WAG December 19

TRAVEL BY TRAIN Its enduring allure CLOCKWATCHING Historic roots – modern models

Simply timeless

SING SING A creative new life NENAD BACH Keeping his fingers nimble BRIDGEWATER CHOCOLATE Seasonal sweets

fascinating rhythms JUDGED A

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WESTCHESTER & FAIRFIELD LIFE DECEMBER 2019 | WAGMAG.COM

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SYMPHONY COLLECTION

CONTENTS DECEMBER 2019

46

Glittery time

48

Where doing time means using it

14

52

18

54

Tempus fugit

The original Fab Four

22

Refined hospitality

Playing for time in the game of life Christmas à la John Waters

58

Going for Baroque

26

62

Clock watchers

Nature’s shepherd

30

66

Bespoke my heart

Beyond that fateful ride at midnight

32

The uneasy romance of the rails

36

76

A dream come to life

86

Sweet surrender

All aboard

38

The art of train travel

42

Inspired by the past

72

COVER STORY

Sophia Loren: Una vita fantastica

THIS PAGE:

Summer, “Hybrid 02.0008,” March 14, 2015, as featured in “Flora Magnifica: The Art of Flowers in Four Seasons.”

(Thames & Hudson). © Shunsuke Shiinoki. See story on page 18.

E VERY OBJ ECT HAS A STORY

worth telling, worth find ing.

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FEATURES HIGHLIGHTS

HOME & DESIGN

68 Architectural fusion 80 Hi-yo, silver 82 Kickin’ back 84 Tick tock…

TRAVEL

90 Timeless destinations 94 Haven of history 96 Global gifts

FOOD & SPIRITS

86

98 Loud and proud in Pelham 102 J’adore Coco J’Adore 104 Coffee break with The Espresso Guys 108 Buying Burgundies without the hassle

HEALTH & FITNESS

110 Lessening the presence of scars 112 The little wellness extras

38

PET CARE

114 Sweet little JellyBean 116 Unbridled love

WHAT'S TRENDING

12 WAG spotlights the new and noteworthy

WHERE & WHEN 118 Upcoming events

WATCH

122 We’re out and about

WIT

136 What time would you like to live in (other than now)?

TRAVEL BY TRAIN Its enduring allure

SING SING A creative new life NENAD BACH Keeping his fingers nimble

CLOCKWATCHING Historic roots – modern models

BRIDGEWATER CHOCOLATE Seasonal sweets

Simply timeless

fascinating rhythms JUDGED A

TOP

MAGAZINE

WESTCHESTER & FAIRFIELD LIFE DECEMBER 2019 | WAGMAG.COM

4

IN NEW YORK STATE 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018

WAGMAG.COM

COVER: Sophia Loren.

Photograph courtesy Ridgefield Playhouse.

See story on page 72.

DECEMBER 2019

66

46

52

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EDITORIAL Bob Rozycki MANAGING EDITOR bobr@westfairinc.com

Georgette Gouveia EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ggouveia@westfairinc.com Mary Shustack SENIOR WRITER/EDITOR

ART Fatime Muriqi ART DIRECTOR fmuriqi@westfairinc.com

Kelsie Mania ART DIRECTOR kmania@westfairinc.com

Sebastián Flores ART DIRECTOR sflores@westfairinc.com

PHOTOGRAPHY Anthony Carboni, Sebastián Flores, Fatime Muriqi, John Rizzo, Bob Rozycki

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jena A. Butterfield, Olivia D'Amelio, Gina Gouveia, Phil Hall, Debbi K. Kickham, William D. Kickham, Doug Paulding, Jennifer Pitman, Giovanni Roselli, Bob Rozycki, Gregg Shapiro, Barbara Barton Sloane, Jeremy Wayne, Cami Weinstein, Katie Banser-Whittle

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WHAT IS WAG?

Billy Losapio ADVISER

Irene Corsaro ADVISER

Some readers think WAG stands for “Westchester and Greenwich.”

We certainly cover both. But mostly, a WAG is a wit and that’s how we think of ourselves, serving up piquant stories and photos to set your own tongues wagging.

HEADQUARTERS A division of Westfair Communications Inc., 701 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY 10604 Telephone: 914-694-3600 | Facsimile: 914-694-3699 Website: wagmag.com | Email: ggouveia@westfairinc.com All news, comments, opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations in WAG are those of the authors and do not constitute opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations of the publication, its publisher and its editorial staff. No portion of WAG may be reproduced without permission.WAG is distributed at select locations, mailed directly and is available at $24 a year for home or office delivery. To subscribe, call 914-694-3600, ext. 3020. All advertising inquiries should be directed to Anne Jordan at 914-694-3600, ext. 3032 or email anne@westfairinc.com. Advertisements are subject to review by the publisher and acceptance for WAG does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service. WAG (Issn: 1931-6364) is published monthly and is owned and published by Westfair Communications Inc. Dee DelBello, CEO, dee@westfairinc.com

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COVER STORY: GEORGETTE GOUVEIA, PAGE 72

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DECEMBER 2019

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EDITOR’S LETTER

BY GEORGET TE GOUVEIA

WE CLOSE OUT OUR YEAR OF “FASCINATIONS” WITH A CONSIDERATION OF TIME, ONE OF OUR MOST CHALLENGING SUBJECTS, NOT BECAUSE IT’S SUCH A DIFFICULT THEME BUT BECAUSE WE NEVER SEEM TO HAVE ENOUGH OF IT AND ALWAYS SEEM TO BE FIGHTING IT, AS YOU’LL SEE IN OUR OPENING ESSAY. All the more reason for us to play with time — and play we did. We considered the four seasons, a natural division of time, in all its iterations, from Antonio Vivaldi’s quartet of concertos to the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, including the Four Seasons New York in midtown, where we spent a weekend. (Yeah, we know, tough gig.) We ogled some truly spectacular timepieces at the Graff boutique at The Vault, one of The Saks Shops at Greenwich, and savored some historic ones at the American Clock & Watch Museum in Bristol (Phil’s story).

The clock museum story is one of several in this issue on the early days of this country. Barbara visits Saratoga Springs, with its rich Native American, Colonial and Victorian heritages; mineral springs; cultural offerings; and racetrack. We preview the Sing Sing Prison Museum in Ossining, which will explore the oldest active prison in the country at a time when the reform of our correctional facilities is a hot topic. And we take a peek at “Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere,” an exhibit about the silversmith and Revolutionary War patriot at the New-York Historical Society. (In one of those seeming coincidences that give WAG such synergy, Jenny writes about silver of the Chinese export kind in her What’s Collectible column.)

Another subtheme is the railroad, which led to the development of standardized time worldwide. We have, however, always had an ambivalent relationship with trains, which have come to represent everything from freedom to death, as we explore in another essay.

It’s no surprise, then, that the rails have been a protean metaphor for artists, as you will see in Mary’s story on contemporary railroad art at the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk and in our take on the “Holiday Train Show” at the New York Botanical Garden.

Elsewhere, we interpret time literally in our story about White Plains’ new Academy of Sacred Drama and its devotion to music of the Baroque, which introduced modern meter. We explore it figuratively in our cover appreciation of Sophia Loren, one of the enduring stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, and a pair of Mary stories on Hudson Valley artist Donna Castelluccio’s vintage subjects and Swan’s House, a Tarrytown home goods boutique that represents the childhood dream of co-owner Sara Swan.

Meanwhile, Jeremy takes a coffee break with The Espresso Guys, who are bringing their version of java time to WAG country, and visits some timeless hotels, while Bob finds the perfect bags to get you there — McLaren’s new bespoke luggage for its equally sleek, luxe GT car.

We know what you’re thinking and no, we did not forget “the

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DECEMBER 2019

“Four Seasons: The Art of Hospitality” (Assouline, $85, 211 pages) presents the individuality of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts through the paintings of Ignasi Monreal. Photograph by Sebastián Flores.

most wonderful time of the year,” as the song says. Christmastime gets its due not only with the “Holiday Train Show” story but with our December calendar of “Nutcrackers,” “Messiahs” and “Christmas Carols”; Debbi’s annual gift guide to luxury beauty and travel goodies; Mary’s piece on Bridgewater Chocolate in Brookfield; and Gregg’s truly funny interview with perverse auteur John Waters.

Because who better to do a Christmas show than the man behind “Pink Flamingos”? Here’s Waters’ ringing endorsement for his own “A John Waters Christmas,” which comes to Sony Hall in Manhattan Dec. 16: “If you have a first date for ‘A John Waters Christmas,’ you’re either going to get married or they’re never going to speak to you again. It’s hit or miss.”

OK, so he’s not exactly Bing Crosby. But hey, whatever floats your boat this holiday season.

May it and your new year be merry and bright. And, as always, thank you for taking the time to take this journey with us.

A 2018 Folio Women in Media Award winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and “Burying the Dead” (both new from JMS Books) as well as Lambda Literary Award finalist “The Penalty for Holding” (reissued by JMS) and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re all part of her series “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes at thegamesmenplay.com.

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WHAT'S TRENDING

WA G S P O T L I G H T S T H E N E W A N D N O T E W O R T H Y

A GEM FOR THE GENERATIONS You really can’t go wrong with diamonds, right? That was our thought when savoring the pages of “Diamond Jewelry: 700 Years of Glory and Glamour” by art historian Diana Scarisbrick ($80, Thames & Hudson). From its serving as a symbol of power to its outright panache, the diamond and its timeless allure are explored by focusing on individuals who commissioned and wore these dazzling creations. For more, visit thamesandhudsonusa.com.

Watch with key, featuring a white dial with Roman numerals. The hinged lid, back and sides are decorated with enameled and diamond flowers amid filigree.

Movement signed by J. Thuret of Paris (1660-70). The Royal Danish Collection, Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. Photo Kit Weis. Courtesy Thames & Hudson.

MOMENTS IN TIME

Ideal for any follower of fashion on your holiday shopping list, “Tim Walker: Shoot for the Moon”

by Tim Walker ($120, Thames & Hudson) takes the reader into the creative — and often surreal — world of the noted British fashion photographer. Is it fashion? Is it art? Yes — and yes. This lushly imaginative 340-page oversize paperback with jacket will become a keepsake, to be sure. For more, visit thamesandhudsonusa.com.

Kate Moss and John Galliano, auto-portraits (detail). Fashion: John Galliano.

London, 2013 © Tim Walker Studio. “Tim Walker: Shoot For The Moon” (2019), Thames & Hudson. Courtesy Thames & Hudson.

SEASON’S GREETINGS

Expecting a lot of guests this holiday season? Offer a warm welcome before you even open the door with this stylish mat ($29.99) from the Carpet One Welcomes a Cure collection. It’s not only seasonal in design but also in spirit — it’s part of Carpet One Floor & Home’s yearlong campaign that donates 25% of the proceeds from this group to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

For more visit, carpetone.com.

Courtesy Carpet One Floor & Home.

TEA TIME

Warm body and soul in this season of joy with Tea Forté’s “Warming Joy” collection of cleverly named black, green and herbal teas in equally clever pyramid-shaped bags with a leafy top. And do spring for the new KATI steeping cup and infuser in color block red and white. It makes a great gift for someone on you list — or maybe just yourself. For more visit, Teaforte.com.

Tea Forté’s “Warming Joy” collection is sure to gladden the heart this season.

Courtesy Tea Forté.

– Georgette Gouveia and Mary Shustack

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DECEMBER 2019

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Our anxiety about time is perfectly expressed in Charles van der Stappen’s “Le Temps” (1894-98) in the Meise Botanic Garden, Belgium, as time itself14 is poisedWAGMAG.COM to overtake youth.DECEMBER 2019

EMPUS

UGIT

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

IT’S THE ONE THING THAT PEOPLE SAY THEY NEVER HAVE ENOUGH OF, MORE SO THAN EVEN MONEY, WITH WHICH IT HAS AN UNEASY RELATIONSHIP. Time may be our greatest preoccupation. We fret over whether something or someone — a plane, a train, Uber, a project, ourselves — will be on time. We take comfort in the notion that it heals all wounds. We speak of a dream vacation as having been “the time of our lives” or an illness as “going through the worst time.”

Yet for all our engagement with time, we little understand it. We worry about the future, even as we fail to plan for it. We ignore or it? It might help to understand that there are two disparage the historical past, which is always with us, ready to inkinds of time. The first is a construct. It’s ruled by struct, only to obsess about the social past — who dated whom calendars and clocks that date from the Paleolithic three months ago, who argued about what at Thanksgiving last period and ancient Egypt respectively. Though based year — even though that’s over in a New York minute. We record on observable natural phenomena, this kind of time is the present, rather than live in it — selfies, anyone? — never realizmanmade and can be unmade. Not every U.S. state, for ing that time is like a handful of sand: The harder you squeeze, instance, “falls back” for Standard Time (Nov. 3 this year) the more it trickles through the sieve of your fingers. or “springs forward” for Daylight Savings Time (March 8 Particularly in eternally adolescent America, we are alnext year). Most of Arizona, Hawaii and the unincorporatways out of sync with time. We spur children to grow up ed territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Minor Outly— when did black become, well, the new black for chiling Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and dren’s clothing? — and grown-ups to be forever young (the the U.S. Virgin Islands remain on Standard Time year-round. multibillion-dollar anti-aging industry). We laud the latMeanwhile, California and Florida are looking to move to est technology as “time-saving” — never considering the Daylight Savings Time permanently. time it takes to learn to use and then babysit technology.

Asia and Australia also offer a mixed picture, with the EuropeWe work hard to earn time off, only to learn that an Union generally falling back and springing forward and Africa time isn’t necessarily money: If we have the time, we remaining on Standard Time. may not have the money. And if we have the money, The other kind of time, though, is not a construct but a continuwe may not have the time. We romanticize a perium. Here the past influences the present, which is passing even as od — think of all those time-travel stories — never you’re living it, with both in turn shaping the future. saying as Charles Dickens does in “A Tale of Two Time, then, is a river, and you know the Chinese proverb: “Don’t Cities,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst push the river. It flows by itself.” of times.” For in each time, one person’s sunrise What would happen, then, if you eased up on the oar, skipped one is another’s sunset. train for a later one, spent more time on what you wanted to do — or reAnd sunset is not something we want to dwell ally had to do — and less on what you didn’t? Would time then contract on. We fear “running out of time,” because and expand with your own rhythms? we fear its close associate, death — overtime It may not be possible. The demands of other choices made a long time in sports even being referred to as “sudden ago may require that you remain wedded to the clock. But even here, less death” while an on-time publication meets its may prove more. If time is the enemy, then the way to conquer it may be, “deadline.” And so time becomes the enemy. in the words of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, to “yield and overcome.”

But what if there were a way to think Or as Salvation Army founder William Booth put it: “The greatness of a about time that would put us in sync with man’s power is the measure of his surrender.”

DECEMBER 2019

WAGMAG.COM

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WHEN IT COMES TO THE SEASONS, THE WHOLE IS TRULY GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS. FOR HOWEVER SPECTACULAR INTROSPECTIVE WINTER, JOYOUS SPRING, SULTRY SUMMER AND BOUNTIFUL FALL/AUTUMN MAY BE INDIVIDUALLY, THE GROUP HAS BEEN UNBEATABLE AS A BRAND.

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DECEMBER 2019

Think about it: The Four Seasons have given their name to a hotel group; a legendary restaurant, late of the Seagram Building in Manhattan, that helped define the power brokers and ladies who lunched in the second half of the 20th century; and a pop-rock band fronted by Frankie Valli that took its name from the Union Township, New Jersey, bowling alley where it failed a 1960 audition as The Four Lovers.

Perhaps the name change was a talisman. As Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, the band would go on to global success and inspire the “Jersey Boys” musical.

It is in the arts, then, that the four seasons have made some of their greatest contribution, serving as collective muse to Jerome Robbins (for his 1979 ballet); Alan Alda (for his 1981 romantic comedy and short-lived 1984 CBS-TV series); and Makoto Azuma and Shunsuke Shiinoki (for their recently published “Flora Magnifica: The Art of Flowers in Four Seasons” (Thames & Hudson).

In “Seasons on the Lake” by Wendy Shalen, an artist featured in November WAG’s salute to the Whatmore’s Lake section of Waccabuc, they become four impressionistic panels of pigmented handmade paper that form a continuous yet

Winter, “Coexistence 02.0015, November 2, 2015,” as featured in “Flora Magnifica: The Art of Flowers in Four Seasons.”

(Thames & Hudson). © Shunsuke Shiinoki.

DECEMBER 2019

WAGMAG.COM

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Summer, “Whole 02.0039, September 15, 2013,” as featured in “Flora Magnifica: The Art of Flowers in Four Seasons.”

(Thames & Hudson). © Shunsuke Shiinoki.

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ever-changing view from outside her window.

But “The Four Seasons” that is best known is the quartet of concertos that Antonio Vivaldi wrote in 1716-17 and published eight years later. Indeed, anyone who has ever been in an elevator or a doctor’s office or has seen a TV commercial has probably heard the opening of the first (“Spring”) concerto, with its bouncing rhythm and flitting strings that sound as if the world is awakening again, along with love itself.

“Spring” and the rest of her sisters remain one of the most popular pieces of music to date.

No doubt Vivaldi (1678-1741) would be pleased. The Titian-haired, asthmatic son of a Venetian violinist, Vivaldi was an ordained priest whose health soon absolved him from clerical duties. Instead, music — both composition and violin performance — would be his true devotion in an era in which compositions would be codified with time and key signatures even as they exploded with colors and emotions. The Baroque era was also a time, violinist Scott Yoo points out in the Vivaldi installment of his PBS “Now Hear This” series, in which the violin was making great technical strides, with makers like Antonio Stradivari spurring composers to greater tonal richness and virtuosity.

Working for 30 years as master of the violin and later music director at the orphanage Opsedale della Pièta, Vivaldi would compose for the orphanage’s acclaimed all-female orchestra and choir.

“Lots of the larger-scale works were forgotten,”

DECEMBER 2019

says Jeremy Rhizor, founding artistic director of the Academy of Sacred Drama, newly relocated to White Plains. “He did write oratorios,” Rhizor adds, referring to vocal, orchestral works that have literary or religious themes but are not staged. “Vivaldi’s (‘Juditha Triumphans’), based on the biblical heroine, calls for lots of musicians — singers as well as a full orchestra.”

With “The Four Seasons,” Vivaldi achieved something else. His four concertos — each of which has a fast-slow-fast movement — are accompanied by his own sonnets on observed nature — a type of poetry that originated in the Middle Ages. Sweet melodies mimic birdsong; oscillating strings, thunder. Music that has a narrative element is called program music.

But program music didn’t come into vogue until 19th century’s Romantic era.

“There are few recognized examples of program music in the Baroque,” Rhizor says. Two centuries before it became popular, Vivaldi was writing it.

The sounds of nature are just the start, however.

The composer draws you in emotionally, painting a portrait, for instance, of a surprisingly anxious summer in which sensuous languor turns suddenly violent, the calm before the storm. Or of a winter that is less a region of ice than one of contemplation and poignant memory.

Vivaldi’s unusual word and emotion painting, Rhizor says, “defies our expectations of what Baroque music is.”

THE C A S E FOR THE NEW BRUCE •

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The entire ground floor of the New Bruce will be open to all visitors, bringing people together from across the region for cultural conversations in a shared public space.

The new art wing will give the Museum, for the first time, galleries to display masterworks from our permanent collection, as well as greatly expanded space for changing art exhibitions.

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We’ll have quadruple the space for temporary science exhibitions and redesigned permanent galleries that emphasize interactive, hands-on experiences for visitors of all ages.

Renovated and expanded, our new education wing will allow us to double, to 50,000, the number of students the Museum hosts each year.

Become a part of the extraordinary transformation of the cultural and educational centerpiece of our community. Join Us Today! Find out more or give online at NewBruce.org

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Throughout this feature, interiors from the Four Seasons Hotel New York. It’s housed midtown in an I.M. Pei building (opposite page), owned by Ty Warner of Beanie Babies fame. Photographs courtesy Four Seasons Hotel New York.

WAGMAG.COM

DECEMBER 2019

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

A FRIDAY NIGHT IN MANHATTAN, AND THE RUBY TY BAR AT THE FOUR SEASONS MIDTOWN IS BUZZING. ACROSS THE WAY, A MORE SEDATE CROWD DINES IN THE EMERALD GARDEN RESTAURANT, AMID LUSH TREES MADE OF REAL BARK AND SILK LEAVES THAT BELIE THE COOLER SEASON.

The restaurants flank a tiered, columned entrance — the building was designed by I.M. Pei — that suggests a modern version of a Doric temple.

Moody jazz pulls us up the entrance stairs into the angular, cream and caramel reception area, with its Cartier, Rolex and Bottega Veneta vitrines and an offside boutique of VBH luxury handbags and clutches, designed by Valentino alumnus V. Bruce Hoeksema. It’s all sleek, sophisticated and very New York — and we realize that the Four Seasons brand has come a long way from its beginnings in 1960-61 as a 125-room motor hotel in Toronto.

That property was the brainchild of founding chairman Isadore “Issy” Sharp, who notes in the elegant “Four Seasons: The Art of Hospitality” (Assouline), that “So much of long-term success is based on intangibles. Beliefs and ideas. Invisible concepts.”

His key belief could be called the Golden Rule as applied to hospitality, “the simple idea that if you treat people well, the way you would like to be treated, they will do the same.”

At the Four Seasons New York, this manifests itself immediately and continuously in a staff that is helpful and ingratiating not only to us — we are, after all, there to write this piece — but to wedding parties, tourists, families and other guests, whom, we hear, include Middle Eastern princesses and film stars.

Indeed, the staff accedes to our every request, including a copy of the “Four Seasons” book that we quickly spy in the lobby. Soon it is delivered to our suite, which lays Central Park and all of midtown at our feet.

