The Salvation Army youth league begins Feb. 3 and will take place every Wednesday. File photo by Kevin Freiheit
Northport has announced year-round basketball divisions for boys and girls for third-grade to eighth-grade.
Final divisions will depend on enrollment, but each season will be 10 weeks, beginning Feb. 3.
Enrollment is $140 per player, and games will be every Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Salvation Army Gym at 319 Clay Pitts Road in East Northport.
Teams of three to four players will play three 10-minute games every week, and every player gets a reversible jersey with enrollment.
There are no coaches, but official and certified referees will be at every game.
The 3-on-3 games will heighten the awareness of applying skills in game-like settings where players will have an increased repetition set on both the offensive and defensive side of play. Through each game, players will be able to address skills that are often overlooked in a 5-on-5 setting.
Since there are no coaches, young players are forced to rely on their own instinct and abilities which facilitates quick growth and development. It is difficult to hide in 3-on-3, so everyone participates. There is an emphasis on fundamental skill sets and an increased competitive advantage.
Some topics addressed in 3-on-3 basketball include movement with and without the ball, screening action, individual and team defense, offensive spacing patterns, and the ability to read and react to players.
The program is geared toward providing all players an opportunity to enhance player development in a supervised, small, controlled setting while actively engaged in a safe and healthy environment and is directed by Long Island standout Ralph Rossetti.
Rossetti has been the recreational director and trainer for the Salvation Army since 2013, and has been training basketball players at the Army since 2008. At the Salvation Army, Rossetti has worked with dozens of boys and girls from the youth level through high school as well as a number of NCAA and professional players.
Registration can be done as a team or individually.
Space is limited, but athletes can register online at www.northportyouthbasketballclub.com/p/3-on-3-basketball-registration.html.
The Friends of Flax Pond are planning a winter lecture this week. File photo
The Friends of Flax Pond will hold the first presentation of its 13th annual Winter Lecture series on Sunday, Jan. 31, at the Childs Mansion, 19 Shore Dr., Setauket, at 3 p.m. Guest speaker will be Grace Scalzo, who will share her love of the outdoors with an innovative presentation of her photography of local birds. An avid nature photographer whose images have received numerous awards, Scalzo will also hold a book signing at the end of the event.
The lecture will be moderated by Stony Brook University distinguished service professor, Malcolm Bowman. Light refreshments will be served. There is no cost to attend but donations are gratefully accepted.
Future lectures in the series are scheduled for Feb. 21 and March 20 followed by an outdoor activity in early May.
For more information on the Friends of Flax Pond, other programs and directions to Childs Mansion, please visit www.flaxpondfriends.org, email [email protected]or call 631-767-6287 during business hours.
Super Bowl Sunday is a special occasion for the entire country, but Three Village’s own Emma S. Clark Memorial Library is alsopreparing for Super Saturday — Football Game Day.
On Saturday, Feb. 6, between the hours of 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the library’s Children’s Department, Emma Clark Library will have many activities that revolve around football. Kids are invited to watch football-themed movie “Air Bud: Golden Receiver,” play a football bean bag toss game, enter a raffle to win a special prize and make a football craft. Children may also learn how to make and then play in a Paper Flick Football tournament starting at 2 p.m.
There is no need to register for this event, and any child may stop by to participate. The library welcomes all ages to this event and also encourages patrons to wear a shirt or jersey with their favorite football team (but this is not required).
Join the library and kick off Super Bowl Sunday weekend. If residents have any questions, they can email [email protected] or call 631-941.4080 ext. 123.
The frigid temperatures and daunting weather last weekend aside, spring is right around the corner. It’s never too early to start thinking about fun weekend activities for the warm weather. I could think of none better to act as a guide to the vineyards of the North Fork than the woman who is widely considered the “Mother of the Long Island wine industry.”
