New Haven magazine December 2009

DECEMBER 2009

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SCSU’s Norton

Kicks Butt & Takes Names

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New Haven I December/2009

Whose Van Gogh is it, anyway?

Five years into the job SCSU prez Cheryl Norton is still kicking butt and taking names

16 Reliving History New Haven Orchard Street Shul gets a new lease on life

The New Haven Scholarship Fund marks a milestone

36 ATHOME How a New Haven couple transformed a ‘doughnut hole’ lot into a home

46 OF NOTES Meditations on a Symphony of Meditations at Yale

21 The Season of Giving

56 Words Of Mouth

New Haven’s most generous philanthropists

Local authors pen The Italian Farmer’s Table — yum!

24 The Admissions Shell Game

62 Discovered

How private colleges sell ‘The Fit’

Steve Blazo

08 ONE2ONE

33 From the Tiniest Acorn

PHOTOGRAPH:

07 INTEL

A soothing stroll through the Conn. College Arboretum

28 The Givers New Haven’s most generous philanthropists give ‘til it hurts

58 New Haven

| Vol. 3, No. 3 | December 2009

Publisher Mitchell Young, Editor Michael C. Bingham, Design Manager Larissa Phillips, Design Consultant Terry Wells, Contributing Writers Brooks Appelbaum, Duo Dickinson, Liese Klein, Cindy Marien, Melissa Nicefaro, Tashema Nichols, Joanna Pettas, Steven Scarpa, Cindy Simoneau, Photographers Steve Blazo, Anthony DeCarlo Senior Publisher’s Representatives Mary W. Beard, Roberta Harris, Publisher’s Representative Cynthia Carlson

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december 2009

New Haven is published 12 times annually by Second Wind Media Ltd., which also publishes Business New Haven, with offices at 85 Willow St., New Haven, CT 06511. 203-781-3480 (voice), 203-781-3482 (fax). Subscriptions $24.95/year, $39.95/two years. Send name, address & zip code with payment. Second Wind Media Ltd. d/b/a New Haven shall not be held liable for failure to publish an advertisement or for typographical errors or errors in publication. For more information e-mail NewHaven@Conntact.com.

OUR COVER Chefs/authors Melissa Pellegrino and Matthew Scialabba in their Guilford kitchen. Photography: Steve Blazo. Design and typography: Terry Wells.

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I’m talking about the first decade of the 21st century. The decade that a century earlier they called the “oughts” (a word hardly any English speaker would recognize these days). The decade that’s about to expire.

Ten years ago this month we were fretting over whether the entire world’s computer network would crash as the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999 — a fear that seems quaint or naïve now, but didn’t then.

Ten years ago most Americans felt safe and secure — maybe even smug — about our place in the world.

The United States hadn’t been attacked on native soil (not counting the Territory of Hawaii in 1941) since 1812, and with the end of the Cold War and the relatively booming economy, most Americans could have been forgiven for assuming that “the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands” as Winston Churchill put it in his “finest hour” speech.

In 1999 “hijackers” were bad people who seized control of airplanes for the purpose of extracting ransom or compelling the release of political prisoners. If you were on a hijacked plane, you might end up in some place like Cuba but you would not necessary fear for your life because, after all, the hijackers love life as much as you do.

Ten years ago countries like Iran and North Korea were “rogue” states capable of mounting much mischief, but of relatively little concern to most Americans except when making threatening noises about their neighbors (our friends like Israel and South Korea). The idea that these backward pariah states could ever harness the power of the atom for destructive purposes was too preposterous even to entertain.

In 1999, the only people who had ever heard of Barack Obama or Sarah Palin were their families.

They say that history is always accelerating — that the pace of change speeds up and up and up. I sense a philosophical dimension to that assertion that makes it fundamentally unprovable. But I know my own life seems to go by faster and faster as I get older, and other people tell me they feel the same.

I sense that Americans are less at ease than at nearly any other time in my life. We feel less physically secure, and with good reason as the world is a vastly more dangerous place. The relationship between Americans and their government is changing in a way that makes many citizens profoundly distrustful of those in authority.

Nevertheless, I am an ardent believer in the power of the American ideal, and the fundamental productive power of the American economy. Because of that I choose to be optimistic about the second decade of the 21st century.

But I’m starting to feel a little bit like Andy Rooney. v

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december 2009

— Michael C. Bingham, Editor

I NT EL

A Children’s Story GUILFORD —The Shoreline Arts Alliance is seeking submissions for its tenth Annual New Voices in Children’s Literature: Tassy Walden Awards Competition. Winners in each of five categories receive $2,50.

The categories: Picture Book (text only), Illustrated Picture Book, Illustrator’s Portfolio, Middle-Grade Novel and Young Adult/Teen Novel. More importantly, 14 winners of the New Voices in Children’s Literature: Tassy Walden Awards have been introduced to and secured contracts with major children’s book publishers.

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Priced to Move!

GREENWICH — Fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger, 58, has sold his four-acre estate with its 20,000square-foot home, including a movie theater, 2,000-squarefoot wine cellar and indoor basketball court. He bought it

newly constructed in 2005 for $18 million and added “exotic wall treatments including cashmere and crocodile skins,” according to the Realtor with the listing.

Hilfinger has now moved to the Big Apple, where’s he slumming it in a Plaza Hotel duplex. The property was originally listed for $27.5 million and was recently reduced to $21 million, before selling for $20 million.

Like Hilfinger, rap star 50 Cent is also trying to downsize, saying of his 19-bedroom, 37-bathroom Farmington mansion he’s trying to unload, “It feels like I’m in a hotel.” Perhaps it’s the nightclub and stripper poles he added after buying it from Mike Tyson’s former wife. If you’re interested, he’s got $22 million into it but you can probably steal it for $15 million today.

(CSFL). The Post University Eagles will be the seventh team in the league, which also includes teams from Cornell, Army, Navy, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and Mansfield University.

The league has a seven-game schedule, follows NCAA football rules with the exception that student-athletes must weigh less than 172 pounds. Player weight is certified on a weekly basis.

That’s My Van Gogh NEW HAVEN — The law firm of Wiggin & Dana has announced the launch of an Art and Museum Law Practice Group to represent universities, museums, galleries and dealers in art, as well as private collectors, insurers, foundations, national governments and artists and their estates.

“We have extensive experience in this area, so it makes sense to structure a practice group dedicated to art and museum law,” explains W&D Chair Bob Benjamin.

Ready for Some Football (Lite)?

WATERBURY — Post University will be starting a new “sprint” football program, the only one in New England to compete in the Collegiate Sprint Football League

Most recently W&D has been representing Yale University in a dispute involving the claim to ownership of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Night Café,” painted in 1888 and now claimed by Pierre Konowaloff, who says he is the heir to Ivan Morozv, a Russian aristocrat who acquired the work in 1908.

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Yale says the Russian government nationalized the painting in 1918 following the Bolshevik revolution, so that the university’s subsequent purchase was legal. Konowaloff’s claim is that Morozv wasn’t compensated, making the taking illegal. W&D filled for dismissal in early October, but for now the battle goes on.

Rare and Unusual Views of Yale and New Haven

No More Lyme Disease For…Mice NEW HAVEN — Yale researchers have found a protein in the saliva of ticks that helps protect mice from developing Lyme disease and could be the source of a new Lyme vaccine. A vaccine developed in the mid-1990s was taken off the market in 2002 for lack of efficacy.

This new strategy of targeting the saliva that a microbe uses to infect a host may work for other diseases, including West Nile virus, dengue fever and malaria, the researchers said.

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Southern Exposed Five years into her job as SCSU president, Cheryl Norton is still kicking butt (in some cases, literally) and taking names

december 2009

Steve Blazo

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PHOTOGRAPH:

Norton: What I’ve told women who are professionals in education is that I do think we can have it all — but just not all at once.

A Kiss That Lasts Forever

C

heryl J. Norton, 60, is president of Southern Connecticut State University — the first female to lead New Haven’s largest institution of higher learning, with more than 12,000 students. Before arriving in New Haven in 2004, Norton was provost and vice president for academic affairs at Metropolitan State College of Denver, the nation’s largest urban public baccalaureate college, with more than 20,000 students. An athlete with a doctorate in exercise physiology, Norton arrived at SCSU as state government was beginning to invest more than ever before in its state university system — including hundreds of millions of dollars, primarily for infrastructure, at Southern. NHM Publisher Mitchell Young interviewed Norton for ONE2ONE.

vvv Let’s start with what’s important. You were a dog musher. When did you start doing that and how?

Our whole experience with huskies, the dog of choice in dog-sled racing, began when my husband and I were first married and we [worked] at Choate [Rosemary Hall in Wallingford]. There was a student [from Canada] who brought down a four-month-old husky puppy, thinking he could have the dog on campus. He could not, so we ended up adopting the dog.

Choate?

My husband grew up in Wallingford, and after me met at [Ohio’s] Denison University, the very first year we got married we were dorm parents at the Mem [Memorial] House at Choate. We were responsible for 21 14-year-old boys, their care and feeding and providing the birthday cakes, making sure they had a home away from home.

Knowing you moved here from Colorado, I just assumed you got into dogs there.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Steve Blazo

The story gets better, because several years later, in 1974, we ended up living in Manhattan and going to Central Park to run and play in Sheep’s Meadow, [where] at that time you could let your dog run.

We had adopted another one, and we happened to meet other people who had huskies. We would talk while our dogs

would play, and a gentleman said, ‘I want to start a dog sled team here in Central Park.’ We made our harnesses and gang lines and bought a three-wheel [training] rig and a sled and we would train on the bridle path. Putting all of our dogs together we called ourselves the Central Park Mushers.

When did you move out West?

In 1976 we moved to Colorado and [dog mushing] seemed like a normal thing to continue to do, except we only had two dogs and needed at least three. We thought we would be there for a couple years, but we were there for 28 [years]. We ended getting a dog to give us three, and from there we grew our own kennel and finally got our brood bitch from Alaska.

We did dog-sled racing for about ten years; at the height we had 22 dogs.

That’s gotta be a lot of work.

It’s not something you do just casually; you focus your life around it and that’s one of the reasons we ended up getting out of our dog-sled years. By this time we had two young children and they were more interested in playing with their friends than going up into the mountains to race, standing in the cold watching dogs run. We dispersed our kennel and starting paying more attention to our children, but before that happened our children said they didn’t think they had a pet. We had all these dogs and they didn’t feel like they had a pet. We kept [the huskies] outdoors so they develop thick coats and develop their own team collaborative, their pecking order. To have that team concept they need to be a in a kennel outside. So we ended getting a German shepherd so it could guard the huskies as well as being a nice house dog.

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They all got along?

We did a lot of research and the German shepherd by its nature is ‘shepherding’ — it is a protector. Huskies are very, very friendly; you could go up to a husky and put a leash on it and walk away. Whereas the German shepherd would make sure people would stay away from our kennel.

You started your education career in Denver?

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PHOTOGRAPH:

I had been working on my doctorate in applied physiology, the study of how the body adapts to exercise and how exercise can be used to change the body’s health and fitness.

Steve Blazo

I guess we could improve health care if we could improve health.

Eighty-five percent of the people in hospitals today are there for a hypokinetic disease, a lack of movement. If we could just get people to move, it would eliminate a lot of visits to the doctor and a lot of visits to the hospital.

Without dogs pulling them. So you started teaching in Denver?

I was doing my doctorate and decided to suspend the active work and I took a job teaching at Metropolitan State College.

They were looking for someone who had a doctorate in exercise physiology and who was a minority. Frankly in 1976 [such a person] didn’t exist.

In 1976 a female was a ‘minority’?

That’s exactly right. When I received my doctorate in 1980 there were only 40 women in the U.S. who had a doctorate in this area. Metropolitan State was part of the Colorado State [University] system, a public urban higher education [system] with open enrollment. That’s what drew me to Southern — there was a lot of commonality, giving people an opportunity to grow in their education.

Which is the more rewarding job: administrator or teacher?

Believe it or not, you have much more freedom as a faculty member in a classroom. I [as a teacher] can make decisions about what I want to teach, how quickly I want to move through the material. And there’s nothing better than helping encourage students in the discipline you’ve come to know and love.

Being an administrator, you don’t have as much control as you think you might.

I’m not controlling what’s happening in that classroom. What I am trying to do is to break down barriers to what can be accomplished in that classroom — whether it’s providing more resources, or buildings or partnerships with external communities — and that gives a sense of satisfaction.

Madame President: ‘I think every little girl should do some martial arts, to learn they can get hit and they will live through it.’

or students who were having difficulty with the red tape of the system.

you’re trying to find opportunities for each of them to be successful.

And then?

When you got that first senior administrator position at Metro and now here, what did you set out to accomplish?

My president came to me and told me she wanted me to be the provost [senior academic administrator].

I would think that’s a better job than president.

How long were you at Metro?

It’s the hardest position in the institution.

About 28 years. I rose through the ranks — assistant [professor], associate [professor], department chair and for a year and a half I was the ombudsman officer, trying to work with faculty, staff

But you get to work with the content and you get to keep the lights on.

It’s a great analogy, but the provost has a lot of balls to balance — in the case here [at SCSU] over 400 full-time faculty and

Academic excellence. I wanted to see that every program was not only taught at the highest level of competency, but that curriculum was up to date [and encompassed] the highest standards and best practices of that discipline.

Why did you move on?

Actually it was my husband. About three years after I was made provost he said, ‘You really need to be a president of an new haven

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institution.’

I said no, I felt that I was [sufficiently] challenged, and I knew to be a president I would have to leave Colorado, and I wasn’t ready. Our sons were still in college [in Ohio], and I didn’t want them to come home to someplace they never grew up in. But my husband was persistent, and he said, ‘You have to move on.’ I was still thinking a lot more as a mother. When our youngest son graduated from college, my husband said ‘So, what’s your problem now?’

Do you find that many professional women hold themselves back from professional advancement because of their families?

I think you have to ask each woman individually. What I’ve told women who are professionals in education is that I do think we can have it all — but just not all at once. One of the nice benefits of education is that it gives you some flexibility as to how you want to pace yourself through your career. I knew a lot of men younger than I who said, ‘I’m going to be a college president in ten years.’ I never frankly allowed my own career ambitions to outstrip what I thought my family could or should tolerate.

Let’s go back to physiology for minute.

Your degree is in exercise physiology, you ran dogs — we can safely say you like sports?

I love sports. I was a nationally ranked marathon runner, I came in fifth in the New York Marathon in 1976 [in 3:18:50], I have a black belt in Taekwando.

In my generation women didn’t get as many opportunities to compete in sports.

How do sports help women?

It’s immensely important. I give a speech called ‘Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned Through Sweating.’ There are a couple of things.

Number one: the ability to have some confidence in yourself physically. A sense of capability is developed when you feel very comfortable with your body and competing, winning, practicing, sweating.

I think every little girl should do some martial arts, to learn they can get hit and they will live through it. Not that women should be hit, but there is a basic understanding that I’m not so fragile. It’s rough in the business world, and you have to be able to know you can withstand that mental and emotional punishment.

Speaking of sports, SCSU has become highly competitive in many sports.

Southern has had a very nice history of sports in the Division II arena. [In Division II] basically you can give scholarships, but you don’t have to provide the money in terms of the facilities [compared to Division I schools].

You can put the money into the students.

Southern continues to have such a strong exercise-science area, there is a lot of attraction of athletes to the school. One of the nice benefits of coming here as president was having a very active and successful sports program. I’ve never met a sport I didn’t like.

Let’s talk exercise science. In the middle of this national debate over health-care costs, we hear, ‘Eat right and exercise.’ But there is almost no discussion about the science of it.

We as exercise physiologists did a disservice to the public when talking about ‘exercise.’ Now I talk more about movement. The first time we recognized the need to put exercise into our lives as we moved from an agrarian society [to more sedentary lifestyles] was really in the 1960s with the concept of aerobics.

We still thought [then that age] 40 was over the hill, and if you were 41 you were at risk of death if you sweated. The first exercise studies that were done on how

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the body responded to active movement was in the 1970s and done with young college males. So we started to get a lot of information on the physiological response to exercise for a group of people between 18 and 22 — white males, highly educated.

Then women started exercising, too, Title IX came across and we had opportunities for sports and we began to realize you just couldn’t go out to play the sports; you had to have a basis of fitness to do it. We started to do research on women in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, primarily that young college population. It was then that we asked, ‘You have the people who were exercising with aerobics in the 1960s now getting to that very scary [age] — 40 – could they keep exercising or were they at risk?’ We began doing research with people in their 50s. The early researchers would have a [research subject] accompanied by a physician, because they were so concerned the person would just fall over if they broke a sweat.

We did end up with a fitness craze, though, for at least some people.

What we found out is we captured a certain audience, but we left a lot of people out because [exercise] got too complicated. We began to realize there was difference between exercising for health versus exercising for fitness. If you look at the continuum of health and fitness — death at one end, or ready for Olympic competition on the other — there is a whole variety of levels in between. We started to talk about movement instead of ‘exercise.’ If we could just get people to get up and walk, to garden, to take a leisurely bike ride. Remember we had that concept ’No pain, no gain’ — which is not true at all.

What about people in their 70s and older — should they be pushing the limit?

Absolutely. What we found out is that people [who are physically active] have a better joy for life, they’re not as depressed, they sleep better, they’re more regular in all their functions. When we stop moving, the body doesn’t know what to do to regulate its caloric consumption.

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But that message hasn’t gotten out there entirely, or we wouldn’t have the number of obese people we have.

We knew in the 1990s there was going to be an obesity epidemic in our children.

The CDC [Centers for Disease Control were] predicting it, what they didn’t predict was ‘supersizing.’ They knew people were eating wrong and not exercising, [but] they didn’t predict the

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obesity epidemic as coming on as quick.

What makes a leader, versus just being the person in charge?

A vision — you have to have a vision. If you’re following someone else’s pathway, then all you are doing is managing.

Leaders have a vision for where they want to go and they are able to excite and make contagious that vision around them. It becomes something [others] believe in and they become creative.

Here at Southern, what is that vision?

I saw in Southern the opportunity to create access to education for people who maybe [were] the first in their family to go to college. Or to continue lifelong learning in the graduate program so people can evolve and eventually transform the community in which they live. Ninety four percent of the [students] here come from the southern Connecticut area and go back to it [after leaving school]. I think that’s an incredibly important piece of information. It’s the middle group in our society that we have to reach out to and educate to secure the strength of our democracy. People who are educated can be the leaders in their community, in the Y, in their church or synagogue. Number two: Because there was a building program

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going on, it begged for a maturation of the institution not only physically but in terms of the outreach into the community.

You cannot build new buildings and not expect to change. If you have the same old facility, it’s much more difficult to convince people to change how they’re working. A new physical plant gives an incredible amount of leverage to say, ‘What are we going to do?’

How has it impacted SCSU students?

I think there is a great deal of excitement about being at Southern. Not only about what goes on in the classroom, but community engagement and responsibility are two very important focal points of what we’ve been doing for the last five years.

What about faculty and staff?