The suite itself is an intimate-yet-spacious affair in a neutral palette that embraces a dressing room; a marble bath with Bulgari products, the Four Seasons having been a pioneer in hotel amenities; a sitting area; and the comfiest king-size bed around — perfect for writing, reading the other elegant Assouline tomes that lie about and dreaming. It’s no wonder,

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then, that among the 125 paintings by Ignasi Monreal in the “Four Seasons” book is one of a king-size bed with pillow shams imprinted with the Four Seasons tree logo, floating in the heavens. (The logo cleverly features bare, full and sparse branches suggesting the four seasons, which were not, however, the inspiration for the hotel group’s name. Rather it was the eponymous luxury Munich hotel that Sharp and his partners so admired.)

As the “Four Seasons” book, with an introduction by Pilar Guzmán, makes clear, no two of the 116 Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and 44 residential properties are alike, in large part because the sites themselves are owned by others. (Toy manufacturer-philanthropist Ty Warner, creator of Beanie Babies, owns the Four Seasons midtown building, a relationship underscored by the name of the bar and the Beanie Babies boutique off the reception desk.) The Four Seasons Firenze is graced by frescoes that recall the world of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Florentine nobility. A rooftop infinity pool at the Four Seasons in Hong Kong puts that city in an adjacent lane.

Our only other experience of the Four Seasons was in Jakarta, which had the most elaborate Sunday buffet brunch we had ever seen.

The Four Seasons New York in midtown — there’s also the New York Downtown — is the only Four Seasons to host the L. Raphael Geneve Beauty Spa. (Its only other American location is at the Montage Beverly Hills.)

Founded by Ronit Raphael, who as a teenager suffered from second-degree burns from a chemical peel to reduce minor acne;

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scientist Meir Shinitsky; and plastic surgeon Raphael Gumener, the spa has a line of services and products that include an innovative Oxy-Peel Anti-Aging Treatment.

It involves, among other things, a cold blast of high-grade oxygen used with L. Raphael’s LEC-40 Complex — a combination of vitamins A, C and E, omega 3 and pure lecithin.

The oxygen allows for deeper penetration of the ingredients to nourish and restore the skin more effectively. Under the expert hands of aesthetician Tatiana Zarshevsky, our skin feels plump, hydrated, radiant and renewed. Meanwhile, our spirit is refreshed with spa front desk manager Kerry-Ann Vincent, who engages us in conversation as we

relax with a cup of decaf.

“Spas are temples of wellness,” the “Four Seasons” book observes, “that offer guests tranquil settings to find balance after a day of adventure.”

Or, in our case, before a day of adventure.

Glowing, we set out for St. Patrick’s Cathedral before returning to the Four Seasons to visit the Assouline boutique, filled with sumptuous volumes, and to savor a scrumptious afternoon tea of vanilla scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam, petite sandwiches (chicken Waldorf, prosciutto and fig, egg, and cucumber and Brie); and sweets, including a hazelnut Napoleon, cream profiterole, panna cotta and a lemon tart with adorable little meringue spikes.

Thus fortified, we are ready to scale the new five-floor Nordstrom that has just opened down from the hotel on 57th Street.

Needless to say, all of New York is at the store and needs to buy designer duds and other products immediately. We nevertheless persist in our quests at the Beauty Hall and the food court.

After several hours that yield some Lancome makeup and a chicken Caesar salad, we are more than ready to walk the six blocks back to the hotel. The thoroughfare that is 57th Street is graced by venerable names that call it home and beguile — including Carnegie Hall, The Russian Tea Room and The Art Students League. But at that moment, nothing seems as prominent as the Four Seasons and nothing as good as the thought of our suite, its bed and a girl’s night in doing our nails, reading magazines and watching romantic movies.

Somehow, we imagine Isadore Sharp would approve.

For more, visit fourseasons.com/newyork/ and fourseasons.com/newyork/spa/.

A skeletonized pocket watch from the Waterbury Watch Co. Courtesy the American Clock & Watch Museum.

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BY PHIL HALL

“TIME,” GRUMBLES PETER LORRE IN THE TRUMAN CAPOTE-SCRIPTED 1954 FILM CLASSIC “BEAT THE DEVIL.” “TIME: WHAT IS TIME? SWISS MANUFACTURE IT. FRENCH HOARD IT. ITALIANS SQUANDER IT. AMERICANS SAY IT IS MONEY. HINDUS SAY IT DOES NOT EXIST. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I SAY? I SAY TIME IS A CROOK.”

But time could also be a work of art, a symbol of an era or a mirror of society — provided it is framed within innovative clocks and watches. Central Connecticut was once home to a large swath of the nation’s clock and watch manufacturing industry, and that heritage keeps on ticking at the American Clock & Watch Museum in Bristol.

“This area was the center of clock manufacturing and watch manufacturing,” says Patti Philippon, the museum’s executive director.

“Part of it was the natural resources here — water power for transportation, forests for the wood casings, a lot of unskilled labor and clockmakers coming from Europe and immigrating here.”

But when the nation entered World War II, the local manufacturers switched from turning out clocks and timepieces to making fuses and timers for the military. “Not all of the manufacturers went back into production, and by the ’50s and ’60s the industry was in a precarious decline,” Philippon adds.

Around the time the local industry was starting to wane, Edward Ingraham, president of the clock manufacturer E. Ingraham & Co., created plans to build a clock museum. The 1801 home of Miles Lewis, a Bristol tavern owner, was bought and renovated for the museum.

“They liked the idea of showcasing the clocks in a homebased setting, because many of them are things you have in your house,” Philippon notes.

Opening in April 1954 as the Bristol Clock Museum with approximately 300 clocks on display and a small library containing 50 books, the museum grew faster than expected and a new wing was added to the building in 1956. The venue was renamed the American Clock & Watch Museum in 1958 and by 1987 a second wing was added to accommodate its collection. Today, the museum houses 6,000 timepieces, though only 1,500 are currently displayed across its eight galleries and 10,000 square feet of exhibit space.

Despite the presence of “American” in its name, the museum has several international pieces, including its oldest item — an English lantern clock from 1690. The oldest American work on display is a 1735 clock made by Henry Harmson of Marblehead, Massachusetts, in a walnut veneer case.

This clock’s brass movement requires rewinding every eight days.

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Photograph by Phil Hall.

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Among the most popular items on display are a Joseph Ives mirror clock from 1820 that features a painting of the building that now houses the museum and an original first-run 1932 Mickey Mouse wristwatch. A special exhibit at the museum details the marketing of timepieces from the Civil War era through today’s Instagram influencers. Philippon points out how Depression-era advertising for timepieces emphasized cost-efficiency and product reliability while 1970s-era promotions tapped into the feminist movement to emphasize time was on the side of working women.

But when quizzed on the museum’s most valuable artifacts, Philippon acknowledges that “it’s hard to say because there are different reasons to have value on pieces.” However, she adds that visitors to the museum have a strong emotional tie to the works on display.

“So many times, we have visitors come in and say, ‘I remember my grandmother had that in her mantelpiece,’” she says. “There is always something that strikes a chord.”

Many of the clocks on exhibit are still functional and give off resounding chimes, gongs, beeps and cuckoo chirps. As a result, the time displays are staggered to avoid a deafening noise if each clock went off on the same second. And the pieces made in the days before batteries still require manual labor to stay ticking.

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“A group of gentlemen come into the museum to wind the timepieces,” Philippon says.

“They call themselves the Old Cranks.”

The museum attracts approximately 4,300 visitors per year, and arguably the most unique visitor this year was the Brooklyn hip-hop artist KV, who shot part of the music video for his song “Time” amid the displays.

There is a map in the lobby with pins stuck into it by museum visitors who point out their places of origin.

“We’ve had people from every continent except Antarctica,” Philippon says. “And this year, we had our first gentleman who lived on a boat, so he put his pin in the Atlantic.”

Of course, in today’s digital world many people have forsaken wristwatches and clocks to rely on the cell phones for the time.

But Philippon is not concerned that timepieces will one day be found only within the confines of a museum.

“It is the next phase,” she explains. “Everything goes in cycles. We’re seeing people who have an interest in wristwatches and vintage pieces. On some of the digital watches, you can have a face that looks like an old analog clock. In 10 years from now, it’s going to be different again.”

The American Clock & Watch Museum is at 100 Maple St. in Bristol. For more, call 860-5836070 or visit clockandwatchmuseum.org.

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

“ONE IF BY LAND AND TWO IF BY SEA; AND I ON THE OPPOSITE SHORE WILL BE,” — FROM “PAUL REVERE’S RIDE” BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

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Readers of a certain vintage will remember memorizing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1861 poem about the Boston silversmith who galvanized his fellow colonists with a 1775 midnight ride that proclaimed, “the British are coming” at the start of the American Revolution.

Deliberately inaccurate, the poem sought to mythologize Revere — best remembered at the time of his death in 1818 as a well-loved craftsman and businessman — as a way of spurring the North to action at the beginning of the Civil War. Today our image of Revere is largely Longfellow’s legend. Now a new exhibit is looking to transcend that fateful ride, in which others also took part. “Beyond Midnight: Paul Revere,” at the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library in Manhattan through Jan. 12, seeks to create a complex portrait of the man in more than 140 objects, ranging from his political engravings,

including a depiction of the Boston Massacre; to the gleaming silver tea services he made for prominent clients; to public commissions such as a bronze courthouse bell and such everyday objects as thimbles, tankards and teapots.

“When many of us think of Paul Revere, we instantly think of Longfellow’s lines ‘One if by land and two if by sea,’ but there is much more to Revere’s story,” Louise Mirrer, the society’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “This exhibition looks beyond the myth of Paul Revere to better understand the man as a revolutionary, an artisan and an entrepreneur, who would go on to become a legend. We are proud to partner with the American Antiquarian Society (exhibit organizer) to debut this exhibition in New York.”

One aspect of Revere the man and the exhibit that viewers will no doubt find particularly fascinating was his ability to separate politics

Previous page, Chester Harding’s portrait of Paul Revere, after Gilbert Stuart (circa 1823), oil on canvas. Massachusetts Historical Society.

Above, Chester Harding’s portrait of Paul Revere’s wife, Rachel Walker Revere, after Gilbert Stuart (circa 1823), oil on canvas. Massachusetts Historical Society.

from profits. The son of a French Huguenot (Protestant) immigrant artisan, Revere was able to rise in the ranks through his skill with metalwork and a gift for networking.

He received commissions from other members of the Sons of Liberty, a secret society opposed to England’s handling of the 13 colonies. And his engraving of the 1770 Boston Massacre, in which British soldiers fired on unruly colonists at the Custom House, helped deepen anti-British sentiment. Revere was also a key player in the Boston Tea Party, hurling the hated, taxed tea into Boston Harbor in 1773. When war came two years later, Revere was more than ready for his role as a midnight rider past Boston’s Old North Church, although as an exhibit map explains, he was actually on foot until he crossed the Charles River to Cambridge and then rode a borrowed horse to Lexington. He would also serve as Continental

Army courier to Connecticut, New York and Philadelphia.

And yet, the show also features nine of the 45 elements Revere created for a beverage service for Loyalist Dr. William Paine — his biggest commission ever — just two months before the Boston Tea Party.

Other career highlights included creating a 1796 cast-bronze courthouse bell for the Norfolk County Courthouse in Dedham, Massachusetts, and supplying copper for Robert Fulton’s Hudson River steamboat, the first of its kind (1807).

Still, none of this is likely to make us forget Longfellow’s poem or Grant Woods’ ghostly 1931 painting “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” also on display. As the 1962 movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” observes: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

For more, visit nyhistory.org.

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In Claude Monet’s “Gare Saint-Lazare” (1877), oil on canvas, plumes of smoke veil Paris in a whirl of black and white. Fogg Museum.

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BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

IT IS AT ONCE A SYMBOL OF ISOLATION AND FREEDOM, GRIT AND GLAMOUR, BOREDOM AND ADVENTURE, HEARTACHE AND HOPE, TRAGEDY AND TRANSCENDENCE. Perhaps more than any other mode of transportation, the train carries us from the past to the future along a present that can change with every twist and turn on the line. No wonder that the railway has been such a protean subject for artists, who find in it the serpentine conveyance of wondrous, terrifying possibilities.

The whistle blowing, the chugging rhythm of the wheels, the crescendo of the train’s approach and the diminuendo of it receding: The railroad represents freedom, even for those who don’t have a price of a ticket. Think of all those vagabonds riding the freight cars of the Great Depression, memorialized in Woody Guthrie songs and films like Martin Scorsese’s “Boxcar Bertha” (1972). Or the troubled Cal Trask in Elia Kazan’s film of John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” riding atop a freight train, wrapped in a pullover in place of parental love, as he straddles the wholesome rigidity of his father’s farm in Salinas, California, and the bawdy brutality of his mother’s brothel in neighboring Monterey.

It’s no surprise then that the system of escape routes and safe houses that brought slaves to the North and freedom in the antebellum era was known as the Underground Railroad, brought to life in the new film “Harriet,” about former slave turned abolitionist and political activist Harriet Tubman.

Of course, the freedom of the rails is often most apparent to those who experience it from a distance, like the Johnny Cash of the song “Folsom Prison Blues,” who contrasts being stuck in prison with the sound of a train “rollin’ on down to San Antone.” But one person’s promise of freedom is a kind of isolation, even lonesomeness and confinement, for others. Those haunting paintings by Nyack’s Edward Hopper of passengers, railcars and signal houses that are solitary to the point of airlessness convey a loneliness beyond longing.

The confinement of the train and its accompanying stations and terminals — with their concealing compartments and cubbyholes — offer the opportunity for self-discovery (Wes Anderson’s loopy comedy-drama “The Darjeeling Limited”); and romance (the films “Twentieth Century,” “Brief Encounter,” “The Clock,” “Falling in Love”); but also an intrigue that can be amorous (“North by Northwest”) or lethal (“Murder on the Orient Express,” “Strangers on a Train”).

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Claude Monet’s “Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare” (circa 1877), oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago.

It’s hard for us to remember and thus understand now, but the train — whose advent standardized time in the first half of the 19th century — was once the new-fangled, suspect symbol of the future, offering a progress that brought death to a certain rural way of life and its proponents. The train was the iron-

clad snake in the new, American Eden of Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole, who wrote of his despair in trees being felled to make way for the Canajoharie and Catskill Railroad in his beloved Catskill, New York.

A century later, trains would serve as the transport of the slaughterhouse not just for

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animals, but for humans, as any number of Holocaust films attest.

And yet, the railroad remains the stuff of nostalgic dreams, perhaps never better expressed than in Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans,” most famously recorded by Arlo Guthrie. As the singer rides “the train they call the City of New Orleans,” he journeys not just from Chicago to New Orleans on what was the longest daylight run in the United States, but from a rusted past through a fast-disappearing present in which “the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their fathers’ magic carpets made of steam.”

But the railroad didn’t go the way of all flesh.

It went the way of radio — specializing to survive and thrive. The City of New Orleans still makes its way South with more of a streak than a rumble as part of Amtrak’s overnight service. And bespoke luxury tour company Ariodante is launching a series of 1920s-style murder mystery parties aboard the original Orient Express beginning in January. (Today the Venice-Simplon Orient Express operates a variety of routes using 1920s and ’30s cars, including the original Paris-Istanbul route.)

The magic carpet rides on.

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BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

THERE’S A “DERAILMENT” IN THE BRONX, BUT NOT TO WORRY. AN “ENGINEER” IS ON HAND — DRESSED IN OVERALLS, BANDANA AND CAP — TO SET THINGS RIGHT WHEN TINY HANDS GET EXCITED AND REACH OUT FOR THOMAS THE TANK AND COMPANY. He and trains representing Santa Claus, bumblebees, Monarch butterflies, ladybugs and even such real-life former railroads as New York Central and Conrail are among the stars of The New York Botanical Garden’s “Holiday Train Show,” on view through Jan. 26.

The show, now in its 28th year, spotlights more than 175 Big Apple landmarks, each entirely made out of plant material, in the garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, along with iconic (botanical) bridges through which snake more than 25 G-scale model trains.

“We feature every borough and the Hudson Valley in our jewel-box exhibit,” says Karen Daubmann, the garden’s associate vice president for exhibitions and public engagement. “It’s a magical experience.”

Part of what makes it so is the idea that all of New York is laid out at your feet, amid birches, rhododendrons, hollies and many types of evergreens. Where else can you get from the Chrysler Building to Yankee Stadium (without taking the 4 train) and in less than a New York minute?

Equally enchanting is the evocation of each landmark, including some classic ferries in the garden’s water elements. Everything from acorns to magnolias is used to suggest not only the particular structure but its specific architectural details.

“They look realistic,” Daubmann says of the landmarks, “without being actual replicas.”

She credits the garden’s partner in the train show, Applied Imagination, a design company in Alexandria, Kentucky, owned by the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Margaret Busse, who first collaborated with the garden on the show in 1992. Bark and berries, along with other botanical materials, are sourced from the Busses’ wooded property as well as the garden.

For the past 10 years, NYBG and Applied Imagination have created themed train shows on such subjects as midtown and Lower Manhattan. This year, visitors can “romp” through Manhattan’s Central Park, marveling over Bow and Oak bridges, Naumburg Bandshell, The Dairy, Belvedere Castle and Bethesda Fountain with its lovely Angel of the Waters.

One of Daubmann’s favorites comes from another borough, the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. (The winglike building itself was designed by architect Eero Saarinen.)

So maybe not planes, trains and automobiles, she says, but definitely planes, trains and ferries — something for “fans of different modes of transportation.”

For more, visit nybg.org.

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Photograph by Robert Benson Photography.

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THE A

T OF

BY MARY SHUSTACK

“Entrance to the City” by DeAnn L. Prosia, line etching. Images courtesy LockwoodMathews Mansion Museum.

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AIN TRAVEL HURRY UP! WE HAVE TO CATCH THE TRAIN. When it comes to travel, time is often of the essence.

These days at Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, though, you can take your time as you stroll through “The Trained Eye: The Art of Railroads & Stations.”

The Norwalk exhibition devoted to art inspired by trains and travel by rail features some 30 works created by nearly a dozen contemporary regional artists.

For painters, though, “ It’s a bit unusual for The show, which continues through Jan. 5, explores its subartists who paint to do plein air painting of a ject matter — a favorite of artists of the 19th and early 20th train, or even a train station. They might take a century ranging from Claude Monet to Edward Hopper to picture of something that fascinated them and Camille Pissarro — from varied approaches and features paint in the studio.” paintings, photography and etchings.

There are works in oil by Catherine Russell, It all came together in a way that assured its curators — moody scenes that capture the steam of old-time artist and museum trustee Gail Ingis and trustee Julyen locomotives, while Norm Siegel’s work “New Lots Norman — that it was a more than worthy subject.

Local, 1972,” an oil on canvas, brings you right We walk through the exhibition on a recent morning back to old-school subway travel, graffiti and all. with Ingis, a guide so enthusiastic that she not only ofThere’s a captivating quality to the works of Berfers us a running commentary but also provides additram Lewis. tional comments in writing.

As Ingis says, “His work has an abstract feel to it.

The show was conceptualized by Susan Gilgore, It’s not really defined. It’s loose.” the museum’s executive director, and designed to From “Homeless” to “Looking up at Grand Central” tap into several themes, as Ingis says, both tied to the to “Schlepper,” one can imagine being — maybe even mansion — built in the 1860s for LeGrand Lockwood just yesterday — in these urban scenes.

— and beyond.

“They tell a story,” Ingis says. “The paintings tell a story.”

“LeGrand Lockwood was a railroad magnate Sometimes, though, the story is a bit mysterious. and financier and as this year marks the 150th anPhotographer David Bravo of Fairfield, who has niversary of the first Transcontinental Railroad, worked with WAG, is featured, as well. we decided to highlight artists that are inspired His images are at times thoughtful and thought-proby railroads and stations,” Ingis says. voking, such as the black-and-white “Pilgrimage.” Ingis is And, she adds, “I know that trains are a hobby intrigued by the group of Quakers on a railway platform. that everyone loves. This show was (designed) to “I thought where are they going, what are they doing?” entertain our viewers with the beauty of paintShe is equally entranced by Bravo’s colorful “Railway ings and photography but also make them think Bridge,” a scenic shot so rich it looks like a painting. of how railroads may impact their own lives.”

“As an artist, you want to show depth. You want to show The methods vary, Ingis says. color. You want to show division of the space,” which, she says, “Photographers are more likely to shoot Bravo does in this evocatively sweeping scene. trains in motion, trains in a station, historic Etchings by DeAnn L. Prosia are more intricate works that trains and stations, as you can see here in reveal themselves on closer inspection. our show.”

“It really is phenomenal. Look at the detail,” Ingis says of works that include “5 Pointz,” “Under the Elevated” and “Entrance to the City,” the landmark Pershing Square marquee clearly in view.

Photographer Aleksander Rotner’s work features the vivid “All Aboard,” a photograph on metal, as well as “Into The Past,” an image that melds historic and contemporary Norwalk. Ingis credits Rotner’s “sense of space, value and execution,” along with his

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“Through The Snow” by Catherine Russell, oil/aluminum.

knowledge of history.

As we hit the midpoint of the show, Ingis points to a work by David Dunlop, with whom she has painted. Ingis says he was among those she first reached out to about the show.

“That started the ball rolling.”

So it’s fitting that Dunlop’s work with his son, Max Dunlop, is here.

“Riding the #7,” an oil on aluminum, is a large-scale and bold take on urban transport filled with a vivid sense of movement.

As Ingis says, “It’s taking you somewhere.

It’s speeding.”

Julie O’Connor’s “Cannondale, Connecticut, You can still take the train from here” is more meditative, a sharply detailed image featuring the old-fashioned looking local station, historic yet still in use. It’s set against her images from Beijing, which feature the same Arts District station scene captured during the day and night.