‘The people that work at the wineries now work together. I think it’s something that does evolve as a region goes along.’ — Louisa Hargrave
Louisa Hargrave and her then-husband Alex Hargrave were pioneers of the Long Island wine scene back in the early 1970s. The couple drove cross-country to Napa Valley to learn more about the art of growing grapes in 1972, Louisa Hargrave said in a phone interview this week. Though they knew nothing about wine, the couple was eager to learn and to find an ideal place to grow grapes that would produce delicious, French-style wines.
“If you’re pioneers, you’ll be the ones with arrows in your backs,” Hargrave said was a piece of advice she was given before she began her wine growing endeavor on Long Island. “We’re 24 and 25 years old. If this doesn’t work we’ll try something else. We were very excited to find this special place,” she said.
Long Island’s climate was especially conducive to growing nicely ripened fruit, the Hargraves would soon find out once they got to work.
“[The wines] had a particularly vivacious quality. The reds came out a little bit lighter then we had hoped, but they had such complexity,” Hargrave said. Things have only gotten better with improvements to technology and technique. Teamwork has also played an important role in the development of the region as a whole, Hargrave said.
“One of the things I see that’s so terrific now is there were separate capsules of people then; now it’s a real industry,” Hargrave said. “The people that work at the wineries now work together. I think it’s something that does evolve as a region goes along. I have seen it in California. There are some people that are so dogmatically noninterventionists that look at the grapes and hope they turn into wine.”
Those noninterventionists with that frame of mind are luckily few and far between on Long Island, according to Hargrave.
When asked what her favorite wineries to visit from her current residence in Jamesport are, Hargrave answered quickly and definitively — Pellegrini Vineyards in Cutchogue. Her answer comes with a bit of bias however, being that her son Zander Hargrave is currently their winemaker.
“I visit my son’s winery quite often,” she said with a laugh.
McCall Wines in Cutchogue was another of her favorites that she mentioned. McCall is the true essence of the North Fork (winemakers Russ and Brewster McCall),” Hargrave said. “To go there, it’s just so low key. It’s really just the essence of the North Fork.”
For her favorite wine picks, other than Zander’s Pellegrini Sauvignon Blanc, Hargrave mentioned Lenz Cuvée, a sparkling white from the Lenz Winery in Peconic made by winemaker Eric Fry, which she said was on par with French Champagnes. As far as reds go, Paumanok’s Petit Verdot from winemaker Kareem Massoud stood out to her.
For the last leg of winter, bundle up, grab some Long Island wines and fantasize about warmer days ahead on the North Fork. Also, keep an eye out for the “Get to know a Long Island winery” series once a month in Arts & Lifestyles.
Mollie Adler bakes her brownies at her home in Shoreham. Photo by Giselle Barkley
Don’t look back. Keep going forward.
That’s what Mollie Adler’s father said to her before he died several decades ago. And she hasn’t looked back since — even as she is fighting to save her home with her new business “Miss Mollie’s Brownies.”
Around two years ago, this single mother of two hit hard times when her divorce not only left her struggling to put food on the table but also resulted in her Shoreham home going into foreclosure. Adler suffered another huge blow last September when she was laid off from her part-time job. With kids to feed and a home to worry about, baking brownies became Adler’s best bet.
Adler established her business after applying to New York’s Self-Employment Assistance Program last year. She was accepted into the program in October and started recycling water bottles to help pay for brownie ingredients. She’s currently selling her brownies at the Port Jefferson Winter Farmers Market.
“She’s always wanted to pursue a career in baking,” Denise Rohde said. “Her brownies honestly are her claim to fame. It’s almost like getting laid off was a blessing in disguise because it gave her time to actually pursue her dream.”
Rohde, of Baiting Hollow, met Adler nearly 17 years ago and has seen her through the many obstacles in her life — including the first time Adler was laid-off several years ago. After losing her second job, Adler decided to pursue her dream.
“I just had to reach and say this is what I’m going to do,” Adler said about creating Miss Mollie’s Brownies. “I’m going to do it for me. I’m going to have hours that make sense for me and I want to empower myself.”