In 2001 and 2002, there was a retirement program and there was a lot of change in terms of leadership, which allowed me an opportunity to build a team. My goal has been to make Southern a premier institution of higher education in an urban environment. How we can reach out to individuals who have not had the opportunity [to go to college] and give them not only a desire for lifelong learning but an opportunity for an

education?

Southern has been here for 115 years and has graduated tens of thousands of students. But in some ways it’s been invisible or at least overshadowed. Do you think that is changing now?

It’s intentional to make sure people recognize the resource that Southern provides to the community and to partner to make the community a better place to live. New Haven should be different because Southern is here — and it should be better. One of the first things I did when I got here was talk to people in the community. [Longtime New Haven state rep William] Dyson said, ‘Southern is like a little kid you put in the corner. Every once in a while you throw him a little food to keep him alive — but you really don’t have the impact from that institution.’ I said, ‘Bill, Southern is going to lead — and it’s going to lead from the middle, not from the edge.’

There has always been some skepticism about the size and quality of faculty at state institutions generally. Is Connecticut investing enough in faculty?

Connecticut just gives you the dollars; you decide how you want to spend it. We had 397 faculty [when I arrived here]. I

worked to grow the size [of the faculty]; last year we had 444. It was an increase for the purpose of providing more fulltime faculty to deal with students, to give better advisement, relationships. We’re not at that high number now because of the retirement incentive program; we’re at 424 now. I’m incredibly impressed with our faculty. Reading dossiers, talking to people, watching what they do on campus — I’m overwhelmed with the quality and professionalism and their work in the classroom and out of the classroom. Obviously we’re known for some disciplines, especially the health and human services, communications disorder, speech therapy, public health, nursing areas. But we have a strong foundation in the sciences, the business school and of course education. The faculty is incredibly active in their own disciplines.

The major industry of our region is education, but I’m not sure that the average faculty member is as involved in community activities.

We continue to encourage our faculty to be engaged and our students with service learning. Last year we had about 100,000 hours of service to the community between the faculty, staff and students.

Southern’s improvement itself creates a demand for a wider neighborhood improvement, doesn’t it?

The biggest thing that’s happening is the education reform that Mayor DeStefano is spearheading [public-school reform], and that is an area we are definitely partnering in. Not only is the [SCSU] provost [Selase Williams] on the [New Haven] Board of Education, but we are highly involved in assessing what students need to get to college and then backing it into the high schools, including how it influences our curriculum and teacher preparation.

What’s your personal level of confidence overall in this change?

I would be naïve to say that the students who come are well prepared in all areas to take advantage of a college education — which is why we’re so invested in this education-reform issue. If you asked UConn or Central [Connecticut State] they would have the same concerns.

Primarily you’re looking at preparation for English and math.

You were in greater New Haven as young person and you came back more than three decades later. What do you see that is different and could make New Haven a

lifestyle draw?

There is a great improvement from when I was here in the 1970s. It is a much safer environment. The culture has been enhanced, the restaurants — there is a lot to do here. Connecticut is very rich in environmental resources, and I don’t think we take advantage of it as much as we could. They talk about Colorado and how wonderful it is. The reality is you’re either in the plains or the mountains. In Connecticut you’ve got valleys, you’ve got oceans, hills — you have a ton of opportunity to live a lifestyle that is attractive to you. What I do see here is a very strong respect for history.

So in others words, ‘Don’t give me anything new’?

West of the Mississippi, people are willing to try new and different things because there is no anchor [of history] — ‘This is how we’ve always done it.’ A lot of the changes in education that we’re working on now — seamless transfer from community colleges [to four-year colleges], for example — were concepts that were dealt with a decade or more ago in the West. They were much more willing to be flexible and say, ‘Why not?’

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The building itself is a mirror on a distant New Haven past. But now a group of artists and supporters hope to bring the Orchard Street Shul back to life

By KAREN SINGER

16

december 2009

A

few steps from North Frontage Road sits an historic building many New Haveners don’t even know exists as they drive by vacant grassy patches once teeming with life.

When bulldozers destroyed homes and businesses in the area a half-century ago, the building, a synagogue at 232 Orchard Street, was not in the line of fire.

Home to the orthodox Beth Israel Congregation since the mid-1920s, the Orchard Street Shul is in disrepair and hasn’t been used regularly for worship in around a decade. Its 60 remaining members, however, are determined to find funds to fix it and share its legacy with the world.

A new and historic art exhibition should draw attention to their efforts. The Orchard Street Shul Cultural Heritage Artists Project exhibit runs from December 6 to January 31 at the John Slade Ely House for Contemporary Art.

Beth Israel President Teitleman, 87, celebrated his bar mitzvah on Orchard Street.

PHOTOGRAPH:

Anthony DeCarlo

twin Moorish-style domes seem silent sentries to the past.

“Sometimes when I go in there I can hear the voices of the worshippers saying prayers,” says Roz Croog, one of the artists, whose work superimposes Hebrew letters and religious text over interior photos of the building. “The walls have echoes, and I believe that each place carries the memories of what has happened before.

Croog’s father was secretary of the shul for over five decades, and her grandfather was a founder.

“It feels comforting to be in there,” she says, “like I’m being enveloped by all these ancestors and the people in the community.”

Croog remembers watching services with her grandmother from the second-floor balcony, where all adult women were required to sit.

“It had a great view,” she says, adding Drawing on historical documents as well the men could buy lifetime seats on the as memories of congregation members numbered wooden pews downstairs and and former neighborhood residents, often bought seats upstairs for the wives. three dozen artists and researchers from several states have produced works The cornerstone for the Beth Israel ranging from photographs, paintings and Synagogue was laid in 1924, 11 years after audio recordings to a digital model of the its congregation formed and first met in a synagogue, a Google map project and a book. store on Asylum Street. Completed a year later, the building soon became known as “There’s a new movement of communitythe Orchard Street Shul. based art, where artists are coming out of the inner sanctum of their studios,” says Designed with elements of Colonial Cynthia Beth Rubin, a New Haven artist revival and Moorish revival style, the who organized the project after being interior has a “very traditional European contacted by Rabbi Mendy Hecht, the layout,” with a bimah, a platform with a grandson of Moishe Hecht, a rabbi who desk for reading the Torah, in the center led the Beth Israel Congregation for many of the room, explains Mary Donohue, years. “New Haven has undergone huge survey and grants director for the changes through urban renewal, and in Connecticut Commission on Culture the midst of what once was a community and Tourism. In 1991, Donohue directed there was this one old synagogue that a survey of 46 Connecticut synagogues remained. The congregation realized they built between 1843 (when it became legally needed to move forward, and Mendy permissible for Jews to practice their was thinking of ways to re-energize the religion openly in Connecticut) and 1945. building.”

Beth Israel was distinctive, she says, An art exhibit provides a good way “to because of the layout and “unusually touch and move people,” Rubin adds, intact and really beautiful interior.” “because we synthesize information in different, not always linear, ways.” vvv Behind a rusty gate, the synagogue’s steps are covered with moss and leaves, and its

In 1995, the shul was added to the state Registry of Historic Buildings, which new haven

17

noted its period of significance as 1925 to 1949. During those years the synagogue flourished, along with the Oak Street/ Legion Avenue neighborhood, an ethnically diverse area bustling with small businesses.

“It was a nice community, with a lot of Italians and Jewish people,” recalls Lou Guarino, who grew up there and until three years ago organized an annual Legion Avenue reunion picnic for former residents. “Everybody knew everybody — and you could buy anything.”

In its heyday, the Orchard Street Shul held daily services, study groups and social events. “The place was packed,” recalls 87-year-old Beth Israel Congregation president Sam Teitleman, who celebrated his bar mitzvah there.

His parents became members of the congregation after emigrating from the Ukraine in the early 1920s and opening a nearby kosher meat market.

“As teenagers, we would make the rounds

of the synagogues,” recounts Beverly Bergstein, whose grandfather, great grandfather, great uncles and cousins were among the Orchard Street Shul founders.

“There were about two dozen synagogues within ten to 14 blocks. We were looking for boys and hung out on the front steps and we rarely went inside. The woman’s basic role was at home.”

After World War II, thousands of New Haven residents headed for the suburbs and the neighborhood began to decline.

By the late 1950s the area was ground zero for Mayor Richard C. Lee’s urban renewal initiative, which brought in millions of dollars in federal funds and tore down hundreds of homes, businesses and most of the synagogues. The Legion Avenue neighborhood was demolished to make way for the Oak Street Connector — the infamous freeway that was never built.

“At that time we didn’t know that much about the laws, and when the city did

something there was no opposition,” Guarino says.

Artist Lisa Ling explores the “political impact of the urban renewal process on the area” in “The Connector,” a Webbased project (http://locationmap.org/ TheConnectorMap) using a Google map, with links to articles and books as well as historic photos, lists of former businesses and relocated residents and snippets of interviews she conducted with former residents.

A Web designer who worked in New Haven several years ago, Ling says she “wanted to create something ongoing that can be shared. My hope is that other people might want to contribute photos or pictures.”

The Orchard Street Shul survived the next several decades even as membership dwindled and the building deteriorated.

In the late 1990s, it received a $20,000 matching grant from the Connecticut

Detail of the installation ‘Florence Mednicow,’ large digital print of the subject and still image of singlechannel projection.

18

december 2009

Historic Restoration Fund, which was used to replace the large, arched secondfloor windows.

Meanwhile, the building has started to be used for community events.

In early November, a tour of the shul combined with a showing of the movie Lies My Father Told Me, drew nearly 100 people. “Some had been there 40 or 50 years ago, and some had never seen it,” says congregation member and past president Lee Liberman, who coordinated the event.

Much more needs to be done.

“It will take quite a bit of money to do essential rehabilitation and bring the building up to code,” Teitleman says. “We need about $300,000 to cover a rebuilding of the restrooms, rebuilding the electrical system, fixing the front steps and replacing doors that are in terrible shape.

Then, over the long haul, we’re talking well over a million dollars to make the building conform to the kind of uses we want. What we want it to be is a Jewish structure of historical significance. We don’t believe it will be an operating synagogue, like it was in the past, but it can have religious services and historically oriented educational programs.”

Similar activities are planned for 2010.

“For next spring, we’re looking at a Sunday afternoon card party, and also considering a Purim costume party for kids,” says Croog, who became a member of Beth Israel’s board last year.

“It’s a very difficult thing,” Liberman says.

“What we would like [to accomplish] and being practical are two different things.

Hopefully we can repair the place so it doesn’t keep disintegrating.”

The board is planning to launch a fundraising campaign before the end of 2009.

“The art exhibit is a separate project,” Teitleman says. “The main energy in that project is Cynthia Rubin, and she has done a great deal more than I ever imagined that she could do.”

Teitleman hopes the exhibit will generate

Artist Roz Croog’s work superimposes Hebrew letters and religious text over interior photos of the building.

a “fair amount of publicity, which we hope will help us in our efforts to generate the resources.”

vvv

Liberman, Teitleman and Bergstein were among congregation members interviewed by artist Maya Escobar and her father, cultural anthropologist and psychologist Gonzalo Escobar. Their project, “Talking About Orchard Street,” is an interactive installation where exhibit visitors can

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sit in plush chairs and sample herring and kichel (cookies) while listening to interview excerpts and engaging in dialogue with one another.

“We saw so much enthusiasm triggered by these memories,” Escobar says. She and her father are returning to New Haven for the exhibit and may record more interviews.

Yale computer science professor Holly Rushmeier and her students created a digital three-dimensional model of the synagogue for the Orchard Street Shul project, using a high-end scanner, digital cameras and other lower-tech devices.

“It’s a good way for us to test out different modeling techniques for capturing a real structure,” explains Rushmeier. “It’s one thing to develop things that work in the office and work in the lab, but another to make it work in real life.

The model also may be used after the exhibit.

“Another one of our research areas is how materials age, and how do things realistically change, so we’ll have this model and can do other things with it,” Rushmeier says. One possibility would be “producing some reconstructions,” which

could be helpful in planning renovation work for the shul.

With old photographs, documents and audio recordings, North Haven artist Jeanne Criscola created a tribute to Florence Mednicow, the aunt of a close friend, who died in 1998 at the age of 91. “She kept everything, including all these bills and donations to the shul, and newspaper clippings about everything that pertained to the shul all the way up until the late 1990s,” Criscola says. “It’s an incredible archive.”

As a child, Criscola spent time in the Legion Avenue neighborhood, where her grandparents lived, and remembers “the fish wagons, the fruit and vegetable man” and other itinerant merchants, as well as her great uncle’s butcher shop, where chickens were slaughtered “right in the front.”

Criscola also designed the book for the exhibit, which is available for download online and contains essays by Jewish immigration historian Hasia Diner and Hana Iverson, whose multimedia installation View from the Balcony sparked interest in renovating New York City’s Eldridge Street Shul, which now is a museum presenting cultural events and

educational programs.

The art exhibit about the Orchard Street Shul comes at a time when New Haven officials are working on plans to rebuild streets and other infrastructure along the Route 34 corridor, paving the way for residential and commercial development first dreamed of by Dick Lee half a century ago.

Karyn Gilvarg, executive director of the City Plan Department, says the Orchard Street Shul is included within the boundary of the municipal development plan because of its historic significance and Orchard Street is “likely to have retail” along Frontage Road at some point.

“I wish I could wave my magic wand and we could put back what was destroyed by plans for the highway,” she says. “But this is not going to happen overnight.”

Several events are being held in conjunction with the exhibit, including panel discussions, a jazz concert and an opening reception for the artists from noon to 5 p.m. December 6.

For a full listing of events, visit the Orchard Street Shul project Web site at orchardstreetshul-artistsproject.org. v

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december 2009

Buon Natale You don’t have to live in Wooster Square to enjoy Christmas just like in the Old Country

By MELISSA NICEFARO

For some, no Christmas would be Christmas without panetone, a tall, Italian sweet bread studded with candied fruit.

new haven

21

PHOTOGRAPH:

E

very Christmas Eve at the crack of dawn, my inlaws Ralph and Julia Nicefaro crawl out of bed and make the trek from their Hamden home to New Haven’s Grand Avenue to take part in an age-old Italian Christmas tradition: they get in line with dozens of others at Lucibello’s Pastry Shop for pies and pastries. The Nicefaros are picking up cream pies — some with fruit, some without — and pastries for the family’s Christmas celebration. They arrive hopeful that they’ll pull that No. 1 tag ensuring them the prime spot at the head of the line, but by the looks of the parking situation around the neighborhood, they quickly realize they won’t be first.

Not even close. They wait while every customer ahead of them hand-chooses their pastries.

As my father-in-law says, the waiting is part of the Christmas tradition. He always sees a few familiar faces — some from today and some from long ago — in the crowd.

“Sometimes you make new friends and sometimes you see people from the old neighborhood you haven’t seen in years,” he says.

The fact that people do get out of bed at the crack of dawn to wait for the bakery to open its doors at 8:30 is humbling to 22

december 2009

Anthony DeCarlo

On Christmas Eve morning shoppers throng, to Lucibello’s for pies, pastries and cookies.

Lucibello’s proprietor Peter Faggio. The line starts building at about 5:30 or 6 o’clock on Christmas Eve morning.

“You hear time and time again that it’s not Christmas without Lucibello’s on the table,” Faggio says. “It’s tradition and is just the same as when they were children.

It’s our original recipes that everyone remembers. It’s ingredients from local vendors. It’s part of many Italian family histories here in New Haven and with our pastries, cookies, cakes and pies, we help everything remain the same for families celebrating Christmas.”

Lucibello’s is famous in these parts for their pastries and cookies. Cookies must be pre-ordered by December 20. Pastries, however, can’t be preordered since the bakery does not have room to keep them freshly stored.

No matter which region of Italy (or most places in the world, for that matter) your family is from, one commonality among Christmas traditions is an abundance of dessert. But when it comes to the main Christmas Eve course (or courses), Italians are known for their feast of fish and seafood. (And you know exactly who they are when you sit behind them at midnight mass.)

This tradition began in the southern parts

of Italy — the same regions that many Italo-American ancestors who settled in New Haven came from. But why fish?

The ritual grew out of the Roman Catholic rule of abstinence the day before a holy day. Since cod and eel were inexpensive and easy to attain in much of southern Italy, they became the mainstay on the Christmas Eve dinner table.

vvv In his book The Italian American Experience in New Haven, Anthony V. Riccio describes the preparation leading up to the celebration of Christmas. He shares stories of families soaking the baccala — dried salt cod — for three weeks until soft and then it was made into a traditional salad with lemon, olives, salt, pepper and garlic. Some had fried baccala and others had their baccala with potatoes and tomatoes. Eels were decapitated, skinned, fried and served for dinner.

Today, calamari, crab, shrimp and lobster also grace the dinner tables of Italians on Christmas Eve. It was and is one day where no expense is spared.

The traditions of Christmases past that Riccio tells have not changed. The holiday is still styled around food and family.

L’Orcio restaurant co-owner and chef Francesco d’Amuri recalls his mother

PHOTOGRAPH:

making as a main course baccala stew with orzo, olives, tomatoes and sauce.

Steve Blazo

“We always had shrimp and baccala salad,” he says. “Though many Italians, particularly those from the southern regions of the country, eat a lot of fish, those from the north tend to eat more meat at Christmastime. There you’ll find turkey, capone, braised rib roast with mushrooms. It’s more of a cultural difference than a religious difference.”

D’Amuri was pleasantly surprised at his first American Italian Christmas with his wife’s family. “Alison’s family is from Puglia and they almost celebrate here in the same way we did there — across the ocean,” he says.

Christmas is one of the few days he does not cook, but he does enjoy the meal. His wife Alison De Renzi’s grandmother, nearly 90 years young, still cooks the traditional Christmas dinner.

“She’s pretty famous for her fried jumbo shrimp,” says d’Amuri. “Alison’s father makes a baccala salad. We basically have seven fishes. In Italy we have two or three, but here, we go for seven. Every year we say we’re going to cut out one dish — like the scungilli salad — but it doesn’t happen.”

This Italian-born and -bred chef may well have married his wife for her grandmother’s cooking.

“We’ll have Grandma’s hot sauce with onions and tomato. She lets it stew for

“And wine,” Alison pipes in. “What people don’t realize about Italy is that from region to region and town to town, the diet is completely different. A different city or town could be eating polenta and risotto with a roast. The American Italian Christmas more closely resembles the holiday of southern Italy.”

“No matter what the region, we all go all out,” De Renzi says. “We have so much food we usually do lunch, take a break, then have dinner.”

But it’s not over until she’s had her panetone, a tall, Italian sweet bread studded with candied fruit. hours. It’s something only a grandma can do. She’ll let it cook from the morning to sunset and it is so good,” d’Amuri says.

They also enjoy spaghetti with lobster tails, spaghetti with calamari sauce, scungilli appetizer, the baccala salad and fruita de mara salad.

“Now that’s a tradition that goes back to antiquity and a time when they made bread just like it,” she says. She orders a case each holiday season from a bakery on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.

“There is just no Italian Christmas without it,” she says. v

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With one child in college and a second on the way, author Dickinson has spent years fending off overtures from the college admissions ‘industrial complex.’