Of the submissions, Ingis says the selection process was pointed.

“I did choose the ones that worked well,” she says. “One surprised me and that was Rob Zuckerman. Not one train is in his work here, but the representation of trains is ap-

parent in his choice of images.”

The photographer has a whole wall featuring his six detailed shots that hone in on elements of train travel, from “Penn RR Dining Car Flatware & China” to the simple-yet-telling “Rail Road Station Bench,” a circa-1900 bench that remains in the Southport train station.

“His work added another dimension to the show,” Ingis says. “Don’t you agree?”

With each artist, works by Kara LaFrance and Anthony Santomauro round out the show, a different perspective shines.

“All art is meant to evoke memories, fond feelings, an exceptional adventure, maybe even a romance.” Ingis says.

What she wants visitors to take away from this exhibition, Ingis had told us at the start of our tour is, “History and when we walk through, we’ll see it.”

By the time we end our journey “by rail,” we most certainly have.

“The Trained Eye: The Art of Railroads & Stations” continues through Jan. 5, as does “Toys, Trains and Magnificent Trees: Illuminating Christmas at the Mansion,” at Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, at 295 West Ave. in Norwalk. For more, visit lockwoodmathewsmansion.com.

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BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI

A VINTAGE SPIRIT SURROUNDS DONNA CASTELLUCCIO.

It’s sensed even before you meet the Pawling artist, glimpsed in her mixed-media work displayed online. There, you can see fabric-based creations filled with old-time images ranging from a glamorous flapper to a sweet little baby wearing a puffy white gown.

We are intrigued, so we arrange to meet and tour Castelluccio’s studio, which turns out to be the heart of a fairytale setting — a yellow cottage nestled in the woods — that we visit on a recent afternoon.

The home-based studio is a wonderland of works, some in progress, others finished, with fabrics, laces and countless decorative elements at every turn.

Tying it all together is her eye — and her aesthetic.

“It’s not all ‘vintage,’” Castelluccio says with a laugh, noting how the term has been co-opted of late. “Vintage is like 10 years old now.”

While she may incorporate a piece of contemporary fabric, evidenced in a boldly graphic wall hanging, the bulk of her creations are imbued with a retro appeal.

Castelluccio, a lifelong artist, says her fabric collages date back some eight years, when she began integrating her painting with stenciling, paper collage and fabric in new work.

The retired nurse, who is originally from Long Island, came from an artistic family.

“My grandmother, her whole family, they were sculptors,” she says, noting she herself was involved in all kinds of crafts from an early age. For some 20 years, she would sell work such as wreaths and herbal creations at local shows and, for a time, had an herb shop nearby.

Today, she focuses on fabric collages, with themes ranging from fairies to accessories, burlesque beauties to sewing notions.

“It seems to be the 1920s (that) I’m drawn to,” she says of her favorite era.

There is more, though, including some stunning abstract work, such a study in blue hues and textures that artfully evokes a sense of water.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Donna Castelluccio’s mixed-media work is often inspired by the past.

For Castelluccio, materials are key.

“I have bins of fabrics that I like to look through,” she says. “When I have to pick, I go through my bins.”

Her hunting grounds for her materials include

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This textured Donna Castelluccio work is inspired by the sea.

thrift stores and estate sales, but “now everybody’s just giving me stuff. Everyone’s just happy to get rid of their stuff.”

Condition isn’t always at a premium.

In her hands, broken vintage jewelry or a stained stretch of fabric can be repurposed.

That combination of respect for the past and the vision to reinterpret it is what Castelluccio’s art is all about.

She says while she knows she is giving new life to old things — “I do cut up lots” — she does do it in a thoughtful manner.

Sometimes, though, finds are too special to alter.

“Some stuff, I don’t touch,” she says. “I want to leave it.”

That’s when she creates her larger works that include elements such as gloves, handkerchiefs and brooches as “just a way to showcase” the treasures of the past.

“It kind of preserves it whole.”

Even Castelluccio’s methods combine the old and new.

She hunts Pinterest for copyright-free images, printing them out and transferring them onto muslin. Her signature fabric books are generally 12 pages, creations that feature those main images surrounded by accent fabrics and notions. Some sewing is involved, but most of the work is done with glue.

The results are striking and one of a kind.

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But they’re not created one at a time.

“I usually have multiple projects going,” she says. An example is a quilt she has in its earliest stages that incorporates vintage handkerchiefs, while nearby, a commission is underway, a fabric book being made in homage to a 1980s television show “Beauty and the Beast.”

Castelluccio is always creating, with the early bird often getting an early start.

“I guess I’m most creative early in the morning,” she says, noting that’s when the ideas come to her. “Putting it together, I can do later in the day.”

Castelluccio’s work ranges from the fabric books and wall hangings to purses, tote bags, embellished jackets and jewelry. Other designs include fabric-covered notebooks and shadow boxes and assemblages, where elements range from old bottles to candles to assorted natural finds.

Castelluccio has been known to dye her own fabrics and with such a wealth of materials might pull out something sourced years ago or more recently, such as the bag of lace found “at the Stormville flea market for $20. I couldn’t leave it there.

“I have a fabric obsession, which I never knew I had before,” she says.

And, she adds with a laugh, it still surprises her: “I know at one point I absolutely hated doilies.”

SHARING HER WORK

Castelluccio says she plans to keep doing what she does — and sharing the art by selling more of the work that fills so much of her studio and home.

“If something sells, then I can make something else,” she says with a laugh.

She has recently participated in the ArtEast Open Studio Tour, exhibited at the Trolley Barn art studio in Poughkeepsie, shown work at the Akin Free Library in Pawling and exhibited and taught a class at the New York Public Library in Manhattan. This month, she joins more than 70 other regional artists and artisans at the Dutchess Handmade holiday pop-up shop in Poughkeepsie.

Though she works continually, Castelluccio says it’s rare her work is planned down to every last detail. Instead, it’s left up to serendipity — and classic artistic inspiration.

As Castelluccio says, “I like to look through my bins and see what the pieces say to me.”

Donna Castelluccio’s work is featured through Dec. 21 at Dutchess Handmade at Arts Mid-Hudson, 696 Dutchess Turnpike, Poughkeepsie. For more, visit artsmidhudson.org. For more on Castelluccio, email her at donna.castelluccio@gmail.com or visit her on Facebook. Her work is also featured on Etsy through the Shabby Chicster Studio shop.

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GRAFF HAS BEEN SYNONYMOUS WITH DIAMONDS SINCE ITS FOUNDING BY LAURENCE GRAFF IN 1960. BUT THOUGH LUXURY WATCHES WERE NOT ADDED TO THE BRITISH-BASED JEWELER UNTIL 2008, THEY ARE NO LESS IMPRESSIVE FOR HAVING COME LATER TO THE GAME.

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This year, the company — whose 60 stores worldwide include a boutique within The Vault, one of The Saks Shops at Greenwich — has launched a number of timepieces with trending themes.

The GyroGraff Endangered Species Collection contains five watches whose dials depict either an elephant, a tiger, a panda, a gorilla or a rhinoceros — all of which are listed by the World Wildlife Fund as being under threat. All of the dials are set with precious stones and gold and are hand-finished using a technique pioneered by Graff called diamond-marquetry that suggests glittering stained glass.

Few countries are more prominent on the world scene at the moment than China, which Graff salutes in its painterly Temple of Heaven and Great Wall of China timepieces, crystallizing two of that nation’s most significant land-

From left, GyroGraff Great Wall of China Watch, GyroGraff Galaxy Watch, Graff Inspired by Twombly Watch and Graff Fancy Vivid Yellow Diamond Watch.

Courtesy Graff.

marks. They’re the latest in a series of Graff watches inspired by Asia, which has been called the continent of the 21st century.

WAG readers may recall that in our May “Fascinating Botanicals” issue, we paid tribute to the peony, a signature Asiatic bloom. Graff, too, takes inspiration from this delightful blossom in its Peony Collection, which includes a spectacular watch that looks like a diamond bracelet, arranged in a complex herringbone design. The peony “petals” glide aside to reveal white, pink and yellow pavé diamond dials.

The company — which remains entirely a family operation under the direction of CEO Francois Graff — also continues to be inspired by the late American calligraphic artist Cy Twombly in that eponymous collection. Here glistening stones swirl, squiggle and spiral in rapturous ribbons. Because after all, why merely tell time when you can luxuriate in it?

For more, visit Graff.com.

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BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

Bianca Cabrera performs in Flyaway Productions’ “The Wait Room,” presented by Bethany Arts Community and Sing Sing Prison Museum in Ossining in September. Photographs

by Austin Forbord.

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WE OFTEN SPEAK OF BEING INCARCERATED AS “DOING TIME.” But the subject of prisons and prison reform is also both timely and timeless, says Brent D. Glass, interim executive director of the Sing Sing Prison Museum (SSPM), which will be partly opened late next year on the grounds of what is considered to be America’s most historic active prison, Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining.

Why do we have prisons? Are they about retribution or rehabilitation?

Or are they really about the protection of society, which might change the makeup of the prison populations, as there are undoubtedly people now incarcerated who pose no threat and those who offer a continual danger out on the streets?

These, Glass says, are among the open-ended questions that will be explored in a museum whose primary mission will be historical and educational. (In 2017, the museum secured its educational status from the New York State Board of Regents and nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service.)

Sing Sing has always had a touch of Hollywood glamour. It’s the “big house up the river” where Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson were always being sent in Warner Bros. movies of Clarissa Dyas performs in Flyaway Productions’ “The the 1930s. (Indeed, “20,000 Years in Sing Sing,” a 1932 Warner Bros.

Wait Room.” film starring Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, was based on Warden Lewis Lawes’ 1931 memoir. And movie buffs will remember that Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly delivers the coded “weather report” to mobster and Sing Sing inmate Sally Tomato in the 1961 romantic comedy “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”)

So naturally, the museum will include the big names who have resided there, including bank robber and escapee Willie Sutton, “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the only American civilians to be executed for espionage during the Cold War. (The Rosenbergs were electrocuted on June 19, 1953.)

But as their case suggests, the history of Sing Sing is far grittier and more complex than a litany of “star” inmates, says Glass, director emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It begins in 1825 with 100 inmates from Auburn State Prison (now the Auburn Correctional Facility) building their new Cellblock in Ossining near a rock quarry. (Sing Sing, Indian for “stone on stone,” was the original name of the village.)

“It was an awful place, filled with disease and no sanitary conditions,” Glass says of the building — 6 stories high, 476 feet long and 44 feet wide. Each of the 1,200 cells in the building, which was completed in 1828, was 7 feet long, 6½ feet high and 3 feet, 7 inches wide — about the size of a yoga mat, he adds — with only a cot, a Bible and a bucket. A separate women’s prison, the first in the country, was operated in a

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neighboring building styled as a Greek temple from the late 1830s until 1877.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that the idea of prison reform took root at Sing Sing.

Warden Thomas Mott Osborne (1914-16), who went undercover as a prisoner to experience the abuses firsthand, raised the prescient question: “Are prisons human repair shops or human scrap heaps?” Osborne instituted the Mutual Welfare League, which gave prisoners a good measure of self-rule, only to be slandered by the inmates who ruled others through intimidation. Though he resigned after a brief tenure, fed up with the politics that opposed his reform measures, his work lives on in the Osborne Association, which provides services for prisoners and their families.

While some punishments, including a form of waterboarding called the “shower bath,” were outlawed in the early 20th century, modern ones had already been introduced. From the 1890s to the 1960s, Glass says, 614 people were executed in the electric chair, considered less public than hanging, the majority in the 20th century. (New York stopped executions in 1984, abolishing the death penalty in 2007.)

Electricity for Sing Sing and its electric

chair would ultimately come from the Powerhouse, built outside the prison’s walls in 1936. Now used for storage, it will become the 25,000-square-foot museum, a home to exhibit space, classrooms, a conference room and a theater, connecting to the original cellblock through a secure 300-foot corridor.

The Powerhouse — a portion of which will open late in 2020 as a preview center, with the entire museum inaugurated in 2025 to mark Sing Sing’s bicentennial — will bring the story of Sing Sing into a present in which new reformatory chapters are unfolding.

“Superintendent Michael Capra places a high priority on rehabilitation,” Glass says.

In that spirit, he adds, prisons are called “correctional facilities;” the imprisoned, “incarcerated;” and wardens, “superintendents” — the language both reflecting and helping to create the reality.

Sing Sing is one of five correctional facilities that participates in Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, providing the present and formerly incarcerated with college education, life skills and re-entry support. Among those who qualify, the recidivism rate is less than 2 percent. In 1996, Katherine Vockins founded Rehabilitation Through the Arts at

Sing Sing to give inmates and former inmates a means of self-expression and, perhaps, a new livelihood. There’s also a garden program, in which 10 to 15 men from the prison’s mental health unit of about 220 took part over the summer, working in teams effectively, Glass says, “Planting something, watching it grow and blossom, working with the other men — this was a very positive experience.”

The museum has also embraced the larger Ossining community. In September, it joined forces with Bethany Arts Community to present the East Coast premiere of “The Wait Room,” an outdoor dance piece by San Francisco’s Flyaway Productions, about the women who wait for incarcerated loved ones. And the museum received a grant from the Westchester Community Foundation to develop a criminal justice curriculum for Ossining and Peekskill High Schools that would include an interdisciplinary, college-level course.

It’s part of the museum’s three-pronged mission, not only to tell the story of Sing Sing and buoy the local economy but to “challenge people to reimagine the criminal justice system and work for a better society.”

For more, visit singsingprisonmuseum. org.

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WAGMAG.COM

DECEMBER 2019

Nenad Bach.

“TIME IS ALL WE HAVE,” NENAD BACH SAYS. “THERE ARE NO OTHER POSSESSIONS. IT’S THE ONLY COMMODITY.” He’s sitting in WAG’s White Plains office, dressed in a white, button-down shirt, black trousers and a black, broad-brimmed hat — all of which provide a backdrop for a spectacular jacket that looks like a galaxy. It is, in a way, a calling card for a career in popular music and the peace movement that has brought him together with everyone from Luciano Pavarotti to Bono.

But he’s not here to talk about his life as a composer, singer and guitarist — or at least not primarily. Over coffee and strudel, Bach — a gentle soul whose depth of wisdom and serenity belie an impish, twinkling wryness — explores what for him is the slowing of time.

“There’s a beauty in slowness,” he says. “I always wanted to slow down. Finally, my body said, ‘Enough.’”

In 2010, Bach, a Croton-on-Hudson resident, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects the motor skills of more than 10 million people worldwide — 1 million of them Americans — with men 1½ times more likely to get it. About 60,000 cases are diagnosed annually in the United States alone. Parkinson’s — named for James Parkinson, the 19th-century surgeon, scientist and political activist who first identified it in a 1817 essay — is the second most common neurodegenerative disease behind Alzheimer’s.

Far from being devastated, Bach saw the diagnosis as a relief.

“I thought it would be something much worse,” he says. “There’s a saying that you don’t die of Parkinson’s; you die with Parkinson’s.”

Still, the disease has made everyday tasks challenging and threatened his guitar playing as syncopated beats became difficult. Then friend Robert Fuhrer — the toy entrepreneur who lives in Chappaqua — invited him to play pingpong at the Westchester Table Tennis Center in Pleasantville, owned by Will Shortz, better known as the crossword puzzle editor of The New York Times.

Immediately, Bach began to notice a difference. He played once a week, then three times a week. After six months, he returned to playing the guitar.

“The neuroplasty is such that the brain is either repairing connections or making new ones,” says the musician, who comes from a family immersed in the biological and medical sciences.

So excited was Bach to share his improvement that he — together with Shortz; Art Dubow, a psychiatrist who’s an avid table tennis player; and publicist Irene Silbert — formed Ping Pong Parkinson on March 1, 2017.

Medicine has long stressed the relationship between health and exercise, and the Parkinson’s Foundation is no exception. As its website notes: “For people with Parkinson’s disease (PD), exercise is more than healthy — it is a vital component to maintaining balance, mobility and activities of daily living. Exercise and physical activity can improve many PD symptoms.”

Adds David Russell — director of clinical research at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders and assistant clinical professor of neurology and psychology at Yale University: “There’s strength and rhythm and coordination and balance — all involved, and so it is an intriguing idea that maybe pingpong would be a particularly productive kind of exercise for Parkinson’s. Additionally, it’s fun and that is important, because it will get people to play.”

Indeed, as Bach waits for WAG photographer Bob Rozycki to

set up the photo shoot, he easily bounces a pingpong ball — again and again and again — on a paddle, juggling as well.

But there are limits to what Parkinson’s sufferers can do, including those that have nothing to do with the disease itself. Traveling the globe, Bach realized that those with Parkinson’s and other neurological challenges are excluded from the Paralympic Games. So from Oct. 11 through 13, he chaired the inaugural Parkinson’s World Table Tennis Championship at the Westchester Table Tennis Center — and performed live at the event.

Music has been part of Bach’s life since he was a child in Croatia and sat on his violin bow accidentally. The son of a professor of histology and biology and grandson of a surgeon, Bach studied violin from age 7 to 14 when “the rock ’n’ roll bug bit me,” he says.

He sang and played the guitar, but composition was his forté.

“I wanted to express myself,” he says. “It just came out naturally.”

Nevertheless, he graduated from the University of Rijeka as a civil engineer, even though he formed a band, The Time and the Earth, in college. (The band’s self-named first album, released in 1980, would hit number one.)

By then, Bach had realized that engineering wasn’t for him. On Sept. 29, 1984, he arrived in New York for good.

“It still brings tears to my eyes,” he recalls. “(Immigration official) Linda Hartman said, ‘Welcome to the United States.’”

It’s a far cry from what many experience nowadays, but Bach sees America’s current immigration problem as less a question of ethnicity and more one of social class. His family made sure he was cultivated. Parents who struggle to put food on the table, he says, may not be able to ensure the same for their offspring.

In the States, Bach continued his education, studying English.

His natural curiosity about everything from music to why a giraffe looks the way it does opened doors for him. He sat in on Columbia University School of the Arts’ film classes taught by directors Miloš Forman and Martin Scorsese. He met everyone from folk legend Richie Havens to Putnam Valley composer David Amram. He titled his first U.S. album — somewhat ironically and impudently — “Greatest Hits” (1987).

His music has always had an activist element to it. He performed his song “Can We Go Higher?,” a call for peace during the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina co-written by John Timpane, at Woodstock ’94 and at the concert “Pavarotti & Friends,” held in 1995 in Pavarotti’s hometown of Modena, Italy.

The song also appeared a year later on the album “Pavarotti & Friends for the Children of Bosnia” (and on Bach’s “A Thousand Years of Peace”). He has also created the World Peace in One Hour website to bring an end to global violence through the arts and technology.

Along with his family — wife Vjera, a pediatrician; son Ivo, a neurologist; and daughters Ana and Lea, a veterinarian and physician respectively — composition remains a great love. Most recently, he scored “Heroes Are Never Forgotten: A Peter Tomich Story,” a documentary about the chief water tender on the USS Utah, who died saving the lives of many fellow crewmembers during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the retired rear admiral, James Lunney, who fought to present Tomich’s Congressional Medal of Honor to his descendants 65 years later.

Heroes are indeed never forgotten and no one who meets Bach will ever forget him.

For more, visit PingPongParkinson.com and worldpeaceinonehour.com.

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54 Photograph WAGMAG.COM John Waters.

by GregDECEMBER Gorman. 2019

BY GREGG SHAPIRO

CHRISTMAS IS PROBABLY NOT THE FIRST THING THAT COMES TO MIND WHEN YOU HEAR THE NAME OF SELF-DESCRIBED “FILTH ELDER” JOHN WATERS.

More than likely you think of his beloved Baltimore where he established his cult-status as a “midnight movie” filmmaker with movies such as “Pink Flamingos,” “Female Trouble” and “Desperate Living.” Even after his star began to rise with movies such as “Polyester,” “Hairspray,” “Cry-Baby” and “Serial Mom” — in which he cast Hollywood names such as Tab Hunter, Pia Zadora, Johnny Depp and Kathleen Turner, respectively — he remained true to his hometown roots.

When it comes to finding the right words to describe Waters, you could say groundbreaking filmmaker, actor, writer, raconteur and artist. You could also say lover of Christmas, because every year in December, Waters is a torchbearer and flag waver for Christmas in the way that only he can do it. His “A John Waters Christmas” show and tour is the stuff of legends and laughs, and the 2019 edition is sure to be no exception. Additionally, Waters’ recently published book, “Mr. Know-It-All” (Macmillan Publishers, 2019), an entertaining and informative memoir crossed with a how-to, would also make for an ideal Christmas gift.

Waters talked with us in advance of his Dec. 16 appearance in Manhattan: One of the first things we think of when it comes to you, John Waters and Christmas, is Dawn Davenport’s Christmas meltdown in 1974’s “Female Trouble.” Did you or anyone you know ever have a Christmas morning like that?

“Actually, I know someone that was arrested Christmas morning and the tree was knocked over when the police came. That happened after I shot the scene. It wasn’t a fan or anything. Many people on the Christmas tour, through the years, have told me similar stories about the tree falling over on their mother. It happens a lot. Usually liquor or the dog is involved.”

How much of that scene in “Female Trouble” would you consider to be inspiration for your annual “A John Waters Christmas” show?

“I don’t know that it has too much to do with it. I think it has more effect earlier, in the ’70s and ‘80s when I had my big Christmas party that I still have. We purposely gave each other gifts that we would hate. We used to throw them out the window, which I think was rather

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irresponsible because I lived on the seventh floor. (laughs) I think it was more a case of ‘How dare you give me this present.’ I think it inspired that.”

Your 2004 album “A John Waters Christmas” is one of my all-time favorite holiday albums. Do you include any of the songs on the album in your holiday show of the same name?