“Miss Mollie’s Brownies” are packaged and arranged at her home. Photo by Giselle Barkley
But a chronic health condition further complicated Adler’s life when she started losing her sense of smell and taste. While she can taste salty or sweet foods, she can’t taste flavors, and has no sense of smell. Regardless, her fudgy brownies have friends, family members and clients coming back for more.
While her business is only a few weeks old, Adler has a wide range of brownie flavors including classic, espresso and nutty. Some seasonal flavors include apple pie, s’mores, mint and lavender, which she’s perfected with the help of her children who taste-test the brownies. But their help doesn’t stop there.
Adler’s daughter Melanie, who doesn’t share her mother’s last name, was the first to tell her mom’s story. Now, with the help of Adler’s graphic designer Gary Goldstein, Adler’s clients can read her story on the tag tied to each of her brownies. Goldstein met Adler more than a year ago. Goldstein, an art teacher who is designing Adler’s labels for free, started working with her last November. In that time, he’s seen her tenacity as she works to save her home.
“She deserves this,” he said. “She deserves not only things going well for her, but to be successful because she’s a dedicated mom and she’s hard-working. Like everyone else in life, you have your ups and downs, but this is a woman I envision being successful.”
In 2014, according to www.singlemotherguide.com, nearly 12 million families in America were single-parent families. According to Port Jefferson resident Pat Darling, a friend of Adler, some single parents don’t always pick themselves up when they hit hard times.
“I think when a person is down, instead of staying there they should reach, and they should dream — and she’s reaching for her dreams,’ Darling said. “I hope they all come true.”
Adler doesn’t just want her dreams to come true. She also wants to show her kids and single parents alike what dedication and perseverance can achieve. She said she hopes to create a place for single parents to help them through their hardships once her business takes off.
“Everyday I get up and do whatever it takes to get this done,” Adler said about building her business. “I’m not going to stop until “Miss Mollie’s Brownies” is a household name.”
Above, the eastern prickly pear cactus. File photo
By Ellen Barcel
Last week I wrote a column about planning a garden with the idea of making jams and jellies out of unusual plants: passionfruit, beautyberry and even Kousa dogwood. All are beautiful landscape plants but have the added bonus of edible fruit.
Well, there’s another fruit that can be used to make jams and jellies, as well as wine, and has the added benefit that it doesn’t need a lot of water since it’s a cactus. Opuntia, the prickly pear cactus, is native to much of North America and was most likely first used as food in Mexico, where it was known by the Aztec name “nopal.”
In the spring, the clumps of the cacti are filled with beautiful yellow flowers, which are followed later in the growing season by the fruit. Yes, Opuntia are flowering plants and like all true cacti are originally native to the Americas although they have been introduced to many other parts of the world.
The cactus fruit (also called cactus fig, Indian fig or “tuna” in Spanish) must be peeled carefully to remove the spines before eating. In Mexico and the American Southwest, the fruit is used in salads, soups, vegetable dishes and yes, jellies. I’ve even come across a recipe for cactus fruit gum drops that uses cactus fruit, applesauce, sugar and pectin. The pad, “nopal,” is also used in cooking.
Like so many cacti, a paddle (flat piece of the cactus) broken off from the main plant can be stuck in the ground and rooted to make more plants. Since pieces of cacti break off so easily from the main plant, this is an easy way of getting more plants.
The plants can also be grown from seed, since this is a flowering plant and the fruit does contain seeds. Like tomato plants, cut open a ripe cactus fruit, scoop out the gooey inside that has black dots and put it on some paper to dry. Separate the seeds out and plant them. On rare occasions, a plant will grow out of the fruit itself, like tomatoes can.
Remember, that cacti grow naturally in arid and semiarid climates. The worse thing that you can do to any cactus is to overwater it. In general, this is not a problem on Long Island, because despite our occasional deluges, we have sandy, i.e., well-drained, soil, so the prickly pear does well here. It even survives our winters. The paddles will dry up and sort of flatten out, but the plants will easily come back to life in spring.
