Newark is seldom thought of as synonymous with a strong fashion lineage, but for those Newarker’s in the Know, there has been a fashion tradition of success and pride emanating out of Essex County College.  Saturday marked the 31st Annual Fashion Showcase held at Essex County College. This is an upscale fashion show, that has grew out of the creation of founder Gerald Holloway and advisor to (FEB) the Fashion Entertainment Board, which make up a group of Essex County students and fashion industry professionals.

Ironically this long time fashion tradition is older than most of its models. FEB amazes spectators with a collection of fashion styles that invokes cutting-edge design, strength, boldness, and most importantly Newark fresh; the 2013 annual collection was no different. According to the title and this year’s theme, UNLEASHED, the aim was “colorful, audacious flair and dramatic confident attire for navigating the urban landscape,” and they brought their A game and did not disappoint. The show truly delivered its namesake fierceness, and then some.

The high-energy show was anchored in saturated hues, monochromatic patterns, and metallic textures, and had a lot of audience satisfaction.  The showcase featured over eighteen designers, and over sixty models. The bold and beautiful palette of orange, teal, yellow, and purple was a perfect reminder that color shouldn’t be relegated to just warmer months, but should be out yearly. The show employed a rich combination of jacquard, leather, wool, silk and a dash of fur to give the collection depth. There was a good balance of entertainment and fashion presentations. Gerald’s philosophy in modeling is reflected in its diversity in talent, body types and aspirations.  So on the runway, their motto is  ”Be Yourself, Be Positive, and Strong. You Don’t Have To Be Flawless, You Just Have To Be Fierce.”

It had a social mission, to build awareness of debilitation effects of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).  This year fashion spotlight went to A Tribute to Tamika Stewart.  Ms. Stewart dreamt of becoming a runway model despite her challenges and successes living with MS.  The impacts are wide in medical impacts; it affects the brain and spinal cord, resulting in loss of muscle control, vision, balance, and sensation (such as numbness). Ms. Stewart achieving one of her goals that evening by being a featured model in the show.

The designers are wide-ranging from aspiring to major designers for prominent labels, as well as private labels. The models too, were equally diverse, with the youngest model at age 11, students, and professionals’, even runway veterans.

 11 years old.

The program and the dimensions of the show were multilayered, not limited, and featured a wide arrangement of spring and fall designs: contemporary, casual, punk, formal, evening, and even outrageous. The fashion and designs displayed cover a wide age group and most importantly observes a variety of body types, from the traditional size 0 model to the plus size model and everything in between.

Worth noting was a large supply of male designers. Still this showcase was more than a fashion show, and included other entertainment elements to mention. One of these was an up-and-coming poet (Treasure)

 and

R&B sensation a singer Shaliek Rivers performer his hit single “The Past” www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwAFg9fLXn0.

This young man is bringing back old school crooning love songs to the experience with a fresh contemporary style, for old school music lovers there now new hope.

A rarely known impact of this show, but is worth noting, is the community impact, of the show.n  I has positive externality, it provide confidence and self esteem to many of the participant.  And for others, it is a safe and nurturing environment, that most importantly keeps some safe from negative impact.  One such example is admiration from a proud father, Sterling Lovell.  An unsung hero in his on right, and father of the year.

Brinina Lovell, worked the runway with confident and poise, this soon to be graduate of Essex County County, is on her way to Montclair State to continue her journey to aspire to great things.  Her little sister (not in the fashion show) , watched with pride and approval.  Ava Lovell has followed her sister and strives for excellence.  This year she will graduate Valedictorian at Frank H Morell high school while maintaining a 4.o grade point average for four consecutive years. it also should be mentioned she was awarded homecoming queen.  Mr Lovell, a single father of four knows the value of this fashion show and extra curriculum activities in the community.  And there are mostly other untold stories that over the 31 years of existence has impacted others along the way.