“I think sometimes the theaters play it as people are coming in (from the lobby). The last time I did something publicly with it was when the mayor of Baltimore was Mayor (Martin) O’Malley, who later became the governor.

Every year they have the big ceremony where they turn on the Christmas lights in the city.

He and I came out to the song ‘Santa Claus is a Black Man’ and we turned on the lights.”

In addition to wintry climates, there are warm and snowless cities such as West Palm Beach, San Diego and Tucson among the places you’re performing “A John Waters Christmas Show.” Are you the kind of person who needs to have snow on the ground to get in the Christmas spirit?

“No, not at all. I’ve had Christmas in foreign countries. I kind of like extreme weather. My favorite Christmas view used to be in L.A., on a hot day when it’s Christmas, in front of the

wards. You, too, can be f----ed up and triumph.

You, too, can never have to get a real job.”

Scientology Center, which has Christmas lights around from the city. It was such a bizarre sight and I always liked that.”

Finally, the music world recently lost one of the greats, Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Ric played a “beatnik cat” in 1988’s “Hairspray.” Do you have any memories of Ric that you’d like to share?

“I remember Ric. He was from Baltimore.

He was a beatnik, probably. The first thing I ever wanted to be was a beatnik. We’re the same age. He was lovely. He came for the day. He got along very well with Pia Zadora.

He came to the premiere (of ‘Hairspray’) in Baltimore, I remember, with (wife) Paulina (Porizkova). I’m not sure I have ever seen him since. I think when we had the big 30year reunion (in 2018) of ‘Hairspray’ at the Academy of Arts and Sciences in L.A. I tried to get him to come. He was very favorable about it and said to send his love to everybody, but he didn’t come. I’m not sure if he was ill for a long time or not at the end, but that could have been the reason. I was always a fan. He was a gentleman and a music legend. I’m really privileged that he was in that movie. I think people remember that scene well.”

“A John Waters Christmas” will be presented at 8 p.m. Dec. 16 at Sony Hall in Manhattan. For more, visit sonyhall.com.

In your new book, “Mr. Know-It-All,” you make mention of your annual Christmas party, as well as the “A John Waters Christmas” show. What’s the best way to let the readers know that tickets to “A John Waters Christmas” would make a perfect winter holiday gift?

“I’m right in the middle of rewriting the whole show. It’s almost completely different every year. I think it’s a good gift. If you have a first date for ‘A John Waters Christmas,’ you’re either going to get married or they’re never going to speak to you again. It’s hit or miss.

I’ve met many people that have told me that they got married after a first date of seeing one of my movies or being at the Christmas show. Now they come to the John Waters Summer Camp every year. I think it would be a romantic date.”

I describe “Mr. Know-It-All” to my friends as a memoir crossed with a how-to. What was the impetus for writing the book in this fashion?

“Because I wanted to share my negotiation skills that I had somehow developed over the last 50 years so that you, too, could fail up-

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Sarah Hawkey sings the part of Vagao in Domenico Freschi’s oratorio “Giuditta” at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Manhattan. Photographs courtesy Academy of Sacred Drama.

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BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

THINK OF JEREMY RHIZOR AS A MUSICAL DETECTIVE. His primary case: Bringing little-known classical composers and works out of the past and into the present and future.

About five years ago, Rhizor was reading through oratorios at potluck strumentalists are led by the harpsichordist, who suppers in New York City. provides the baseline and harmonies known as the “Most of the manuscripts we used were available online,” he basso continuo.) says. “But we were also making print editions of oratorios that The academy will follow “L’huomo in bivio” with were digitized.”

Gianettini’s 1690 oratorio “La vittima d’amore, osia Apparently, the combination of casseroles and compositions by La morte di Cristo” (“The Victim of Love”), a different the likes of Alessandro Scarlatti and Alessandro Stradella worked, betake on Jesus’ Crucifixion that finds his mother, Mary, cause two and a half years ago Rhizor founded the nonprofit Acadand beloved disciple John at the foot of his cross, each emy of Sacred Drama. The academy now calls White Plains home. vying to take his place. This meditation on suffering The move, he says, “was a personal desire to bring what I’m doing and martyrdom — which grew out of the exile of Ento where I now live.” gland’s Roman Catholic king James II and his wife, Maria His new hometown had a chance to see exactly what he’s doing Beatrice, the duke’s sister — will be performed Feb. 21 at last month as the academy presented Antonio Gianettini’s “L’huoSt. Mary’s Church in Norwalk. mo in bivio” (“The Man at the Crossroads”) at the White Plains “La vittima d’amore” and “L’huomo in bivio” belong to an Presbyterian Church. era, the Baroque (late 16th- through mid-18th centuries), that Antonio, who, you say? It’s a common reaction even swept through the arts with grandeur, majesty, passion and oramong Rhizor’s fellow musicians. Gianettini (1648-1741) was namentation. It marked the beginning of classical music, with a Venetian opera composer in the service of the duke of a small “c,” as we know it after the metrically free, modal works Modena. The duke commissioned Gianettini to write oratoof the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In contrast, Baroque rios — vocal and orchestral works with literary or religious music had major and minor keys, delineated by key signatures, texts that are presented as concerts rather than staged, aland regular rhythms denoted by time signatures. though Rhizor plans to restore the gestural elements that “That’s true, largely due to the invention of opera and oratorio, were once part of the presentation. “L’huomo in bivio” which codified music,” Rhizor says.

(1687) tells the allegorical tale of a man struggling with And though the Baroque ensemble was smaller than what we good and evil. Will he listen to his guardian angel or the think of as an orchestra today, “there were some larger ensembles tempting demon? A narrator completes the quartet of and, in some cases, larger string sections,” Rhizor says, as violin maksingers, which also doubles as the sometimes angelic, ers like Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri took the instrusometimes demonic chorus. ment to new technical heights.

In the November performances, the singers were There are other decided musical differences between the Baroque accompanied by an ensemble of academy instruand our own time. Whereas women were beginning to make their way mentalists under the direction of Rhizor, a violinist. onto stages in the Baroque, the female roles were still often performed (Usually in performances of Baroque music, the inby castrati. (Today, the title roles of “La vittima d’amore” and “L’uomo in bivio” are sung by natural countertenors — the male equivalent of a female contralto or mezzo-soprano.)

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Peter Walker sings the part of Ozia in Domenico Freschi’s oratorio “Giuditta” at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Manhattan.

The instrumentation is also different, with the harpsichord and cello-like viola da gamba among the key elements.

It was the particular traditions of the Baroque — “the way a community of thought built up around historical practices” — that drew Rhizor to the era when he was a college student at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

Not only were there manuscripts, but treatises telling you how to perform this music, Rhizor says. The academy pays that scholarship forward with articles and lectures on performance practice and history as well as translations of texts that are drawn from the Judeo-Christian traditions with influences from classical mythology as well.

Such works offer a bridge and a distant mirror, he adds.

“When we look at what a past age is doing, it gives us clues into how they thought about themselves. We get to see these stories in a new light” — and ourselves, he adds, in the process.

The Academy of Sacred Drama performs “La vittima d’amore” at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 at St. Mary’s Church, 669 West Ave., Norwalk, and at 4 p.m. Feb. 23 at Corpus Christi Church, 529 W. 121st St., Manhattan.

Jeremy Rhizor will be in concert May 15 at White Plains Presbyterian Church and May 16 at The Chapel at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan.

Tickets are $45 and $25 for the Westchester and Fairfield counties performances and $50 and $30 for the Manhattan performances.

Admission is also included in memberships, which begin at $150. For more, visit sacreddrama.org.

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Paul Rosolie with an elephant in Peru. Photograph by Gowri Varanashi.

62 WAGMAG.COM DECEMBER 2019

BY JEREMY WAYNE

PAUL ROSOLIE IS A NATURALIST AND CONSERVATION ACTIVIST AS WELL AS AN AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER. He’s a novelist too, and what with the beard and the insouciant smile, he could also pass for a hipster Brooklyn bartender. Only don’t judge this Brooklynite by appearance, because long ago this lover of the wild exchanged New York life for the Amazon rainforest and the Indian jungle — although when pressed he still calls New York state home.

The relationship between humans and the natural world was the theme of his first book, “Mother of God,” and his new novel, “The Girl and the Tiger.” Based on 10 years of research, it tells the story of Isha, a young girl in India who rescues a tiger cub and tries desperately to get it to the relatively safe habitat of the jungle. Like most books of its type, it’s the natural world that gives a far better account of itself than do the human beings — a topic that’s sure to come up when Rosolie appears at Southport’s Pequot Library on Dec. 10.

“It’s nature versus nurture,” Rosolie told Los Angeles’ “KTLA Morning News” in an interview back in October. “I came out loving animals and so I had to go to where the animals were.” He wasn’t talking about the Prospect Park Zoo or the Brooklyn Aquarium either.

It was this passion for the natural world that took him first to the Amazonian rainforest. As he told the audience when he was speaking recently on a book tour at the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan, at one point he had been in the Amazon for so long — 13 years — it was only a couple of months earlier, when he was back in the city, that he had taken his first Uber. “I asked the guy, how do I tip you, and the guy was like, he turned around, ‘Where have you been?’”

Rosolie had thought about going to India after the Amazon but only became really enthused when a professor told him about the dwindling Asian elephant population and how close Indian tigers were to extinction. He also quickly realized how Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book,” though written 125 years ago, was still the only popular book we have to date about the Indian jungle.

“The Girl and the Tiger,” he says, is a modern “Jungle Book” with a female lead. “Instead of tigers being the bad guy, this is a modern-day tiger, a refugee tiger. It’s the story of what we have to do now to protect the species — and told from the animal’s perspective.”

Rosolie works with Junglekeepers, an organization that protects 30,000 acres of rainforest, and is now hoping to bring the initiative to India to protect tigers. To put the

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“The Girl and the Tiger,” by Paul Rosolie.

Cover photograph by Andrew Parker, Spectacle Photography UK.

urgency in perspective, the 100,000 tigers at the start of the last century are down to 3,000 today. With the destruction of their natural habitat, they have been forced to find places to live, hanging around the edge of villages looking for food as they move through the nowfragmented forests of Asia.

Adventures have come thick and fast to Ro-

solie and his years researching the book have brought him close to death. He was almost killed — chased by an elephant in South India while he was writing the book — and had a tiger’s tooth scrape across the bone of his finger.

All the material is based on true stories. When Isha says, “I am going to protect this tiger and not let people kill it,” she is in fact resonating Rosolie’s own story. The fictional child takes on the saving of a tiger just as he has taken on the saving of tigers and the rainforest. The message is that the possibility, and indeed the obligation, of saving the planet rests with each and every one of us.

It hasn’t gone all his way. A fundraiser in which Rosolie, dressed in a special protective suit and headgear, allowed his head to be swallowed by a 20-foot anaconda, backfired to some extent, with animal rights groups such as PETA suggesting it was no more than a David Copperfield-type stunt. But Rosolie defended it, saying the purpose of the exploit was to draw attention to the plight of species endangered by the disappearance of the forest. To get people really excited about the rainforest, as Rosolie rightly points out, they have to at least know what it is and what’s going on there.

“We’ve been trying to protect the rainforests for decades now and we wanted to do some-

thing that would really shock people, something that would really get people to sit up and pay attention.”

The Amazon, moreover, provides a fifth of our planet’s oxygen, he emphasizes, so the ecosystem is a crucial one.

On his website, he says about “The Girl and the Tiger”: “It is a necklace of a book, a series of seeds and teeth, stones and bones, gathered from the forest floor; I only added the string.”

If Rosolie himself comes across as occasionally simplistic in person — with a certain glibness when being interviewed, for instance — his fiction is anything but. His is a layered prose, straightforward and accessible, certainly, but also subtle, mannered and nuanced. And while “The Girl and the Tiger” is a children’s story for adults, the relationships it explores — both animal and human — are complex. What he has ultimately achieved is to bring home to readers — through an accessible work of fiction — is how the Indian jungle, and much of the living environment on this planet, is in a state of emergency.

That’s a rare accomplishment for any writer, and rarer still for a conservation activist.

Paul Rosolie will be appearing at 7 p.m. Dec. 10 at the Pequot Library at 720 Pequot Ave. in Southport. For more, visit paulrosolie.com.

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A customized set of luggage alongside a special McLaren GT by MSO was displayed on the Concept Car Lawn at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance during the summer. The luggage was designed by McLaren Special Operations. Courtesy McLaren.

66 WAGMAG.COM DECEMBER 2019

WHEN YOU HIT THE ROAD FOR THE HOLIDAYS IN ONE OF THE HOTTEST CARS ON THE PLANET, WHY RUIN ITS LOOK WITH SHABBY LUGGAGE? McLaren thought the same thing.

That’s why the automaker created a line of bespoke luggage for its McLaren GT. The four-piece collection features a garment case, weekend bag, cabin bag and golf club bag.

And yes, they all come in leather and trim that match your car’s interior.

McLaren says that each bag in the collection is “hand-assembled by specialists in Italy, using the same soft and supple semi-aniline leather and stitch pattern that adorns the interior of the McLaren GT.” Three colors are available — Pioneer Black, Luxe Black and Luxe Porcelain.

Each piece of luggage is designed to fit a specific location in the car, ensuring that the driver and passenger have “ample secure storage for a range of lifestyle and sporting activities, as well as for luxurious long-distance travel.”

And like the McLaren, priced at $210,000, the prices of the luggage — all covered in semi-aniline leather and ranging from $2,300 to $6,800 — reflect handmade artisan touches.

The luggage is available to order through McLaren retailers.

For more, visit mclarenautomotive.com.

— Bob Rozycki

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Sophia Loren made one of her rare public appearances in the United States at Ridgefield Playhouse last month.

Courtesy Ridgefield Playhouse.

72 WAGMAG.COM DECEMBER 2019

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

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A MARK OF A GREAT ACTRESS — A GREAT STAR — IS TO TURN AN AMUSE BOUCHE INTO A FINE REPAST, IF NOT A FEAST; A TUNE INTO AN ARIA. In the 1958 romantic comedy “Houseboat,” Sophia Loren plays Cinzia, the daughter of an Arturo Toscanini-like conductor who longs to be more than a songbird in a gilded cage. So she runs away and soon meets up with another runaway — a little boy, “Roberto,” whom she promptly returns to his widowed father and older brother and sister. It’s not long before the inexperienced Cinzia is caring for the kids — and falling for their exasperated father — on the dilapidated houseboat of the title. cestry, Riccardo Scicolone, who refused to marry her For “Houseboat,” Loren not only had to act with a trio of youngsters mother, Romilda Villani, a piano teacher and aspiring — something the acidic comedian W.C. Fields advised against, lest their actress. Loren, her mother and younger sister, Maria, adorability upstage you — but hold her own with Cary Grant, with whom lived outside Naples in Pozzuoli with her maternal she reportedly had a romantic relationship on the troubled shoot of grandmother during World War II, moving to Naples it“The Pride and the Passion” a year earlier. Still, Loren pulled it off, capself after Loren was struck by shrapnel during an Allied turing the essence of a young woman, and an immigrant at that, who bombing. After the war, her grandmother opened a pub in standing up for herself discovers herself in the process. frequented by GIs in which her mother played piano, her Loren has been described as one of the last great stars of the Goldsister sang — and Loren waited tables and did dishes. en Age of Hollywood — the period that began with the birth of cinBut a more glamorous life waited. After taking the Miss ema in the late 19th century and ended with the death of the starItalia crown at age 15 — the same pageant she would preside producing studio system in the 1960s. over in 2001 and 2010 — Sofia studied acting and began playWriting in his “The New Biographical Dictionary of Film” (2002) ing bit parts. Changing her name to Sophia Loren to broaden the acerbic critic David Thomson hailed her as “one of the modern her appeal — at the suggestion of film producer Carlo Ponti, cinema’s great beauties, humorous, sympathetic and an especialher future husband — she made the leap from Italian leading ly good listener,” the last being an important quality in a profeslady to international star with a series of movies for Parasion that is as much about reacting as acting itself. mount Pictures. Nonetheless, Thomson writes, Hollywood did Besides Grant, Loren has acted with such leading men as not really do her justice: Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Marcello Mas“Statuesque and floridly handsome, she was a star from an troianni, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck and Frank Sinatra. She’s earlier era needing the services of great cameramen, the impebeen directed by Vittorio de Sica, George Cukor and Charlie rious love of a (Josef von) Sternberg or the warming sympathy of Chaplin, to name a few.

(George) Cukor.” She had Cukor’s sympathy, he adds, in the 1960 You’d need a museum alone for all the awards she’s rewestern “Heller in Pink Tights,” in which he caught her “out-ofceived. Among them are two Oscars; five Golden Globes, breath, exuberant tenderness.” including the Cecil B. DeMille for lifetime achievement; a But Loren was very much her own woman, fighting to be cast Grammy; and a record six Donatellos (the Italian Oscar and against type that same year as a much older woman in de Sica’s “Two perhaps more beautiful than the Oscar as it reproduces Women,” the story of a mother struggling to protect her 12-year-old Donatello’s dishy David). daughter in war-torn Italy, particularly after they are gang-raped.

So it’s a sure bet that she had plenty to say when she The film won Loren a 1962 Oscar, a first for an actress in a foreign-lantook to the stage of Ridgefield Playhouse to recall the guage performance. She would receive an honorary Academy Award times of her life in conversation with film critic Steve for her film contributions in 1991.

Persall — one of only five such events she was slated to By that time, she had spread her wings to musicals (1975’s “Man of appear in across the country. In a recent email interLa Mancha,” with Peter O’Toole); autobiography (“Sophia Loren: Her view with Hartford Magazine’s Frank Rizzo, Loren Own Story”); a biopic in which she played both her mother and herself; talked about the magic of her 65-year career in films an album of comedic songs with Peter Sellers; a 1984 book on “Women and a glamour, no longer part of Hollywood, that and Beauty”; and a cookbook of Italian favorites from her mother, grandcomes from being secure in who you are. It’s a secumother and Mastraionni, among others. And while she has made fewer rity that the young Sofia Villani Scicolone had to find films from the 1970s on as she raised sons Carlo Ponti Jr. and Edoardo, in herself and her family’s matriarchy. She was born she continues to be active in movies, perhaps most notably as Daniel Dayin Rome the daughter of an engineer of noble anLewis’ mother in the 2009 film “Nine.”

Though she calls Geneva her primary residence, with additional homes in Rome and Naples, Loren remains a fan of all things Italian — from the Neapolitan soccer team S.S.C. Napoli to her beloved pasta, which she indulges in but not too much.

Her secret to enduring beautifully is the resilience of the great star, who does not move on as much as move forward. “Everything changes,” she told the Hartford Courant. “Enjoy it all.”

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Sophia Loren in a publicity still from Paul A. Hesse Studios in 1959, the zenith of Hollywoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Golden Age.

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Stylish finds both contemporary and vintage create a one-ofa-kind setting at The Swanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s House in Tarrytown.

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BY MARY SHUSTACK PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB ROZYCKI

IT’S A BIT HARD TO CONCENTRATE WHEN VISITING THE SWAN’S HOUSE IN TARRYTOWN.

That’s because your eyes will be constantly darting from one intriguing thing to the next. You may find yourself wondering where those Art Deco-inspired lamps were found or noting what glamorous accents those scallop-shaped pillows make. More than once, you may even find yourself, as I did, trying to convince yourself that you’d find a space that would merit such stunning artwork — a pair of oversize, arched panels each depicting a mysterious woman in elaborate robes.

And we could go on — and on — but you get the idea.

The Swan’s House is a trove of furniture, decorative goods and gifts both contemporary and vintage, the latter focusing primarily on the 1950s through the ’80s.

It’s all come together exactly as owners Sara Swan and Arthur Gandy had hoped and planned, while also just happening to fulfill Swan’s longtime dream of having her own store, a wish nurtured since she was about 10.

When asked what she thought it might look like, her answer is simple: “This. This is my store. This is my dream store.”

But it was — and is — far from a solo effort. The Swan’s House is a true collaboration between husband and wife, each bringing their own talents to the project. Swan, a native of Ireland, has a background in fine art and years in the fashion industry, while Gandy, a Midwesterner who spent his earliest years in Chicago, has extensive experience in construction and set design.

“I used to build sets for fashion and advertising,” Gandy says.

“It was all for print ads.”

Swan and Gandy, together nearly a decade, met in New York — at Swan’s going-away party as she was moving back to Ireland. She did, for a time, but the rest, as they say, is history.

The couple eventually moved to Tarrytown from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, some two and a half years ago. Commuting to the city for work got old, with the new parents wanting to find something closer to home.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS The resulting new business opened its doors this October, a pink-and-green color scheme creating a retro-chic backdrop to a wealth of finds.

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Sara Swan and Arthur Gandy in their new Tarrytown home-décor shop, The Swan’s House.

With the two, as Swan says, “both so design-oriented,” they saw potential in a former hair salon vacant for several years. The space would be utterly transformed by a total revamp spearheaded by Gandy.

As Swan says with a laugh, “Other than the things that are nailed down, everything’s for sale — chandeliers, rugs…”

And that everything includes a lot more, from vases and mirrors to sculptures and sofas, étagères and cocktail tables to chairs and throws. Murano glass is prominent in much of the shop’s lighting, from “mushroom” lamps blown from a single piece of glass to exotically shaped light fixtures.

There are also Jaru midcentury ceramic sculptures and those contemporary shellshaped pillows by Tamar Mogendorff. A Milo Baughman for Morex smoked glass, chrome and brass dining table from Italy anchors the front of the shop.

“We had a really clear idea of what we wanted to do and how we wanted to look,” Swan says. “Everything just came to life.”

That vision also guided the buying process.

“We’re very specific with what we choose,” she says, adding that the goods also have a well-defined appeal. “It’s definitely not for everybody.”

