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Cooking Cove: Memorial Day side dishes that are sure to please

by Barbara Beltrami - May 26, 2017

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Spinach+Salad+with+Strawberries+and+Pine+Nuts-1 — Spinach-Strawberry Salad

By Barbara Beltrami

I think that, after reminding ourselves what Memorial Day is really all about, most of us think of it as the official beginning of summer and the kickoff for the many backyard barbecues, beach parties and picnics that will follow. Amid the flags and parades and sales, there are the hot dogs and hamburgers, barbecued chicken, ribs and steaks, potato salads, macaroni salads and cole slaw. And never would I presume to give recipes for those three side dishes because there are as many “world’s best” as there are people who make them. Instead I’d like to offer you a few recipes for other salads that are a little different and real crowd pleasers. Enjoy the following recipes for a healthy rice salad and spinach-strawberry salad.

Spinach-Strawberry Salad

YIELD: Makes 10 to 12 servings

INGREDIENTS:

Two 10-ounce bags prewashed spinach, trimmed

1 quart fresh strawberries, washed, trimmed and quartered

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons orange juice

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

½ cup toasted pignoli nuts

DIRECTIONS: In a large salad bowl toss together the spinach and strawberries. In a small bowl whisk together the oil, vinegars, honey, orange juice and salt and pepper until well emulsified. When ready to serve, whisk again and pour over spinach and strawberries; toss to coat thoroughly and sprinkle with pignoli nuts. Serve at room temperature with meat, fish, fowl or casseroles.

Rice Salad

YIELD: Makes 8 to 10 servings

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups long grain white or brown rice

1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

1 cup thinly sliced scallions

One medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely chopped

1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

2 teaspoons minced fresh oregano

1 teaspoon minced fresh mint

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS: Prepare the rice according to package directions; let cool to room temperature or lukewarm. Then toss with the olive oil and lemon juice. Let sit, covered, for 30 minutes. Add tomatoes, scallions, cucumber, parsley, oregano, mint, salt and pepper. Toss thoroughly. Serve at room temperature with lamb, beef, chicken or fish.

Shelter Pet of the Week: Purdy

by Heidi Sutton - May 26, 2017

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MEET PURDY! This little lady is Purdy and she’s waiting for her furever home at Kent Animal Shelter. You would never know it by the way she acts, but this adorable terrier is 7 years young! She’s full of life and love and is just looking for someone to share it with. Could that be with you?

Purdy would love all of your attention, so she would like to be your one and only pet. She comes spayed, microchipped, de-wormed and up to date on her vaccines. Kent Animal Shelter is located at 2259 River Road in Calverton. For more information on Purdy and other adoptable pets at Kent, please call 631-727-5731 or visit www.kentanimalshelter.com.

Recognizing service members at the Long Island State Veterans Home

by TBR Staff - May 26, 2017

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Elected officials, religious leaders, volunteers and residents gathered at the Long Island State Veterans Home on the campus of Stony Brook University May 26 to give thanks to a roomful of United States military veterans. The annual ceremony, which includes a color guard, firing detail and wreath laying, honors the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country — whose brothers and sisters in arms reside at the home on campus.

The Long Island State Veterans Home is dedicated to serving the more than 250,000 veterans who live on Long Island. Opened 26 years ago, the facility’s relationship with Stony Brook University’s medical department has been a winning combination for the care of veterans — providing skilled nursing services that many veterans wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Veterans who fought in Vietnam, Korea and even World War II sat together in the home’s Multipurpose Room, some of them tearful as singer Lee Ann Brill performed moving renditions of “Amazing Grace” and Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Marine Corps veteran Edward Kiernan read “In Flanders Fields,” a famous war memorial poem written during World War I. Korean War veteran Richard Seybold was honorary bearer of the wreath.

“Every minute, of every hour, of every day, Americans enjoy the blessings of a peace-loving nation — blessings protected by the selfless service of men and women in uniform,” Fred Sganga, executive director of the veterans home, said to the crowd. “The America we know would not be the same were it not for the men and women we honor on Memorial Day … a single day during which we honor the spirit of all those who died in service to our nation, but whom we continue to remember and honor in our hearts.”

Stressing the holiday means much more than a three-day weekend, Sganga recognized the collective shift in thinking when it comes to Memorial Day.

“In recent years,” he said, “a new awareness of the sacrifices our military members are making is emerging, becoming an ingrained part of our American experience.”

U.S. State Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), who delivered the keynote address, read excerpts from President Ronald Reagan’s (R) 1984 address commemorating the 40th anniversary of D-Day. LaValle prefaced by saying, “Whether you served in the second World War, Korean War, Vietnam War or Gulf War, these words apply to you.”