In the end, there was a lot to love.  And must admit I was overwhelmed and after two and a half show exhaust.  But I get it.  It was two show within one spring and fall.  In closing just because it dones at a community college, “don’t get it twisted” the show and it legacy and longevity speaks for itself. The amount of pieces was evident the FEB continuing to improve their product.  It is not be it missed.

We are now past the halfway mark, with less than a view weeks to Memorial day holiday.  Try this healthy recipe, the salads name

Fattoush: [Fah-TOOSH] A Mediterranean salad made with tomatoes, vegetables, and torn-up pieces of bread.

Love the fresh mint from my garden

Diced Radishes and green pepper

Sumac spices

Gina has said, she  loves to make this salad especially in the summer time with the fresh vegetables from her garden. It is a great traditional dish when  having company over, its healthy and filling at the same time with the pita bread, the fresh mint and thyme. The most important ingredients in this recipe is the ground sumac spices and the pomegranate molasses. Ground Sumac spice has a citrus taste to it and the pomegranate molasses has the combination of sweet and citrus taste. You can substitute the pomegranate molasses with lemon and white wine vinegar.

Dressing Ingredients:
1 teaspoon ground sumac
2 teaspoon pomegranate molasses
2 to 3 tablespoon of fresh lemon
2 small gloves of garlic, minced
1/2 to 3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
Salt

With a nod to Newark Baseball’s illustrious past, management has developed some great ideas which will make the club even more exciting and connected to the great city of Newark. The Newark Bears are truly more than just a baseball club with tons of additional action scheduled both on and off game days. Along with shows, games, food and beer specials, and other attractions are clinics, camps, and special appearances. Every day this week leading up to opening day, Newark Bears representatives will be in downtown’s parks greeting folks and inviting them to check out a game and join in on simply the most friendly sports atmosphere anywhere.

On the diamond this upcoming season, two-time Major League Baseball All-Star and our new Manager Garry Templeton promises a hard-working, disciplined, and winning ball club.

Newark has had fine and historic representation in our nations most prominent sport for almost a century. The Newark Bears have been just a fantastic addition to the city’s destinations by being a great host for a group of young adults looking for a great night out in the town or a family looking for a fun and exciting place to watch their favorite game. The game days are full of lively activities between innings and every last seat in the house is nothing less that a terrific view of the action.

When 7:00 comes on Friday night at 450 Broad Street, the next chapter of baseball in Newark will begin. After the crack of the baseball bats smacking the ball and drawing the cheers from us fans, the crack of the fireworks and bright sprinkling lights that follow will remind us that our ball club continues to entertain us, compete, and give us a stadium, a night out, and an extension of our great city that we can be proud of.

Newark Bears representatives will be at Washington Park today, Tuesday May 14, through Thursday, handing out schedules and selling 2 for 1 tickets. You can find them from 10 am to 3 pm.

The first artist I met was Douglas Reyes, who was only working as the events photographer. At the event I t with some of the talented artist I had the opportunity to engage in conversation about their work. The artist that are not mentioned are by no means not equally impressive in their work, and merely just reflect an opportunity to engage the selected creatives in conversation. Faces but faceless, illustrating vanity and beauty (hair), his images which were an assortment of triangles, framed around images of hair that in his words represented strength, spirits, divinity, fire, life, prosperity, and harmony.

Snyder Dessein

A young Haitain America, adopted the art for of Cubism. “I usually drew in sketches, cubism allowed to project different elements of my art. The cubism approach allowed me to render the figure statistically by using a lot of geometric shapes.” The painting presented represented important celebrities that made an impression on him. These painters include Manno Charlemagne, a Haitian political activist and and musician, Marvin Gaye, R&B legend whose song reflected a movement “What’s Goin On,” and former Emperor of Ethiopia Hallie Selassie, a symbol of Africa’s identity after colonialism.

AlisaJane

Art pieces were three dimensional life size figures. She see the two untitled pieces Empowerment of Women, based on Maya Angelo’s poem “Courage”, Ms. Angelou writes
“We
unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life”.