But that focus allows them to buy with confidence — and a good eye.

“I feel everything we have is impeccable,” Swan says. This isn’t a thrift shop filled with items in desperate need of care. Exceptions are sometimes made, most often for wooden pieces when a minor fix can easily be handled

by Gandy.

They love hearing the history of what they’re buying — “It makes the pieces more

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attractive to us,” Swan says — and love to pass that story on to customers.

And people are responding.

“Our demographic is definitely broader than I was expecting,” Swan says.

There are those who grew up with what’s featured but also younger shoppers connecting with the retro feel, ideally exemplified by the collection of Muzen mini Bluetooth speakers in the shape of record players and classic radios.

ON THE ROAD Creating the right space was important — but filling it was equally so.

It was, Gandy says, “eight months of doing nothing but buying product.”

The couple not only stored but also lived with much of the merchandise in their home prior to the opening, which created a challenge when it was time to set things up.

“It’s hard not to get attached to things,” Swan says.

Even their 2½-year-old son got into the act, says Gandy, pointing to a knee-high chalkware sculpture that guards shop’s front door.

“The lion used to be in our living room.

When he comes in, he gives it a hug.”

With seeking out vintage finds a shared passion of the couple, Swan adds that, “We knew where to go. We knew where to find these things and what we liked.”

The need to restock constantly allows the adventure to continue with frequent buying trips. Gandy says he will pick a direction — and a distance — and then research stops along the way. He might head out, for example, one day to Western Connecticut or another down the Jersey shore.

Otherwise, the longtime collectors might score big in a single stop, such as an interior designer’s estate sale; draw on sources they have cultivated over their years of collecting; or take advantage of Gandy’s professional contacts in the design field. Sources can be local or international, with the made-in-America goods at The Swan’s House joined by works from Italy to the Netherlands, Norway to Australia.

The selection process was no less stringent for contemporary goods.

“When it came to sourcing the new pieces, it had to really be about well-designed, thoughtful pieces,” Swan says.

The shop is also filled with gift items that include books, candles, chocolates, plush slippers, velvet bags, trays and ornaments, with an entire section devoted to artful greeting cards.

“We work with a lot of small, independent designers with the cards,” Swan says.

In addition, the shop has begun hosting events such as its recent “Meet The Maker” reception featuring Brooklyn-based Monster Crackers, a handcrafted twist on nutcrackers that add an offbeat touch to the surroundings.

COMING TOGETHER The Swan’s House may be about singular finds but that doesn’t mean prices are sky high.

“The prices are good here,” Gandy says. “We want pieces to leave. We’re not a museum.”

That things would indeed move quickly was demonstrated very early on.

The night before the official opening, Swan says, she was in the shop working when an older gentleman asked to come in, as he wouldn’t be in the area again soon. He fell in love with a mirror and bought it on the spot.

“He took it on a bus,” Swan says, smiling at the memory. “I just felt like that was a good omen.”

And it seems to have been.

A growing online audience continues to translate to new customers.

“It’s a very Instagram-able store, which has helped me build up a following,” Swan says.

Social media posts have been part of the story since before the doors opened. In those early days, Swan says, some 100 people were following The Swan’s House on Instagram.

By mid-November, that number had topped 3,300.

And the name? Swan says it’s a nod to her parents and her earlier days growing up in the suburbs of Dublin, when everyone would want to gather at “the Swans’ house.”

Looks like some things never change.

The Swan’s House is at 37 N. Broadway in Tarrytown. For more, visit the shop on Instagram and Facebook.

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HI-YO, SILVER

BY JENNIFER PITMAN

Pair of Chinese export cruets, a rare form, decorated with prunus blossoms, Wang Hing, (late 19th century), 7 ½ inches high, sold for $7,500. Courtesy Rago Auctions.

Chinese export silver — silver made in China between the 18th and 20th centuries — remains one of my longest-held passions as a silver specialist. My first encounter with the material was a family heirloom.

Adorning our dining table at every major occasion was a large silver centerpiece. The base was set with elaborately plumed birds traversing a root and rockwork ground, with the stem fashioned as paired columns of bamboo stalks, all supporting a central bowl pierced with bamboo leaves. Having grown up with the relative sparseness of Georgian silver, my eye didn’t know where to look. I’d never seen anything like it and I’ve been a fan ever since.

The passion for this material is far from mine alone. What was once a niche collecting area has exploded in scope and value over the years.

Much of the credit for this growing interest is due to the unflagging efforts of Adrien von Ferscht, who has produced so much new scholarship in the field.

It first attracted the attention of American scholars in the 1960s.

They actually coined the term “Chinese export silver,” as it was thought that this silver was made for Westerners trading in China or stationed there and, to a lesser extent, the Persian and Indian market. The term is in itself misleading, as Von Ferscht’s research has now shown that much of this silver was acquired by domestic Chinese collectors.

The first phase of Chinese export silver dates circa 1785 to the mid-19th century, when silver was supplied largely to American and European merchants trading in Canton. During this era, Chinese export silver was made to imitate Western Georgian and

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Regency silver, in form, decoration and even in its marks. At first blush, a Chinese-made teapot would appear to be of English origin.

Only upon closer inspection would the teapot be revealed to be uncharacteristically heavier than its English counterpart and its construction techniques varied as well. Looking closer still, the marks were imitation English, referred to as “pseudo-hallmarks.” These subtle differences, taken together, would be the tipoff that a teapot was of Chinese, not English, origin.

As there was no assay system for measuring Chinese silver, there was no obligation to mark silver objects. Accordingly, a variety of marks are found on Chinese export silver. In time, the early pseudo-hallmarks gave way to Latin names or monograms, Chinese ideograms and purity marks. These marks, represented, respectively, the name of the retailer or merchant, the name of the silversmith and the standard of silver.

Making its way to the West, early Chinese silver was later misidentified as English or American, until its Chinese origins were recognized with scholarship in the field. Until recently, it was this Chinese pseudo-English silver that garnered the highest prices at auction and was sought by Western collectors.

The second phase of Chinese silver dates from the mid-19th century onward. This silver is best be described as a hybrid, employing Western forms that are adorned with traditional Chinese motifs. In this second phase, the imitative Georgian silver gave way to a new style elaborately decorated with battle or court scenes and embellished with dragon headed-handles, spouts and finials. Among the most popular motifs were bamboo, flowering branches, prunus blossoms, cracked ice, dragons, clouds, grapes and squirrels, all common motifs in Chinese decorative art.

According to Von Ferscht, this hybrid Chinese silver appealed not only to Western merchants and traders but to a growing and increasingly affluent Chinese middle class. They were drawn to Western styles, while still appreciating the allegorical meaning of the Chinese decorations.

Today, it is this second phase of Chinese silver that has once again captured the attention of both Western and Chinese buyers. While Western collectors have focused on the Latin retailer’s mark, Chinese collectors have focused their attention on the mark of the Chinese artisan silversmith.

Tea services, mugs, standing cups and vases are among the most common Chinese export silver forms and are hotly contested if of fine quality and by an esteemed retailer or silversmith. Even obsolete forms, such as calling card cases and snuff boxes, can perform equally well at auction. As always, it is the unusual forms or pieces of grand scale that remain the most highly sought after and achieve the highest values at auction. A half century after its rediscovery, interest in the field of Chinese export silver shows no sign of abating.

Jennifer Pitman writes about the jewelry, fine art and modern design she encounters as Rago Auction’s senior account manager for Westchester County and Connecticut. For more, contact Jenny at ragoarts.com or 917-745-2730.

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HOME & DESIGN

WARES

KICKIN’ BACK

BY CAMI WEINSTEIN

Time is a precious commodity in today’s harried world. I create homes that families can recharge in, entertain in, care for their families in and just enjoy. Everyone wants his own space and to design it for his own pleasure and to suit the lifestyle he has.

When creating spaces it’s important to understand how you live in your home. I like to make sure there are private and public spaces, rooms in which family members can work or read quietly or have enough space to host a dinner party. With smaller areas, I try to create flex spaces so that pieces can easily be moved around to suit different needs at different times.

A beautifully and thoughtfully designed home takes time. I often see spaces that are really not well-thoughtout and designed, creating dissatisfied homeowners.

Most clients have a good idea of how they live and how they would like to live in their homes. Many homeowners do have good taste. They are just not able to execute it well. That is where a professional can come in and help edit down and add pieces to create a home that is both functional and beautiful. With so many easily purchased items available on the internet, clients don’t often realize there is a whole world of bespoke pieces available to them through designers. Depending on budget considerations, it’s wonderful to mix in those special pieces. They elevate your home to a more personal retreat. Many times those bespoke items take time to create specifically for you. It is worth it. It’s a luxury that makes your home feel special to you. Don’t be afraid to treat yourself well. It’s great to walk into your home and know after all the hard work you do out in the world every day, you can come home to something very special created just for you.

Sometimes a magical afternoon is staying curled up on a sofa you can sink into with a warm cozy blanket wrapped around you, a hot toddy and a great book that you have been wanting to read for a long time or watching a movie with family and friends — that feeling of not having to go anywhere but to just recharging at home. Everyone has a different idea of what luxury is to him. The job of a professional designer is assist homeowners in unlocking their home’s potential.

If you are designing a home, it is worth it to take the extra time and wait for the items that you have selected.

I learned long ago that I am much happier with waiting to do the space correctly rather than to keep throwing dollars at a room that never ends up looking cohesive.

I always suggest to clients on a budget to target the area you want to start first and complete that room or area before moving on to the next room.

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There are also timelines that should be considered when “Sometimes a magical afternoon renovating or decorating your home. Contractors need the items is staying curled they are installing in a project in a timely manner. Designers can up on a sofa you keep clients focused by making sure selections are made and can sink into with a warm cozy blanket items are ordered and delivered to ensure a smooth project wrapped around you, completion. All of the messy renovations should be done first. a hot toddy and a Once the messy work is done, then you can move on to installing great book that you the furniture, wallpapers, window treatments, etc. This takes time have been wanting to read for a long and, if schedules are not adhered to, projects can take far longer time or watching a than they should. A great team can keep the project focused movie with family and friends,” Cami and the end result is happy homeowners.

Weinstein writes.

To save time, I suggest starting with your end goal and a realistic completion date. Work the timetable backward and then you will be able to see what the time frames are for completing each part of the project in order to have it finished on time. Factor in the estimated time of arrival for your products and add in a little extra time for back-ordered items and unforeseen obstacles. It takes time to gather your ideas and a team to create a beautifully finished custom project.

Don’t rush it because you will be living with your choices far longer than waiting for them to arrive.

Take the time to enjoy the process of creating a carefully curated, custom-designed and decorated home. The process of creating your vision of home is both fun and interesting.

The end result is a home that is uniquely yours.

For more, call 203-661-4700 or visit camidesigns.com.

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HOME & DESIGN

WHAT’S NEW AGAIN

TICK TOCK..

BY KATIE BANSER-WHITTLE

The introduction of battery-powered quartz crystals Timekeeping devices have a long and fascinating did away with the complex moving parts required history dating back to the sundials and water clocks in mechanical watches. Quartz watches were of the ancient world. Increases in accuracy began more accurate, more shock absorbent and didn’t with the earliest mechanical European timepieces require oiling, cleaning or manual winding. in the 14th century. Still, for most people the The new technology spread rapidly. In 10 clock in the church tower was more a source of years, quartz watches had become standard. wonder and pride than practical importance.

American and Japanese manufacturing By the mid-17th century, improving began to dominate production. The technology resulted in portable timekeepers Swiss, acknowledged masters of — pocket watches that allowed their noble mechanical watch production, carved owners to display their wealth and good out a niche that continues today in taste. These early watches were notable the production of largely handmade, for rich ornamentation and intriguing-butnonquartz timepieces that are horological largely useless mechanisms. Their accuracy works of art for the luxury market. could vary by as much as several hours a day.

Ongoing improvements in materials and Fast forward to today’s wristwatches. No equipment ushered in the golden age of the longer dependent on gears and springs, powered so-called “tool watches.” These were forerunners of instead by rapidly oscillating quartz crystals, some the latest multifunctional wonders that can perform are capable of accuracy to one second in 1,000 years. not only all the tasks of timekeeping but monitor Ever-evolving smart watches are fully functional wrist the wearer’s heart rate, calorie consumption and computers as well as highly precise timekeepers. physical activity.

Beginning in the 1860s, mass production Among the most sought-after tools are dive began to make the smart watch of its day — a watches, specialized instruments that are reliable pocket watch that was affordable water-resistant to at least 100 meters (330 and practical as well as a status symbol and feet). Modern technology can produce fashion statement. Serious people with watches that function at a depth of serious obligations had schedules and more than 10,000 meters (6.2 miles). commitments. A watch was a key piece of That’s hardly necessary for even technology in making sure that important the most adventurous deep-sea things got done “on time.” explorer, but advances in technology Until the late 19th century, wrist watches, are often about extending boundaries often referred to as arm watches, were before their practical applications are considered pretty novelties to adorn developed. fashionable ladies. Pocket watches continued For the increasing number of collectors of to be the main and often the only piece of vintage dive watches, one iconic example is the jewelry owned by most men. Then came the Tornek-Rayville TR-900, produced for the masculine wristwatch revolution.

U. S. Navy in the mid-1960s to be used in combat As part of the mechanization of warfare, dive programs. Only about 1,000 were distributed, European military officers were required to wear and most were destroyed on government orders wristwatches, starting in the 1880s. This enabled The Tornek-Rayville TR-900 Dive them to keep both hands free for managing their Wristwatch (circa 1965), valued at $30,000 because the luminous dial presented a toxic hazard. equipment and made it possible to coordinate – $50,000, sold for $123,000 at Skinner Inc. A rare Cold War survivor still occasionally surfaces today. When it does, it can sell for as much as six maneuvers accurately without having to use signaling figures depending on condition. systems that could be visible to the enemy.

Vintage watches of all types, both tool and dress, are in the news By the end of World War I, wristwatches had definitely become a and in demand. The desire to own fine examples of wearable and guy thing. Increasingly complex and reliable, watches were mechanical practical technology shows no signs of slowing down. Treasures marvels in miniature. There were stopwatches and chronographs, can be hiding in plain sight, perhaps even in your own jewelry box extremely precise instruments for measuring and recording time or dresser drawer. Time travel can be rewarding in many ways. Take intervals. Timepieces incorporated functions telling the day of the week, the time to take a look. date, phases of the moon and other astronomical data.

For more, call 212-787-1114 or visit skinnerinc.com.

The quartz revolution of the 1960s radically changed watchmaking.

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SWEET SURRENDE

BY MARY SHUSTACK

THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS FILLED WITH SWEET REFERENCES, FROM THE CANDY CANES HANDED OUT BY SANTA CLAUS TO THOSE FABLED VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS. We say bring on the chocolate and in that spirit reached out to an award-winning Fairfield County chocolate company to share some thoughts on seasonal treats. Recently introduced to Bridgewater Chocolate through a generous (and delicious) thank-you gift, we knew the company would have the perfect perspective. gifts. Our luxurious chocolates packaged Erik Landegren established Bridgewater Chocolate in in holiday red or classic navy boxes make 1995. He had come to America in 1986 from Sweden as an impressive statement, and it’s nice to part of the team opening Aquavit, which would become a give a gift that is handmade right here in landmark Nordic-style restaurant in Manhattan. In time, Connecticut. We ship everything fresh from Landegren met his future wife, with the two moving to our chocolate factory in Brookfield and can Bridgewater in Litchfield County to raise their family. include a personalized note card.”

While running the Bridgewater Village Store, Landegren, who received his culinary education in Sweden, What makes chocolate (and the other candies began further indulging his passion for chocolate. you create) ideal for the holidays, both as gifts It was not just any chocolate but handmade chocoand to share with family and friends during late created with quality ingredients and the recipes of celebrations? his childhood. By 1999, growing demand led Lande“Chocolate is synonymous with happy celegren to partner with Andrew Blauner, who today still brations, both large and small. Our chocolates are manages the business side of Bridgewater Chocolate. always well received. We have so many wonderful And now, two decades later, Landegren and Blauner options for special gifts, small treats, thank you gifts, continue to create the Brookfield-based company’s and hostess gifts. People get really excited when you “American-style” premium chocolates, handmade arrive with a Bridgewater Chocolate gift bag. We have with European-quality ingredients and recipes. even had a few proposals with a ring hidden in a box As the holiday season at Bridgewater Chocoof our chocolates. We have something for everyone, late was kicking into high gear, Rose Hawthorne, crunchy, chewy, nutty, caramels, cookies, as well as regional retail sales manager, took some time to holiday molds such as snowmen, holiday trees, Santas, answer a few questions from WAG: dreidels and chocolate coins. Our large chocolate standing Santa makes a fabulous centerpiece. Over the past 25 How does the holiday season differ from years many families have created a holiday tradition that the rest of the year at Bridgewater Chocincludes Bridgewater Chocolate. We love to hear their stoolate? ries of how their traditions are being passed on to the next “The holiday season is absolutely the generation.” busiest time of year for us. People are so excited to visit our beautiful stores and What are some of the company’s all-time favorites and/or pick out the perfect gift for someone. We best-selling creations? also ship a large amount of corporate “Our most popular items are our pecan or almond Törtéls, in both milk and dark chocolate. They are also one of our very first creations. We roast the nuts and then coat them in our freshly made buttery chewy caramel and enrobe it in our creamy chocolate. Our buttercrunch hazelnut toffee is also a longtime favorite.”

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A nod to its history, the Bridgewater Chocolate logo, depicted above on a Bridgewater assortment box, features the Bridgewater Village Store, where it all began in a back kitchen; and inset, Bridgewater Chocolateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Standing Santa. Images courtesy Bridgewater Chocolate.

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What is new or in the spotlight for this season?

Can you hint at any new items or flavors that might be introduced in the new year?

“This holiday season we have our own Bridgewater Chocolate Hot Chocolate mix. It’s a delicious blend of cocoa and tiny bits of our chocolate that melt to create a decadent, thick, rich European-style hot chocolate. It’s the perfect treat on a cold snowy day. We also have our creamy crunchy peppermints and a peppermint bar returning for the winter season. A new item is our milk chocolate-covered Virginia Peanuts, which (are) addictively sweet and slightly salty. All of these make excellent stocking stuffers.

“In the coming year we are working on some new specialty chocolate bars in sophisticated flavors.”

On a bit of a personal note, if you had to pick, what would be your favorite among all the company offers — and how do you like to enjoy it?

“I love our dark chocolate pecan Törtéls with a nice cup of coffee — nutty, chewy, chocolatey goodness in every bite. Since I can’t pick just one favorite — our dark chocolate truffles are truly swoon worthy.”

For more, visit the Bridgewater Chocolate Factory Store in Brookfield, its retail shop in West Hartford or bridgewaterchocolate.com.

Peppermint bars from Bridgewater Chocolate.

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WANDERS

TIMELESS DESTINATIONS

BY JEREMY WAYNE

TRAVEL

“For things to remain the same, everything must change,” the Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote in his great novel “The Leopard.” That’s certainly the sense you get at the famous Fontainebleau Miami Beach, originally opened in 1954, with 6 acres of formal gardens designed to replicate Versailles. Following a $1 billion makeover a decade ago, the Fontainebleau is still up to date and boasts 1,500 rooms in 20 different categories. Its 12 restaurants include two from Michael Mina and a branch of the ritzy modern Chinese restaurant Hakkasan, while its BleauFish ocean-totable program has fish, lobster and Florida stone crabs delivered to a Water World — a collection of basement tanks beneath the kitchens, where they are kept fresh until the moment of cooking.

And yet the hotel still has an unmistakable 1950s/’60s vibe — Maurice Lapidus himself (the architect most associated with the “creation” of Miami Beach) almost stalking the corridors, the friendliest of ghosts, or James Bond playing cards with the villain Auric Goldfinger in the famous scene shot around the Fontainebleau’s then-only swimming pool.

Situated on 60 gorgeous Napa Valley acres, a half hour drive from San Francisco, Poetry Inn by contrast has only five bedrooms, but also exudes a sense of timelessness. Its rock ’n’ roll vibe and exceptional modern art and sculpture collection — reflecting owner Cliff Lede’s passions — are at once a throwback but also in the here and now. With the inn’s on-site winery, its sumptuous three-course gourmet breakfasts and spa treatments in which the Cliff Lede Vineyards’ Cabernet Sauvignon is incorporated into the luxurious spa treatments, this very cool hotel is up-to-theminute.

Time has not dimmed the appeal of Vienna’s celebrated Hotel Sacher (founded in 1876), but rather added to its luster. Famed for its Sachertorte chocolate cake, the hotel kitchen retains a dedicated “egg-cracker,” who cracks 7,000 eggs a day for the production of this worldrenowned confection. Two hours away by high-speed train, the Sacher’s sister hotel, also Hotel Sacher but in Salzburg, effortlessly mixes old world charm with contemporary comfort.

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In the country of watches, where time is of the essence, there is always something new and fashionable happening in Switzerland. But technology and transportation doesn’t stand still either. The newly inaugurated Glacier Express railroad now connects the world-famous ski resort of St. Moritz in the Engandine with tony Zermatt, lying below the Matterhorn, and there can be no more thrilling way to see the most stunning parts of the Swiss Alps in all their snowy glory. It’s an irony, perhaps, that Switzerland, the highest, most mountainous country in Europe, is often “overlooked,” in favor of higher-profile neighbors, France and Italy.

But with lakes and mountains galore, superb food, outstanding wines, handsome cities and charming small towns — not to mention the finest skiing in Europe — Switzerland has it all. Many jokes have been cracked at the expense of this time-conscious nation, but in the cultural

Clockwise from above: Cielomar at Viceroy Los Cabos.

Courtesy Viceroy Los Cabos; front view of Hotel Sacher, Wien, Rigaud. Courtesy Hotel Sacher, Wien; and Walt Whitman Bedroom with a view, the Poetry Inn. Courtesy the Poetry Inn.