College Admissions Shell Game 24

december 2009

Anthony DeCarlo

By DUO DICKINSON

PHOTOGRAPH:

A parent’s perspective on how non-elite colleges shamelessly pander to win the admissions game

B

d or g e x.’

ecause I have a sophomore in college and a senior in high school, the American College Admissions Industrial Complex has been commanding my attention with a cynical exuberance that must be experienced to be believed.

Getting into a non-elite college has become a process in which New Age pandering has replaced Old School pretense — where harvesting applicant numbers is as important as locking in the $50,000-a-year price of admission for most any private institution.

Unless your child is among the top five percent of high school academics, musicians, artists or athletes who can negotiate their terms of college admittance, he or she is bombarded with a marketing effort by the private collegiate underclass that turns the traditional image of higher education on its head. Those vanilla students who have no compelling personal saga (inner-city childhood, first in the family ever to attend college, raised by wolves) and have not performed at a demonstrably excellent level (grades and standardized tests in the top ten percent) are told by the lower-tier private liberal arts colleges competing to admit them that higher education is an “excellent adventure.” The marketing of that “adventure” can easily and often does

descend into shallow and cynical hype.

The admissions mating ritual has evolved from the previous generation’s happenstance encounter between disinterested admissions officers, outof-it parents and bewildered students to desperate applicant families trying to game the system to get a B student into an A school — and admissions folk equally desperate to get their raw admissions and “yield” numbers up.

The process is now open, aboveboard, transparent — and completely disingenuous. Whereas state schools can use lower costs to drive up applications and acceptance rates, especially in tough economic times, the heat is on the nonIvy-level private schools to “put meat in the seats” to stay afloat. These institutions were part of my children’s application portfolio, and their common approach is disturbingly consistent.

Admissions advisers, abetted by the zeitgeist of books like Colleges That Change Lives and The Hidden Ivies, tell college applicants that all schools are more or less equally desirable — you just have to find the one that “fits” you best. This is a classic New Age argument of relativistic rationalizing. The argument is that the “good” schools are not really better

— they’re just more famous, beneficiaries of unmerited positive regard of cultural bias toward entrenched elites. So what if you studied little, partied lots or that your greatest high-school accomplishment was reaching level 59 of Space Raider Star Troopers – there are hundreds of schools just perfect for you!

This attitude is tantamount to a deepneck massage to parents who desperately want to show those snooty elite schools that they should want your spawn, even with that C in French. The “It’s all good” paradigm also serves the purposes of admissions officers of the second-tier (or lower) schools that are happy to receive as many unqualified applications as they can get e-mailed into their inbox — deep-sixing the lame at warp speed, as any application (qualified or otherwise) accrues to the greater hype of their selectivity ranking.

The aggressive effort by the omnivorous non-elite/not-cheap private colleges to distract applicants from the actual consequences of their class standing starts with “hip” brochures and edgy Web sites, that spout words like “excellence,” “risk,” and “community” between testimonials by hip and happy students.

If sufficiently seduced by guidance

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session,” during which an admissions drone, in a glib, hip and provocative presentation, tells you what makes their school “special.” Inevitably, it comes down to the pitch that “You can do anything you want to here” and “Professors take a personal interest in every student” and “This school wants the entire academic experience to enrich your life.” All promise that study abroad can be had at the drop of a hat (neglecting the fact that it also requires thousands of dollars of funding by your parents), and that their school is “uniquely” committed to one-onone student-led research projects (it’s hard to imagine that every school is “unique”).

Then there is the tour, an experience that Saturday Night Live could easily parody with a screeching Rachel Dratch walking backwards, talking a mile a minute, waving arms, often saying things that are virtually incoherent, Tourettes-ing the idioms of the potential students she is leading (“like,” “kinda,” “really, really” and of course “awesome”).

counselor recommendations and propaganda, you then “must” visit perfectly outfitted admissions offices offering warm chocolate chip cookies and crisp pretzels. In recent years, stock market bubble-engorged endowments allowed the architecture and landscapes of small college campuses to be setdesigned and art-directed enough to astonish returning alumni. These makeovers focus on the prime directive of college admissions: To get as many kids as possible to apply, thus making the college’s “selectivity” rating higher. This is done by making the campus warm and fuzzy with things the kids care about.

Since impulse purchases are often driven by peripherals (like the color of the car in the showroom) the most visible efforts of the admissions office to get applications in the inbox are not geared to revealing academic excellence. In visiting a score of campuses over the last 30 months I’ve yet to see a dining hall that offered fewer than three options of design-your-own entrées (stir fry, omelette, sandwich, sushi, etc., etc.) Franklin & Marshall’s main dining hall has seven separate empowering stations of personal food expression. Once 26

december 2009

the thrill of the Extreme Food Court approach to dorm fare becomes old news, there is always (always) breakfast cereal present and mac-and-cheese at every nonbreakfast meal — soft, salty and sweet, a low-impact diet for the gastronomically risk averse.

There are study/social areas in virtually every new academic building (instead of a buzz-killing segregation of building use into separated studying and social functions). Dorm rooms open for inspection by prospective students (occupied by students who are paid to keep them neat) are fully propped — one at Muhlenberg was right out of a Crate & Barrel catalogue. Every campus is WiFiwired and there are concerts, comedians, plays and other circuses in celebrated abundance. Hamilton’s remote upstate New York campus brings in acts more often playing small cities.

vvv Beyond these polished physical manifestations of the on-site marketing machine, two rituals take place at virtually every college in America. One is the “info

Another revealed truth about these ritualistic kabuki dances of mutual assured seduction and dueling hype (one side promoting the school, the other the applicant), is that these tours and the info sessions are completely redundant. Virtually everything that is said in one is said in the other, and there is seldom an insight available that is not scripted.

You come to realize that the bottom line is that these schools are trying to make their own institution financially secure by creating a market that will continually yield more and more applicants and ultimately, out of that group yield enough “stakeholders” to pony up the $200,000 price tag for a four-year sojourn.

Into this emotionally charged marketplace the rules of capitalism are bizarrely distorted. Despite having 50- to 80-percent acceptance rates because the number of applicants are smaller and the majority of accepted candidates go elsewhere, the private non-elite schools charge about the same as the Superstars. Even though the elites accept just seven to ten percent of their much larger applicant pools (because the vast majority of those accepted opt to matriculate), they do not charge more than their less-desirable counterparts.

The non-elite schools need to charge as much or more as the elite institutions to fund their hype machine. The goal for these non-elite private colleges is full enrollment at the highest price tag the

market will bear. The need to cover their nut of consumer-friendly/applicationmilking costs means that these colleges have a ďŹ ll-the-class priority. With that as the priority, that C in French can become a mulligan — no harm, no foul.

Since the trick for the non-elites is to get the applications in, and ultimately enough applicants paying the freight to keep the machine going, admissions ofďŹ ces have every motivation to distort inconvenient truths about their institutions.

Examples of intentional vagary abound if you are able to maintain a dispassionate perspective (not exactly easy when it’s your kid’s future on the line). Union College received a dreaded “Top 15 Party School� ranking and responded by trying to reassure applicants (and their parents) that it was the result of the actions “three years ago by about 150 seniors.� Innercity schools like Hartford’s Trinity and Clark (in Worcester, Mass.) ignore any crime statistics in their presentation.

Wisconsin’s Lawrence University is rated “more selective� in rankings, but once the school’s music conservatory’s admission numbers are removed from the stats, a little bit of sixth-grade math reveals that eight out of ten applicants are admitted to the non-selective portion of the school — and also that eight out of ten of those admitted elect to go to school elsewhere.

The bottom line is simply this: When we think about outcomes instead of process, things get pretty harsh. When the “most selectiveâ€? universities in America (Yale, Harvard, etc.) simply drop the requirement for interviews, and similarly when many of the “less selectiveâ€? schools drop the requirement for standardized testing results, something is being said. Essentially, 90 percent of colleges and universities are desperate to get the number of applicants up to make themselves seem even more desirable, and the elite schools are anxious to ďŹ nd objective standards to separate those with the greatest intellectual potential to enrich their academic environment from those who don’t have it.

Sadly, most parents and their children are hopeful that being president of the Biodiversity Club in high school is the same as getting an A in AP Biology. It is not. Despite the overwhelming hype machine of the invigorated academic underclass, all schools want students who have taken honors courses and performed well in them. If your child didn’t do that, he or she may be a great person, but odds are they ain’t going to Yale. v

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Charity Begins at Home

For these New Haven philanthropists, giving isn’t just a seasonal hobby — and goes beyond writing a check

By MELISSA NICEFARO

28

december 2009

PHOTOGRAPH:

T

Anthony DeCarlo

he holiday season brings out the generosity in us. Our hearts break more easily for those less fortunate, so we’ll drop off a toy for a child in need or write a check to support a cause we deem worthy. But for this handful of givers, the choice to share is not seasonal — and it’s not optional.

These are people who view giving back not as a responsibility, but an honor.

Typically, preservation and generosity aren’t found in the same sentence. It’s perfectly normal if you’re Robert and Priscilla Dannies of New Haven, though.

The retired bank executive and Yale pharmacology professor care about the land preservation and they know that takes money — their money — to make it happen.

‘Granite countertops just aren’t important to me,’ says Priscilla Dannies, with husband (and cophilanthropist) Robert.

‘It’s more fun to give.’

PHOTOGRAPH:

With no children, the Dannies have a bit more discretionary income than others.

Mitchell Young

“I like to be generous,” says Priscilla Dannies. “Granite countertops just aren’t important to me. It’s more fun to give.”

The Dannies care about the arts and land issues. They also care about literacy, children and social services. They don’t give to just anyone who asks, however.

“We find the best organizations to give to,” says Priscilla Dannies.

Her husband agrees. “We’d rather give more money to fewer organizations,” Robert Dannies says. “It makes it much more meaningful.”

Priscilla Dannies serves on the board of directors of Fellowship Place, a New Haven mental health rehabilitation and treatment organization that places a strong emphasis on art.

“These are people suffering and recovering from mental illness,” she says. “I have had many conversations with the people going through these programs and their stories are moving.”

For the Dannies, philanthropy is not at all about writing a check. It’s about spending time supporting issues and then taking it one step further and getting to know the people involved with and affected by these issues.

Robert Dannies serves on the board of directors of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. His monetary donations go into the general operating support of that organization.

In 1997 with an initial gift of $25,000, the couple established a donor-advised fund with the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven that distributes

Rojas: ‘We need to start with the little ones so that they become part of the culture of philanthropy.’

grants each year to different organizations of their choice. To date it has distributed to Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven Symphony Orchestra and the Nature Conservancy of Connecticut.

Robert Dannies was also instrumental in creating the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) Foundation Inc. Fund this year. The fund was created by the board of directors of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra Foundation, which was created as the endowment arm of the NHSO. Robert Dannies is also on the board of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and Creative Arts Workshop.

Another of the Dannies’ favorite causes is the Appalachian Mountain Club.

“When I wake up in the middle of the night, instead of panicking, I find satisfaction in knowing I’ve protected

acres of land,” says Priscilla Dannies.

What works in philanthropy is collaboration, according to the Dannies.

When you get enough people together, there’s nothing they can’t do.

“Ideas spin off,” says Priscilla. “We care about the environment and about people.

When I’ve had a bad day, I still know I’ve done something good.”

vvv When Cynthia Rojas’ father Jose died in 2001 at age 58, she struggled. She figured she’d grow old with her parents, but her dad was taken from her before that happened.

“Like all kids, we think our parents leave way too soon. I spent a really long time — a full two years — before I could find a way to honor him,” Rojas says. new haven

29

“When I was 12, if you asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I would’ve told you I want to change the world,” says Rojas. “I’m 39 and I still want to change the world.

“To create real change, philanthropy is one very powerful vehicle,” she says. “I see that from my seat on the committee that decides where grants are allotted and I also have the privilege and honor to engage other people to come to the table and flip the outcome of the people in our community through the collection of financial resources.”

It’s not just about her father anymore.

“It’s got to be personal. It’s a vehicle for change,” she explains. “When you donate, you become that vehicle and it becomes even more powerful when people see you as a donor and they know that you’re invested in making change.”

vvv

Steitz: ‘I’m concerned about keeping women in science and what issues discourage women from pursuing their maximum potential.’

“We come into this universe,” Rojas says.

“This man was born, grew up, had his own children and dedicated his own life to his kids and just when he was about to start on his dream, he left this universe.”

It occurred to her there had to be more meaning to her father’s life beyond his physical existence and set about trying to find a way to preserve the impression he had made on so many people.

She noticed that in many libraries, hospitals and schools were reminders in little plaques and name plates of people who were no longer with us.

“There are even buildings named after people,” she says. “Philanthropy is a way to memorialize someone eternally. As long as I make a donation and as long as that donation continues to be recognized in his name, he’s never forgotten and his story is told.”

Rojas, director of strategic advancement for the Clifford Beers Guidance Clinic, has seen her personal goals transform her career. She started as a research manager and now is working in development for the non-profit. What started as a quest to honor her father has brought her fullcircle, blurring the lines between her personal and professional lives.

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december 2009

Her introduction to philanthropy came with her need to remember her father and his life. She needed to do it in a space where it would make sense to him, not herself.

“When I heard about the Progreso Latino Fund, it was so obvious that this was the space. My father was a very proud Puerto Rican man and he loved his heritage. He talked to me about our culture and was a typical traditional Latino father and husband. I know he’s doing hoops in his grave!” she jokes.

Rojas knew she’d always remember her father, but she needed to have something concrete — something she could see, touch and feel — to know that his spirit was living on.

The Progreso Latino Fund was established in 2003 to promote the educational and socioeconomic well-being of Latinos in the city of New Haven with special attention to Puerto Rican youth.

It took Rojas one small donation and she was hooked. In 2006 she was called to be on the committee that manages the fund and she began to learn that not only is philanthropy a way to remember the past, but also to encourage change in the future.

When Joan A. Steitz of Branford won the Albany Medical Center Prize in Biomedical Research (America’s largest prize in medicine) last year, she took her family on an African safari adventure. But then she had a decision to make: “I had to figure out what I was going to do with the money and I decided to give part of it to the Jane Coffin Childs Fund,” she says.

She has a long history with the charity.

Explains Steitz, who has a long history with the fund, “I decided they should use it to help women fellows who needed additional funds for child care.”

The Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at the Yale School of Medicine, Steitz shared the $500,000 award with Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California. Steitz’ groundbreaking molecular research may lead to more effective treatments for a variety of diseases. She and Blackburn were the first female scientists to earn the prestigious honor.

“I placed this money with the [Community Foundation for Greater New Haven] in the summer of 2008,” she explains. The fund, in which Steitz initially invested $118,000, provides stipends for child care to women who are recipients of a Childs fund post-doctoral fellowship.

The Jane Coffin Childs fund was started in 1937 to support research into causes, origins and treatment of cancer. The fund has evolved into one of the premier postdoctoral fellowships in the United States.

The fund’s offices are at the Yale medical

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school and it is administered by a board of directors and a scientific advisory board.

After 11 years on the board of the Childs fun, Steitz knows that the fund had a direct effect on discoveries in modern medicine. But when she had the chance to even more directly impact the outcome of this program, she was ecstatic.

Of the 300 applications that come in each year, about 20 are awarded to support threeyear fellowships.

“Getting one of these fellowships is one of the nicest things you can put on your CV,” Steitz says. “They’re highly competitive.

When people get a Ph.D in the life sciences, they’re working on the medical discoveries upon which medical research is based.”

“This is something that’s very important because although these fellowships are paid competitively for people at the postdoctoral level, if you have a family and children who need child care, there is not enough money. It’s a drop in the bucket and I’m hoping that other people may give to the fund and it may get so that those women fellows will be able to apply for the funds,” she says.

Since one of the biggest problems facing women in her field is the challenge of

finding quality child care, many are dropping out of scientific careers, and that makes Steitz cringe.

Especially when she considers that a number of people who were supported by this fund as post-doctoral fellows have won the Nobel Prize.

Her husband Thomas, in fact, won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work with the ribosome, the machine inside cells that makes protein.

It’s a perfect example of the greatness that can come out of support from funds like the Childs fund. “His work is directly related to the new design of antibiotics,” says Steitz of her husband, “with hospital infections being such a problem and these infections being resistant to antibiotics.

What my husband has done with the money he won with the Nobel Prize is to create new antibiotics that the bacteria are no longer resistant to,” she adds. His firm, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, is working on an antibiotic for MRSA that is in Phase II trials. “It kills the infection,” she says.

“The fund has been very good in supporting the most basic research, and that’s usually where surprises come from,” says Steitz. “When my husband started this research on the ribosome, he wasn’t

thinking about antibiotics, but because it was basic research that really expanded our understanding of what’s going on, it was able to be applied in a really important way medically.”

“I’m concerned about keeping women in science and what issues discourage women from pursuing their maximum potential,” she explains. “If anyone wants to give to the child-care fund, I’ll accept anything — that would be wonderful,” Steitz says.

“I hope that in the future, I’ll be able to expand what’s in there so that it can do a better job of fulfilling the real need of women.”

For Diane Ariker of Orange, dollars and sense is only a small part of giving.

Beyond that, “It’s giving time and expertise and lending your voice,” she explains. “Some people don’t have much in the way of money to share, but everybody has something they can give.”

Though she was raised in modest circumstances in Brooklyn, her parents were givers. Her mother knitted hats for children and babies. Her father donated his accounting services to the local boys club. At the age of 91, Ariker’s mother became a literacy volunteer and a Continued on 49

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From the Tiniest Seed Fifty years ago a New Haven math teacher set aside $400 to help city kids in need go to college. $6 million and 6,000 students later, the New Haven Scholarship Fund is still going strong

By CINDY SIMONEAU

interest in who you were, what you were about, how committed you were to family and family values,” Proto adds.

Jim Barber, director of student supportive services at SCSU, tells a similar story about his first encounter with Lovell. In the early 1960s, Barber says he was in his junior year at SCSU, working at a fulltime job and supporting a family when he ran out of money to pay for the books he needed.

“Someone told me to call her [Lovell], and when I did she was more than willing to give me emergency funds,” says Barber.

Proto parlayed Lovell’s modest gift into a Southern education — and a successful career with the federal Department of Justice.

Jim Barber never even met benefactor Lovell until the day of his SCSU graduation. Today he sits on the board of the scholarship fund.

It wasn’t until his SCSU graduation that he finally came face-to-face with the benefactor. “There I was, walking down the aisle after receiving my degree, and this woman extends her hand to me, offering congratulations and introduces herself. I couldn’t believe it,” Barber recalls. The two kept in contact over the next few years and, eventually Barber agreed to sit on the board of directors for the New Haven Scholarship Fund.

This year that same board of directors is marking the golden anniversary of the fund, which math teacher Jean Paton Lovell created with $400 of her own money, matched by $400 she collected from friends.

Over a half-century, math teacher Lovell’s $400 seed investment has grown to $6 million, helping to make college a reality for some 6,000 New Haven students.

W

hen former U.S. Justice Department lawyer Neil Proto graduated from Wilbur Cross High School in 1963, he wondered how he could afford the costs of a college education. Through the efforts of a guardian angel-turned-philanthropistturned-friend, Proto, and later his sister, were able to pay for their tuition, books and other fees.

