’t hear all that often, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be a regular dish in your kitchen.

Soubise is basically an onion sauce that can also be used as a stock or broth. Generally sauted and pureed onions are added to

Photos: Onion, Foodcollection RF/GettyImages; Soubise, © Mari Mirrasoul/onceuponaplate1.com.

By John Adamian

Soubise

a classic Bechamel sauce. It often involves cooked rice. When we make it at home, we make a kind of creamy risotto characterized by the flavors of gruyere and fresh thyme — and loads and loads of sweet onions. It’s so good. And that’s the main reason to make it, but there is the added bonus of turning risotto, a frequently delicate and wrist-punishing production, into a relatively low-stress dish. In this case, the aromas of cooking onions have to compete with the spell of thyme and gruyere, which creates something of an olfactory stand-off of deliciousness.

Another onion-centric item that is in regular rotation at our house is an onion gravy. For whatever reason, our kids love this one. They slather it on roast chicken and pork, and they might sneak a dunk of broccoli into it as well. The preparation is simple: slice three or four onions and throw them into a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Cook until golden

or clear, for 20 or 30 minutes. Make sure not to burn them. When the onions are thoroughly cooked down, slightly caramelized, spoon the contents into a blender and add a tablespoon of soy sauce and blend. If it’s too thick, add some a teaspoon of water at a time.

A variation on this involves cooking a pan of onions down slowly with a few tablespoons of sherry or balsamic vinegar, along with a tablespoon of brown sugar, depending on how tangy or sweet you like food. Basically cook this down to a paste, and store in your fridge. Smear it on some French bread with a little bit of goat cheese, or ricotta. This relish or jam can be augmented with thyme, or a hint of ground coriander seed. I’ve made sauceless clam pizzas topped with this relish, and it seriously impresses people. The end result looks, smells and tastes great. Like all these onion dishes, it couldn’t be easier. And few things smell better. 

4 tablespoons unsalted butter 14 cups Spanish onions, 2 cups diced and 12 cups thinly sliced, about 3 pounds in total 2 tablespoons thyme leaves Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 1/2 cup short-grained risotto rice, like Arborio 1/2 cup grated Gruyère cheese 2/3 cup heavy cream Chopped parsley to finish Method

 Heat oven to 300 degrees. Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, thyme, salt and pepper. Cook for 15 minutes, stirring, to avoid burning.

Onions should be soft and almost clear.

 While you’re cooking the onions, boil water in a pot and add rice. Cook for 5 minutes, then drain. Add rice to onions and stir.

 Place the covered Dutch oven in the oven. Cook for 35 minutes. Remove and let sit for 30 minutes.

 Stir rice and reheat over medium heat.

Add cream and cheese, stir and cook. Top with parsley and serve. timesunion.com/lifeathome | 79

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My Space 

W

e all have favorite spots, places where we feel most comfortable or at home.

Sometimes it’s a favorite chair or nook in a room; other times it’s outside the house. Wherever it is, it is where we are most at home.

Story and photo by Suzanne Kawola

WHO: Dana Rafferty — Early Childhood Teacher, Viking Child Care Center, HVCC

FAVORITE SPACE: Village of Valley Falls Dana Rafferty is a teacher at Viking Child Care Center on the Hudson Valley Community College campus. Her interest in early childhood education was sparked by a career day at her high school. “I always felt like I made the right choice,” she says.

“It just comes so naturally to me that I don’t frustrate easily. I find that I’ve got plenty of patience with [kids]. I’m fascinated with how their little minds work.”

Though tired by the end of the day, Rafferty says her job doesn’t feel like work. “When I see a change in a child who’s been with me for a long time … it’s very rewarding. It’s a joy that you feel inside. It’s a wonderful feeling.”

WHY: After her divorce, Dana Rafferty moved back to her hometown of Valley Falls, where the population (according to the last census in 2010) is just 466.

Her grandmother harbored suffragists here and was one of the founders of Rensselaer County’s first Political Equity Club. “My mother says I got my spunk from her!,” Rafferty says.

Rafferty, who also has a child, compares the town to Scarlett O’Hara’s Tara in Gone with the Wind. “It’s where I get my strength and confidence. Scarlett O’Hara went back to Tara when she had nothing left,” Rafferty says. “I was like that after my divorce.

Where I think about being good and happy, it’s the Village. … I feel at peace here. I’m grounded. I’m secure. I’m happy!” 

timesunion.com/lifeathome | 81

 Photo Finish

Jack-o’-lanterns in waiting. Photo by Paul Barrett. Read more on page 71.  82 | Life@Home

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