AlisaJanes is also inspired by the traditional technique of making African Wrapp. The technique used to make dolls to head wrap. Wrapp have been used to make dolls throughout Africa, and these life size version give acknowledgement to her ancestors, their spirituality, fertility and entertainment.

Ian Costello

Utilizing more of a classical western tradition of painting on canvas, Mr. Costello captures movements of traditional images of fruit, bottles, and everyday images. His painting approach was warm and complex while being simple forms. I asked him why he used the material of unfolded cardboard boxes as his canvas to place his work. He said it liberated him to not being constrained by the platform he painted on.  He could focus simply on the art. There is a subtle richness to his work, that I must conceded the photo does not capture, regarding his process he said “he find happenstance particularly beautiful” because it is a culmination of “natural” events and “effortless” actions. Although a resident of Kearny, he sees himself as a part of the Newark art community.

Ca Nguyen

His work illustrated how diversity and background can reach different realities while converging onto a place in art. His piece consist of eight individual vignettes surrounded by black butterflies. The color combinations are beautiful and surreal. To my surprise each vignette represent various human tragedy over the last years including typhoon, hurricanes, and plagues. The black butterfly surround the pieces, which mean Morning light, silken dream to flight
As the darkness gave way to dawn
You’ve survived, now your moment has arrived
Now your dream has finally been born

Black Butterfly, sailed across the waters
tell your sons and daughters
what the struggle brings
Black Butterfly, set the skies on fire
rise up even higher
so the ageless winds of time can catch your wings…

Most of you must have heard this beautiful song by Deniece Williams. The above mentioned verse itself explains a lot about the symbolism and meaning which can be related with black butterflies.

Black butterfly symbolism means different things to different cultures. They can mean metamorphosis, death warning, dead souls, witch camouflage, fire, goddess, and positive symbolism. Whatever the symbolism to you, the piece was pleasing for me it symbolized metamorphosis from darkness. Mr. Nguyen said, “Through the concept that natural disaster is beyond society’s control, I create paintings that are simple and abstract.  I see the earth as a place of harmony and devastation all pilled into one.”

Another piece, a reflection of sadness from the artist were the eight photos presented by Sanna Zhao, “My artwork began to play with fear and mystery; blurring the lines and senses between reality. The concepts and atmosphere in my artwork became dark and meaningful; always playing with emotion and relying heavily on hidden messages embedded in the shadows.”

These were my take on the talents artist piece, the exhibition will be at the Robeson Gallery, located on Robeson Center at Rutgers-Newark for another two weeks, the gallery is open to the public. I would love to get others opinions, let me know what you think.

Artists in this exhibition are: Ian Costello, Snyder Dessein, Audreya Jackson, Alyssa Lawler, Alisa Lawrence-Johnson, Roberta Lombardi, Ca Nguyen, Timothy Resurreccion, Sasha Sempkowski, Nikolaos Stavrou-Wilson, Joanna Trawinski, Carol Woo, Sanna Zhao.  All the folks involved in the exhibition.

With summer rapidly approaching, we’re all looking for ways to slim down and get beach ready. Recent reports published by The New England Journal of Medicine concluded a plant-based Mediterranean diet resulted in lower incidence of heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.  Moreover, May marks Mediterranean Diet month-a celebration of healthy eating!

It Keeps You Heart Healthy

This diet is filled with healthy fats, such as olive oil and omega-3 laden fish, which will help monitor blood pressure and lower the risk of heart disease.

It Helps Prevent Cancer

Cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli and spinach) and legumes (like chickpeas and lentils), are known as cancer-fighting foods because they are packed with antioxidants.

It Boosts Testosterone

You can help get your man on board with this one! According to Dr. Pierce’s study, men who consume more Omega-3s have increased testosterone. Leafy greens can also positively impact the prostate.

It Can Help You Lose Weight

The diet helps you choose foods that are beneficial to your waistline. “Typical Mediterranean diet meals have inherently healthy ingredients such as vegetables and whole grains,” says Dr. Pierce. “Part of the obesity epidemic stems from consuming processed meals over fresh foods.”