As Proto recounts, a few years prior to graduation he had to undergo serious spinal surgery, depleting his parents’ savings. A school guidance counselor suggested he visit a New Haven resident who was offering a helping hand to city students.

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“So, I walked from school to the home of Jean Lovell, and told her my situation.

She was a remarkably helpful person, and immediately offered a scholarship to pay my tuition and books,” recalls Proto, who used the money to pay for his education at Southern Connecticut State University.

“Jean Lovell’s interest in me and others extended beyond just our college years,” Proto explains. “She was always calling up asking how I was doing and what, if anything, she could do to help. Her interest and caring remained steadfast throughout the years. I owe her a large debt of gratitude for all she did for me.

“Most important to me, was her genuine

The first year, 1959, the fund awarded eight $100 scholarships. Since then, the fund has distributed $6 million to more than 6,000 recipients — all from New Haven public schools. Each year the fund offers some 125 to 130 students financial help, and the donor list has expanded to some 600 benefactors of all donation amounts.

All donations go directly toward helping students.

Lovell, who died in 1996, did not stop at making the annual grants, but also took a personal interest in beneficiaries’ academic and professional success. She would often reach out to recipients to monitor their progress, help them secure summer jobs and bridge personal loans to help them continue on their educational journey.

The helping hand of Lovell continues today through the original endowment as well as subsequent dollars donated by other benefactors, including the estate of former, longtime city school teacher Rhoda Spear and others.

vvv The fund’s all-volunteer board of directors conducts personal interviews with each scholarship candidate discussing their

academic performance, college goals and family ďŹ nancial situation.

Like Barber, Peter Stolzman of Branford joined the board years after receiving a scholarship from the program. A Hillhouse High School graduate, Stolzman received a $100 stipend to help with his expenses attending the University of Connecticut as a history major. “Receiving this award had a huge impact on me,â€? he says. “At the time, I was a very quiet, not overly conďŹ dent student. This scholarship came as a huge surprise to me at the time. It helped boost my conďŹ dence in myself, and my academics. It showed me that my hard work was valued and there were people willing to support me,â€? says Stolzman, who now serves as one of the treasurers of the fund. “A lot of these kids have never been stars before, and this scholarship helps demonstrate to them that there is a community standing behind them,â€?

Stolzman adds.

Stolzman and Nancy Ciarleglio of West Haven, the group’s co-treasurer, point out that the program not only supports students for their ďŹ rst year of college, but

can also be there for subsequent years of study. While there is no guarantee of scholarship renewal, students who continue to achieve academically in college work are often eligible to apply for additional support.

The life circumstances many students applicants face are beyond challenging, says Ciarleglio, who recounts many interviews with students whose ďŹ nancial situations were so dire they didn’t know how or if they might ďŹ nd enough money for the basics of life, let alone to help pay for higher education. “One recent student was a single mother with life issues, let alone school issues,â€?

Ciarleglio says. “Another student had to rent an apartment with three other people just to have a place to live. At the same time, she was holding down multiple jobs. “We have seen all kinds of hardship,�

Ciarleglio continues. “One student was babysitting for an aunt’s children in return for having a place to live. Another student, when pressed about her ďŹ nancial circumstances, ďŹ nally admitted she could not produce income documents because her mother had moved away without her and she had no way of reaching the parent.

These are some of the student we reach

out and help.�

For current SCSU senior Natasha Vega, the scholarship she received from the fund, for each of her four years of study, has helped her negotiate the ďŹ nancial burden of higher education as she completes her degree in social work.

A graduate of Wilbur Cross High School, Vega is president of Olas, the Latino student organization on campus. Thanks to this scholarship and her other ďŹ nancialaid awards, Vega says she is able to fully participate in all the activities offered at college rather than having to pursue more off-campus employment. “Every dollar certainly is helpful to me meeting my graduation goal,â€? says Vega. “This scholarship fund gives hope to New Haven students such as myself that a college education is something we can achieve. We may have the commitment to our studies, and the desire of a degree, but the ďŹ nancial reality for many students in New Haven might keep us from achieving that plan. This scholarship shows us there are people who care enough to help.â€?

To learn more about the New Haven Scholarship Fund visit newhavenscholarshipfund.org. v

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How a creative couple turned an urban ‘doughnut hole’ into a one-of-a-kind homestead

By DUO DICKINSON

The heart of the home is open to the sky. Surrounded by full glass (mostly doors) this courtyard visually expands and connects all first-floor rooms — and brings light into an urban home without compromising security.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

Anthony DeCarlo new haven

37

The living room is part social gathering place, part gallery space — its lofted ceiling has its angled plans offset, allowing light to bounce around and fill the air.

ATH O ME

N

ew England is filled with densely clustered communities planned in centuries past. Like much of the rest of the region, greater New Haven experienced a rush to build homes after the Industrial Revolution brought thousands of families to live near its new and growing factories in the 19th century.

The street grid that radiated out from New Haven’s nine-square core 200 years ago created blocks of land that were rudely subdivided into simple rectangular lots.

Sometimes the parcels of land had an odd fit with the lots that split them up to get all those new residents places to live. In the case of one 1904 East Rock subdivision a “doughnut” of lots faced their narrow ends to the block’s perimeter of streets, leaving a hole of open backyard space at its center. The developer gave over that hole to two lucky lots, making them twice as large as all the other plots of land surrounding them.

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december 2009

In 1974 Louis and Anna Holt Audette bought one of those double-sized sites with a classic early 20th century home on it. They renovated the house and over the next couple of decades raised two daughters in that home.

The best homes fuse families with the patch of earth on which they sit. Every family is different, of course, but all households evolve and adapt. No two sites are identical, and every site should be “listened to” when a home is built or adapted to fit the residents’ idiosyncrasies.

In this case a very special family found an innovative way to make an unusual site accommodate the changes every family experiences — in this case, changes that have spanned 35 years of occupancy.

Once the daughters fled for higher education and then adulthood, Louis and Anna knew their house was a misfit. As anyone owning an older home knows, you either love the never-ending repair and renovation or you leave it. In a reversal of the flight that emptied so many urban homes in mid-century New Haven, the Audettes wanted to leave their house but not its site.

Neither Anna nor Louis has followed the safe, predictable path well traveled. Louis has always been an entrepreneur — seeing the promise of new energy technologies decades before they became fashionably described as “green” — and has worked for many companies (some created by him) essentially in the role of the guy who gets things done. Mixed in with the rollercoaster ride of his management of start-up energy companies were stints being a project manager for commercial construction projects.

Anna Holt Audette is a nationally renowned and extraordinarily successful artist. In addition to being a provocative and productive painter, Anna taught for years at Southern Connecticut State University’s Department of Fine Arts.

Before settling down in this patch of earth the Audettes spent a year and a half in India with their two young children, an experience that reflected their adventurous spirit and “walk the talk” attitude by which acting on inspiration forms the core of a creative life. Return to the site of their collegiate lives together, Yale, they reconnected with their friend George

Buchanan, a fellow undergrad and grad student.

Time to see an architect — and George Buchanan happens to be one. Indeed, Buchanan is one of the most respected and thoughtful architects in the region, having worked on a broad array of projects over the last 40 years with his New Haven firm.

As with most worthwhile undertakings, the liberating idea of an internal lot idyll needed a lot of dogged work to become reality. Buchanan‘s prodigious experience included working with zoning ordinances and local building officials to allow good ideas to bloom within local limitations.

This relatively modest project took about a year to earn its requisite approvals before breaking ground, because the newly created back lot needed variances due to its lack of “frontage” (property touching the street). “The irony is that the house we built has more distance between it and the existing homes than they have between each other,” notes Louis.

Once the idea seemed possible, the Audettes leapt at the task of making it real.

“We grabbed a box of doilies and napkins and started to sketch on them,” recalls Anna. As ideas began to crystallize, Louis went to Buchanan’s office with a model of his own design.

“That’s a great idea,” said the architect after seeing Louis model and the vision of a house amid others’ back yards. Great friendships and great house designs thrive on energetic interplay. What resulted from such fertile minds and deep expertise was an inversion of the typical American home’s identity.

Not unlike the Pilgrims’ vision of a “Shining City on a Hill,” American homes typically have a public face and private rear, as well as windows that frame views from inside out while composing the home’s visage for those encountering it. The Audette home’s internally circumscribed site informs its design.

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It took only about 45 years, but their academic friendship provided the basis for a professional collaboration. Fairly fatigued by their existing home’s neverending demand for TLC (and the third-story walk up to Anna’s studio), Louis seized on an idea: Their house sat on the panhandle of their outsized lot that included half of the block’s internal doughnut hole. In an epiphany of possibility for urban homesteading, the Audettes realized they could create a new lot out of the “hole” and sell off the panhandle and needy old home.

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The studio is Anna Audette’s sanctuary and workplace, immaculately organized to allow for maximum focus amid the top-lit openness. This space is a dramatic frame for the process and product of painting.

A place of color and books amid a house of space and light, the quiet counterpoint of the den also benefits from the vaulting ceilingscape that has skylighting at its peak.

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december 2009

The design the Audettes and Buchanan settled on does have a prominent focal front door, recessed with proudly tiled front steps, but the home’s exterior is brutally simple, carefully proportioned and virtually opaque — a solid stucco’d mass with an occasional incised window, but crowned with an actively expressive standing seam metal roof, which in turn is provocatively capped by a series of ridge skylights over half of the active roofscape.

vvv But the solidity of the exterior has a deliciously surprising center, revealed upon entry: just as the block had a hole at its center, so does this house. As with many Mediterranean and tropical residences that create courtyards for ventilation and outdoor privacy in densely built situations, this home gains those advantages, but also gains a huge benefit that is ever-present no matter where one is on the first floor. The entire courtyard has walls made of floor-to-ceiling glass —so light is everywhere and yet privacy from neighbors’ backyards is assured. The courtyard is the focal heart of the house, set directly on center with the front door.

Living areas have vaulted ceilings where the ridge skylights bounce light off an offset ceilingscape and strategically sited windows allow for venting and backlighting, creating an environment typical of a great museum space where so many of Anna’s large and gripping paintings are hung.

A small bump out of their interior lot’s perimeter allowed for a resonant extension of their home’s footprint to form a wonderfully linear and high-ceiling office space. This rest of the backside houses a pantry, bath, back stairway and closet space, creating a space that is both commodious and efficient.

The kitchen is a virtual party space — a large island cast away from a cooking wall, set in a fully open space visually extended through into the courtyard and subtly through that exterior space back into the living room. The flooring in this heavily trafficked space is zesty unapologetic vinyl in several colors and patterns.

The second story is accessed by two stairways — front open, back hidden — and feels like a completely separate world.

A hall receives light as it aligns with an exterior wall where three bedrooms and two baths plus a laundry room feed off of them. A curved window sits above the front stair, and old family furniture makes for focal detail amid quiet space.

Because no eventuality was overlooked by the Audettes and Buchanan, an elevator shaft was silently framed into the fabric of walls and floors, with elevator installation a simple retrofit if ever needed.

Entry, study, living, kitchen and dining form the front ‘U’ of the home’s circular shape with the entire backside given over to the couple’s private lives. A fabulous vaulted and skylit studio gives Anna a ground-floor workspace directly accessible to the semi-detached garage. Louis’ workshop is a direct extension of the garage housing any number of models of flying machines and naval vessels. Its extension into the garage space allows long planks of lumber to be cut at the opening of a sliding door.

A new 6,000-square-foot house could easily be seen as a self-indulgent extravagance — but nothing could be further from the truth, as all parties worked hard to contain costs built and ongoing. “It’s a sheet-rock house,” allows Buchanan. Many windows are trimless, though some have oak sills.

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Set in a wide open expansive family room space, the kitchen is the social hub of the house, complete with outsized island for serving food and those sipping wine in the company of the chefs.

A stoic solidly stucco’s presence has a recessed focal entry to greet those who obtain access to this hidden treasure, and its crown of standing seam metal roof is an invigorated contrast to the blank walls that support it.

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december 2009

But color is applied in bold and calculated ways amid the washing of so much ambient light.

Simple roof trusses span large secondstory spaces, as do floor trusses where needed, eliminating columns and bearing walls. Half the first floor sits on a concrete slab, all countertops are plastic laminate, and there is but one angle in the entire floor plan — all cost-saving features.

Louis turned to Vermont, where many of his energy companies were founded, for beautiful ash flooring in public areas, as well as all the cabinetry and sourcing for much of the heating and cooling equipment purchased at wholesale costs.

But the biggest cost saving was in the selection of a builder Peter Lengyel, who allowed Louis to shop until he dropped to secure many materials and subcontractors at a lower cost than any responsible general contractor might assume when calculating hard-core costs — resulting in savings of $180,000 by Louis’ estimation.

The ongoing costs of occupancy are minimal thanks to strategic spending by the Audettes — for a large photovoltaic array that provides almost all electricity the home uses, a full-on geothermal system of wells that preconditions the water used for heating and cooling, and some extraordinarily sensitive controls of all systems but particularly the heat line that melts snow in the courtyard.

Money was spent on the exterior as well to minimize maintenance. Many emptynesters opt for retirement communities where painting, patching and mowing are done by others, the costs buried in monthly fees. Here upfront investing in sturdy stucco and a standing seam metal roof simply obviates the need for maintenance.

A house that feels like an art gallery indeed houses an artist. The house also has shop and office space for an inventive entrepreneur. Clearly those are cause-andeffect design criteria — but an unseen reality also informed this house of flowing interior space. The Audettes host several large celebratory parties a year where music rules the house — no fewer than six groups of musicians have entertained scores of partiers throughout open spaces, courtyard and whatever surrounding outdoor space there may be.

As such, this is anything but an empty nest — it’s the fulfillment of two lives lived together at full engagement, a Continued on 48

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ART GALLERY TALKS/TOURS Explore Two Museums, Twice the Fun for a special family day of touring, silliness and compelling stories about the collections of the Yale Center for British Art and the Yale University Art Gallery. December 6 at both locations.

Student guided tour, 1 p.m.; tour of the Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill exhibition, 2 p.m. at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven.

Free. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

EXHIBITIONS Opening Large-format images of photographer and documentarian Bill Keane comprise Images of Stone, Steel & Glass. Each cityscape or industrial vista caught in Keane’s lens are treated with a reverence often reserved for the cathedral or sacred space. The places are familiar, but Keane’s daring vantage points and lighting choices open up the viewer to the inspiration laying dormant in the mundane. Each image is permanently impressed on archival aluminum using a unique, high temperature bonding process.

December 11-March 28 at Wink Art & Design, 87 Whitfield St. (third floor), Guilford. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays or by appt. 203-453-5921, digitalwink.com.

Continuing Overtones Undertones. Paintings

by Blinn Jacobs and photographs by Marjorie Wolfe will be on display in an exhibition that is quietly intellectual and vividly visual. Jacobs’s monochromatic surfaces are overtones of color with undertones of subtly incised lines. Seen in series, colors and lines reverberate with depth and delicacy. Overtones of mystery and abstraction permeate Wolfe’s serial image photographs.

The photographs have a formal composition but allow for her slightly skewed worldview and play between the abstract and familiar. Through December 6 at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., New Haven. Open 11 a.m.4 p.m. Thurs.-Sun. & by appt. 203-3899555, kehlerliddell.com.

Home Grown is a group show of works by contemporary shoreline artists Patricia Barone, Paula Solimene and Ralph Levesque — colleagues and friends who paint similar subjects in varying styles. Come see how they interpret their love of New England with paint, found objects and canvas.

Through December 8 at Wink Art & Design, 87 Whitfield St. (third floor), Guilford. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. weekdays or by appt. 203-453-5921, digitalwink.com.

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december 2009

How I Got Here presents the geometric-abstract oil paintings and collages of Felix Bronner, artist and neurological researcher and head of pharmacology education at the University of Connecticut Medical Center. Educated as a scientist, Bronner has been painting for more than 30 years. Reviewers have characterized his abstractions as “complex in their compositions, but never visually overwhelming,” “charged with beautifully orchestrated colors,” “stunning and gentle.” Through December 11 at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven.

Open noon-8 p.m. Mon., 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Tues. & Thurs., 1-5 p.m. Fri. and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. Free. felixbronner.com.

under George I and George II. This groundbreaking British Art Center exhibition evokes the breadth and importance of Walpole’s Strawberry Hill collections by reassembling an astonishing variety of his objects, including rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture, ceramics, arms and armor, and curiosities. Through January 3 at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m.

Sun. 203-432-2858, ycba.yale.edu.

Mrs. Delany and Her Circle explores the life, world and work of Mary Delany, nee Mary Granville (1700-88). Through landscape drawings, paper cuts and collages, textiles and manuscript

postwar prints bore the influence of this period of innovation. Through January 3 at YAUG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (Thurs. until 8 p.m.) & 1 p.m.-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-0600. artgallery.yale.edu.

Continuous Present features a selection of work by 11 of today’s most compelling contemporary artists working in a broad array of media, including film, video, photography, painting and sculpture. The artists chosen for the show share a keen interest in time and sensory perception despite the aesthetic diversity of their practices. Through January 3 at YUAG, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat. (Thurs. until 8 p.m.) & 1 p.m.-6 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-

Equal parts director and performer, William Lamson explores oppositional forces and ideas through his actions and interventions, which he documents in still photographs and short videos.

In his Artspace show untitled, his performative experiments reveal tensions between success and failure, stability and instability, and strength and weakness, while speaking broadly to notions of temporality and interconnectivity. Through December 19 at Artspace, 50 Orange St., New Haven.

Open noon-5 p.m. Tuesday, noon-8 p.m.

Wednesday-Saturday. Free. 203-772-2709, artspacenh.org.

Performing artists Eiko & Koma are well known on the Wesleyan campus.

A recent fellow with the Center for Creative Research, Eiko has also served as a visiting instructor in dance and East Asian studies. They present the exhibition Time Is Not Even, Space Is Not Empty as an inaugural event in their multi-year “retrospective project.” The installation is designed to provide an opportunity for the artists to reflect upon their past and present. The Wesleyan exhibition will be the springboard for an installation at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center in 2010.

Through December 20 at Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown.

Open noon-4 p.m. daily except Mon. (until 8 p.m. Fri.). Free. 860-685-3355. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

The Studio Art Quilt Associates present Transformations ‘09: Reflections, which coincides with the opening of the Guilford Art Center’s Artistry Annual Holiday Sale. The show features 34 quilts made by artists from around the world, exploring the theme of reflection.

“A reflection can be something reflected, such as light, sound or an image. It also refers to the act and result of careful consideration or meditation,” says Laura Cater-Woods, a mixed-media artist who is jurying the exhibition. “The quilts in this show represent a variety of interpretations of the theme, as well as diverse ways of thinking about image, surface and space.” Through January 3 at Guilford Art Center, 411 Church St., Guilford. 203-453-5947, guilfordartcenter. org.

Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill.

Horace Walpole (1717-97) was the youngest son of Robert Walpole, first earl of Orford and prime minister

More than 100 palettes painted by artists from around the nation bedeck ‘Miss Florence’s Artist Tree,’ on view this month at Old Lyme’s Griswold Museum. materials, the exhibition will show the range and variety of Mrs. Delany’s art.