If you decide to grow your prickly pear in containers, remember to make sure the containers have drainage holes and you use potting soil designed for cacti and succulents. I frequently see prickly pear cacti growing wild along the North Shore. A gardening friend of mine noted that Cedar Hill Cemetery in Port Jefferson is full of them and “the yellow flowers are beautiful.”
The fruit is ripe when, depending on variety, it is red or purple in color. Remember to be careful peeling it as it has not only large spines, but tiny ones as well, which can be very irritating.
Since there are so many varieties (I’ve read 181 species) of prickly pear, there are a number of different colors flowers. Opuntia ficus-indica (Indian fig prickly pear) is a large plant that has orange or yellow flowers, while O. basilaris (beavertail prickly pear) is a small plant but spreads. The variety that grows in the Northeast, i.e., Long Island, is called O. vulgaris, the eastern prickly pear. This is a comparatively small plant and so produces fairly small fruit.
If you find that your prickly pear isn’t bearing fruit, it’s too small, for example, you can find the fruit in many grocery stores in the produce section. These are usually from the western prickly pear and are much larger fruit.
Where you plant your cacti depends on several factors: sun (it prefers lots of sun), where the soil is dry and the ouch factor. Don’t put them near walk ways, children’s play areas or pools for obvious reasons.
Mine have survived winters outdoors but have remained small. I’m experimenting overwintering one grown in a pot indoors. When picking the fruit or transplanting the plants themselves, remember to wear gloves. Wrapping a cactus in newspaper is another way of handling it when transplanting.
Ellen Barcel is a freelance writer and master gardener. Send your gardening questions and/or comments to [email protected]. To reach Cornell Cooperative Extension and its Master Gardener program, call 631-727-7850.
A man previously convicted of a sexual offense against a minor was arrested on Thursday after allegedly being caught undressed inside a vehicle with a 14-year-old boy.
According to the Suffolk County Police Department, an officer was on routine patrol when he spotted the car in a dark area of the parking lot of the Fort Salonga Shopping Center on Route 25A, near Bread and Cheese Hollow Road, shortly after midnight.
Police said the 4th Precinct officer, Dennis Lynch, approached and saw two people inside with their clothes off: registered sex offender and vehicle owner Kieran Bunce, 48, and a 14-year-old boy.
The pair had arranged their meeting over a cell phone application, police said, and sexual contact did occur.
Bunce is a registered Level 1 offender. According to the database of Parents for Megan’s Law, a nonprofit advocacy and victim support group that monitors sex offenders, Bunce was previously convicted on a 2003 sexual misconduct charge stemming from an incident with a 16-year-old girl.
That charge, a Class A misdemeanor, is a crime of sexual intercourse with someone without their consent, whether it is because the victim is a minor, mentally incapacitated or forced, according to state penal law.
According to the Parents for Megan’s Law database, Bunce was sentenced to six years of probation for that 2003 offense.
The Melville resident was charged with two felony counts of second-degree criminal sex act, as well as the misdemeanor first-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
Attorney information for Bunce was not immediately available. He was scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.
Narcan, a drug that stops opioid overdoses. File photo by Jessica Suarez
Concerned that a loved one will overdose on drugs? Suffolk County is hosting training classes over the next few months to teach residents how to identify overdoses of opioid drugs — such as heroin, Vicodin and Percocet — and use the anti-overdose medication Narcan to rescue victims.
The county’s parting gift for people who show up to the program is an emergency resuscitation kit that contains Narcan as well as a certificate of completion.
The first class, on Feb. 4, will be a bit of a hike away, at the Mattituck firehouse on Pike Street from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. (RSVP to [email protected]).
There will be another in Greenlawn on Feb. 12, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Harborfields library on Broadway (RSVP to Sheila Sullivan at 631-271-8025 or [email protected]).
A third will take place on Feb. 18 in Wyandanch, at the Wyandanch Community Resource Center on Straight Path from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. (RSVP to 631-643-1960 or [email protected]).
Following a March 3 course in Bohemia, at the Connetquot Public Library on Ocean Avenue from 6 to 7 p.m. (RSVP to 631-665-2311), the county is holding one at the Setauket firehouse on Nicolls Road. That event, on Thursday, March 31, will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Participants can RSVP to 631-854-1650 or [email protected].