It Cuts Chronic Diseases

Statistics show that chronic conditions such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular disease are less in populations that stick to a Mediterranean diet. The plant-based food plan with a breakdown of 50 percent produce, 25 percent protein, and 25 percent whole grain offers a balanced approach to a healthy lifestyle.

Will you be trying out the Mediterranean Diet for summer?

The Mediterranean, based on the eating habits found in the the Mediterranean region, places an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes found in that part of the world. It limits red meat and dairy consumption, as well cuts back on salt and sugar. This got us thinking at Glocally, give us 411 and recipe on a healthy tasty Mediterranean diet.  We did’nt have to go far, when a Lebanese Graduate student from NJIT said she had the answer.  With this new found interest Gina and her sister Fadia shared some family recipes passes down recipe for healthy living which taste good, and can get you back in the fitted summer cloth, they create a new blog named, abeautifulmaison.com.

Tabbouleh Recipe

Ingredients:
2 bunches of parsley washed and chopped finely with stem disregarded
small onion, sliced thin
1 cup of fresh mint leaves washed and finely shopped
4 medium size tomatoes finely diced
2 to 21/2 tablespoon bulgur
1/3 cup of olive oil
juice of 1 and 1/2 lemon
salt and pepper
Romaine lettuce leaves or grape leaves for serving and decoration

Preparation
Soak the bulgur with tomatoes, onion, lemon and let it sit while you chop the parsley. After you slice the parsley and the mint, mix all the ingredients and add olive oil, salt and pepper. Serve tabbouleh with romaine lettuce leaves or grape leaves and enjoy.

Gina and her sister Fadia will periodically be updating us with new recipes, you can also find them at abeautifulmaison.com.

The new calculations by the university’s budgeting office show Rutgers spends about $13,969 per student each year on instruction on the New Brunswick campus, compared to $12,104 per student at Rutgers-Camden and $11,870 per student at Rutgers-Newark.

“There are small differences between campuses, but nowhere near the magnitude that’s being implied,” Barchi said. “The differences are relatively small.”

Barchi, who is nearing the end of his first school year at Rutgers, outlined the numbers during a wide-ranging meeting with The Star-Ledger’s editorial board in Newark, during which he also discussed the university’s recent basketball scandal, athletic funding and other issues.

Rutgers University President Robert Barchi discusses Rutgers-Newark funding, the resignation of Tim Pernetti and the campus basketball scandal during an editorial board meeting at The Star-Ledger in Newark. Adya Beasley/The Star-LedgerAdya Beasley/The Star-Ledger
Armed with 10 pages of new data, Barchi said he first wanted to clarify numbers being circulated by his critics that show the university spends $15,092 per year on each student in New Brunswick-Piscataway, compared to $8,070 in Newark. Those numbers, drawn from federal data, have raised serious questions from lawmakers in Trenton about how the state university is spending its money.

“It is just erroneous. It is inaccurate data,” Barchi said.

Rutgers has been under increasing pressure in recent weeks to justify how it splits its $2 billion budget between the nearly 60,000 students on its three campuses. Rutgers-Newark, which has about 12,000 students, and Rutgers-Camden, with more than 6,000 students, have long complained they are underfunded and last on the list for new buildings.

Tensions with the Rutgers-Newark campus erupted last month when a largely hostile crowd of faculty and students confronted Barchi during a town hall meeting about the funding disparities.

Rutgers-Newark administrators and professors also testified before the Legislature that they were cut out of the university budgeting process by the New Brunswick-based administration.

Nancy Winterbauer, Rutgers’ vice president for university budgeting, said her calculations show the university spends more per student a year on instruction costs on the New Brunswick campus compared to the Newark campus. The disparity is mostly due to the large number of master’s and doctoral students in New Brunswick, she said.

“It costs more to educate a Ph.D. than it does to educate an undergraduate in English,” Winterbauer said. “So, you’re going to see differences.”