“President Reagan said, ‘Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here … you were young the day you took these cliffs, some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? … It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. All of you loved liberty, all of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew people of your countries were behind you.’”

LaValle ended his address by thanking the veterans in attendance for their service.

“On behalf of the Senate and majority leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport), we really appreciate what you do and we try each and every day to make sure this veterans home is everything that you would want it to be,” LaValle said. “We all say thank you.”

To learn more about the Long Island State Veterans Home, visit www.listateveteranshome.org.

Photo of the Week

by TBR Staff - May 26, 2017

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BON APPÉTIT! Jay Gao of Stony Brook took this photo of a robin feeding its babies in his backyard on May 10 using a Nikon D5500. After hatching, baby robins spend anywhere from nine to 15 days in the nest. The fledglings then leave the nest and move about on the ground and on low branches for a few days before they can fly.

Send your Photo of the Week to [email protected].

Popular Living History Tours return to the Vanderbilt Museum

by Heidi Sutton - May 26, 2017

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The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport will turn back the clock once again when it offers Living History Tours beginning on Memorial Day weekend, Saturday and Sunday, on May 27 and 28.

The Vanderbilt has been called a “museum of a museum” — the mansion, natural history and marine collections galleries are preserved exactly as they were when the Vanderbilts lived on the estate.

For more than a decade, Living History Tours have delighted visitors to the elegant 24-room, Spanish-Revival waterfront mansion, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. These special, time machine events feature the Vanderbilts and their servants, who are portrayed by museum tour guides.

The stories told on the tours are based on the oral histories of people who worked for the Vanderbilts as teenagers and young adults. Some stories originated in William K. Vanderbilt’s books of his world travels and extensive sea journeys.

This summer it will be 1936 again. “The movie ‘Captains Courageous’ with Spencer Tracy is playing in the theaters, and Agatha Christie’s new novel, ‘Dumb Witness,’ is in the bookstores,” said Stephanie Gress, director of curatorial affairs. “Legendary aviator Amelia Earhart is lost at sea in July, and European leaders are faced with threats of German expansion. And the U.S. Post Office issues a commemorative stamp in honor of the women’s voting rights activist and social reformer Susan B. Anthony on the 30th anniversary of her death in 1906.”

Earlier in 1936, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia — who supported women’s voting rights — had been the keynote speaker at a dinner at the city’s Biltmore Hotel to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Women’s City Club in New York. The Living History presentation is set against this background of national and international news.

LaGuardia is invited to Eagle’s Nest to join a few of the Vanderbilt family members including William K. Vanderbilt’s brother, Harold; his sister, Consuelo, the Duchess of Marlborough; and her guests Elizabeth Arden, Anne Morgan, and her nephew, Henry Sturgis Morgan, Gress said. Vanderbilt’s sister, Consuelo, and her guests reminisce about their younger days at suffragette rallies.

Beginning Memorial Day weekend, the museum will display items in two guest rooms that commemorate the centennial of women’s right to vote in New York State. Included will be an enlargement of the Susan B. Anthony stamp, suffrage banners and sashes and an authentic outfit worn in that era by Consuelo, the Duchess of Marlborough. (Vanderbilt’s mother, Alva, also had been active in the movement.)

The Living History cast includes Peter Reganato as Mayor LaGuardia, who will be reading the comics in the kitchen and practicing for his radio address later that day. Ellen Mason will play Elizabeth Arden, who created the American beauty industry. Yachtsman Harold Vanderbilt — Willie’s brother, three-time winner of the America’s Cup, and expert on contract bridge — will be portrayed by Jim Ryan and Gerard Crosson. Anne Morgan will be played by Judy Pfeffer and Beverly Pokorny.

The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will present its Living History Tours at regular intervals on summer weekend afternoons through Sept. 3. Tickets are $8 per person, available only at the door. For more information, please call 631-854-5579.

East bests West in Smithtown semifinal clash

by Desirée Keegan - May 26, 2017

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Smithtown East will face Ward Melville in Suffolk County championship May 31

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Jason Lambert told his team to weather the storm.

Not only literally, as rain fell through the thick fog during Smithtown East’s Class A semifinal game May 25 against their in-district rivals, but because he knew that Smithtown West was going to push for a comeback.

East was leading West 7-2 heading into the fourth quarter, and despite West scoring three goals to cut down the margin, Connor DeSimone drained time off the clock, and held it during the final seconds to secure a 7-5 win for East.