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and political chaos that characterizes present-day Europe, it is the industrious, peaceable and fiscally sound Swiss who — to misquote Liberace — are crying all the way to their very many banks.

If it’s lakes and mountains you’re after but without the snow, there is an almost palpable timelessness to the loughs and drumlins that Ireland has in abundance. The Emerald Isle is not short of castles and grand houses, either, many of them now converted into luxury hotels. The recently-restored Adare Manor boasts 104 rooms, with a clubhouse and cinema and the only La Mer spa in Ireland.

Just 30 minutes from Shannon Airport, served by Delta, United and Aer Lingus out of New York, Adare is eminently doable for a three-day long weekend.

Worldwide, new hotels are opening apace. Marriott, the world’s largest hotel company, opens a hotel somewhere in the world every 14 hours. However, only seven of its 31 brands qualify as luxury. At the top end, the pick of the recent crop would have to include a new St. Regis hotel in Toronto and another in Hong Kong. In West Hollywood and Times Square, meanwhile, new Edition hotels combine the best big-city hotel characteristics with a slightly edgy undertone, and new Marriott-run Ritz-Carlton properties in South Beach, Scottsdale and Muscat (Oman) are none too shabby, either.

If the jet set has called time on Acapulco and Puerto

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Vallarta, both conjuring up images of bygone glamour, the crown has undoubtedly passed to Los Cabos in Mexico. Restrained, high-end development has meant this smart, dual-destination (the towns of San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas) has acquired world-class hotels and restaurants, while cleverly managing to retain some real Mexican charm. As for the choice of hotels, it is staggering, with Four Seasons, Aman, hip Soho House, the very swish Viceroy and a new Ritz-Carlton all competing — or about to compete — for your business.

Just as there is a time for hedonism, there is a time, too, for quiet and reflective travel. Introspection is about to shift up a gear in Goa, India, in an 18thcentury mansion and private residence. MansionHaus, where elements of European and Indian culture will be fused, is the reimagination of a luxurious private experience, for guests who are united in their passion to “create, exchange and impact the world around them.” Guests can also join visiting artists and hear talks by international and local inspirational speakers, with content that will range from neuroscience to politics, economics to philanthropy and technology to wellness.

Sound terrifying? Then relax, because MansionHaus is not only a cerebral journey. Guests can also join in with visiting chefs at the in-house cooking school or request an in-room spa expert to tailor their treatments.

In the world of 21st-century travel, there is time for everything, and everything in its own good time.

TRAVEL

WANDERS

Saratoga Arms.

Courtesy Saratoga Arms.

HAVEN OF HISTORY

BY BARBARA BARTON SLOANE Saratoga Springs, a city enhanced by health, wealth and racing, was first and foremost a place blessed with nourishing mineral springs, to be enjoyed in any season.

These magical waters were undiscovered until 1771 when a British general attributed the cure of his leg wound to High Rock Spring. Post-revolution, this site became a refuge for luminaries ranging from George Washington to Alexander Hamilton.

When steamboats began plying the Hudson, a gambling casino on Saratoga Lake drew a different crowd to the town. Today, Saratoga Springs is a mecca of sports and culture, ranked in the top 10 of places to live in New York.

Thoroughbreds thunder down the stretch of the Saratoga Race Course, while the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra both make the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) their summer home. Popular performing artists play to sold-out audiences, which also enjoy such annual events as the Saratoga Wine & Food Festival and the Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival.

The Wine & Food Festival happily coincided with my Saratoga Springs visit this past October. The festival is SPAC’s largest fundraiser, benefiting its educational

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program that has under President and CEO Elizabeth Sobol, grown from serving 5,000 students to more than 49,000 in a mere four years. I was delighted to learn more about this worthy organization and, of course, to attend the weekend’s most happy place — its 19th annual Saratoga Wine & Food Festival.

This year the festival highlighted two main events — a new farm-to-table harvest dinner and a “grand tasting” the next day. Using locally sourced ingredients and the finest wines curated locally and globally, this proved to be a tantalizing feast for the senses — all presented in a beautiful setting overlooking the opulent Saratoga Spa State Park reflecting pool.

What a treat it was to be a guest at Saratoga Arms, a beautifully restored Second Empire hotel. In the 1950s the 1870 property was run as a rooming house. In 1997, it was purchased by Kathleen and Noel Smith, who were involved in the day-to-day planning and oversight of the extensive renovation that reopened in 1999 as a luxury inn. A delightful feature here is the wide wraparound Saratoga porch that welcomed and invited me to relax and people-watch on the town’s main street, Broadway.

Naturally I could not visit Saratoga Springs — this haven of history and hydrotherapy — without partaking in an iconic mineral bath, so it was off to the Roosevelt Baths and Spa. Established in 1935, the resort owes its life to President Franklin Roosevelt’s visionary act of preserving the area’s famed springs. I had a private soak in some naturally effervescent waters while being attended to by a professional staff.

Transformed, revitalized and refreshed, I was ready for a fun evening at the historic Caffè Lena. As the longest running venue of its kind — the Library of Congress has called it “an American treasure” — it has been recognized by the Grammy Foundation for its important contributions to the development of American music. That said, Caffè Lena is proud to stay true to Lena, its founder, whose vision was of simplicity, kindness to strangers and art above profit. The place has a warm, intimate feel — a sweet end to a day filled with fine weather, warm water and some happy folk music.

During my Saratoga stay, I brunched at an appealing restaurant housed in The Adelphi Hotel, which opened its doors in 1877 to well-heeled vacationers seeking the lap of luxury among the natural spas and springs that made Saratoga a resort. Prominent politicians met with movers and shakers of the day at The Adelphi bar as the hotel was once considered the hub of the town’s society. Through a $28 million makeover, this paragon of 19th-century hospitality has recently been reborn and welcomed me to dine in its pretty sun-splashed conservatory restaurant, The Blue Hen. During the holiday season, Saratoga Springs’ main thoroughfares are lined with iconic seasonal fairy lights and decorations. Broadway has a massive wreath at Adirondack Trust Co. and there are gorgeous window displays at G. Willikers. Beekman Street, cozy and quaint all year long, is transformed into its own little happy world. Kids will love seeing the Saratoga Springs Fire Station lit up in a variety of hues as well as the illuminated wonderland that is North

Broadway’s historic district of lovely Victorian homes.

No matter the season, pure pleasure can be found simply strolling along Broadway lined with a mile or so of some of America’s most beautiful 19th-century asymmetrical mansions, all in mint condition. Some are brightly colored, some turreted, others with widow’s walks and bay windows of stained glass. With Gothic Revival, Queen Anne and Italianate elements, Saratoga Springs is not unlike a Hollywood street set for “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

Only here authenticity rules — and that’s just the way we like it.

For more, visit discoversaratoga.org, SaratogaArms.com, theadelphihotel.com, CaffeLena.org, gideonputnam.com and spac.org.

DECEMBER 2019

Charcuterie board.

Courtesy Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

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WANDERS

GLOBAL GIFTS

BY DEBBI KICKHAM

TRAVEL

I’ve scoured the world and discovered some fabulous finds. Read on to discover why three out of three wise men (and women) will love these holiday surprises: A highbrow affair — Piret Aava is her name — and A-list celebrity eyebrows are her game. With locations in Manhattan — and Port Chester — Piret is your “goto-gal” for the ultimate in wow brows. She’s called the Eyebrow Doctor, and she offers microblading gift certificates for the gal (or guy) in your life whose brows have become pretty scarce. The result is oh-so-natural, and you will love how naturally they accent your eyes. $2,000 in New York City; $1,200 in Port Chester. Eyebrowdoctor.com.

“I wonder as I wander” — When you deplane, are the bags under your eyes as big as your luggage? Say adieu with Wander Beauty’s Baggage Claim Rose Gold Eye Masks. These teeny treats for your eyes feature rose gold to allow their serums to penetrate your skin more deeply, while cellulose fibers deliver hyaluronic acid. These will make your bon voyage even better. (Or just get your favorite the $49 Airplane Mode skincare kit of five mini multitaskers that are totally ready for takeoff. Set of six masks, $25. Wanderbeauty.com.

Everything’s coming up roses. Dazzle the ones you love with the lavish Lennox Grand Luxury Box of 36 perfectly arranged and naturally preserved real roses ready to display the moment you open the box.

These roses are treated with a plant-based formula that preserves their beauty for three years without water or maintenance. It’s the perfect combination of beauty and worry-free luxury that makes an ideal gift for the flower lover in your life. $410. Eternalroses.com.

Wave goodbye — How about a holiday gift for the hair product lover in your life? Whether the hair is wavy, curly or as coily as St. Nick’s beard, RevAir makes this the most WAND-erful time of the year. The RevAir Reverse-Air Dryer is the ultimate gift for people who want soft, sleek hair without straighteners that singe or the recurring expense of keratin treatments. The Wand is where the magic (and science) go to work, drying and straightening hair in a single hassle-free step, yet three times faster and with less than half the heat of traditional methods. $429 for the device and accessory bundle.

Myrevair.com.

French-kissed surprise — Inspired by Les Treize Desserts (The Thirteen Desserts) holiday tradition in Provence, this inimitable advent calendar provides 13 days of beauty surprises featuring mini sizes and deluxe samples of Bastide’s best-selling, plant-focused products.

Made in France by haute hair stylist Frederic Fekkai and his wife, Shirin von Wulffen, the sampler offers the earthy

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Piret Aava is the Figue Amour fragrance in a travel-ready size; perfume Port Chester-based samples; mini sizes of body wash; and much more. $140.

“Eyebrow Doctor” Bastide.com. who offers A-list microbladed eyebrows.

The road trip to gorgeous — Leave it to the savvy folks at Benefit Cosmetics to come up with a clever-ascan-be mini metal camper so you can be as beautiful as you want on the go. “Road Trip To Gorgeous,” in the little purple trailer, features a powder-pink blusher; BADGal mascara; 24-hour brow setter; and a Pore Professional silky soft-radiance booster to minimize the look of pores. I give it an A+ for Absolutely Adorable. $50. Benefitcosmetics.com.

Perfect polo — As seen on TV’s “Shark Tank,” Baobab shirts (named after the tree of life in Africa) are designed to be the best polo shirt on the market. Made with luxury pima cotton and collars that will never curl up, the polos have a special nanotechnology to ward off stains, wrinkles and odors and were designed by entrepreneurs as everyday work attire. Short-sleeved versions are $95. The perfect gift for the man in your life. Baobabclothing.com.

For more, visit debbikickham.com.

Seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Greetings

VINCENT

& WHITTEM ORE R EAL E STATE

629 O L D PO ST R OAD, BEDFO RD, N E W YO RK

|

914.234.3642

|

VIN W HIT. CO M

WONDERFUL DINING

LOUD AND PROUD IN PELHAM

BY JEREMY WAYNE

FOOD & SPIRITS

Since The New York Times’ recent hatchet job on Peter Luger, steak seems to be on everybody’s mind. No restaurant polarizes carnivores like Peter Luger. You’re either for or against the Brooklyn institution. I’m firmly in the against camp since paying a bill of $500 last year for two salads, two steaks and a bottle of bog-standard Cab, which included a tip of $50 for the maître d’ — a bribe by any other name — to honor our reservation time and not impose the hour-long delay that the host stand was quoting to its other booked guests.

So, when I heard about Macelleria, a new steakhouse in Pelham, where the vibe promised to be New Yorkhot but the prices would be fairly chill, I was there.

“The concept,” says Macelleria (butcher in Italian) owner Tony Lala, “was to bring the city experience to Pelham. We are very reasonable with the prices, so I want people to come in seven days a week.”’

Macelleria is the kind of restaurant that barely exists any more — white tablecloths, servers in long white aprons and bowties and a waiter who looks at you as if you come from Mars when you ask him if the baked clams come with garlic. Cierto, of course they come with garlic — and lots of it. They are also almost indecently plump, baked with breadcrumbs, served piping hot and completely wonderful.

The tables at Macelleria are big, very big, all the better to eat lots of food. The country bread and cold white butter has me right there in a Tuscan kitchen, a sense

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Macelleria is the kind of restaurant that still features classic touches, such as white tablecloths and attentive service.

Photographs by Tony Lala.

of place enhanced by the general mood.

Italy is in the air. At the table on my left, the party of six is talking about their day out at Capri’s blue grotto last summer.

At the table on my right, also of six, they are talking about their stay in Positano.

Actually, they are not talking, they are shouting, very, very loudly. And yes, there are a lot of tables of six on a Saturday night at Macelleria and there is also a lot of pushing and shoving. In order to bus dishes to the two back tables in the small side room where I am seated, waiters must line up in single file and pass the plates along like a production. I kid you not.

Now the table to my left is talking about Assisi and, on the right, they are recounting their experiences at the famous Palio of Siena. I’m touring Italy without leaving my seat. Tony is a little busy for any meaningful table talk this evening, but he does stop by from time to time to apologize for not stopping, if you catch my drift, and to ask me how I’m doing. I’m doing just fine, thank you Tony, glugging Pinot Grigio and coming to grips with a dish of fried calamari. Tony’s going to be turning 200 covers tonight and small talk is off the agenda.

The calamari have been shaken in salt and lack the lightness in the batter and the piping heat that can elevate these cephalopod rings from being just another variety of rubber band.

Service tonight is frankly abysmal. A simple Diet Coke arrives, only after the fourth request and a second glass of wine never does. But to nitpick the service is somehow to miss the point of Macelleria.

There is wonderful burrata, sweet and milky, made tangy with a pinch of sea salt and a pasta fagioli soup to warm the cockles, or whatever it is these big, hearty

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wintry soups warm. But it’s really in the meaty entrées that Macelleria shines, braised short ribs over mushroom risotto, for instance, or flavorful New York strip steak or a blushing veal chop adorned with little more than a disc of maître d’hôtel butter.

As for the double lamb chops, four on the plate and enough to feed an army, they are superb. Served pink and tender, seductively fleshy, with a vincotto sauce, they’re the kind of chops on which Peter Luger’s reputation was made.

A side of whipped potato feels luxurious and decadent, like spooning heavy cream straight from the carton. Fingerlickin’ good, I’m grateful for the butcher-style heavy cloth napkins, provided for the mop-up.

When Tony stops by the table to ask about desserts, “Non posso,” I tell him.

“Aha, so you speak Italian,” he says. “No, not really, just a few words,” I answer. “Same as me,” Tony says. “I’m not even Italian. I’m from Albania.”

Our Italian inadequacy secret shared and noted, Tony twists my arm to try a dessert after all, and I go for the unItalian sounding tres leches cake. It’s pleasant enough, if a little slack, the whole no greater than the sum of the three milk parts. By contrast, at neighboring tables I’m hearing oohs and aahs for the crème brûlée and tiramisù.

With its chocolate box pictures of Italy, pen-and-ink drawing of the Duomo in Milan and borderline-kitsch, boudoir chandeliers, Macelleria (on the site of the former Jordan Hall) is not going to win prizes for its decoration,

The Bar at Macelleria.

but it has the advantage if looking as if it has been here forever, which is reassuring. And in addition to its 1950s retro trattoria chic, cooking-wise it wipes the floor with some of the region’s older established steakhouses. In my view the only thing militating against this new arrival is the noise. But then again, if you can’t stand the noise, stay out of the centro storico.

Macelleria is at 142 Fifth Ave. in Pelham. For reservations and more, call 914-365-2561 or visit macelleriaitaliansteakhouse.com

Discover IL FORNO Italian Kitchen & Bar Where Good Vibes meet Italian Inspired Cuisine!

Enjoy a Classic & Crafty Cocktail.

Have your perfect experience!

LUNCH AND DINNER Tuesday - Sunday 343 Route 202, Somers, NY 10589 (914) 277-7575 www.ilfornosomers.com

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Private Events and Catering

E R OA R I N

G

2 0’

N

TH

S

SI

CE

MUSCOOT TAVERN

EXPERIENCE

“MUSCOOT” and discover what everyone is talking about!

Enjoy our cozy tavern where it’s always lively and cheerful!

Our famous Mussels Muscoot, juicy lamb chops, and jumbo, Day Boat scallops have kept our customers coming back time and time again.

Stop in and experience the charm of this historic eatery...

a neighborhood favorite since the roaring 20s.

914 • 232 • 2800

Open for lunch & dinner 7 days a week.

HAPPY HOUR daily from 4-6 and again from 9-11 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

www.muscoottavern.com • 105 Somerstown Turnpike, Katonah, NY 10536

J’ADORE COCO J’ADORE

FOOD & SPIRITS

BY JEREMY WAYNE

“Waiter, waiter, do you have frog’s legs? “ No, madam, it’s just the way I walk.” Well, the old jokes are not always the best and, besides, at Coco J’Adore, Manhattan’s Meatpacking District’s hottest, most adorable new bistro and late-night bar, they do indeed serve frog legs, and rather scrumptious legs they are, too.

(Note to would-be frog legs eaters everywhere: No, frog legs do not taste like chicken. They taste like mild baby goat with a touch of salmon, but don’t let that put you off.)

Coco’s menu is in fact a patchwork of the Mediterranean. Italian gnocchi, for instance, come with a distinctly Spanish sounding “gremolada” and even Belgium rears its small but gastronomically adept head in a dish of moules marinières served with French fries — which, as everyone knows, owe their gustatory etymology to the Belgians, not the French.

Barely a single dish escapes this cross-breeding, this mélange. Baked St. Marcellin cheese — itself a sensory throwback to the 1970s — is served with an Italian “bagna cauda,” that wonderful anchovy-based sauce, which the Piemontese of northwest Italy have got down to a fine art.

It is umami overload, although, if I’m being honest (as every restaurant critic must be), it is not a match made in heaven.

What Coco J’Adore has, and make no mistake it has it in spades, is chutzpah — French chutzpah, Italian chutzpah, a bit of Spanish and Catalan and a lot of Mediterranean chutzpah. But you know what? It works. Because while any old stuffed-shirt can be a food purist, it takes an original

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thinker, like owner Mario Carta, and an original doer, like chef Simone Venturini, to pull together a menu so disparate you might wince at first glance but which tastes so good in the actual preparation that soon you actually want to sing.

(Except in the case of the St. Marcellin and bagna cauda, that is. In that case I’m afraid it’s a dirge.)

Add wonderful lighting, bright white globes or gilt chandeliers that look like a cross between an exploding bombette firework and a disco ball, and the party really starts to heat up. Add performance artists and guest DJs and a late-night crowd that is, ahem, easy on the eye and the mood starts to sizzle. The decoration is as pastiche as the food, and all the better for it. Exposed brick walls sit happily alongside gilt-stenciled wooden posts. Pert little gilt chairs stand stiffly and primly at attention. Made rather saucy with their fretwork backs and frou-frou feathered pillows, these chairs seem equally as inviting as the Art Deco-style club armchairs across the room. Oh, good gracious, is there any end to the loveliness of Coco J’Adore?

Carta, a longtime New York restaurateur whose name has been behind favorites like Chouchou, Casimir and Pardon My French, has always known the secret of tickling his customers’ fancy, but at Coco J’Adore he has outdone himself. That floor-to-ceiling entryway of pale pink roses just made for daring dalliance. Those sea-green velvet booths, just made for liaisons dangereuses.

The French, I feel sure, must indeed have a word for it, but whatever that word is, it is far too deliciously improper to print in a family magazine.

For more, visit cocorestaurantnyc.com.

Coco J’Adore interior. Courtesy Coco J’Adore.

For the Holidays

We Have Exactly What Your Craving! Sensational food and the coziest place to settle in and savor it all. Experience our stunning variety of the freshest seafood, steaks, chops and pasta selections.

Happy Hour daily from 3-6 Lunch & Dinner 7 days a week Sunday Brunch 11:30-3:00

914 â&#x20AC;˘ 218 â&#x20AC;˘ 3877 222 East Main Street, Mt Kisco

COFFEE BREAK WITH THE ESPRESSO GUYS

BY JEREMY WAYNE

FOOD & SPIRITS

Oded Bahar is a man on the move. From Queens to Pleasantville to Ossining and Tuckahoe — where he is currently settled with his wife and two young sons — Bahar is as peripatetic as his coffee carts.

A former barista who has always been “surrounded by coffee,” Bahar took a sustainability trip to Costa Rica when he was working for Nespresso in Long Island City that compounded an already nearobsessive interest in the bean. “Nespresso works with the Rainforest Alliance,” Bahar says, “and their coffee farmers have to adhere to a set of over 100 rules, including no pesticides, with everything environmentally friendly and sustainable. Even the distance between the bushes is regulated.”

He came up with the model for his coffee cart when he saw something similar in California — this is not copying, I remind him, merely “borrowing with pride” — and cofounded The Espresso Guys as a partnership with two mates from Pace University, Charlie Piccoli and Hamid Ghiasian. Together they planned out the business and built the cart, which is basically a 6-foot-long bar on wheels.

“Well, Hamid actually did most of the building. He’s the practical one,” Bahar says with a smile. “And Charlie?” I ask.

Piccoli, I gather, is something of an elder statesman.

The Guys officially launched in January, garnering business from wedding expos in White Plains and Tarrytown. Another show, at The Thayer Hotel at West Point, extended the reach beyond Westchester County.

While the mainstay of the business is weddings and showers, there is literally no event for which The Espresso Guys can’t be hired. They have done bar and bat mitzvahs, sweet 16s, quincineras, birthday parties (from a 1st birthday to a 75th,) corporate events, company holiday parties, and charitable events. The guys and their carts — there are now two, along with help from Bahar’s wife and local baristas — have been present at fundraisers for pancreatic cancer, Crohn’s disease and cystic fibrosis. (WAG first encountered them at a Bloomingdale’s White Plains event.)

The Espresso Guys – Charlie Piccoli, Oded Bahar and Hamid Ghiasian.