Winterbauer also calculated how Rutgers split the nearly $1.8 billion it spent on new buildings and capital projects in the last decade. Once the $144 million spent on stadiums and sports building projects is removed from the calculations, 71 percent of the construction money was spent in New Brunswick, 18 percent was spent in Newark, 9 percent was spent in Camden and 2 percent was spent in other parts of the state.

That is roughly equivalent to the percentages of Rutgers students taking classes on each campus, Winterbauer said.

As Barchi is working to calm tensions with the Newark campus, the university continues to recover from last month’s firing of basketball coach Mike Rice after video of his physical and verbal abuse of players became a national story.

Rice’s firing was quickly followed by the resignations of assistant basketball coach Jimmy Martelli, Athletic Director Tim Pernetti and university Chief Counsel John Wolf. Barchi said he was caught off guard by how quickly the scandal spiraled out of control.

“It was a revelation that the intensity of the response both within the community, within the state and nationally on this very important and very serious issue could totally swamp out all the other issues that we’re trying to deal with and color everything else we’re doing,” Barchi said.

The president also dismissed the movement among some Rutgers supporters to bring Pernetti back as athletic director.

“Tim resigned. We accepted that resignation and the university is moving on,” Barchi said.

Rutgers is preparing to leave the Big East Conference to join the wealthier and more prestigious Big Ten.

Barchi said his goal is to eliminate the $18 million subsidy Rutgers is giving its money-losing athletic department each year. He expects the athletics program to break even in six years, when some of the revenue from joining the Big Ten starts rolling in.

“This approach will take us to a point where we can make our athletic department budget neutral. That’s what I’m concerned about,” Barchi said. “It’s not the size of the budget, it’s whether the budget is siphoning dollars off from the academic mission. And it is now.”

As reported by Patricia Alex, The Record, NorthJersey.com

Rutgers University is poised to make another high-profile personnel change — choosing a new leader for the Newark campus, where faculty and staff members have had long-standing gripes with the administration at the flagship in New Brunswick.

Philip Yeagle, the interim chancellor in Newark, will be stepping down on June 30 and returning to the faculty, the university announced on Friday. An email from Rutgers President Robert Barchi said a permanent chancellor will be selected soon.

Yeagle, who has served as interim chancellor since 2011, could not be reached for comment. The student newspaper at the University of Vermont, The Vermont Cynic, has reported that he is a finalist for the position of provost at that school.

Yeagle was conspicuously absent at a recent town hall-style meeting at the campus in Newark at which Barchi was pummeled by complaints from faculty members, employees and students. From the podium, Barchi noted Yeagle’s absence. In his note on Friday, Barchi said an ongoing search for a new chancellor is going well.

“Thanks to Phil’s leadership as Interim Chancellor, we can be assured that the new Chancellor for Rutgers-Newark will find a thriving campus community that is well-positioned to embrace the exciting transformation that will accompany Rutgers University’s integration with UMDNJ,” Barchi said, referring to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Rutgers’ Newark campus will expand substantially on July 1, when it absorbs UMDNJ, which has a large footprint in the city, including medical and dental schools. The chancellor in Newark presumably will have a large role to play in the expansion.

Rutgers-Newark has about 12,000 students, most of them undergraduates, and also is home to the university’s respected law and business schools. Faculty and staff members have complained that they don’t get enough attention and funding from the university administration, which is based in New Brunswick-Piscataway, a much larger and sprawling campus with more than 37,000 students.

Rutgers has seen turnover in key leadership positions this year. Barchi was hired to direct the merger and came on board in September. The university also is conducting a search for a new athletic to replace Tim Pernetti, who resigned last month after video footage was broadcast of men’s basketball coach Mike Rice manhandling and verbally abusing players. Pernetti disciplined Rice last year, but Barchi fired the coach after seeing the tapes. Eddie Jordan was hired to replace Rice as basketball coach.

The university’s chief counsel, John B. Wolf, who signed off on Pernetti’s decision to discipline Rice, also resigned after the scandal. He was replaced by John J. Farmer Jr., the dean of the law school in Newark and a former New Jersey attorney general.

Email: alex@northjersey.com