The senior said his team knew it had to adopt a different strategy to seal the deal.

“That was definitely the game plan coming in — we were going to hold the ball,” he said. “We knew that if the ball was in our stick, we couldn’t lose. So we didn’t mind holding the ball during five or six minutes of good possession at a time without scoring.”

Lambert said the other main objective was to value the ball, and he liked that his team accomplished that goal — using it to capitalize on early scoring chances.

DeSimone and senior Luke Eschabach went back-to-back with unassisted goals, and then assisted on each other’s shots in East’s 4-1 first quarter.

“We’ve been playing together since we were 5 years old and we always find each other through the field,” Eschbach said. “He knows where I am, I know where he is without even looking, and he always finds the void.”

DeSimone said he knows his longtime teammate’s skills and wants to find him when he can.

“He’s an awesome shooter, a great player, and I know when I find him on the through ball, he’s going to put it in the back of the net like we’ve been doing all year,” he said.

DeSimone said the team was concerned about West’s faceoff man Conor Calderone and goalkeeper Ryan Erler.

“We weren’t letting [Ryan] Erler make the saves, who played great today,” he said, although Erler still made 12 stops, including back to back saves in the game’s final seconds. “I knew possession was crucial. They out-possessed us by two times the amount we had the ball, so knowing that we knew we had to value the ball, we had to take the best shot, not the first shot.”

Both teams went scoreless over a 20-minute span, before DeSimone found senior Dominic Pizzulli.

“We weren’t nervous at all,” DeSimone said of the drought. “It’s one play at a time. We’re not looking for home runs — there’s no superheroes on the team — if we all look out for each other and play team ball it’s going to be hard to beat us.”

Danny Riley scored twice for West, sandwiched around a goal by Jimmy Caddigan, to make it 7-5 with 7:23 left.

“We just had to make sure to manage their comeback and not give them all the momentum,” Lambert said.

West’s Brian Herber won the ensuing faceoff, and East went back to draining the clock.

“Sometimes we have letdowns, but this team knows we have ups and downs, and every single person on this team never gives up on each other,” Eschbach said. “We always stay positive, so when we lose a couple of ground balls, get a flag here and there to go a man down, we always come back and pull through.”

DeSimone said he was most excited to avenge last season’s semifinal loss to Connetquot, and is just happy to have another day of practice. Eschbach said he’d love nothing more than another county championship win over Ward Melville, like the Bulls had two years ago.

“I wanted to get here so bad my senior year,” he said. “We need to possess the ball — not throw it away — and play strong defense. If our defense plays the way it did today, I think we’ll have a very strong shot at taking that game.”

Smithtown East will face Ward Melville May 31 at Stony Brook University at 3 p.m. The winner will move on to the Long Island championship game at Stony Brook University June 3 at 10 a.m.

Huntington Station teacher arrested for alleged inappropriate relationship with student

by Victoria Espinoza - May 26, 2017

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Dreher, Brian 17-263975 — Brian Dreher was arrested for having a relationship with a 16-year-old girl who was a student of his at Walt Whitman High Shool. Photo from SCPD.

Suffolk County Police arrested a Walt Whitman High School teacher Friday, May 26 who allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with one of his students in Huntington Station.

Special Victims Section detectives began an investigation into the conduct of a Walt Whitman High School teacher and discovered said he was having an inappropriate relationship with one of his 16-year-old female students. Detectives arrested Brian Dreher, 41, of East 17^th St., Huntington Station, at his home at approximately 7:25 a.m.

Dreher, who teaches social studies at the school, located on West Hills Road in Huntington Station, was charged with third-degree rape, third-degree criminal sexual act and endangering the welfare of a child.

Detectives are asking anyone with information to contact Special Victims at 631-852-6531.

Dreher will be held at the Seventh Precinct and is scheduled to be arraigned at First District Court in Central Islip today. Attorney information on Dreher was not immediately available.

Hobbes, Grillo lead Ward Meville to third straight county final

by Desirée Keegan - May 26, 2017

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Ward Melville to face Smithtown East in Suffolk championship May 31

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As the crowd and sideline erupted over a stretch of three minutes in the third quarter, it seemed like the Patriots couldn’t miss.

In fact, they didn’t, as the Ward Melville’s boys’ lacrosse team scored six times on six shots during that span, on the way to a 15-6 Class A semifinal win over Half Hollow Hills East May 25.

“We’ve been here before, and we were pumped up,” junior Zach Hobbes said. “We knew we had to come out fired up, because there was a chance we were going to go home.”