Her work will be shown in the context of natural history, which informed and underpinned her productions.

Shells, corals, botanical drawings, and publications related to the collections of the 2nd Duchess of Portland, with whom Mrs. Delany lived and worked alongside, will also form part of the exhibition, allowing viewers to reattach the vital threads connecting female accomplishment and the pursuit of science in the 18th century. Through January 3 at the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m.

Sun. 203-432-2858. ycba.yale.edu.

The Pull of Experiment: Postwar American Printmaking explores a dynamic and innovative 20-year period following World War II that fundamentally altered the boundaries of intaglio printmaking. Works by major printmakers of the era, including Stanley William Hayter, Boris Margo, Gabor Peterdi and Karl Schrag, this exhibition also includes important works by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Louise Nevelson, whose

0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

The Magic of Christmas: A Holiday Celebration has several parts. Four “Fantasy Trees” in the museum’s Krieble Gallery conceived and constructed by local artists and designers are themed around the Florence Griswold Museum’s Call of the Coast exhibition.

(Think marsh and sea.) New painted palettes have been added to “Miss Florence’s Artist Tree”; more than 100 palettes have been donated to the museum’s permanent collection by artists from around the country and adorn a 12-foot tree. In addition, the main floor of the house is decorated as it might have been in a 1910 boardinghouse for artists.

Through January 10 at the Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m. Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $7 students, 12 & under free). 860-434-5542. florencegriswold museum.org.

Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England. Art colonies in Connecticut communities such as Old Lyme and Cos Cob as well as in Ogunquit and Monhegan, Me. played a key role in the creation of a regional identity in the

early 20th century. They also provided inspiration for nationally recognized artists including Edward Hopper, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, and George Bellows, among others. Call of the Coast chronicles the development of Impressionist Connecticut and Modernist Maine and features 73 works drawn from the collections of the Portland Museum of Art and the Florence Griswold Museum. Through January 31 at the Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme St., Old Lyme. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily except Mon., 1-5 p.m.

Sun. $9 ($8 seniors, $7 students, free under 12). 860-434-5542, flogris.org.

Out of House and Home is the second half of Work/Place, a two-part series which explores the environments on which our survival depends. Here, the Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents an exhibit exploring the comforts and securities of home and the uncertainties and anxieties brought to bear by the recent mortgage crisis, record foreclosures and plummeting real-estate values. Curated by Debbie Hesse and Joy Pepe. Through February 5 at the Parachute Factory, Erector Square, 319 Peck St., Bldg. 1, New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wed., noon-5 p.m. Thurs.Fri. and by appointment. Free. 203-7722788, newhavenarts.org.

What We Learned: The Yale Las Vegas Studio and the Work of Venturi Scott Brown & Associates is really two exhibitions. The Yale Las Vegas Studio photodocuments the 1968 Yale “field trip” to Las Vegas examining commercial vernacular architecture,

Connecticut rail riders will instantly recognize Bill Keane’s ‘New Haven Station’ (digital photograph on archival aluminum), from Images of Stone, Steel & Glass, opening this month at Guilford’s Wink gallery. aiming to capture “unconscious moments” of the historic studio’s leaders before “theory formation” made the Las Vegas trip into a watershed architectural event. What We Learned, the second part of the exhibition, focuses on Venturi’s and Scott Brown’s critical contributions to the urban landscape and our understanding of it. Organized around five themes — context, mannerism, communication, automobile city and

Bu i l d i n g a F o u n d a t i o n

urban research — the installation is a collage of drawings, posters, photographs and text as well as furniture and fragments from early buildings designed by the architects.

Through February 5 at Paul Rudolph Hall, 180 York St., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday.

Free. 203-432-1345, architecture.yale.edu.

Café through March 2010. Kawalerski a commercial photographer for major companies like Chevron, MasterCard, and United Technologies is presenting in Windows a personal project about photographic compositions that involve windows as frames, dramatic backgrounds and reflections. For more information www.unionleaguecafe.com

Windows the work of Ted Kawalerski, will be on display at the Union League

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O F N OT E S

The author (top row, eighth from right) is barely visible in the sea of instrumentalists and singers who performed the East Coast premiere of the Kernis symphony.

Meditations on a Symphony An on-the-inside-looking-out perspective on an important premiere Symphony of Meditations (Symphony No. 3), by Aaron Jay Kernis. Performed by the Yale Philharmonia with Yale Camerata, Yale Glee Club and Yale Schola Cantorum and soloists November 6 at Woolsey Hall, New Haven. Conducted by Aaron Jay Kernis.

By Michael C. Bingham

L

ast month your faithful correspondent got to play a tiny role in a major musical event.

Which is funny. Most of my career I’ve edited publications in mid-sized cities

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december 2009

(such as New Haven), which I suppose has made me the proverbial Big Fish in a Small Pond. But on November 6 at Woolsey Hall, as one of nearly 300 instrumentalists and singers onstage to perform the East Coast premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Symphony of Meditations (Symphony No. 3), I was a small fish in a very large “pond” of sound and occasionally fury.

Kernis is an “important” composer. On the Yale music faculty since 2003, Kernis has won both a Pulitzer and Grawemeyer prize for composition. He has been commissioned by singers such as Renee

Fleming and Dawn Upshaw, violinists including Joshua Bell and Nadja SalernoSonnenberg and major institutions including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. Completed earlier this year, the Symphony of Meditations was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony and received its world premiere June 25-26 under the baton of that orchestra’s music director, Gerard Schwartz, a champion of Kernis’ music. The Woolsey performance would be its second.

If the army of musicians had brought only their roommates, that would have at least half-filled Woolsey, which seats just under 2,700. But the performance also took place during the 2009 convention of the American Collegiate Choral Organization, which was hosted by Yale, so there were in attendance choral conductors from all over the country — watching and listening (a fact our music director, Marguerite L. Brooks, never missed an

opportunity to remind us during rehearsals). Add to that the fact that the composer himself would be conducting the work for the first time, and the whole undertaking felt like rather high-stakes musical drama.

talented young musicians in the world, and that is what is beginning to happen. Many of the section leaders are virtuosos whose technical mastery and inspired playing take one’s breath away.

Woolsey Hall is not a great place to listen to music. The acoustics are dreadful (unless you are in the first balcony) and the wooden seats unbearable after about 45 minutes.

But performing in that vast old barn is another story.

Standing on the top riser nestled beneath the gargantuan pipes of Woolsey’s world-famous Newberry organ, I had a commanding view of the entire scene, especially the ocean of musicians beneath me. When the music began with the ominous rumble of tympani, it was as though I was part of a powerful tempest of sound.

The orchestra was the Yale Philharmonia, made up of graduate musicians in the Yale School of Music and in the minds of many the best orchestra to perform regularly in

Scored for (huge) orchestra, chorus and soprano and baritone soloists, the Kernis symphony is a thorny, difficult work that challenges listeners and really challenges its performers. Throughout The composer conducting the fall I approached his new Symphony No. 3 for Camerata rehearsals with a the first time, with soprano soloist Amanda Hall at left. mixture of dread and awe. I decided that the piece was from the “cat-and-mouse” school of composition — with the Connecticut. Three groups comprised the composer the cat who aims to outwit the chorus: the Yale Camerata (of which I am “mouse” performers by making the music a member), Yale Schola Cantorum and impossibly difficult to perform accurately.

Yale Glee Club.

Just looking through the score the first time It’s an exciting time for music at Yale, nearly gave me a migraine. which is why I wanted to be part of Kernis’ “melodies” challenge even the it. Four years ago an anonymous donor keenest ear, as do his frequent dissonances gave $100 million to the School of Music, between and among the vocal and allowing Yale to fully subsidize tuition instrumental parts. In some parts of for all music grad students in perpetuity. the symphony time signatures change This competitive edge means Yale ought nearly measure to measure, seemingly to begin attracting many of the most

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willy-nilly (did this bar really have to be 7/16?). It’s as though Kernis is daring musicians to attempt to master their parts (and probably laying side wagers that they can’t).

(One can of course say that about much if not most contemporary art music.

But then I remind myself that even the music of Bach, in whose music each note seems to be the inevitable product of mathematical precision, can be very challenging to sing with its minor-seventh leaps and hair-raising melismas.)

But there’s another dimension to the work, which is inspired by and incorporates Hebrew texts by the 11th-century Spanish poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol, translated

by Kernis’ friend, the poet Peter Cole. A “meditation” on themes of life, death and the relationship of individual humans to God, the symphony is deeply and unselfconsciously spiritual.

It is also weirdly unbalanced. The performance time of the opening movement, “Invocation,” is between seven and eight minutes, the second movement (“Meditation on Oneness”) twice that — and the concluding movement, “Supplication,” weighing in

at nearly 50 minutes. (A review of the Seattle performance called the work “very modern and exceptionally long.”)

The “Invocation” movement began softly as baritone soloist David Pershall invoked God’s presence, “I look for you early, my rock and my refuge,” and built as the chorus first echoed his invocation and then moves on to praise God’s omnipotence. The movement ended as Pershall and the chorus concluded, “I’ll praise the name of the Lord so long as His breath in me lives.”

In her soaring, crystalline soprano, soloist Amanda Hall opened the “Meditation of Oneness” movement by describing the skies (“which make me think of your Name”), the land and her soul as those things that “keep the thought of you always before me.” The chorus again built on this contemplation until it arrived at a loud and joyful proclamation: “The Lord is One.” “I am ashamed, my God,” Pershall intoned as the “Supplication” movement began.

This is the most emotionally wrenching of the three movements, rising at times to climactic rapture and then plunging to near-whispered despair. The movement

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reflects man’s acknowledgement of his weaknesses and failings, self-anger and loathing, and then moves to a humble appeal for God’s forgiveness and guidance. The composition ends dramatically as chorus and soloists join in the refrain, “The Lord is our God. The Lord is One, Lord,” ending with a final shout of “Adonai!” (Hebrew for Lord) that echoed back dramatically from the rear of Woolsey as listeners took a moment to look around and slowly realize that the work had concluded. In the standing ovation that followed (the choral convention, don’t forget), it was evident for the first time that they had been on the receiving end of something powerful and emotional — which those of us in the very back row of all the performers could sense only indirectly while the performance was still taking place.

Was it worth the many hours of learning notes and rehearsing? Definitely. But it’s also bittersweet knowing that the probability of my ever performing Kernis’ work — given the scale of musical forces required to stage it as well as the difficulty of learning the notes — make it unlikely the Symphony of Meditations will be performed very frequently. v

AtHome

“It has worked as well as we hoped.”

fullness that continues on past full-time employment into a time where life has a freedom that rewards lives of dedicated effort. Built without children living in the house, the home still accommodates the now fully grown offspring and newly arrived grandchildren.

Whether it’s a tapestry of one child’s fabric design hung on a wall, or a crib tucked into a bedroom corner, the family flow is in full force within these walls.

The Audettes’ house embodies value at its core — the dollars-and-cents kind where investment in construction pre-empts the slow bleed of ongoing utility and upkeep costs, as well as in the emotional realm, where art and family inform every element of its design.

Continued from 43

The “Circle of Life” may now be a Disney cliché, but when rendered in crisp clarity by this home’s plan and flow, domestic poetry ensues. And when art is actively created and displayed amid family memories embodied in relics and inventions, a house becomes more than a place to live. Declares Anna modestly,

In this home’s genesis, three old friends came together to celebrate their friendship and a four-decade marriage in a building. This effort widened the circle where the builder of the dreams, Peter Lengyel, became a trusted co-conspirator — so much so that at the entry airlock a plaque naming architect and builder is starkly presented at eye level — reminding all who enter that even the most personal of possessions sometimes requires the best efforts of an extended family to be realized. v

Philanthropists

Ariker: ‘Some people don’t have much in the way of money to share, but everybody has something they can give.’

Continued from 32

mentor of schoolchildren when she moved to New Haven.

Now Ariker considers it an honor to support the Read to Grow program. “It’s the only literacy program that starts at birth,” she explains.

It was her parents who made giving seem like a natural activity, and through them Ariker learned to support the issues closest to her heart: women and girls and the arts.

Her philanthropic efforts are local and quite focused. “It’s still important to me to know what is happening in New York where I grew up,” she says. “We take advantage of the arts in New York City and I feel we need to support the neediest cases.” She is particularly fond of arts organizations that support children and schools.

An amateur pianist, Ariker was an elementary school teacher and guidance counselor and also spent many years at Yale doing management training. She initiated a program called Career Planning for Women in Management at Yale when it became clear to her that many of the people in the training seminars were women who were trying to move up from entry-level jobs to management positions.

goal of $2 million dollars by the end of 2010.

“I see women and girls as the same — girls grow up into women,” Ariker says. “Certainly there are more opportunities today than when I was growing up, but there still are some limitations. They’re not so much based on law, but on the preconceived notions of men and women.

“One of the most dramatic examples is women in the military,” she explains. “Though they’re not necessarily sent to Afghanistan or Iraq with the same job description [as male soldiers], they have the same job. They’re out on the road with explosive devices and they’re subject to post traumatic stress syndrome [PTSS].

Their experience could be quite different from that of a man.”

work experience to turn philanthropic.

It was her first experience on a board of directors for the Milford Family & Child Guidance Clinic that drew her in to the world of volunteering and giving. She has since served on committees and boards at Domestic Violence Services of New Haven, Women’s Health Services and she was a business volunteer for the Arts Council. Finding a cause that is close to your heart can make giving feel effortless, Ariker says.

“There were many women who were smart, She was one of the founding members for ambitious and good in their jobs and the Community Fund for Women and they wanted to find ways to better plan Girls and served on its board of directors. and manage their career,” she explains.

“It’s important for people to stay a while, Hundreds of women came through the then move on and let new voices be heard.” program. While Ariker’s professional The fund has launched an ambitious career is over, she has piggybacked on her endowment-building campaign with a

Ariker is on the Community Council for Women’s Health Research at Yale, a research program that studies women’s health issues. The group is currently funding a researcher who is doing a study on whether there’s a difference in how women in the military experience PTSS compared to men.

“There are the issues of sexual harassment and rape for these women,” Ariker says.

“When they get home, they’re expected to take care of their family and often times don’t have the outlet that men have.”

What can be done to change this?

It’s simple, according to Ariker: “Start them young and empower them to do the type of thinking you see in some of the early childhood groups. Girls, you can do anything. Take advantage of the opportunities and options out there.” v

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MUSIC CLASSICAL The Bach’s Lunch Concert Series continues with a performance of Franz Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. With Joanna Becker and Erika Stierli (violin), Bethany Eby (viola) and Yun-Yang Lin (cello). 12:10-12:50 p.m. December 4 at Neighborhood Music School, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. Free. 203-6245189. nmsmusicschool.org.

Under the baton of Music Director Thomas C. Duffy, the Yale Concert Band performs music of Gershwin, Shostakovich, Tielman, McTee and more. 7:30 p.m. December 4 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free.

203-432-4158, music.yale.edu.

Dona nobis pacem is Latin for “Grant us peace.” It’s also the theme of the Yale Camerata’s holiday concert, conducted

by Music Director Marguerite L. Brooks. HAYDN Paukenmesse (Mass in Time of War), MARTINU Nonet, MENDELSSOHN Christus (Pt. I). 8 p.m. December 5 at Battell Chapel, 500 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-4324158, music.yale.edu.

The Waterbury Chorale returns to the Palace stage for another holiday extravaganza in Christmas at the Palace 2009. Music Director Joseph Jacovino Jr. is joined by vocal soloists Daniel and Heather Narducci and the Waterbury Chorale Festival Orchestra for a program of seasonal festive music by various composers. 8 p.m. December 5 at the Palace Theater, 100 East Main St., Waterbury. $40-$25. 203-755-4700, palacetheaterct.org.

The 122-year-old Trinity Choir of Men & Boys perform their annual Christmas concert. Program of seasonal carols for choir and for all. 4 p.m. December 6 at Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven. $10. 203-776-2616, trinitynewhaven.org.

Beethoven Violin Sonatas. An evening featuring four of Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and violin. This is one of two concerts of Beethoven chamber music involving outstanding Yale School of Music and Yale College performers. 8 p.m. December 7 at Jonathan Edwards College Master’s House, 68 High St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music. yale.edu.

J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

The complete Brandenburg Concerti, with violinists Syoko Aki, Ani Kavafian, Robert Mealy, and Wendy Sharp; flutist Ransom Wilson, oboist Stephen Taylor, double bassist Donald Palma, and other faculty, student and guest performers. 8 p.m. December 8 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $24-$20 (students $10). 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu.

Beethoven Chamber Music.

Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, Op. 134, transcribed by the composer from

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string quartet to four-hands piano, and the String Quintet, Op. 29 for two violins, two violas, and cello. This is one of two concerts of Beethoven chamber music featuring accomplished Yale School of Music and Yale College performers. 8 p.m. December 9 in Branford College Senior Common Room, 74 High St., New Haven. Free. 203-4324158, music.yale.edu.

Southern Connecticut State student music ensembles join forces for a second annual Gala Showcase Concert.

Performing will be the University Band, directed by Craig Hlavac, the University Choir & Chamber Singers, under the baton of Terese Gemme, the Latin Jazz Ensemble, headed by David Chevan, and the Jubilee Singers, Thomas Mitchell, director. 7:30 p.m. December 10 at Lyman Center for the Performing Arts, SCSU, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. $5. 203-392-6625.

Under the baton of the group’s founder (and now guest conductor) Simon Carrington, Yale Schola Cantorum sing a contemplative service of Vespers. 5 p.m. December 11 at St. Thomas More Chapel, 268 Park St., New Haven. 203432-4158, music.yale.edu.

The graduate-student Yale Philharmonia serve up an evening of New Music for Orchestra, conducted

by Music Director Shinik Hahm.

New works by David Land, including International Business Machine and Grind to a Halt. Also, works by Samuel Adams, Robert Honstein, Richard Harrold, Jordan Kuspa, Polina Nazaykinskaya and Feinan Wang. 8 p.m. December 11 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-4324158, music.yale.edu.

Associate conductor Gerald Steichen leads the NHSO Pops! In a Holiday Extravaganza with guest artists the Elm City Girls Choir and soprano Lorraine Ernest. Seasonal family favorites including “Carol of the Bells,” “The Christmas Song,” and many more, topped off by the traditional NHSO singalong. 7:30 p.m. December 11 at East Haven Middle School, 7:30 p.m. December 12 at Hamden Middle School, 3 p.m. December 13 at Shelton Intermediate School, 8 p.m. December 19 at Quick Center for the Arts, Fairfield University, 1054 N. Benson Rd., Fairfield. $35-$25 ($10 students). 203-865-0831, ext.

10, newhavensymphony.org.

Liederabend is “evening songs” in German. How appropriate, then, for an evening of German song performed by members of Yale Opera. 8 p.m.

December 14 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu.

As part of Yale’s Horowitz Piano Series, renowned Yale faculty members, pianists Peter Frankl and Wei-Yi Yang perform music for two pianos and piano four-hands. SCHUMANN Pictures from the East for piano fourhands; Andante and Variations, Op. 46 for 2 pianos, 2 cellos and French horn; and Six Études in Canonic Form, Op. 56 for two pianos (transcribed by Debussy); DEBUSSY Petite Suite for piano four-hands, Prélude à l’après-midi

Eeny, Meeny, Miny Messiah

What would the Christmas season be without Handel’s much-loved oratorio?