Devin Mollberg steps into mixed martial arts arena
Devin Mollberg, left, trains at Red Dragon Jiu-Jitsu in Centereach. Photo from Mollberg
Some people watch mixed martial arts fights on television and think “that’s brutal,” or “that’s barbaric,” or “that’s too violent.” Some don’t know what it is at all.
But North Shore native Devin Mollberg described the anything-goes, hand-to-hand combat style differently.
“It’s really exhilarating…It’s just an adrenaline rush,” said Mollberg, a 28-year-old Ward Melville High School graduate and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, about his favorite pastime. Mollberg grew up in Stony Brook, where he returned home from Afghanistan following his second tour of duty in late 2014. His first tour deployed him to Japan and South Korea. During his enlistment, he was stationed in Twentynine Palms, California.
“It’s kind of a tough transition,” Mollberg said in an interview last week about adjusting back to home life after four years in the military. “It’s kind of like, you leave home and then when you come back four years later everything’s a lot different. So it’s kind of tough getting back into the routine of things.”
Mollberg, like countless other veterans, said he realized the importance of finding ways to regain a feeling of normalcy upon returning home. Mixed martial arts has provided him with that.
“I started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu when I was a teenager,” Mollberg said. “I’d always trained jiu-jitsu and boxing even throughout my entire enlistment. I would train at schools in California.”
Mollberg has been involved in two jiu-jitsu tournaments in his life, one in Okinawa, Japan, and one in 2015 in St. James. He said he decided to use his boxing, jiu-jitsu and military training blend to pursue a mixed martial arts career. Generally speaking, the most successful MMA fighters tend to use a seamless blend of multiple disciplines to create their own style.
He gave MMA a full endorsement as a way for veterans to channel some of their emotions upon returning home.
“It’s definitely a great thing for veterans to get into,” Mollberg said. “It helps you stay calm.”
“Devin’s a goal-setter and a go-getter,” Nick Galatro, a friend of Mollberg’s for about a decade, said in an interview. “When he puts his mind to something he won’t stop until he gets it and he’s probably the most humble guy I know. You will never hear how great he is from his mouth,” Galatro said.
“It’s just an important skill set that I think is something that you should have,” Mollberg said about what initially drew him to fighting. “It’s definitely a passion of mine. I love fighting.” Some of his other passionate interests include rooting for the New York Jets and Knicks. He follows the Jets with the same intensity as a cage fighter.
Though he hasn’t yet been in an MMA “cage fight,” his training and preparation are currently geared toward making that debut in 2016. Mollberg trained for the Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament in 2015 at Red Dragon Jiu-Jitsu in Centereach. He is in the process of selecting a suitable gym for his foray into MMA.
Long Island natives have experienced some success in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, mixed martial arts’ most popular governing organization.
Chris Weidman, who fights out of Baldwin, spent time as the UFC middleweight division champion. Chris Wade of Islip won his 11th professional bout in a UFC match Sunday.
‘Apple Blossoms,’ Mixed Media on Canvas, by Ross Barbera
By Rita J. Egan
Ross Barbera has cherished the natural beauty of the outdoors since he was a child, and through the decades, he has recreated what he has seen on canvas and paper. During the month of February, art lovers can view the results of his passion at the Port Jefferson Free Library exhibit, Landscape and Flower Paintings.
While this is his first exhibit at the library, the award-winning artist has been exhibiting his work for decades at Manhattan venues such as the Razor Gallery, OK Harris Annex and the Jean Lumbard Gallery as well as the Clark Whitney Gallery in Massachusetts and Long Island libraries.
Growing up in Brooklyn, the Ronkonkoma resident said he would visit his grandparents in Smithtown during the summer, and when he was older, his parents bought a vacation home upstate in Peakville.