An early ouster from the playoffs seemed like a remote possibility coming into the game for two-loss Ward Melville, after Hills East gave the Patriots all they could handle in a triple overtime, 8-7 thriller during the regular season, but the second-half scoring spurt erased that possibility. Hobbes found the back of the net for the first of the six goals, which was his third of the game. Junior Matt Grillo scored twice to complete his hat trick, and junior Michael Giaquinto also scored twice, directly off faceoff wins.

“We played more unselfish,” Grillo said. “Last time we played them, we had a lot of individuals doing their stuff, and this time we looked for the open man, and it worked.”

The Patriots were riding a 6-2 halftime advantage into that 6-0 run. The last goal of the second quarter fired up Grillo and senior Eddie Munoz, inspiring the team to come out even quicker after the break.

Grillo intercepted a Hills East pass attempt by the goalkeeper, and with Kyle Bockelman outside of his posts, Grillo saw the opportunity at an empty-netter with Munoz at his side.

“I saw the rusty pass and I ran over to pick it off,” Grillo said. “Eddie’s always there to put it in, and I knew he was going to finish.”

Giaquinto, who split 10 faceoffs in the first half, won seven of eight in the third, and got lower on the draw to help him win 18 of 25 faceoffs overall in the game.

“I give Michael Giaquinto a lot of credit,” Hobbes said. “Those possessions were key.”

Munoz said his teammates have been hearing all season long how they’re the next resilient bunch to vie for the state championship, and he said he knew the next step toward getting back to where the Patriots were last year wasn’t too far out of reach.

“To be so close to another county championship — we needed to win,” he said. “Our drive is what got us here, and our confidence is through the roof, but you can’t be too cocky. We’re soaking it in, enjoying the moment, but once we get on that bus — get back to the school — we have work to do. It’s all about staying focused.”

Ward Melville will face Smithtown East May 31 at Stony Brook University at 3 p.m. with a chance for redemption. The Bulls halted the Patriots’ playoff push two years ago, with an 11-10 county final victory.

“We feel we have a standard to uphold at Ward Melville,” Hobbes said. “We need to get back to where we were last year, and take that title this time. We’re ready to play.”

Suffolk County selected for study to gather medical data

by Alex Petroski - May 26, 2017

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CDC-study-051917-petroskiw — Residents participate in a CDC survey to accumulate data on health and diets of Americans. Photo by Alex Petroski

By Alex Petroski

Suffolk County residents will play an important role in improving the health of their fellow Americans in 2017. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention selected Suffolk as one of 15 counties nationwide to participate in its annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a data collection study that is used to draw conclusions about the health and diets of people in the United States.

The CDC is the nation’s health protection agency, conducting research in the hopes of preventing the spread of diseases and tracking their prevalence. The NHANES is a 55-year-old program that tracks health and diet trends in the U.S. by selecting counties based on demographics with the goal of accumulating a set of data representative of the entire population of the country.

Three CDC trailers will spend about six weeks parked in Stony Brook’s Research and Development Park to study Suffolk County residents. Photo from CDC

This is the second time Suffolk was observed as part of the survey since the turn of the century, according to study manager Jacque DeMatteis. The CDC arrived April 29 at Stony Brook University’s Research and Development Park in three mobile trailers outfitted with dozens of pieces of medical equipment, researchers and physicians to begin assessments on the approximately 600 Suffolk residents selected.

“It’s important because right now we’ve got all of these miracles happening with cancer research and things like that, without information that people help us to provide — a lot of it comes from here — [researchers] don’t have anything to draw on,” DeMatteis said of the purpose of the yearly survey during a tour of the CDC mobile facility May 19.

Charles Rothwell, director of the National Center for Health Statistics, reiterated the importance of accumulating the data in a statement.

“The survey is a unique resource for health information, and without it we would lack important knowledge about major health conditions,” he said. “The comprehensive data collected by NHANES has a far-reaching and significant impact on everything from the quality of the air we breathe, to the vaccinations you get from your doctor, to the emergence of low-fat and ‘light’ foods on the shelves of your grocery store.”

A young participant in the study is measured. Photo from CDC

The process for selecting participants within a county begins with about 1,500 addresses, and interviewers scour the area in the hopes of securing about 600 willing participants who also provide a representative sample of age ranges, genders, races and ethnicities and degrees of health. The selected participants who are willing to be examined then visit the mobile facility to be subjected to a variety of tests of blood pressure, diet, dental/oral health, vision and hearing, bone density, liver function and much more using high-tech scans not often available through traditional physicians.