This year offers three ways to experience the Baroque masterpiece, from passive to participatory.

The Yale Glee Club hosts its annual Messiah Audience Singalong for amateur singers, professionals or, really, anyone.

Help make beautiful music, accompanied by the Yale Symphony Orchestra, in a norisk setting. 2 p.m.

December 13 at Battell Chapel, 500 Chapel St., New Haven. $5 (scores for sale separately).

203-432-4158, music. yale.edu.

If you’re a singer who wants to be a little more “out there,” you’re invited to take part in the 22nd annual

performance of the Branford Messiah under the direction of Roy Wiseman. A professional chamber orchestra, soloists and more than 50 community singers make this a wonderful holiday tradition.

Rehearsals take place 12/6, 12/13, 12/16 and 12/20; all voice parts sought. 5 p.m. December 20 at First Congregational Church, 1009 Main St., Branford. Free. 203488-8403, adrinan@ comcast.net.

Finally, if you just want to sit back and simply enjoy the thing, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra can help you with that (Hallelujah!).

Under the baton of Music Director William Boughton, the NHSO teams up

d’un faune and Three Nocturnes for 2 pianos (transcribed by Ravel). 8 p.m.

December 16 at Morse Recital Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $20-$11 ($6 students). 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu.

Directed by Christopher James Hisey, the Civic Orchestra of New Haven performs its annual Winter Concert, aided and abetted by guest soloist Jean Marie Garofolo, soprano, and the Fairfield County Children’s Choir.

Program includes ELGAR Enigma Variations, GLIERE Russian Sailor’s Dance, WAGNER Siegfried Idyll plus holiday faves (including “White Christmas”). 8 p.m. December 19 at Battell Chapel, 500 Chapel St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students, seniors). conh@sbcglobal.net, conh.org.

POPULAR Mary Halvorson Quintet. This will be the last performance by Brooklyn-based

with the voices of Hartford’s Cathedral of Saint Joseph Schola Cantorum for a performance of the Christmas portion of George Frideric’s masterwork.

7 p.m. December 17 at First Congregational Church, 2 Ferry Rd., Old Lyme. Also, 7 p.m. December 20 at First Congregational Church, 26 Meeting House La., Madison. $45-$30 (children $15).

203-865-0831, ext. 10, newhavensymphony. org.

— M.C.B. ’Tis the season: The voices of the Cathedral of Saint Joseph Schola Cantorum will join the NHSO for performances of Handel’s Messiah December 17 and 20 in Old Lyme and Madison, respectively.

guitarist/composer Halvorson and her new quintet before they head into the studio to record the follow-up to her acclaimed 2008 debut, Dragon’s Head.

With Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet, Jon Irabagon, alto sax, John Hebert, Bass, and drummer Ches Smith. 8:30 & 10 p.m. December 4 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. $15-$10. 203-7850468, firehouse12.com.

Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles.

Borges is a roots/country performer from Taunton, Mass. signed to Sugar Hill Records. Her music is described as “walking that fine line between punk and country.” The Manchurians open. 9 p.m.

December 4 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. cafénine.com.

Fronted by singer/songwriter/guitarist Joseph Nolan, Kimono Draggin’ traffick in what they call “cosmic art rock.” Supported by M.T. Bearington and Atrina, the band will be celebrating the release of a double CD on Safety

Meeting Records. 9 p.m. December 5 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. cafénine.com.

Holly Golightly is a former member of the all-girl garage band Thee Headcoatees, the female incarnation of the Billy Childish group Thee Headcoats. For her solo career spanning 13 studio albums (to date), she draws from R&B, rockabilly, and sounds of the 1960s or earlier. 9 p.m.

December 8 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. cafénine.com.

Last month he broke up with Steven Tyler for, like, five minutes — but now everything’s cool! Catch the Joe Perry Project as they continue on the legendary guitar slinger’s “Have Guitar/Will Travel” tour. 9 p.m.

December 9 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $30 ($25 advance).

203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

Go Kat Go! presents Arty Hill with the Wrong Reasons. Hill’s songs marrying the soul of classic country with the wry storytelling of Townes Van Zandt, Hill’s songs have been recorded by Austin’s Texas Sapphires, the Grammy-nominated Kenny & Amanda Smith Band and alt-country pioneers Jason & the Scorchers. 9 p.m.

December 11 at Café Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. cafénine.com.

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas presents composer Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night. A “boom-box processional” that fills the crisp winter air with the composer’s symphony for bells, the performance features audience members of all ages carrying boom boxes (limited number available; come early), each playing one of four musical parts to create a magical evening of ethereal sound. 6:15 p.m. December 10 at Yale Bookstore, 77 Broadway, New Haven.

Free. 203-498-3727, unsilentnight@ artidea.org.

Amy Cervini Quartet. New York vocalist Amy Cervini and her quartet (Michael Cabe, piano, Mark Lau, bass and Ernesto Cervini, drums) celebrate the release of their second recording, Lovefool (Orange Grove Jazz), with pieces from the Great American Songbook as well as covers of songs by Depeche Mode, the Cardigans and Jack Johnson. 8:30 & 10 p.m. December 11 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. $15-$10.

203-785-0468, firehouse12.com.

The old-time, twangy bluegrass music of Appalachia and the South will meet the soulful melodies of Jewish music from pre-war Russia and eastern Europe when the Branford Folk Music Society hosts the return of Margot Leverett & the Klezmer Mountain Boys. 8 p.m.

December 12 at First Congregational Church, 1009 Main St., Branford. $15 ($12 members, $5 children). 203488-7715, branfordfolk@yahoo.com, folknotes.org/branfordfolk.

Daniel Levin Trio. This performance

by Firehouse 12 regular Levin, a jazz cellist, and his trio, which released its

debut, Fuhuffah (Clean Feed) in 2008, serves as the culmination of both the band’s December tour and the club’s fifth annual Fall Jazz Series. 8:30 & 10 p.m. December 18 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. $15-$10. 203785-0468, firehouse12.com.

Jazz legend Marion Meadows returns to York Street for his annual Jazz Christmas show. 9 p.m. December 19 at Toad’s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $25 ($20 advance). 203-6248623, toadsplace.com.

Start the New Year right with the classic Motown stylings of the Temptations Review Featuring Dennis Edwards. Edwards was the first new Temptation to enter the group after the group’s “classic five” heyday when he replaced David Ruffin as lead singer in 1968. With his rougher, gospel-hewn vocals, Edwards led the group through a string of hit recordings including “I Can’t Get Next To You,” “My Girl,” and the Grammy Award-winning, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.” In 1989 he was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. 9 p.m. December 31 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $75-$50. 203-562-5666, 888736-2663, shubert.com.

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Wesleyan’s East Asian music ensembles join forces for an evening of Music from East Asia, featuring diverse styles of Chinese classical and contemporary music, the traditional drumming and dance of Korean Pungmul-Nori and Taiko drumming of Japan in a variety of traditional contexts. 7 p.m. December 6 at Crowell Concert Hall, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $3-$2. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Javanese Gamelan and Dance.

An evening of Javanese music and dance by beginning and advanced Wesleyan classes under the direction of I.M. Harjito, Urip Sri Maeny and Sumarsam. 7 p.m. December 10 at World Music Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

In commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s Nobel Peace Prize, singer/songwriter Ravenna Michalsen performs Buddhist-inspired songs for all ages.

6-7 p.m. December 10 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. 203-946-8835, ravenna. eventbrite.com.

West African Drumming and Dance Concert. Event features choreographer and Wesleyan Artistin-Residence Iddi Saaka and master drummer Abraham Adzenyah, joined by students and guest artists.

Invigorating performance showcases the vibrancy of West African cultures through their music and dance forms.

8 p.m. December 18 at Crowell Concert Hall, Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $8-$6. wesleyan.edu/cfa.

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ONSTAGE POP is a new musical play about the mystery of the shooting of Pop artist and celebrity without equal Andy Warhol. Friends and hangers-on of Warhol’s Factory — some famous, some hopeful of fame — all become suspects as Warhol searches for his would-be assassin. Written by Maggie-Kate Coleman and Anna K. Jacobs and directed by Mark Brokaw.

Contains strong language and adult content. December 1-20 at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. $67-$25. 203-432-1234, yalerep.edu.

Sister returns to LWT for Sister’s Christmas Catechism. In this comic turn, Sister takes on a mystery that has confounded historians through the ages: What ever happened to the Magis’ gold? Our favorite Nun of the Above creates a living nativity unlike any ever seen. By Maripat Donovan with Jane Morris and Marc Silvia. December 1-20 at Long Wharf Stage II, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $28. 203-787-4282.

Wayang Kulit is a Javanese shadow puppet play. Manipulated by sticks or rods, the puppets tell highly stylized stories of heroes and villains — tales that are centuries-old and mysterious. The Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble is directed by I.M. Harjito. 8

p.m. December 5 at World Music Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $5 ($4 students). 860-685-3355.

La Ronde was a scandalous play in its day (1900) and still searing in ours.

Written by Arthur Schnitzler (translated

by Carl M. Mueller), it is set in 1890 Vienna, a time and place of social and intellectual upheaval — especially regarding attitudes toward sexuality and class. The play is a round of ten scenes, each a dialogue between pairs of characters following a sexual encounter. The play is directed by Jesse Jou, a third-year MFA candidate at Yale School of Drama. Contains nudity, strong language and adult content. 2 & 8 p.m. December 12, 8 p.m. December 14-17 at Yale University Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven. $35-$10. 203-432-1234, drama.yale.edu The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is about “the worst kids in the history of the world.” Perhaps, but not forever.

Based on Barbara Robinson’s beloved novel of the same name, the play is a rollicking, charming story about six wild youngsters who volunteer to participate in a pageant for one reason: the food.

This is a family show if ever there was one: warmth, laughter and redemption.

7:30 p.m. December 3-5 & 11-13, 2 p.m. December 5-6 & 12-13 at Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton. $25 ($20 students, $15 children). 860-7677318. ivorytonplayhouse.org.

Christmas Eve. A diner in a southern California strip mall. Henry Parsons,

a professor and South African transplant comes in for his usual — a turkey sandwich and insulting banter with Adela, the Mexican-American waitress. The two creep toward a fragile understanding until Solly and Rachael, an eastern European Jewish couple, sit

for children and their adults. 6 p.m.

December 17, 7 p.m. December 18, 1 & 7 p.m. December 19-20 at Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton. $11 ($6 ages 12 & under). (Bring a toy for Toys for Tots and save $1.) 860-767-7318. ivorytonplayhouse.org.

Randy Harrison channels Andy Warhol in the Yale Rep’s new musical mystery Pop!

down to eat. Unrelenting in his search for our common humanity, playwright Athol Fugard returns to Long Wharf for the world premiere of Have You Seen Us?, unrelenting in his search for our common humanity. Gordon Edelstein directs. November 24-December 20 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $70-$30. 203-787-4282.

Steve Solomon reprises his popular one-man tour de force, but with a holiday twist: My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish & I’m Home for the Holidays. When Steve dysfunctional family convenes for the (various) holidays, pandemonium ensues.

December 28-31, January 2-3 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $38. 203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

Madhatters Theatre Company presents Winter Wonderland 2009, a holiday musical theater production by and

— Susan L. Hartt

ALatino hristmas C

Nov 19 -Jan 31

Nativities of Latin America

One State Street New Haven, CT 203-865-0400 kofcmuseum.org

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december 2009

BELLES LETTRES The Mystery Book Club meets the first Wednesday of each month to discuss a pre-selected book. Books available for loan in advance of discussion. 3-4 p.m. December 2 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-4836653, events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

The Blackstone Writers Group meets first Mondays. The mission of its members is to support one another by supplying motivation to write, sharing ideas and techniques, as well as critiquing one another’s work, whether fact or fiction, novels or short stories, plays or poetry. Meet other local writers; find camaraderie and possibly comic relief. 6:30-7:30 p.m. December 7 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-488-1441, b.shaw@ snet.net, blackstonelibrary.org Mourning War: A Story of Love and Greed in British America. Find out about the biracial dynasty of Sir William Johnson during a time of imperialism.

Author Kirk Swinehart, assistant professor of history at Wesleyan discusses Johnson’s story and the reason why native peoples would align themselves with the society that oppressed them. 8 p.m. December 7 at Russell House, Wesleyan University, Middletown. Free. 860-685-3044, ktedone@weselyan.edu.

New members are welcomed to the Blackstone Library Second Tuesday Book Club. Group meets second Tuesdays to discuss a pre-selected book. Books available for loan in advance of discussion. 6:45-8 p.m.

December 8 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-488-1441, ext. 318, events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

Writers Out Loud: Literary Open Mic. Green Street offers writers a night to share works-in-progress, socialize and seek out constructive comments.

Readings limited to prose short stories or excerpts under ten minutes. 7-9 p.m. December 10 at Green Street Arts Center, 51 Green St., Middletown. $3 members, $5 others. 860-685-7871, greenstreetartscenter.org.

Come celebrate Jane Austen’s birthday with the Elm Street Book Group who will show a screening of the 1940’s classic Pride and Prejudice. Blue State Coffee will provide free tea and coffee for those who register. 6 p.m.

December 16 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free.

Registration. 203-946-8835, pandp. eventbrite.com.

Time Out for Poetry meets third Thursdays and welcomes those who wish to share a short poem or two or simply to listen. Ogden Nash, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and even the Burma Shave signs live again. 12:30-2 p.m. December 17 at Scranton Library, 801 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Free. 203-421-1961.

Comic Book Artist Guild assembles professional and aspiring writers of

the genre to talk about the process and participate in workshops about how to produce comic books. Workshops include: writing, artistic production, storyboarding and publishing.

Meetings are open to everyone. 1-3 p.m.

December 19 at Green Street Arts Center, 51 Green St., Middletown. Free. 860-6857871, greenstreetartscenter.org.

Really As It Was: Writing the Life of Samuel Johnson. In celebration of the 300th anniversary of his birth in 1709, this exhibition examines the life of Samuel Johnson — author, critic and above all conversationalist — as it was written after his death. Drawing on James Boswell’s correspondence and the manuscript of his Life of Johnson, as well as newspapers, prints and works written and annotated by Hester Thrale Piozzi and others, the exhibition explores the tensions of memory and identity found in the competing lives of one of England’s first literary celebrities.

Through December 19 at Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays (until 5 p.m. Fri.), noon-5 p.m.

Sat. Free. 203-432-2977, beineke.library@ yale.edu.

COMEDY Who are The Nobodies of Comedy?

Just the best unknown comedians in the region who have gathered together in one laugh-out-loud show. Discover tomorrow’s comedy stars today. 7:30 p.m. December 2 at Lyman Center for Performing Arts, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. $10 (SCSU students and faculty free). 203-392-6154, tickets.southernct. edu.

CULINARY Cook the Book. Barcelona Wine Bar & Restaurant invites you to cook, sip, taste and blog your way through the Barcelona cookbook on the second Tuesday of every month. This month Chef Mike Hazen teaches you how to prepare and enjoy tasty tapas. 7 p.m. December 8 at Barcelona Wine Bar & Restaurant, 155 Temple St., New

Lift a glass at the Life Haven Holiday Party to honor the group’s Volunteer of the Year, Katie Murphy Fischer, and Company of the Year Ann Taylor Stores Corp. Enjoy musical entertainment by the Whiffenpoofs, food, drink and silent auction to benefit Life Haven, a temporary shelter for homeless pregnant women and women with children. 6-8 p.m. December 2 at LoRicco Tower Ballroom, 216 Crown St., New Haven. $50. 203-776-6203 ext. 23, lifehaven.org.

Don your gay apparel for the Lights of Branford as its presents A Victorian Holiday Gala to benefit the James Blackstone Memorial Library. Light fare will be served with libations and music.

8-11 p.m. December 5 at the Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $50. 203488-1441, blackstone.lioninc.org.

University, Middletown. $5 ($4 students).

860-685-3324, boxoffice@wesleyan.edu.

A holiday tradition complete with party girls and dancing snowflakes continues with the New England Ballet Co. presenting its 18th annual Nutcracker to the timeless music of Tchaikovsky.

Noon & 4 p.m. December 12; 1 p.m.

December 13 at Parsons Government Center, 70 West River St., Milford. $45-$20.

203-799-7950, newenglandballet.org Join the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier at the New Haven Ballet performances of the Nutcracker.

Featuring guest artists Jennie Somogyi from New York City Ballet and hip-hop

Lauralton Hall is decked out in all its holiday finery for the 20th annual Christmas in the Mansion.

BENEFITS

Christmas in the Mansion is a beloved holiday tradition that offers a glimpse of Christmases that might have been in addition to gifts, goodies and music.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the weekend-long event with “Harps of Gold” the decorative theme in the 1864 Victorian Gothic mansion, home of Academy of Our Lady of Mercy, a/k/a Lauralton Hall. Some 50 exhibitors will offer a tempting array of delicacies and gifts, which the Fairfield County Jazz Guild performs holiday favorites. Preview Gala will include cocktails, a buffet dinner, shopping, caroling by Lauralton Hall’s choir and a performance by harpist Jan Baldwin. Preview 7-11 p.m. December 3 at Lauralton Hall, 200 High St., Milford. $50. 10 a.m.-8 p.m. December 4, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. December 5. $6 ($4 seniors & children). Anniversary brunch 10:30 a.m.

December 6. $30. lauraltonhall.org.

CALENDAR

Haven. $25 per person. 203.848.3000, barcelonawinebar.com/calendar.htm.

City Farmers Markets New Haven.

Enjoy food from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, organic greens, root vegetables, handcrafted bread and baked goods, honey, and more. 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays through December 19 at Wooster Square Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct. 203-773-3736, cityseed.org.

DANCE Explore new dance at Wesleyan’s Winter Dance Concert. Advanced student choreographers present recent work as part of the dance program at Wesleyan University. 8 p.m. December 11-12 at Center for the Arts, Wesleyan

artist Austin Dailey. Orchestra New England under the musical direction of James Sinclair performs. 7:30 p.m.

December 18; 2 & 7 p.m. December 19; 2 p.m. December 20 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College Street, New Haven. 203-5625666, shubert.com.

West African Drumming & Dance showcases cultural dance forms and featured performances by Wesleyan Artist-in-Residence Iddi Saaka and master Drummer Abraham Adzenyah.

Students and guest artists join them in this performance. 8 p.m. December 18 at the Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Middletown. $8 ($6 students).

203-685-3324, boxoffice@wesleyan.edu.

Let the Woodbury Ballet’s Nutcracker take you on a sweet and exquisite journey to the magical world of dancing

new haven

53

gumdrops and waltzing flowers. 4 p.m. December 19 at Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $38-$23.

203-346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

FAMILY EVENTS Kick off the holidays at the annual Tree Lighting Celebration on the New Haven Green. Visit the Winter Wonderland, send a letter to Santa, enjoy live musical performances and ride the carousel. 4 p.m.