Photograph by Kayla Rice.

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Stepping Stones Museum for Children

NOVEMBER 26 – JANUARY 5, 2020 Stepping Stones Museum for Children • Norwalk, CT

It’s the most wonderful time of the year at Stepping Stones Museum for Children as the museum brings light to learning during its annual Worldwide Lights Celebration.

Every Day Fun!

• Light shows using 3D laser technology • Light STEAM Stations • The Amazing Light Maze •And More!

And WOW! there’s more…

Santa Sightings – Take a photo with Santa November 29 – December 24, 11:15 am • 1:15 pm daily The Silly Dilly Musical: Holiday Edition November 30, 11:00 am • 2:00 pm December 23, 9:30 am • 11:00 am • 2:00 pm Nutcracker Suite December 7, 11:00 am • 12:30 pm • 2:00 pm Noon O’clock Rock December 31, 10:30 am – 1:00 pm

Memberships Make Great Gifts With membership, your family has access all year long for just the price of a few solo visits!

Plan your visit today! steppingstonesmuseum.org 203 899 0606, ext. 0

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The Guys have also been hired by luxury apartment building managers who offer curated coffee free to residents on an occasional basis as an amenity benefit.

One company, which manages 20 properties in Manhattan, retains the Guys and rotates them through the buildings.

Not every venue is ideal, however, and the partners are still discovering their ideal market. “We did the Hudson Valley Ribfest back in August,” Bahar says, “and it was exhausting.

A three-day event with really long hours, standing all day — and nobody wanted coffee. They only wanted to drink beer.”

Most fun was a recent event at One Riverside Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where the Guys set up at a fall festival for kids. Bahar brought his elder son, Noah, aged 2 1/2. Noah enjoyed seeing his dad at work on the stand, serving customers and making “latte art.” (Hearts, incidentally, bring an instant smile, and pictures go straight on to Instagram — good for business.) Later in the evening on the day we meet, the Guys were ready to brew at another wedding show to promote the company, this one at Citi Field, an event they were all really looking forward to.

When all three Guys are on the cart, Bahar and Ghiasian do the brewing, while Piccoli acts as greeter, doing the kibitzing. Although no beverage should take longer than a couple of minutes to make (each one is made to order, the beans ground on the cart), lines build up, but the waiting time goes more quickly if the guests have someone to chat to. “There’s an initial rush, which takes a while to clear,” Bahar says. “We’re not magicians, but most people seem happy to wait a bit.”

Most popular coffee? “Actually mocha. It’s popular yearround, although at this time of year we also serve a lot of pumpkin and white chocolate.” The menu on the cart runs the gamut, though, from espresso through Americano to cappuccino and even hot cocoa, the coffees served either hot or iced.

While none has the intention of quitting their day jobs just yet (Bahar holds down a full-time job at Heineken in White Plains and Piccoli and Ghiasian both work in the financial industry), the five- to 10-year plan includes franchising. In the immediate future, meanwhile, there are plans for a third cart in the spring of 2020.

We’ll drink a double espresso to that.

For more, visit espressoguys.com.

I FEEL SO POWERLESS. WE HAVE TO WATCH HER EVERY MINUTE. FAMILY AND FRIENDS STOPPED COMING AROUND. HE KEEPS SAYING: “THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME.” IT’S DESTROYING OUR FAMILY. I FEEL SO GUILTY WE HAVE TO MOVE HER INTO A HOME. IT’S SO HARD TO CARE FOR SOMEONE WHO’S MEAN TO YOU. HE HIDES THINGS ALL THE TIME. I’M GRIEVING THE LOSS OF SOMEONE WHO’S STILL ALIVE. WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START.

LIVING WITH FTD IS HARD. LIVING WITHOUT HELP IS HARDER. THERE’S COMFORT IN FINDING OTHERS WHO UNDERSTAND. WE FINALLY FOUND A DOCTOR WHO GETS IT. I GOT SO MUCH ADVICE FROM OTHER CAREGIVERS. UNDERSTANDING MORE HELPS ME DEAL WITH HER SYMPTOMS. SEEING THAT OTHERS MADE IT THROUGH, I KNEW I COULD TOO. WE HONOR HIM BY ADVOCATING FOR A CURE. NOW I’M BETTER AT ASKING FOR HELP. NO MATTER HOW BAD IT GETS, WE KNOW WE’RE NOT ALONE. It can feel so isolating and confusing from the start: Just getting a diagnosis of FTD takes 3.6 years on average. But no family facing FTD should ever have to face it alone, and with your help, we’re working to make sure that no one does.

The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) is dedicated to a world without FTD, and to providing help and support for those living with this disease today. Choose to bring hope to our families: www.theAFTD.org/learnmore

WINE & DINE

BUYING BURGUNDIES WITHOUT THE HASSLE

BY DOUG PAULDING

FOOD & SPIRITS

Buying wine is always an adventure, with the safety of the known or allure of the unknown often driving decisions.

There are so many options for finding your next tasting experience. There are small boutique stores with a knowledgeable trusted guide to steer you. There are the mega-stores with descriptive cards on many of the bottles and maybe a few staff members who will offer sound advice.

There are direct winery websites with the story of the winery and their wines available for shipping. And there are wine clubs promoted by newspapers and many magazines that offer suggestions on wine regions, wine styles or particular price points. I just discovered something new and exciting. Full disclosure. The Burgundy region, south and east of Paris has always held a particular attraction for me. If I had to pick one red grape wine as a personal favorite, it would be a well-made Pinot Noir from Burgundy. And, of course, the whites from Burgundy are often sophisticated and nuanced and wonderful. Secondly, Creative Palate Communications, a local public relations operation in the wine industry, reached out to me as a media person to test drive this website wine buying experience and taste its wines, gratis.

Decades ago, American-born Eleanor Garvin and Dennis Sherman (El + Den, hence Elden Selections), were smitten with French culture and cuisine and decided to visit France and then ultimately to move there to pursue their passion for food and wine. They began Elden Selections in 1992 and have been enhancing and fine-tuning their operation and delivering quality wine since then. Their website is easy and informative with the story of each of the 30 different producers they are now representing, all known to them, with face-to-face tastings on location a regular experience. Burgundy can be confusing. There are more than 10,000 individual growers. The Napoleonic Code made equal inheritance among offspring law,

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so a vineyard, over a few generations, could be subdivided and owned by many, some owning as little as an individual grape row. It wouldn’t be possible to make commercial wine with such a small plot of grapes. It is more the norm of the region to contribute the grapes to a négociant or winemaker to produce a wine for market.

I have travelled to many of the world’s wine regions and I have been to hundreds of regional wine tastings in New York.

Of course, all the known wines have their exporting business established and well lubricated. There are many wineries of the world looking to expand into other markets. To reach the U.S. market from abroad, they need to locate a licensed U.S. importer and distributor. It always surprises me how many good producers are trying to pry into the U.S. market and are having difficulties getting in. Elden Selections has found these boutique and possibly unrepresented producers from various subregions of Burgundy. They agree to terms, ship to the U.S. and promote these wines on a user-friendly web platform that makes finding a quality Burgundy a breeze. On the site, you will find producer stories, wine descriptives, pricing and shipping information. Shipping is always free when you order at least a case and Elden’s return policy is top-notch.

No questions asked, complete refund for anything less than complete satisfaction.

Most wine clubs, like old record or CD clubs, require regular and often monthly, orders. Elden Selections have no minimum requirements. Simply log on and buy as needed. This is especially convenient for city dwellers, who might not own a car or who would rather not schlep many bottles of wine from store to domicile. And a few middle men have been excised from this business model so much more of your money goes directly to the quality of the wine.

Eleanor and Dennis live in Burgundy and have purchased and renovated The Domaine de Cromey, near Beaune in the heart of Burgundy production. The Domaine de Cromey is a luxury manor house in a gorgeous setting in the French countryside with authentic and comfortable living areas and elaborate and sumptuous guest rooms available for booking.

Eleanor is a trained chef and will create a menu to enhance and accent any of the day’s activities.

On the website, there are videos of Dennis interviewing producers of the wine that you may want to order. There are production videos that will give an up-close look at the inner workings of a small production vineyard and winery. And, of course, there are the wines to order. Or you can order a six-bottle starter kit of three reds and three whites, certain to change over time. If nothing else, there is a Burgundy education here. And with a comprehensive guarantee, there is nothing to lose.

For more, visit burgundywine.com and in particular this video at burgundywine.com/About-Burgundy/Video, among the best I’ve seen on this subject. Write me at doug@ dougpaulding.com.

We brought the best pediatric specialists closer to you.

The newly opened Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Pediatric Specialty Center brings top specialists to one convenient Greenwich location. From allergies to cancer treatment, your child will be cared for by specialists from a children’s hospital that ranks among the best in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. In addition, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital physicians provide 24/7 emergency services and onsite care for children at Greenwich Hospital. Everything your child could need from our top ranked children’s hospital is now close by. ynhch.org

YNHH-5926 CHPediatric9x10.875R2.indd 1

11/12/18 4:

WELL

LESSENING THE PRESENCE OF SCARS

BY JIE CHEN In the annals of human development, the body’s ability to form scars was an evolutionary breakthrough — its means of surviving life-threatening skin wounds. But in the modern world, scars can be barriers to optimal health, bringing distress and discomfort, especially if the scar is large or prominent or inhibits movement.

The process may appear simple: Following a serious wound — due to accident, surgery, acne or disease — our skin goes through a healing process that gradually reveals a new surface — sometimes raised, sometimes pitted, often redder than the surrounding area. Scars are patches that our body creates as quickly as possible for protection. But our system’s focus on a fast fix means that the rebuild lacks our skin’s original structures and appearance. The result can be distressing. And large scars — especially in the case of burns — can interfere with movement, in particular if the scarred area affects joints.

On its surface, scar formation may seem straightforward, but researchers today are uncovering complex processes that cooperate to allow our skin to repair itself. The body orchestrates a cascade of interrelated cellular responders

HEALTH & FITNESS

Once permanent marks, scars are now being minimized and even eliminated with new treatments.

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that coordinate to avoid infection and rebuild. Recent research is giving us a more nuanced understanding of the processes in play — which offers exciting possibilities for treating scars.

With that in mind, I make the following observations: • Wound “tension” plays an even bigger role: We’ve known that relaxing tension across a wound is essential to minimizing scarring. But we’re getting a better understanding of just how significant tension-reducing dressings and surgical techniques can be. New research shows that tension triggers biochemical responses that cause additional scar tissue to form. New ways of dressing wounds — like the embrace device which continuously reduces strain on the tissue — and specialized surgical techniques for scar removal can encourage healthy skin renewal and lessen scar formation.

• For laser repair, get on the right wavelength: Lasers offer a dual means of minimizing scars. They can redesign the scar’s “fast fix” by reorganizing collagen to improve the surface. They also can reduce the inflammation and blood vessels that give some scars a red appearance. We know that using the correct wavelength — whether via a CO2 laser, NdYAG, or Fraxel — is key to the desired outcome, whether it’s evening the surface or the pigment.

• New treatments can help our skin help itself: For large scars, especially due to burns, we’re seeing breakthroughs that can reduce extensive skin grafts. Skin-cell research has resulted in treatments such as the recently FDA-approved “ReCell,” where doctors take a small section of the patient’s healthy skin and break it down into its component cells: fibroblasts, keratinocytes, melanocytes. Those cells are then used to formulate a spray-on skin treatment that can repopulate a much, much larger surface area.

• Retuning the body’s responses may build new skin: Today’s research offers a entryway to healthy skin regeneration. We have an understanding of the cellular processes involved in the body’s response to wounds. Some cellular responses trigger scarring; others increase healthy skin renewal, with normal structures such as hair follicles and glands. If we can “turn off” the scarring stimuli and “turn on” regeneration processes, we can take a major step forward in scarless healing. We offer patients advanced Microneedling Treatments, including the collagen pin and Intensif, which help tremendously with scars and anti-aging.

• Specialized superhealers come to the rescue: In certain cases serious wounds heal with no scars: Fetal surgeries show scarless healing. Likewise wounds inside our mouths.

Certain animals also offer models: The covering on a reindeer’s antlers — remarkably similar to human skin — can rebuild itself. Identifying the unique cellular characteristics involved in these examples provides clues to promoting new skin rather than scarring.

The research happening now offers the possibility of building on evolution’s solution to skin damage, replacing scarring with actual renewal.

Jie Chen, RPA-C is a certified physician assistant, through the National Commission of Certification of Physician Assistants, with Advanced Dermatology PC and the Center for Laser and Cosmetic Surgery (New York & New Jersey).

For more, visit advanceddermatologypc.com.

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THE LITTLE WELLNESS EXTRAS

BY GIOVANNI ROSELLI

Most comments I receive regarding my fitness level pertain only to the actual exercise portion of my life. “Oh, well you exercise all the time” and “…It’s because you exercise so much.” The fact is, I’ve been able to keep and maintain a high fitness level not solely because of what I’m doing inside the gym, but also outside of it.

Don’t get me wrong, the exercise portion of our lives is still obviously very important.

But there are many things I do behind the scenes that I personally believe are just as important than the exercise part. How can you make improvements to your health other than physically exercising? Below are some of my “secrets” that I rotate through on a weekly basis which play a major role in my ability to stay fit, as well as recover not only from exercise but from life.

WARM EPSOM SALT BATH PLUS COLD SHOWER

HEALTH & FITNESS

Magnesium sulfate, a pure time-tested mineral compound otherwise known as Epsom salt, helps relax muscles and also helps stabilize mood and relive stress, anxiety and depression. The actual supplement magnesium is often in most conversations when it comes to muscle recovery, joint pain relief and sleep aids.

At least once a week (hopefully more) I make it a point to soak in an Epsom salt bath. I look forward to this very much, and often immediately jump into a cold shower after the bath for the hot/ cold one-two punch. A cold shower, although something to get accustomed to, has myriad benefits that include improvement in circulation, lymphatic system drainage and even can potentially increase testosterone. I will hit this combo right before bed and sleep like a baby.

COMPRESSION THERAPY The NormaTec Recovery System helps maximize recovery using sequential pulse technology. It is available for the legs, hips and arms and I often rotate through these three depending on if I feel something

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“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”

– Jimmy Johnson, former Dallas Cowboys coach and “Fox NFL Sunday” analyst

WAG fitness guru Giovanni Roselli using the NormaTec Recovery System. Courtesy Giovanni Roselli.

needs particular attention. I will also use this compression therapy specifically postworkout if an area was worked particularly hard. For example: After a tough workout with my legs, I’ll use the leg compression that day. If the workout was taxing on the upper body and arms, then I’d use the arm compression.

NormaTec synergistically combines three distinct techniques to speed the body’s normal recovery process — pulsing compression, gradients and distal release.

Through these mechanics, blood and circulation is maximized and moved through areas of high pressure to low pressure.

TRAMPOLINE JUMPING Here’s one you probably didn’t expect to see. I have a small trampoline in my house that I either use before/during/after a home workout, or to take a break if I find myself sitting for too long. I’ll jump as little as 100 times, which takes about one minute.

Our bodies’ ability to be resilient and elastic is important, especially as we age.

Our connective tissue needs to maintain this spring-like quality, and this allows our bodies to be powerful and strong. Think about this: When we are young, we were able to jump around, run, sprint, etc., but as we get older what happens to that power? Dragging the feet while walking is a common issue for the aging population and often leads to untimely and unfortunate falls. We want to take big, confident steps

as we walk and literally be pushing off the ground as we step.

As we learned in middle school science class, when we push into the ground, the ground has an equal and opposite force reaction back into us. But when we cannot load our bodies into the ground, we do not get much of a reaction back. Losing power or maintaining power is often the difference between someone who ages well and those who suffer with a poorer quality of life.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF Believe it or not, there are quite a few other things I do on a weekly basis to stay on top of my health and wellness. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention another obvious way to take care of ourselves that is nonworkout related — nutrition.

I always value and appreciate all reader feedback every month, so if you’d like to hear more, I’ll be happy to write a version two of my behind-the-scenes secrets sometime in 2020.

What I’d like you to think about is if you currently do anything outside of exercise that helps circulate your blood, relax your body or balances your body both physically and mentally.

And besides, does soaking in a nice warm bath, with some bubbles and a touch of coconut oil sound so bad?

Reach Giovanni on Twitter @ GiovanniRoselli and at his website, GiovanniRoselli.com.

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PET OF THE MONTH

SWEET LITTLE JELLYBEAN PHOTOGRAPH BY SEBASTIÁN FLORES.

JellyBean is an adorable 8-year-old Maltese who came into the SPCA as a stray and sadly was never claimed. She was extremely neglected when the SPCA found her, but staffers have done all they can to get her into tip-top shape.

She’s a sweetheart who’s affectionate with everyone and loves to give kisses.

JellyBean will make a wonderful best friend.

PET CARE

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

Founded in 1883, the SPCA is a no-kill shelter and is not affiliated with the ASPCA. The SPCA is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. To learn more, call 914- 941-2896 or visit spca914.org.

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PET PORTRAITS

UNBRIDLED LOVE

BY ROBIN COSTELLO PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN RIZZO

PET CARE

Nestled in a quiet hollow, not far from the Appalachian Trail at the base of the Taconic Hills is the beautiful Inwood Stables. Located on bucolic Bumble Bee Farm in Hopewell Junction, Inwood Stables is a place of love and dreams. Created by Dawn Longworth and Tom Murphy, it is a peaceful oasis uncommon in our modern world.

One step into this magic kingdom and the troubles of the world melt away.

The only business at hand is the care of the horses in residence. The days at Inwood are slow and graceful. Time is measured from sunrise to sunset, and from morning hay to evening walks. The horses live at peace with nature and the passage of time, as happy horses have done forever.

All kingdoms have a beautiful

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princess, and this one is no exception. Leanne Longworth is the princess of Inwood Stables.

The excitement in the barn is palpable as the teenage beauty arrives each day to care for her horses Teah and Kaylee. It’s their favorite time of day when Leanne shows up — their power and strength humbled by the touch of her hand and at the sound of her sweet voice. Whether grazing around the paddock or quietly being groomed, they are her royal subjects. Those horses never lose sight of their beloved girl. Their mutual devotion is a joy to see, such a perfect love in our less-than-perfect world. Every horse, every girl and every living thing deserves to be loved like that.

Shakespeare’s Richard III once pleaded, “My kingdom for a horse.” I imagine he’d have given the whole world for a love like Leanne’s.

For more visit inwoodstables.com.

Leanne Longworth and her devoted horse Teah.

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WHERE & WHEN Through Dec. 21 Clay Art Center presents its annual “Holiday Sale and Studio Tour,” including pottery and ceramic sculpture by hundreds of local and nationally recognized artists along with arts workshops for children. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 40 Beech St., Port Chester; 914-937-2047, clayartcenter.org.

Dec. 1 Rowayton Historical Society celebrates its weekend “Holiday Bazaar,” including the opening of its annual “Model Train Show,” above, with a depiction of Rowayton, designed and hand-built in miniature by artist Brian Kammerer. 4 p.m., 177 Rowayton Ave.; 203-831-0136, rowaytonhistoricalsociety.org.

Dec. 5 ArtsWestchester presents a holiday edition of its evening happy hour series, “Gallery Nite Out.” This holiday mixer will include an after-hours tour of the “Dataism” exhibit, light bites and cocktails, a DJ and holiday arts activities. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., 31 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains; 914-428-4220, artsw.org.

The New Canaan Library hosts an opening reception for “Small Works/Big Talent,” a diverse exhibit of works by six artists. They include Holly Hawthorn’s New England shells, Amy Kaplan’s paper strips, Tara Kovach’s landscape-inspired abstracts, Susan Leggitt’s skyless and waterless landscapes, Natale Adgnot’s 3-D sketches and Tracy Penn’s encaustic textures. 6 p.m., 151 Main St.; 203-594-5013, newcanaanlibrary.org.

Dec. 6 through 8 The Revelators Dance Troupe will present a performance of “Ce Ce’s Hot Chocolate ‘Nutcracker.’”

The production follows young orphan Ce Ce being led by the Nutcracker in a journey to experience holiday traditions and celebrations that are practiced around the globe. 7 p.m. Friday, and 5 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, 250 S. Sixth Ave., Mount Vernon; 914-837-4510, revelatorsinc.com.

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The Salzburg Marionette Theatre will present “The Nutcracker” Dec. 8 in Valhalla.

Dec. 7 and 8

Dec. 8

Hoff-Barthelson Music School presents its annual “Holiday Music Festival.” The weekend includes performances by student ensembles in jazz, ukulele, vocal and flute along with a holiday boutique of artisan-created items. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 25 School Lane, Scarsdale; 914723-1169, hbms.org.

Southport Galleries celebrates its 10th anniversary with finds and discounts to show appreciation for this milestone. Southport Village merchants will also be opening their doors for the annual holiday stroll. Noon to 4 p.m., 330 Pequot Ave.; 203292-6124, southportgalleries.com.

Dec. 7 The Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to American composers in a concert celebrating Dave Brubeck’s centennial with his “Joy in the Morning” and “Selections for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra,” featuring the Brubeck Brothers Quartet, as well as William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 2, “Song of a New Race.”

8 p.m., Anne S. Richardson Auditorium, Ridgefield High School, 700 North Salem Road; 203438-3889, ridgefieldsymphony.org.

Enjoy a hands-on Indian Cooking party and elegant dinner in a class taught by Kerala native Rajni Menon. You’ll cook your own chicken curry, cabbage, spinach and carrot stir fry with a spiced coconut paste, along with steamed basmati rice. Proceeds go to children in orphanages in Kerala, South India and in Costa Rica. 6 p.m.

Zwilling, 270 Marble Ave., Pleasantville; 914255-2574, eventbrite.com/e/fun-indian-cooking-party-for-helping-orphanages-in-south-india-and-costarica.