DeMatteis made the case for selected participants making the trip to be studied despite some minor possible inconveniences.

“For the people who participate, they get their results back,” she said. “If anything abnormal comes up they’re contacted immediately. Our national health officer will contact them and we’ve had a couple of situations where it was kind of life-threatening situations and they were totally unaware of it.”

Participating adults also receive $125, reimbursement for travel expenses and the opportunity to receive credit for five hours of community service. Newborns and up are required for data collection, though specific scans and tests are not done uniformly across age groups.

“A lot of people do it for the exams, and in the past even more people had no means to get access to health care, so they came here because they’re going to get a whole lot of data about their health that they otherwise can’t afford to get,” DeMatteis said.

No medical procedures are offered at the site, though on occasion physicians are forced to recommend immediate treatment if anything concerning appears as a result of a test. Patients are also allowed to pick and choose which tests they’d like to participate in of the ones they qualify for. The CDC urges anyone selected to participate in the survey.

New York commits $15 million for BNL microscope

by Daniel Dunaief - May 26, 2017

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BNL-microscopew — Sen. Kenneth LaValle, wearing hat, sits with Brookhaven National Laboratory beamline scientist Dieter Schneider. Looking on from left, BNL Director Doon Gibbs; vice president for development at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Charles Prizzi; NSLS-II director John Hill; and Stony Brook University associate vice president for Brookhaven affairs, Richard Reeder. Photo from Brookhaven National Laboratory

Thanks to the persistent support of state Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), Brookhaven National Laboratory secured $15 million from New York State to add a state-of-the-art microscope that could contribute to advances in basic science and medicine.

The national laboratory will purchase a new cryo-electron microscope and will use the funds to create a building attached to its National Synchrotron Light Source II.

“Cryo-electron microscopy is an advanced imaging technology that will significantly accelerate scientists’ understanding of molecular structures and processes generally, including many impacts in understanding disease and in aiding drug discovery,” Doon Gibbs, the laboratory director of BNL, said in an email.

BNL will use the funds to purchase the first of what they hope will be four such new microscopes. The lab is finalizing a bid, which is due by June 30 for funds from the National Institutes of Health for three additional microscopes.

“There is an exponentially increasing demand for the type of bio-structural information that such machines provide, and so we are competing to become an East Coast based national facility to serve this rapidly growing community,” James Misewich, the associate director for energy and photon sciences at BNL said in an email.

Having a suite of microscopes would enable BNL to have a spectrum of capabilities to serve the needs of its scientists and of researchers from around the world who flock to the Upton-based lab to conduct their research.

The new facility will create jobs associated with running the cryo-EM, Misewich said. If BNL wins the NIH proposal to become a national cryo-EM facility, it would also employ additional scientists, engineers, technicians and administrators to run the user program.

Misewich said he hopes scientists at nearby Stony Brook University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory will benefit from the opportunity to use a combination of its X-ray and electron microscope probes.

Senior members of the BNL team credit LaValle for helping to secure the funds.

“The $15 million in New York State funding is the culmination of a two-year effort led by the senator to bring a cryo-EM to Brookhaven and jump-start this important effort,” Gibbs said.

LaValle suggested that the funds were well worth the investment.

“It is critically important for government to embrace and support the work of the organizations that make life-altering discoveries and better our lives, health and environment,” LaValle said in an email. “This investment will further establish world-leading prominence in the field of medical research, and position the region for additional major investments by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Misewich envisions configuring one of the microscopes to allow for electron tomography, which will generate three-dimensional images of cells.

“The approach will be complementary to the X-ray imaging work we can undertake with the NSLS-II beamlines,” Misewich said.

Gibbs explained that the cryo-EM is complementary to X-ray crystallography, which is the traditional method for determining structures, which scientists already do at BNL.

“Few prescription drugs have been approved by the [Food and Drug Administration] for use in the U.S. in the last 20 years without a crystallographic study of their structure by X-rays,” Gibbs continued.

Misewich expects the new microscope could lead to new methods of detection, diagnosis and treatment for diseases like cancer or for medical challenges like antibiotic resistance.

Combining the technological tools of the new cryo-EM with the insights from the NSLS II and the nine-year-old Center for Functional Nanomaterials will enable researchers to “provide much more rapid bio-structure determination in response to needs like the ability to rapidly characterize a virus,” Misewich said.

LaValle sited this effort as a part of his ongoing commitment to build Long Island’s new high-tech economy.

The combination of BNL, SBU and CSHL “will provide a significant boost to the competitiveness of the biosciences and biotechnology communities across Long Island,” LaValle said.

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