54

december 2009

December 3 (rain date December 4), New Haven Green.

Free. 203-946-7172.

$10 car or family van. 203-777-2000, newhavengoodwill. easterseals.com.

Add some sparkle to your holidays at the 15th annual Fantasy of Lights at Lighthouse Point Park. This extravaganza allows you to drive through spectacular sparkling festive displays fabricated of more than 200,000 lights. All proceeds benefit Easter Seals Goodwill Industries. 5-9 p.m. Sun.-Thurs., to 10 p.m.

Fri.- Sat. through December 31 at Lighthouse Point Park, 2 Lighthouse Rd., New Haven. $50 bus, $25 small bus,

Nature Babies: Birds at our Feeder. Do you know what kinds of birds you might find at your feeder in the winter? Come find out which of our feathered friends don’t fly south and make a bird feeder to help them through the cold season. For children 3-5 accompanied by adult. 10:30 a.m. December 3 at CAS Nature Center at Milford Point, 1 Milford Point

Rd.Milford. $10 CAS members, $15 others.

203-878-7440, ctaudubon.org.

Cinderella’s Christmas. As Cinderella gets ready for the Christmas Ball, her gown is ruined. Cue the Fairy Godmother to save the day in this musical adaptation of the well-known fairy tale with a holiday flavor. 11 a.m.

December 5 at Chevrolet Theatre, 95 S. Turnpike Rd., Wallingford. $6.50. 203-2651501, livenation.com.

Shubert’s 95th Anniversary Celebration This historic theater is a vital part of New Haven’s cultural life and legendary venue for Broadway tryouts. Today it is a true Broadway house to theater, dance and musical performances. Series of events will commemorate the original 1914 opening of the theater. One the fi rst day are guided tours of the theater with a rededication program and screening of The Sound of Music, which made its Broadway debut on College Street in 1959. The second day is a familyfriendly open house with refreshments, arts and crafts, face painting and a visit

by Santa Claus. 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 December 11, 11 a.m. December 13 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-624-1825, capa.com/ newhaven/events/event.php?e=177.

Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano takes to the ice with special musical guest Chicago in his Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular. If you are fi gure skating fan, you will not want to miss this is a brand new skating extravaganza. Special guests include World Champion Kimmie Meissner and British champion Steven Cousins. 7:30 p.m. December 12 at the Arena at Harvard Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport. $115-$39.

203-345-2400, ticketmaster.com.

Celebrate the Solstice is part of the International Year of Astronomy commemorating the 400th anniversary of modern astronomical observation.

Find out why the winter solstice and the holidays are so important. 6 p.m.

December 15 at the Leitner Observatory at Yale, 355 Prospect St., New Haven.

Free. 203-285-8840, yale.edu/iya.

The Green Street Arts Center celebrates the arrival of winter with a dance and showcase of after-school talent. Come join the winter solstice

celebration. 5-7:30 p.m. December 18 at Green Street Arts Center, 51 Green St., Middletown. Free. 860-685-7871, greenstreetartscenter.org.

Holiday Paper Making. What could be better than creating holiday cheer?

Learn how to make holiday cards out of homemade paper. Equipment and supplies will be provided in this hands-on activity. 9:30 a.m. December 19 at CAS Nature Center at Milford Point, 1 Milford Point Rd., Milford. $9 adult, $5 child CAS members; $14/$10 non-members ($5 seniors). Reservations.

203-878-7440, ctaudubon.org.

LECTURES New Haven Free Public Library presents a discussion with Yale World Fellow Beatrice Mategwa, on “Sudan at a Crossroad: A Contemporary Perspective.” Mategwa is a broadcast journalist covering the North-South peace agreement in Sudan and has analyzed the impact of conflict on communities. 6 p.m. December 3 at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. 203-946-8835, sudan.eventbrite.com Rescuing Connecticut — Conservation History in the Constitution State. Bring a bag lunch and learn about the history of our state’s parks and forests as well as the racy antics of the “Fathers of Hammonassett.” James W. Little of the Connecticut Forest & Park Association will talk about these subjects and more.

Noon-3 p.m. December 3 at the Scranton Library, 801 Boston Post Rd., Madison.

Free. 203-245-7365, scrantonlibrary.org.

The Coming Commercial Revolution in the Muslim World is part of the Live From NY’s 92nd Street Y, part of the Shubert’s Speaker Series of new programming. Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations moderates this broadcast of a debate over whether the catalyst of conflict in the Middle East will be business and capitalism, not religion. Patrons are encouraged to arrive early to submit questions for the speaker. 8 p.m. December 7 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $10 advance, $12 at door. 203-562-6666, capa.com/newhaven/events/event. php?e=142

Quinnipiac University hosts a lecture on Israeli public opinion of the Middle East conflict. Israeli political scholar Tamar S. Hermann, a professor of political science and dean of academic studies at Open University of Israel, will discuss. 7 p.m. December 9 at the Mancheski Executive Seminar Room at Quinnipiac University, 275 Mount Carmel Ave., Hamden. Free. 203-582-3144.

MIND, BODY, SOUL Led by Nelie Doak, Yoga promotes a deep sense of physical, mental and emotional well-being. Classes are designed to help cultivate breath and body awareness, improve flexibility, strengthen and tone muscles, detoxify the body and soothe the spirit. All levels welcome. Bring a yoga mat. 56:15 p.m. Fridays at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $10. 203-4881441, ext. 313, yogidoakie@earthlink. net or events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org.

Full Moon Gong Relaxation. Deep sound healing with Kundalini yoga and meditative gong vibrations promise to bring awareness and balance, physically and spiritually. 4 p.m.

December 6 at Your Community Yoga Center, 39 Putnam Ave., Hamden. $20.

203-287-2277, yourcommunityyoga.com

SPORTS/RECREATION Cycling Elm City Cycling organizes Lulu’s Ride, weekly two- to four-hour rides for all levels (17-19 mph average).

Cyclists leave at 10 a.m. from Lulu’s European Café as a single group; no one is dropped. 10 a.m. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-773-9288, elmcitycycling.org.

The Little Lulu (LL) is an alternative to the long-standing Sunday morning training ride. The route is usually 20-30 miles in length and the ride is no-drop, meaning that the group waits at hilltops and turns so that no rider is left behind. The LL is an opportunity for cyclists to get accustomed to riding in groups. Riders should come prepared with materials (tubes, tools, pumps

the passion and romance of yesterday discovered in a restaurant for today .

• Cooking Classes • Sunday Brunch • Outdoor Patio • Outdoor Dinner Theatre 165 Wooster Street, New Haven 203.865.4489

and/or CO2 inflators) to repair flats. 10 a.m. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-7739288, paulproulx@sbcglobal.net.

Tuesday Night Canal Rides are back.

Medium-paced rides up the Farmington Canal into New Haven. May split into two groups based on riders’ speed, but no one will be left behind to ride alone.

Lights essential. 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays at Café Romeo, 534 Orange St., New Haven.

Free. william.v.Kurtz@gmail.com Critical Mass. Participants meet at the flagpole on the New Haven Green at 5:30 p.m. on the last Friday of each month for a slow-paced ride through New Haven streets. The ride ranges from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on weather. Critical Mass is not an organization; it’s an “unorganized coincidence” — a movement of bicycles in the streets as traffi c. After the event, everyone is invited to a potluck dinner at the Devil’s Gear Bike Shop. 5:30 p.m. December 25 at Temple and Chapel streets, New Haven.

Free. elmcitycycling.org.

Hikes Sleeping Giant Park Association Holiday Hike & Social offers a choice of long or short hike followed by music and good cheer. All hikes meet at the bulletin board at the park entrance.

Wear comfortable shoes, bring snacks and water. No pets. 1:30 p.m. hike, 3 p.m. social and songs December 7 at Sleeping Giant State Park, Mt. Carmel Ave., Hamden. Free. beitch1@cox.net.

Road Races/Triathlons Take part in an Elm City running tradition and bring a smile to child’s face by donating a toy and participating in Christopher Martins Christmas Run for the Children. This 25th annual 5K run brings holiday toys and cheer toneedy children. New course for 2009 is an out-and-back along State and Orange streets down to the New Haven Green. 10 a.m. December 13 at 860 State St., New Haven. $15 advance, $20 race day ($5 less with unwrapped toy).

203-481-5933, jbsporrs@snet.net.

— Denise Santisteban

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1,000 Chapel St • New Haven 203.562.3888 • clairescornercopia.com new haven

55

WO RDS of MOUT H

By Liese Klein

n one corner is a student on a laptop, a latte in easy reach. In another, a table full of girlfriends gossiping over gelato.

Next to them, a couple is diving into personal pizzas. That’s a typical evening mix at the new Cafe Romeo on Orange Street, an ambitious new arrival on East Rock’s dining scene.

Owners Romeo Simeone, Chris Mordechai and Bernard Massaro, Jr. try to do a lot of things at this sleek eatery, and do most of them very well. The offerings — and the parking spots along the side — are enough to draw diners from across the city.

Start with those coffee drinks, brewed with real barista flourish and benefiting from specially blended beans. Italian sodas are on tap, along with a selection of gourmet bottled drinks and waters.

You can also start your day at the restaurant: It opens at 7 a.m. with a full breakfast menu including egg dishes.

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But lunch or a light dinner is the best time to sample the fresh, well-executed pizzas and sandwiches. (Cafe Romeo closes at 7 p.m., so plan for an early meal.)

A classic broccoli rabe sandwich was bursting with flavor from al dente vegetables and house-made sausage, notable in its tender texture and sweetspicy blend of pork and herbs. The combo on a chewy ciabatta roll made for a satisfying meal, even if the portion size might disappoint Wooster Square traditionalists.

Cold sandwiches include a tempting tuna salad puttanesca with yellowfin tuna, olives, capers and anchovies, classic roast beef and a BLT with avocado mayonnaise.

The chef reaches out to the neighborhood’s sizeable vegetarian population with selections including grilled tempeh sandwich of fermented soy patties with veggies and avocado

and eggplant panini. A mild pesto pasta salad also pleased with its mix of penne, grape tomatoes and nuggets of mozzarella. Hot and cold dishes, breads and individual frittatas are available delistyle at a counter toward the back.

The individual pizzas make up for in flavor what they lack in heft — a caponata featured slices of eggplant, mushroom and artichoke scattered over a thin layer of bright-tasting sauce.

Leave it to neighborhood partisans to fight out the merits of Cafe Romeo’s sandwiches verses favorites like Nica’s Market and Romeo and Cesare’s. This diner gives the advantage to Cafe Romeo, if only for the comfortable if cramped indoor seating, friendly staff and efficient service. Surely East Rock has room for another deli-restaurant, especially as accomplished as this one.

Cafe Romeo, 534 Orange St., New Haven (203-865-2233).

Anthony DeCarlo

I

Proprietor/hosts Mordechai (left) and Simeone have created an ambitious new adition to the East Rock culinary scene..

PHOTOGRAPH:

NEW EATS: Cafe Romeo

BREAKFAST/DINERS The Pantry, 2 Mechanic St., New Haven (203-787-0392).

Lines get long on weekend mornings at this East Rock institution, known for breakfast goodies like gingerbread pancakes, waffles and hearty omelets.

Bella’s Cafe, 896 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203387-7107). Brunch with flair is the specialty at this Westville favorite. You can’t go wrong with the daily specials or omelets

style, affordable fry-up of eggs, bacon and toast.

Cash only, but you won’t need much of it.

Patricia’s Restaurant, 18 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-787-4500). Tasty and very affordable diner basics in an unironically retro setting near Broadway and the Yale campus.

Athenian Diner, 1064 Boston Post Rd., Milford (203878-5680). This chrome-and-glass landmark draws customers from all over the region with its hearty portions and tasty classics. Great Greek favorites and overstuffed sandwiches. Open 24 hours. Also open all night in New Haven at 1426 Whalley Ave.

Parthenon Diner, 374 E. Main St., Branford (203-4810333). Open 24 hours for hearty, well-made Greek and diner fare, with some low-carb and vegetarian offerings. Another location (not 24/7) in Old Saybrook at 809 Boston Post Rd.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN/KOREAN

Copper Kitchen, 1008 Chapel St., New Haven (203-7778010). Downtown’s most convenient spot for a diner-

Bentara Restaurant, 76 Orange St., New Haven (203562-2511). Supersized noodle soups and spicy curries

are good bets at this Ninth Square Malaysian/ fusion hotspot. The stylish interior and extensive cocktail list also make it an excellent pre-nightlife stop. Open for lunch.

Kari Restaurant, 1451 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203389-1280). Bright flavors and unusual ingredients make this Malaysian restaurant worth the drive up Whalley. The friendly servers are happy to explain the cuisine and highlight the catch of the day.

Pot-Au-Pho, 77 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-7762248). Great for a quick bowl of pho, Vietnamese soup, along with tasty noodle dishes and affordable Asian specialties. Limited hours, so call ahead.

Oriental Pantry Grocery & Gifts, 486 Orange St., New Haven (203-865-2849). A foodie favorite for its home-style Korean dishes like soups and bibimbap.

Takeout sushi, breakfast sandwiches and Asian PHOTOGRAPH:

JUST A SIP: ChocoVine at Grand Vin

C

Anthony DeCarlo

hocolate and red wine go together swimmingly — but in the same glass?

It doesn’t sound promising, but Dutch spirits giant Dekuyper makes it work with ChocoVine, a new liqueur that’s been flying off the shelves at the Grand Vin wine shop in Fair Haven.

“If you try a glass, you’re going to drink the whole bottle — maybe even that night,” promises Grand Vin owner Ben Tortora.

Both the chocolatewine concept and a label featuring a pastel scene of Dutch tulip fields had this imbiber skeptical at first. But ChocoVine pours like a nice milky coffee and hits the nose with a blast of creamy cocoa goodness. On the palate, intense chocolate melds with bone-dry alcohol for a balanced and very drinkable alternative to heavier and sweeter holiday quaffs like Bailey’s.

It won’t replace a nice red at the holiday table, but ChocoVine

would be great on the rocks after dinner or in a chocolate martini.

And at only 14 percent alcohol, similar to wine, it won’t knock you flat after a heavy meal.

ChocoVine is only one of the intriguing bottles on offer at Grand Vin, just across the Quinnipiac in Fair Haven Heights.

The store manages to be expansive and intimate at the same time, chock-full of

unusual finds at very fair prices.

very friendly and very well-received.”

Tortora’s picks for the holiday season include the mellow Garnacha (Grenache) reds of Spain, including a $10 steal from Las Rocas that scores 90 points from Robert Parker.

The impressive beer selection at Grand Vin includes winter seasonal ales from the likes of Smuttynose Brewing of New Hampshire and Dogfish Head of Delaware, with six- and four-packs selling for less than most other retailers in the area. Tortola and the friendly staff are quick to offer help and suggestions

“Spanish Garnacha is an exceptionally good drinking red wine — it’s not tannic, and has a lot of elegance and a lot of flavor,” Tortola says. “People grab two bottles at a time. It’s

on everything from organic gins to affordable Albarinos.

With the Ferry Street bridge open at last, this friendly and well-stocked store is well worth a trip from across town or across the county.

Grand Vin, 28 East Grand Ave., New Haven (203-468-7494).

Grand Vin’s Tortora with the hottest new potation for chocaholics..

new haven

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EDITOR’S PICK: The Italian Farmer’s Table

T

hose seeking mouthwatering ideas for gift-giving this year need look no further than a compelling new cookbook by two young area chefs.

The Italian Farmer’s Table,

by Matthew Scialabba and Melissa Pellegrino of Guilford, gives the reader a guided tour of northern

Italian family farms and their groaning tables. It’s an affordable trip to Italy replete with dozens of userfriendly recipes, wine tips and descriptions of farm life — everything from the goose slaughter to pasta traditions to the making of goat cheese.

The book takes as its inspiration the agriturismi system, set up by the Italian government in 1985 to preserve small family farms through food tourism.

Overnight guests are served food made from the farm’s products and even have the option to pitch in

drinks and sweets are also available.

Soho New Haven, 259 Orange St., New Haven (203-745-0960). Right downtown and in an elegant space, Soho draws a diverse crowd for its top-notch Korean fare. Try the mandu dumplings and fieryhot chicken galbi.

Midori, 3000 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-248-3322).

Big flavors in a small space are the hallmark of this Korean/fusion restaurant, tucked away in a strip mall. Best bets are soups, the fresh-tasting bibimbap and spicy bulgogi.

THAI Thai Taste Restaurant, 1151 Chapel St., New Haven (203-776-9802). A standout on Chapel’s “Thai Row,” with toothsome basics like pad thai, drunken noodles and green curry.

Bangkok Gardens, 172 York St., New Haven (203-7898718). Tasty Thai in a charming, light-filled dining area with great service. Wide ranges of classics and vegetarian options.

Rice Pot Thai Restaurant, 1027 State St., New Haven (203-772-6679). Great spot for a romantic dinner and some truly tasty Thai food. Try the impeccably fresh spring rolls, delicately flavored soups and assertive curries.

Thai Awesome, 1505 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-2889888). Tangy curries and rich soups make this Thai eatery worth the drive from downtown, but leave time to find parking on this busy stretch of Dixwell The Terrace, 1559 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-2302077). The chef’s French training shows in this Thai

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with chores during longer stays. The agriturismi have evolved with the times and are now at the forefront of organic and sustainable agriculture, becoming a “viable and economic alternative to traditional living,” according to the book.

Scialabba and Pellegrino stumbled on an agriturismi farm on a trip to Italy and planned a four-month sojourn devoted to visiting the farms after they both graduated from culinary school.

“As chefs, we thought that a cookbook would be the perfect way to bring these farms to life,” they write.

The volume is organized as

eatery’s above-average plating and seductive flavor combinations.

Ayuthai, 2279 Boston Post Road, Guilford (203-4532988). Quality Thai in a casual setting. Excellent duck and curry plates, along with above-average papaya salad and desserts.

CHINESE/TAIWANESE Iron Chef, 1209 Campbell Ave., West Haven (203-9323888). Unusual Taiwanese specialties and wellexecuted classics shine at this student favorite.

House of Chao, 898 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203389-6624). This Westville institution draws diners from across the region for its bright flavors and eclectic menu.

Lao Sze Chaun, 1585 Boston Post Rd., Milford (203-7830558). You don’t get much more authentic locally than this outpost of Szechwan delicacies and tasty dim sum.

East Melange Too, 142 Howe St., New Haven (203848-3663). Affordable and authentic noodles and Cantonese classics keep this lively eatery near Yale hopping at all hours.

Great Wall of China, 67 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-777-8886). Its location near downtown’s best Asian market and an affordable, high-quality buffet attracts a multicultural clientele to this Yale-area spot.

COFFEE SHOPS Cafe Grounded, 20 Church St, Guilford (203-453-6400).

a tour through Italy’s north, with each section inspired by the agriturismi farms in a specific province.

Dishes range from the pesto and sardines of Liguria to the Austrianinflected pork dishes of Friuli. Most farms are represented by at least a few entrées, pastas and desserts, allowing for a full meal’s worth of exploration.

At only $19.95, The Italian Farmer’s Table is a great gift for the foodie, pasta-lover or adventurous home cook in your life.