Barbera said he still has paintings from when he was about 10 years old, and even though traveling to Smithtown cultivated his love for the outdoors, it wasn’t until his parents bought the upstate home that he really began to appreciate nature, especially landscapes. He described the town in Delaware County as a quiet one where the nearest neighbor could be a couple of miles down the road, and while he said Long Island is equally as beautiful, it doesn’t have the diversity of the mountains and streams and lakes that upstate does.
‘White Camelia,’ Mixed Media on Canvas, by Ross Barbera
“In upstate New York I fell in love with the landscapes, and the streams, and just some beautiful stuff,” Barbera said. “And so that became my subject matter.”
While the artist may recreate the beauty of bodies of water, forest settings and more that he finds outdoors, it’s indoors where the painting occurs. He said he is a studio-based artist as opposed to a plein air painter due to the size of his paintings, which measure 4 feet by 6 feet and in his earlier days were 72 inches squared.
Barbera said cameras have always been his sketch pad. In the late 1960s, he owned a Pentax Spotmatic 35mm camera, and he said he would run around his family’s property trying to photograph as much as possible. However, he was very thoughtful at times about what to take a photo of with his first camera, because he had to keep in mind his budget for the film and developing. He said nowadays with his Nikon D7000, he can take thousands of photos a year.
“The camera has been a very important influence in my life. The kind of information I need is encapsulated in the photographs that I take. So I see all the subtlety and nuance and tone and form, because it’s recorded photographically,” he said.
Barbera said he also utilizes his iPad to display images so he can enlarge areas to get a closer look, or he sometimes will go into Adobe Photoshop and change the picture to create the perfect photo on the computer before creating it on canvas or paper. “It’s just amazing what technology allows you to do,” he said.
While landscapes have been his primary focus since childhood, over the years Barbera has developed an interest in painting flowers. To find the right subject, he often visits the Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay to take photos. “I love doing a close-up of a flower, because a flower is something that when you really look at it it’s an abstract thing that’s colorful and beautiful to look at,” the artist said.
Barbera, who considers himself a representational painter, said on canvas he uses acrylic paints and on paper watercolors. When he was younger, he used oil paints; however, after being overexposed to the paint and turpentine, he became overly sensitive and switched for health reasons. He said while they may not be as easy to use as oil paint at first, he quickly became acclimated to using them and recommends acrylics and watercolors to all painters.
‘Yellow Orchid,’ Mixed Media on Canvas, by Ross Barbera
In addition to being an artist, Barbera designs jewelry and has been teaching since 1980. He is currently an instructor at St. John’s University in Queens offering classes in painting and jewelry making. The teacher has many techniques to share with his students, but if there’s one piece of advice he could give them, he said it would be that you need to love and enjoy what you’re doing, “because the people who are driven usually become successful at their craft after a while if they pursue it. You have to like what you do.”
Successful at his craft is something the artist knows about after selling the majority of his work in the late ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s. He is now going through slides and digital transfers so he can track and have a catalogue of his previous work. Barbera said in recent years he has been keeping most of his paintings but from time to time will sell a piece. “I am at a point of my life that I’m holding on to what I have and my most recent work simply to be able to exhibit it,” he said.
While Barbera is choosing to sell his paintings less often these days, he said he sells his jewelry creations on a regular basis through his website and even blogs about the process.
The artist said occasionally he’ll receive a call from a lawyer asking the value of a painting due to an estate sale or a divorce, but recently he heard directly from a woman who inherited a painting of his from her father. She wanted to let Barbera know how much her parents would enjoy relaxing and looking at the painting.
It was a welcomed call for the artist who said he enjoys sharing his passion with nature with others. “I’m showing people through my painting, things I like to look at. It’s as simple as that, and I hope they enjoy the same — the view — when they look at it,” Barbera said.
The exhibit Landscape and Flower Paintings will be on display in the Meeting Room of the Port Jefferson Free Library, 100 Thompson Street, Port Jefferson, during the month of February. For more information on the exhibit, visit www.portjefflibrary.org or call 631-473-0022. To view Ross Barbera’s work, visit www.rossbarbera.com.
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