The New Choral Society presents Handel’s “Messiah, Part 1.” The traditional season opener for the ensemble will be led by conductor John T. King and feature both solos and choruses from the seasonal masterpiece. The performance will close with a rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus.” 3 p.m.

6 Greenacres Ave., Scarsdale; 914-725-1678, newchoralsociety.org.

Smart Arts at Westchester Community College presents an adaptation of the holiday classic “The Nutcracker” by Salzburg Marionette Theatre. 3 p.m., 75 Grasslands Road, Valhalla; 914-606-6262, sunywcc.edu/about/smartarts.

Dec. 13 through 29 M&M Performing Arts Company will present “Mr. Dickens Tells ‘A Christmas Carol.’” Mikel von Brodbeck plays Charles Dickens and tells the holiday tale as guests move through the main floor of the Lyndhurst mansion, meeting the different spirits and characters along the way. 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, Lyndhurst Mansion, 635 S. Broadway, Tarrytown; 914-962-3431, MMPACI.com.

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Dec. 13 Wilton’s Music on the Hill offers its holiday concert, “Sounds of the Season,” with its new Community Children’s Chorus, joined by the Jubilate Ringers (handbells) and the 40-person Festival Chorus.

6 p.m., St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 36 New Canaan Road, Wilton; 203-529-3133, musiconthehillCT.org.

The Fairfield Public Library’s Kershner Gallery invites the public to a reception and artists’ talk for “Color in Motion,” an exhibit featuring the hard-edged, flat, solid colors and angular geometric shapes of Guy Phillips’ figure paintings and Matthew Samuels’ signature splatter paintings. 6 to 8 p.m., 6:45 p.m., artists’ talk. Fairfield Library, 1080 Old Post Road; 203-256-3155, fairfieldpubliclibrary.org.

Stamford’s Palace Theatre presents the Charles Jones adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” above, from Nebraska Theatre Caravan, featuring new arrangements of holiday songs and a cast of 23 performers, musicians and Broadway-style scenery and costumes. 7:30 p.m., 61 Atlantic St., Stamford; 203-325-4466, palacestamford.org.

Dec. 14 Bring the whole family to the Westport Museum for History and Culture for “Jingle Bell Rock Family Day,” spotlighting the diverse holiday traditions Westporters celebrate. Take part in a variety of crafts and activities, take a ride through town in a horse-drawn carriage, sit for a silhouette as a holiday gift and get a selfie with Santa. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 25 Avery Place, Westport; 203-222-1424, westporthistory.org.

Dec. 15 Experience the Stamford Symphony Brass as it spreads the holiday spirit in “Noel!” with the sonorous brass works of Gabrieli and Bach, sing-along favorites and an appearance by Santa. 4 p.m., St. John’s Episcopal Church, 628 Main St.; 203-3254466, stamfordsymphony.org.

The Sanctuary Series will present a return performance by pianist Jeffrey Biegel. The “Holiday Traditions” concert will feature pieces by Bach, Mozart and Chopin, along with selections from Biegel’s “A Steinway Christmas.” 4 p.m., 111 Spring St., South Salem; 914-763-9282, thesanctuaryseries.org.

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Connecticut Ballet presents four performances of its production of “The Nutcracker” Dec. 21 and 22 in Stamford.

The Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts will present “Santa’s Visit to the Rosen House.” The event will begin with activities and a 30-minute concert followed by a visit from St. Nick with milk and cookies in the cloisters. 3 p.m., 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah; 914-232-1252, caramoor.org.

The New Rochelle Public Library’s “Sing Your Heart Out” workshop group, consisting of singers who are 55 years of age and older, will present its “Family Holiday Concert.” The featured songs include holiday favorites from Christmas and Hanukkah, as well as other winter numbers. 3 p.m., Ossie Davis Theater, 1 Library Plaza, New Rochelle; 914-632-7878, nrpl.org.

Dec. 18 Ana Gasteyer (“Saturday Night Live” and “The Goldbergs”) performs tunes from her new holiday album, “Sugar & Booze,” a collection of original and classic holiday songs that conjure the big-band jazz era with a modern and often comedic touch, along with tracks from her debut album, “I’m Hip.” 8 p.m., The Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 E. Ridge Road; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

Dec. 21 The Greater Bridgeport Symphony celebrates “Solstice,” with music of Bach, along with a holiday medley, including Kirke Mechem’s “The Seven Joys of Christmas.” The symphony will be joined by the Fairfield County Children’s Choir and the Connecticut Chamber Choir. 8 p.m., The Klein, 910 Fairfield Ave.; 800-424-0160, theklein.org.

Dec. 21 and 22 Connecticut Ballet presents four performances of its production of “The Nutcracker,” featuring guest star professional dancers from New York City Ballet (Dec. 21), American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet (Dec. 22). They will alternate in the roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Her Cavalier. The professional dancers will be joined by 105 children from a dozen dance schools and academies. 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Sunday, Palace Theatre, 61 Atlantic St., Stamford; 203-325-4466, palacestamford.org.

Presented by ArtsWestchester (artswestchester. org) and The Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County (culturalalliancefc.org/FCbuzz-events).

Experience Something Real 2019-2020 DECEMBER 7 An Evening with David Sedaris 8 Westchester Philharmonic 13 A.I.M: An Untitled Love 15 Canadian Brass: Christmas Time Is Here

FEBRUARY 8 Orpheus Chamber Orchestra 8 Villalobos Brothers 9 Westchester Philharmonic 14 Paul Taylor Dance Company 15 The Manhattan Transfer 23 MUMMENSCHANZ: you & me 28 Air Play

Tickets Make Great Gifts!

MARCH 1 The Very Hungry Caterpillar 6 It Gets Better 14 CMS of Lincoln Center 14 Ballet Folclórico Nacional de México 15 A Cappella Live!

20 Mariachi Los Camperos 22 Treehouse Shakers: The Boy Who Grew Flowers 27 Black Violin 28 Doug Varone and Dancers APRIL 18 RUBBERBAND: Ever So Slightly 19 Westchester Philharmonic 25 CMS of Lincoln Center MAY 2 Gravity and Other Myths: A Simple Space 5 Tania Pérez-Salas Compañía de Danza

914.251.6200 www.artscenter.org LUCILLE WERLINICH, Chair of Purchase College Foundation

Pictured: BAir Play © Florence Montmare

JANUARY 25 CMS of Lincoln Center 30 Limón Dance Company

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BREAST CANCER ALLIANCE GETS BIGGER We always joke that the annual Breast Cancer Alliance Luncheon & Fashion Show is about 1,000 warrior women and a few good men. Make that more than a few good men. The 24th annual edition, held Oct. 21 at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, seemed to have an increased number of men in the record crowd of 1,100, not all of whom were breast surgeons. Others were in finance.

Some were there to support women in their lives, who had survived the disease, or to remember those now gone. The latter was the case of celebrity chef Todd English, who delivered a bittersweet talk — complete with a raw fish and parsley (“I thought this was a cooking demonstration,” he joked) on his late sister, Wendy, who lost her struggle with the disease in 2006. As usual, there was a fabulous fashion show by event co-sponsor Richards that featured creamy offerings

by Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli; bold animal prints by Victoria Beckham and Carolina Herrera; shimmer from Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Saint Laurent and Valentino; and a spring preview of Tom Ford.

But it’s fair to say everyone’s favorite moment was the Survivors’ Fashion Show, which celebrated being alive. Photographs

by Elaine & Chichi Ubiña.

1. Sydney Rozins and Shari Michael 2. Kim and Mary Jeffery, Anne Jones and Will Jeffery 3. Drs. Emily Gabeler and Stacy Zarakiotis 4. Andrew, Scott and Bill Mitchell 5. Lisa Walsh and Trish Shannon 6. Lynn Carbino, Frank Corvino, Irene Piazza and Kristina Capretti 7. Nina Lindia, Amy Kappelman Johnson, Todd English, Yonni Wattenmaker, John Forte and Lauren Schweibold 8. Gretchen Bylow and Jordan Rhodes 9. Nat and Lucy Day 10. Cathy Sutton and Jane Batkin 11. Julie Ruby 12. Paige Siek 13. Anne Jameson Eisenhofer

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Richard Garrison, Circular Color Scheme: Walmart (detail)

Contemporary artists put data to work, exploring life in the age of the algorithm.

PRINCE WILLIAM HAS PRINCE HARRY, SNOOPY HAS SPIKE – YOU KNOW, THE BAD-BOY BABY BRO WHO’S A CHUNK OF CHARM AND A TON OF TROUBLE. That’s what WAG Weekly is to WAG. In our e-newsletter, we let down our hair (and occasionally, our grammar) to take you behind behind-the-scenes of the hottest parties and events, offer our thoughts on the most controversial issues of the day, share what couldn’t be contained in our glossy pages and tell you what to do and where to go this weekend – all while whetting your appetite for the next issue.

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CALLING ALL ANGELS

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It was a night of tears and inspiration as The Fearless Angel Project held its fifth “Dancing with the Angels” Gala at Greenwich Country Club Sept. 28. Guests enjoyed cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dancing and a DJ, along with some nifty auction items, including a Neil Bieff gown donated by Mary Jane Denzer in White Plains, a black Valentino purse embellished with a butterfly design from The Saks Shops at Greenwich, a golf foursome at four area clubs and even a week at a castle in Scotland. The night raised more than $100,000 for the project, which provides therapeutic scholarships to underserved autistic children. Photographs

by Elaine Ubiña.

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1. Brett and Dianna Smith and Jennifer and Martin Seidel 2. Christina Hirth, Laura Tobias, Heather DeNonna and Jillian Aufderheide 3. April Larken 4. Jill Schecter, Ginger Stickel, Natalie Stein, Heather Tarifi and Pamela Frame 5. Suzy Armstrong and Izabela O’Brien 6. Amy Lewis, Laura Tobias, Margaret Schaftel, Jennifer Ringelstein, Izabela O’Brien, Romona Norton and April Larken 7. Mary Zipkin, Michael Breheney, Caryn and Peter McAllister and Francesca Breheney 8. Leo and Lily Piskic and Debra and Chris Oshea 9. Robyn Carpenter and Jennifer Ringelstein 10. Jeff Norton, Withley Verdiner, Glenn Tobias and Geoff Ringelstein

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HGAR HELPS The Hudson Gateway Realtor Foundation, the charitable arm of the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors, recently presented a check for $2,500 to Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Valhalla. The HG Realtor Foundation donation will be earmarked for the Cellular and Tissue Engineering Laboratory within the Children and Adolescent Cancer and Blood Disease Center at the hospital.

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11. Antoinette Calderon, Karen Asch, Stephanie Liggio, Robert Shandley and Bonnie Koff

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Africa Photo Tours Inc. | 455 Tarrytown Road Suite 1302 White Plains NY 10607 | (646) 221-6186 worldwide mobile | www.johnrizzophoto.com All packages include photography lessons | John Rizzo is a former Newsweek photographer, has worked on 6 continents & winner of two Arts Alive Grants, 2013 &2016

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GOODNESS RISING Rising Ground’s annual gala, held at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan on Oct. 25, attracted more than 300 guests. who celebrated the work of this social services organization, with offices in Yonkers. The honorees were Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano and Justin Riccio, senior vice president of Alliant Insurance Services of Albany. Two graduates of Rising Ground’s Biondi School, who conquered difficult challenges to follow successful career tracks, offered special remarks at the event, which raised more than $600,000. Photographs by Marco Sag 1. Carolyn Mandelker, Dr. Angela White and Bob Knight 2. Elizabeth McQuillan, Dave Robertson and Roy Gerke 3. Jane Simmi and Karina Tarnawksy 4. Tony Zumbo and Regina Jones 5. Kristy and Justin Riccio 6. Sharron Madden, Corey Caesar, Nimotali Edidi and Carlton Mitchell 7. Regina and Richard Jones and Nick and Lisa Preddice 8. Alan Mucatel and Mike Spano

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WONDERFUL WOMEN The Osborn Foundation hosted its fifth annual “Women Who Make a Difference Foundress Award” luncheon on Oct. 2. More than 250 guests attended the event, which was held at The Osborn in Rye. This year’s honorees were Dawn French, senior vice president of marketing and community outreach at White Plains Hospital, and Jana Seitz, president of the board of Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary in Rye. Proceeds from the auction and luncheon went to support The Osborn Charity Care Program.

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9. Carrie Rebora Barratt 10. Dawn French, Matthew G. Anderson and Jana Seitz

SOIRÉE FOR TEATOWN On Sept. 22, Teatown Lake Reservation honored Pace University, IBM Research, Phelps Hospital Northwell Health, New York Life Insurance Co. and the Teatown PlantFest Committee at its annual fundraising gala, “A Night in the Woods” at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club. More than 250 community members, partnering organizations, donors and elected officials were on hand to support Teatown’s mission. The organizations were honored for volunteer and financial support of the nonprofit, which is the largest independent, community-supported nature preserve in Westchester County.

Photographs by Lynda Shenkman.

11. At the gala.

12. Sandy Galef, Kevin Carter, George Latimer and Howard Permut

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holly jolly.

www.BlossomFlower.com 914.304.5376 877.458.1709

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DINNER AT THE PALACE

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The Palace Theatre in Stamford held its first “Chairman’s Dinner.” More than 100 supporters gathered on the stage of The Palace for an evening featuring special performances from the organization’s Arts in Education students and singer Allen Rene Louis. The event raised more than $25,000 to support The Palace and its arts education programs. Courtesy Happyhaha at Wahstudio Photography.

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BIKE BONANZA The Hospital for Special Surgery hosted “Bike HSS,” a one-day cycling MOVEment presented

by Mastercard Sept. 28 in Westchester County to raise funds for musculoskeletal research and education. More than 250 riders and 150 volunteers participated in the event, which raised more than $800,000. The ride ended with a Finish Line Festival at HSS Westchester with food and drink, a recovery zone, a guest appearance by former New York Knick John Wallace and live entertainment. Photographs

by Da Ping Luo and Michael Lawrence.

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2. Drs. Karen M. Sutton and Elizabeth A. Cody 3. Dr. Joel M. Press, Louis A. Shapiro, Natasha Fapohunda and Dr. David S. Levine 4. John Wallace and Dr. Douglas E. Padgett 5. Ricardo Pareja 6. Doctors Paul M. Cooke, Douglas N. Mintz, Joseph H. Feinberg, Joel M. Press, Dena Barsoum, James Wyss, Emerald Lin, her infant, and Carlo Milani 7. Drs. Lawrence V. Gulotta and Andrew D. Pearle and Alexander Shafiro

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HOLLYWOOD AT WARTBURG Wartburg, a senior care and housing provider in Mount Vernon, provided the backdrop recently for an episode of Showtime’s series “City on a Hill.” Over the course of several days, Wartburg hosted the cast, including stars Kevin Bacon and Jill Hennessey, and more than 40 crew members of Possible Productions Inc. The 34-acre campus was featured in Episode 8, which aired in August, along with Wartburg’s own Sheila Walker as a security guard.

8. Sarah Shahi, David J. Gentner, Kevin Bacon, Jill Hennessy, Clark Johnson and Angela Ciminello

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‘MEHREGAN’ MERRIMENT The Untermyer Gardens Conservancy held its annual fall gala, “Mehregan,” on Sept. 22. A celebration of Persian culture that has its roots in the ancient Persian harvest festival, the event took place at Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers, which is home to what is considered the finest Persian garden in the Western Hemisphere.

Cocktails in the garden were followed by Persian cuisine. Iranian-born pop star Aref serenaded the crowd and inspired dancing throughout the night. The Conservancy honored artist Shirin Neshat. The event raised funds to support the Conservancy’s efforts to sustain the Persian garden and restore its once grand Persian Pool. Photographs by Ralph Gabriner and Jessica Norman.

1. Gabrielle Lesser and David and Maura May 2. Jon Corzine, Frederick and Diana Elghanayan and Victoria Sahkai 3. Kay Palizban, Nazee Moinian, Golnoosh Rak, Stephen Byrns, Ramin Rak, Shirin Neshat, Victoria Sakhai and Ann Carmel 4. Michele Chammah, Betsy Pinover Schiff, Ezra Chammah, Ed Schiff and Navina Haidar 5. Alice Cary Brown and Mélie Spofford 6. Lillian Mayer, Iris Dudman and Anthony and Rosa Mayer

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$HOW THEM THE MONEY Westchester County Executive George Latimer and members of the Westchester County Board of Legislators recently joined with ArtsWestchester at Morton’s The Steakhouse in White Plains to announce the start of the 2019 Art$WChallenge, a matching grant program that seeks to raise $500,000 to support arts and cultural organizations throughout Westchester County.

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7. Marie Smith, Mike Madonia, George Latimer, John Brathwaite, MaryJane Shimsky, Janet Langsam, Martin Rogowsky, Benjamin Boykin and Catherine Parker

RIVER REVERIE On Sept. 19, Groundwork Hudson Valley held its annual “Urban River Gala,” in which the organization celebrated the Yonkers Greenway and the leaders who have helped bring the decade-long project to fruition.

Hundreds of attendees raised their glasses to the honorees — Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, Groundwork Hudson Valley Board member Renee Milligan and Bank of America-over a locally-sourced dinner created by chef Peter Kelly, owner of Xaviars Restaurant Group 8. Jalen Sermon 9. Briana Marcano 10. Craig Young, Brigitte Griswold, Mike Spano, Wendy Zimmermann and Renee Milligan

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BEST IN SHOW It was a star-studded evening as more than 220 guests and some dapper dogs were on hand as the SPCA of Westchester celebrated its 17th annual “Top Hats and Cocktails Gala” at The Ritz Carleton-New York, Westchester in White Plains. This year, one of Westchester’s own music superstars, Rob Thomas, his wife Marisol, Maria Maldonado (from Sidewalk Angels Foundation), equestrian champion Georgina Bloomberg and Katie Rockefeller were honored for their work in promoting the welfare of animals. The evening, which included a live and silent auction, dancing, professional portraits and a canine ice cream bar, raised much needed funds for the no-kill shelter in Briarcliff Manor that rescues more than 4200 animals each year. It was also the public launch of their capital campaign to rebuild their animal care campus.

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1. Deborah Klugman, Jacque Reid, Shannon Laukhuf and Andrea Price 2. John, Diane and Emily Civetta 3. Natalie and Eric Modell 4. Jeremy and Sarah Wien and Mack 5. Georgina Bloomberg and Rob and Marisol Thomas 6. Rick and Kaori Germano and their daughters and furry friend

INCLUDING THE KITCHEN SINK

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After 88 years, “Minks to Sinks”, the epic tag sale held in Wilton, is still bringing donations and deals to the area. Proceeds from the sale benefit Family & Children’s Agency (FCA), a Norwalk-based nonprofit providing social services for families and individuals at every stage of life. Hundreds of thousands of items are donated or consigned to the sale each year, and more than 190 Wilton-area volunteers organize and run the sale, held under huge tents near Wilton High School.

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PAGING DR. TEDDY Greenwich Hospital recently hosted its 21st annual “Teddy Bear Clinic” under tents on the hospital grounds. More than 1,300 youngsters with their parents came from Westchester and Fairfield counties to the free event, which introduces children to hospital services in a family-friendly setting. “Dr. Ted E. Bear” was on hand to greet the children, who began their hospital tour by bringing their stuffed toys to “admitting” and “emergency” for a diagnosis.

8.-9. Taking the fear out of going to the hospital.

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WE WONDER:

WHAT TIME WOU LD YOU LIKE TO LIVE IN (OTHER THAN NOW )? *

Ashly Brooks

marketing and PR assistant Lanoka Harbor, N.J resident

“If I could live in another time period, I think I would choose the ’80s. Things were fast- paced, the colors were fun and the music was real and authentic.

Perhaps the most endearing part about it was that there wasn’t social media. Yeah, you could call an old friend or your family members that are far away, but you didn’t know what was going on in everyone’s lives every second of the day.”

Rosemary Ryan

Brandon Kennedy service technician South Salem resident

“That’s tough. I would say between the ’60s and ’80s, mainly because I (would) want to be able to make a difference in the Civil Rights Movement as well as see what the post-Civil Rights Movement would be like.

Despite the fact that I would be dealing with racism, the forced crack epidemic, I would like to see how things would change.”

Nicole Kwasniewski domestic goddess Cos Cob resident

Alexis Michel

laboratory technician Cranford, N.J. resident

Lisa Quackenbush

“I really enjoyed the 1990s. I was in college then. It’s hard to go wrong with that.”

“The Roaring ’20s in New York City because modernized fashion for women emerged and everyone seemed to be happy with the bare minimum.”

“The ’20s. ’Cause it was a joyful time.”

Victoria Vandamm

executive recruiter Stamford resident

orthodontist Greenwich resident

co-owner and vice president Penguardia Productions Purchase resident

Trish Shannon

Michelle Tenney student New Haven resident

Lifestyle Curation on Land and Sea Norwalk resident

wealth management Northern Trust Greenwich resident

“I would go with the 1950s.

It seems to me there was a lot less fighting going on. It was more peaceful.

People seemed to be closer together.”

“(The year) 1972. That was the year I graduated from high school and it was a fun year.

But the truth is I’m happy living in the present. Each new year is a new adventure.”

“I would say the medieval times, because I love how it embraced the Gothic architectural style of huge, stained-glass windows, pointed vaults and arches.”

“The immediate answer would be the Victorian Era. Loved the clothes. But I would go with the 1960s. It was such a time of change.”

“The ’50s and ’60s, the postWorld War II era for a variety of reasons. First, the music of that time. The postwar era also had the sense of America on the rise…and a shared vision, as opposed to the divisions of today.”

Sam Wilson

*Asked in part at the 24th annual Breast Cancer Alliance Luncheon & Fashion Show Oct. 21 at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich.

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