Buon apetito!

The Italian Farmer’s Table, published November 2009 by Three Forks/Globe Pequot Press, 320 pps., $19.95 (soft).

Tasty sandwiches and coffee drinks star at this aviation-themed cafe that operates inside a quonset hut near the town’s Green.

Publick Cup, 276 York St., New Haven (203-787-9929).

Top-notch sandwiches, coffee drinks and teas with a creative flair and a studious vibe that befits its oncampus location. You can even order ahead online.

Kasbah Garden Cafe, 105 Howe St., New Haven (203-777-5053). Quality teas, good conversation and Moroccan treats on New Haven’s best outdoor patio.

Willoughby’s Coffee & Tea, 258 Church St., New Haven, (203-777-7400). Enjoy both the low-key ambience and the region’s best selection of premium roasts and rarities at this small chain.

With Branford and Madison locations.

Bare Beans Coffee, 14 East Grand Ave., New Haven (203-260-1118). A funky new outpost of quality beans and drinks over the bridge in Fair Haven. Weekday mornings only for drinks; order top-quality organic, Fair Trade and eco-friendly beans online at barebeanscoffee.com.

Cafe Atlantique, 33 River St., Milford (203-8821602). Visit this neighborhood favorite for creative caffeinated classics, bistro food and wine and a charming indoor/outdoor seating area.

FUSION CUISINE Mickey’s Restaurant & Bar, 2323 Whitney Ave., Hamden (203-288-4700). This eatery’s sophisticated interior and artful blend of Israeli and Italian flavors bring big-city flair to downtown Hamden.

Sip a Mickey’s margarita with your Marrakech salmon and Israeli couscous.

Friend House, 538 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-7956888). In a plaza next to Trader Joe’s, Friend House brings together stylish sushi and Chinese and Thai favorites.

Formosa, 132 Middletown Ave., North Haven (203-2390666). Creative and beautifully presented dishes with pan-Asian panache. Don’t miss the Szechwan “ravioli,” tender chicken dumplings in a delicate peanut sauce, or Taiwanese seafood specialties.

Kudeta, 27 Temple St., New Haven (203 562-8844).

Every major cuisine of Asia is represented on Kudeta’s menu, with something for every taste in an evocative interior. Generous and inventive drinks along with good sushi and noodle dishes.

FRENCH Union League Café, 1032 Chapel St., New Haven (203562-4299). New Haven’s most beautiful dining room

Chef Interview Melissa Pellegrino and Matthew Scialabba are married Connecticut natives who brought together their love of Italian food and cooking in a new cookbook, The Italian Farmer’s Table.

Matt currently works at Artisan Wines in Norwalk and Melissa is assistant food editor for Fine Cooking magazine. The couple, both 32, recently moved back to Guilford and started a blog on local farms and Italian cuisine: theitalianfarmerstable.com.

and world-class cuisine near the heart of downtown.

Sabor. Open for lunch.

Le Petit Café 225 Montowese St., Branford (203-4839791). Prix-fixe menu features beautifully prepared classics with a modern twist in a casual setting.

Foe, 576 Main St., Branford (203-483-5896). The perfect setting for a romantic evening, Foe shines with sublime beef and pasta dishes. A black fig and cherry-glazed duck breast also showcases the chef’s sure hand with poultry. Lunch and bar menu.

Caseus, 3 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203-624-3373).

Quiche and onion soup with top-notch cheeses stand out at this charming bistro.

Gastronomique, 25 High Street, New Haven (203776-7007).Classics like croque monsieur and steak tartare, plus sandwiches and burgers, expertly prepared at affordable prices. Takeout only.

AMERICAN Bespoke, 266 College St., New Haven (203 562-4644).

Cutting-edge presentation and flavor combinations take center stage at this successor to Roomba. Latin flavors are featured in the upstairs lounge, called

What was your most memorable meal on your research trip?

Hands down, La Subida in Friuli. It was one of the best meals we’ve ever eaten. The farm borders Slovenia, and the family who owned the farm has

Sage American Grill & Oyster Bar, 100 S. Water St., New Haven (203-787-3466). The tranquil harborfront view sets off skilled seafood and raw bar selections.

Excellent seasonal specials and a full bar add to the attractions of this veteran favorite.

Foster’s, 56-62 Orange St., New Haven (203-859-6666).

The chef himself is likely to bring over your meal at this acclaimed newcomer in Ninth Square. Comfort food with cutting-edge flair like llama burgers on toasted brioche.

Zinc, 964 Chapel St., New Haven (203-624-0507).

Consistently excellent food, drinks and service in

Most memorable family on a farm?

Too hard of a question. All the families were amazing. They all welcomed us into their lives and homes and taught us their recipes, which were for the most part handed

Melissa: I grew up in a family of great Italian cooks, and my mom owned a cooking store, so I was raised around food. After college I wanted to explore my heritage in greater depth, so I went to Italy to attend culinary school.

What ingredients do you think are essential for authentic Italian cooking at home?

Italian cooking is about using fresh ingredients that are local and seasonal.

For example, most people associate olive oil with Italy, but in the North, where olive trees don’t tend to grow, they cook with butter. Italians make do with what they have, and usually make it taste fantastic.

What are your favorite New Haven-area Italian restaurants?

How did you first become interested in Italy and Italian food?

Matt: I grew up in an Italian-American family, so I was surrounded by the food. Then I went to study abroad in Italy and really fell in love with the country and its cuisine.

of the language barrier — if you bring a hearty appetite, you’ll be welcomed with open arms.

both Italian and Slovenian heritage, which was highlighted through the dishes they served. The food was very elevated in execution, but rustic in character. The food of northern Italy is very interesting in this manner, because there are so many outside influences from neighboring countries: France, Austria and Slovenia.

down orally through the generations. Also it was great to see so many generations of family working together.

What advice do you have for readers thinking of taking a similar trip to Italy?

Be willing to try anything food-wise because it is often extremely delicious, and they don’t like fussy eaters. And don’t be afraid

L’Orcio, for best Italian food. Skappo, for most resembling an agriturismi family farm, because it has a nice family-style atmosphere.

What are your future plans?

To go back and research for a book on the agriturismi of central and southern Italy.

What are your favorite dishes to make at home?

Roast chicken, pizza, gnocchi and linguine with clam sauce.

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a central location. Innovative seafood like tamaricured tuna with wasabi oil is a good choice.

INDIAN Thali, 4 Orange St., New Haven (203-777-1177).

Downtown’s best Sunday buffet, with ample meat and vegetarian selections as well as fresh masala dosa crepes and unusual treats like goat curry and carrot pudding.

Zaroka Bar & Restaurant, 148 York St., New Haven (203-776-8644). Opulent setting for one of the city’s most popular Indian buffets. Enjoy the birayani pilafs, crunchy pappadum crackers and fluffy desserts.

Royal India, 140 Howe St., New Haven (203-787-9493).

Tasty North Indian fare in an intimate setting on Howe’s mini-restaurant row. Nice variety at lunch buffet with fresh bread.

Darbar India, 1070 Main St., Branford (203-481-8994).

Award-winning shoreline favorite with excellent atmosphere and north Indian classics, run by Royal India owner. Spicy vindaloos and tandooris are a good bet.

Coromandel, 185 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-7959055). Great breads and regional specialties from the local outpost of a celebrated Fairfield chain. Try the shrimp in coconut sauce and unusual lentil dessert.

Swagat, 215 Boston Post Rd. West Haven (203-931-0108).

A tiny outpost of south Indian favorites near the University of New Haven. Best bets are the masala dosa and many vegetarian dishes.

ITALIAN Consiglio’s of New Haven, 165 Wooster St., New Haven (203-865-4489). Beautifully executed Italian classics and a warm, welcoming atmosphere set this Wooster Square eatery apart. Open for lunch and

private parties; also hosts a series of cooking classes.

Skappo Italian Wine Bar, 59 Crown St., New Haven (203-773-1394). White truffles and chestnuts are two of the compelling flavors you’ll encounter at this cozy eatery in Ninth Square. A great place to sample wines and small plate.

Tre Scalini Ristorante, 100 Wooster St., New Haven (203-777-3373). Acclaimed pasta, seafood and antipasti in an opulent Wooster Square setting.

Also open for lunch.

L’Orcio, 806 State St., New Haven (203-777-6670).

Outstanding modern Italian in an intimate setting.

You can’t go wrong with the pasta specials and perfectly cooked and seasoned steaks.

Roseland Apizza, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Derby (203-7350494). Don’t let the casual pizzeria decor fool you — this Valley favorite makes some serious Italian food. Look for the daily specials and enjoy.

JUST A TASTE: Inca’s Restaurant

flecked citrus sauce made it easy to polish off. Spears of boiled yuca provided starchy relief as the subtle heat of Peruvian chile built on the tongue.

We went back to China for one entrée, tallarin saltado de pollo, which featured spaghetti, chicken and shreds of vegetables in a mellow soybased sauce. It looked a lot like Chinese food, but the use of tomato and the rounded flavors made for something different yet satisfying.

The comfortable, welcoming Inca’s offers Peruvian fare at affordable prices..

“It’s kind of like a plantain.

It’s starchy but not quite like potato...”

As a nearby diner on a recent night struggled to describe the texture and flavor of yucca — a waxy root vegetable also known as cassava — I couldn’t help but think that Peruvian cuisine was similar in its lack of clear definition. Peruvian food has a lot in common with other South American cuisines, but with strong influences from native Incan cultures and more recent spice from Asian immigrants.

A great place to try Peruvian food in all its complexity is Inca’s Restaurant, just off I-95 in Milford. This welcoming,

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comfortable eatery affords diners not familiar with the cuisine a chance to try a wide variety of Peruvian fare.

A meal at Inca’s starts with addictive nuggets of dried corn, called cancha, brought to the table with a side of creamy green lettuce mayonnaise spiked with chile.

Unlike the rock-hard kernels at the bottom of a popcorn bag, this corn is delicately crunchy and blends well with the spicy sauce.

Owner Jasmine Arnao and her family opened Inca’s in 2008 with a menu that cherrypicks from the cuisines of coastal, mountain and jungle regions of Peru. Several different ceviches and a

dozen entrées feature fresh fish, while beef is spotlighted in the Chinese-inflected lomo saltado, a stir-fried beef dish served with rice and fries.

The ubiquitous potato stars in an outstanding cold appetizer called causa rellena, which sandwiches a creamy shrimp salad, vegetables and herbs in layers of mashed spuds. Don’t let the idea of cold mashed potato scare you — this dish is luxurious, flavorful and presented with real flair.

Also unusual and savory was an alternative to traditional ceviche, the tiradito de pescado.

Slabs of fish in profusion made this appetizer nearly entrée-sized, but a light, herb-

But the hit of the night was the jalea especial, an impressive stack of fried fish and yuca strewn with slices of pickled onion and tomato.

The delicate, clean-tasting breading on the seafood rivaled the best Shoreline seafood house and the garnishes added texture and a nice acidic tang.

Inca’s winning ways continued into dessert, with an airy mango mousse perfectly capping a big meal with bright flavor and a lush, foamy texture.

Like the yucca itself, Peruvian food is hard to describe. In the end, you just have to take a trip to Inca’s and try it for yourself.

Incas Restaurant, 333 Naugatuck Ave., Milford (203-874-0505).

Adriana’s Restaurant, 771 Grand Ave., New Haven (203-865-6474). Meat is the thing at this Grand Avenue favorite, especially veal and sausages. Fresh pasta and classics in a formal setting.

Lenny & Joe’s Fish Tale, 1301 Boston Post Rd., Madison (203-245-7289). What it lacks in formality it makes up for in taste — the freshest, crispest fried seafood around. The perfect spot for quick eats after beach or a coastal drive, with an ice cream stand onsite.

MEXICAN

Guilford Mooring, 505 Whitfield St., Guilford (203458-2921). Pasta dishes, a stellar chowder and a full range of grilled fish set this Shoreline favorite apart.

And where else can you savor Lazy Man’s Stuffed Lobster as you watch lobstermen at work.

Moe’s Southwest Grill, 46 Whitney Ave., New Haven (203- 776-6637). Healthy burritos, tacos and other Tex-Mex favorites along with addictive queso cheese sauce. Beer and wine are served, along with margaritas.

Baja, 63 Boston Post Rd., Orange (203-799-2252). An expansive salsa bar and fish taco entrée appeal to homesick Californians and big eaters.

Guadalupe la Poblanita, 136 Chapel St., New Haven (203-752-1017). Simple, authentic cuisine from Puebla in a down-home atmosphere.

Jalapeno Heaven, 40 N. Main St., Branford (203-4816759). Tasty Americanized fare in a cozy setting with excellent margaritas.

YellowFin’s Seafood Grille, 1027 South Main St., Cheshire (203-250-9999). Flavors are light and bright at this fusion eatery, with a menu that ranges from cioppino to Asian scallop salad to Tilapia St. Tropez. A raw bar and house-brewed beer round out the offerings.

Jimmie’s of Savin Rock, 5 Rock St., West Haven. 9343212. Take the family out and enjoy the boardwalk view at this West Haven institution, known for its moderate prices and casual atmosphere. All the fried favorites, a full menu of broiled fish and lobster and the famous split hot dog.

Mezcal, 14 Mechanic St., New Haven (203-782-4828).

Big portions and wide-ranging menu with lots of surprises. No liquor license.

SUSHI

Taqueria Mexico No. 1, 850 S. Colony Rd. Wallingford (203-265-0567). The best tortas — or small sandwiches — in the area, filled with spiced meat and accompanied on the weekends by a lipsmacking posole hominy soup.

Wasabi, 280 Branford Rd., North Branford (203-4887711). Good quality rolls and sashimi at reasonable prices, along with Korean specialties like mandu dumplings and bibimbap rice bowls. The sake flows freely on Monday nights, a favorite with students.

Viva Zapata, 161 Park St., New Haven (203-562-2499).

Toothsome classics and a killer sangria in a festive pub atmosphere. Open for lunch.

Akasaka, 1450 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-3874898). Unusual specials like baby octopus and blowfish make this veteran eatery worth a visit.

Live sea urchin roe and scallops are also a best bet, along with tasty pickled vegetables.

MIDDLE EASTERN Mamoun’s, 85 Howe St., New Haven (203-562-8444).

Cheap plates of falafel and Syrian-style specialties like stuffed eggplant keep this student favorite hopping late into the night. Make sure the fryer’s fired up and stick with the classics like baklava.

Istanbul Café, 245 Crown St., New Haven (203-7873881). With its airy yet opulent interior, this critics’ favorite has the best ambience in town and flavorful food. A grilled octopus salad and red lentil soup are standouts, along with lamb dishes.

Turkish Kebab House, 1157 Campbell Ave., West Haven (203-933-0002). Every kind of kebab imaginable, from doner to minced chicken to cubes of lamb, is on tap at this neighborhood eatery. Also vegetarian and seafood options.

King Falafel, 240 College St., New Haven (203-8483076). Follow a trip to the Shubert with a tasty falafel sandwich across the street at this late-night favorite. Large portions of the freshest fried chickpea patties in town, with all the trimmings.

Kasbah Garden Café, 105 Howe St., New Haven (203777-5053). Moroccan-style lamb and vegetable dishes prevail on the limited but tasty menu. Savor mint tea and baklava outside on the patio.

Sono Bana, 1206 Dixwell Ave., Hamden (203-281-9922).

Fresh fish, inventive rolls and extensive combo options make this a neighborhood favorite. Try a fruity saketini with your sashimi “boat” and ask the chef to load up on the catch of the day.

Miya’s Sushi, 68 Howe St., New Haven (203-7779760). Unusual combinations like rolls with cheese and Ethiopian spices are the draw. Let go of your preconceptions about sushi with help from some of the infused-sake cocktails.

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Number 1 Fish Market, 2239 State St., Hamden (203-624-6171). Make your own sushi at home with fresh seafood from this market, which supplies many area restaurants.

VEGETARIAN Claire’s Corner Copia, 1000 Chapel St., New Haven (203-562-3888). This veggie veteran has updated its menu with lots of vegan options, of-the-moment meat substitutes and superfoods like acai berry juice.

SEAFOOD

Edge of the Woods, 379 Whalley Ave., New Haven (203-787-1055). The natural market offers a superb selection of vegetarian products in addition to a lunchtime buffet with salad bar, hot entrées like lasagna and seitan stir-fry and a colorful array of main-dish salads.

Lenny’s Indian Head Inn, 205 S. Montowese St., Branford (203-488-1500). Fried clams praised by national critics and the freshest steamers around make Lenny’s a local favorite. The Shore Dinner covers all the bases with cherrystones, corn on the cob, lobster and steamers.

Shoreline Diner & Vegetarian Enclave, 345 Boston Post Rd., Guilford (203-458-7380). Non-veg diner fare along with vegan favorites like a tempeh Reuben with sauerkraut on grilled rye and “Twin Towers” of vegetable strudel. Great place for groups with different dining preferences.

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61

A Stroll Through the Arboretum

By Susan E. Cornell

The Conn. College arboretum offers a realworld lab for botany and environmental studies.

I

n discussing the next day’s plans, I told my family that the dog and I would be checking out the arboretum at Connecticut College in New London.

“The arbor what?” was pretty much the response.

My teenage son came up with the definition for “arboretum,” and then questioned why on earth a non-gardener would head to such a destination. (By the way, Merriam-Webster defines arboretum as “a place where trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants are cultivated for scientific and educational purposes.”)

the college and the public, is a multitasker, providing an outdoor getaway for reflection and recreation. All trails are fine for walking and hiking, and some areas are suitable for running.

For the college’s academic program, particularly the biological sciences, botany and environmental studies, the Arboretum provides a real-world lab complete with meadows, wetlands and forests. For the rest of us, there’s a connection to nature.

I must have seen events listed at Conn.

College’s Arboretum in home and garden magazines — and the place made it to the to-do list. The tree/shrub stuff wasn’t really the attraction personally; it was the hiking/walking in a beautiful dogfriendly environment and maybe learning something.

You can opt for a self-guided tour, a free Sunday afternoon guided tour, or a private tour of the 25-acre collection of shrubs and trees. The main trial is about two miles long and well-marked. Numbered station markers are found along the trail and described on a brochure with a map.

For example, at Station No. 8 one finds a “south-facing slope which has been planted with various native nut trees, predominantly hickory.”

The Arboretum, which serves both

Additionally, there are two optional

62

december 2009

loops. One leads to a bog while the other traverses through a former hemlock forest.

Native trees are identified with labels and intersections are marked with arrows.

The Arboretum is open from dawn to dusk year-round. Free Sunday afternoon tours, beginning at 2 p.m., run from May 1 to October 30. Tours vary by the week: • First Sunday — Tour of the Campus Collection • Second Sunday — Tour of the Caroline Black Garden • Remaining Sundays — Tour of the Native Plant Collection.

Connecticut College owns and operates the Arboretum, which was established in 1931. The College Bookshop and the Arboretum Office (103 F.W. Olin Science Center) offers various bulletins describing the Arboretum and its animals and plants.

The Arboretum is located at 270 Mohegan Avenue, New London. Admission is free, except for private tours and programs. v

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