By Taylor Smith
Sleep is vital for overall health, but elusive for many. Whether you’re a parent under stress or you’ve become reliant on prescription sleep aids like Lunesta or Ambien, here are some non-habit forming methods for improving overall sleep quality and duration. more
By Taylor Smith
It’s the start of 2019 which means one thing — you’re probably assessing your New Year’s resolutions. While a gym membership and a trip to Whole Foods may help you to exercise and eat better, real change begins with a fresh perspective and more all-encompassing lifestyle habits. Here are a just a few books that might help guide the way to a new and improved you. more
By Taylor Smith
According to the World Health Organization, “an estimated 47 million people currently suffer from dementia and that number is expected to increase to 75 million by 2030. It is projected that the number will triple by 2050.” To put these numbers into perspective, the Alzheimer’s Association estimates that “the cost to care for an Alzheimer’s patient in a private room in a nursing home is around $97,455 per year.” This is where U.K.-based health care start-up Virtue steps in (https://www.virtue.io). With the goal to “empower the silver generation,” Virtue aims to “develop transformative solutions for aging well.” more
By Taylor Smith
Nearly two decades after Magnolia Bakery became a New York sensation, the company recently announced that it has plans to open 200 additional franchises across the United States over the next five years. The bakery, which opened its doors in Greenwich Village in 1996, has since grown to six stores in New York alone, plus locations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. The purveyor of all things pastry currently has an international franchising program with 17 international stores in seven countries.
Thanks to its role in the hit HBO series Sex and the City, the company has expanded beyond cupcakes to offer cakes and the popular banana pudding (an Instagram favorite).
By Taylor Smith
Sweating as medical treatment and ritual can be traced back to the Romans, Ancient Greeks, and Russians, along with Native American sweat lodges. It seems that for all of human history, the benefits of sweating have been known to mankind. For example, a fever is our body’s natural way of encouraging the immune system to perform better, since sweat is one of the major elimination channels for toxins. Even more significant, there are multiple clinics in Germany that create hyperthermia conditions during chemotherapy to reduce the dose of medications needed to target, and hopefully eliminate, cancer cells. The same process happens on a less extreme level when people experience a sauna. Different than your typical sauna, infrared heat has been shown to boost mood, increase endorphins, reduce symptoms of seasonal affective disorder, increase blood flow, burn significant calories, encourage metal detoxification, and promote the immune system’s cell activity.
By Taylor Smith
Want to heal your gut, boost immunity, and improve the quality and texture of your hair, nails, and skin? Then bone broth might be the answer to your winter weather woes. Thanks to the Paleo diet and other gluten-free, low-carb trends, bone broth has earned a spot on many functional nutritionists’ lists. So, what exactly is bone broth and why is it so healing? The answer lies in the wealth of gelatin, which breaks down into collagen in the body. Collagen has many nourishing properties, not least of which is more youthful looking skin. This is particularly helpful during the cold and drying winter months when skin, hair, and nails are most in need of moisture.
By Taylor Smith |Photos courtesy of @warbyparker
Trend setting eyeglass company Warby Parker is making its debut in the Garden State. Customers can now have fun trying on the company’s affordable and stylish frames at 126 Central Avenue in downtown Westfield. The bright, airy, and spacious store is adorned with book-centric murals designed by Keith Negly.
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By Taylor Smith
Companies like One Peloton (www.onepeloton.com) have engineered some of the most attractive and effective workout machines in recent years. Equipment like the Peloton Cycle and Peloton Tread enable users all over the world to get a boutique indoor cycling and running studio experience from the convenience of their own homes, day or night. For a lot of working people and parents, the opportunity to get a solid sweat session at any time of day (and no car travel required) is a huge relief. more
By Taylor Smith
Husband and wife duo Mark Sopchak and Jenna Park began their baking company Whimsy & Spice at the launch of the Brooklyn Flea in the spring of 2008. In the years since, Whimsy & Spice has grown, thrived, and expanded. A trained pastry chef influenced by the flavors of international travel, Sopchak handles the baking-side of the company’s operation, while Park manages the graphic design and marketing end, shooting much of the photography for the brand. Viewers will be struck by the New York design sensibility combined with unusual flavors. more
By Taylor Smith
Looking for a holiday getaway? Makeup mogul Bobbi Brown and her husband, entrepreneur Steven Plofker, have opened a stately and fashionable 32-room inn in the New York City suburb of Montclair. A 35-minute train ride from Midtown Manhattan, The George is the perfect weekend destination for tri-state area residents. more
Photography by Jeffrey Tryon
by Laurie Pellichero | Photos courtest of La Jolie Salon & Spa
After many years in downtown Princeton, La Jolie has moved. Tell us about your new location.
In October 2017, we officially opened our doors at 163 Bayard Lane Princeton. If you are a longtime resident of the area, you will probably remember it as the former location of Elements restaurant. The thoughtful design reimagined as a salon and spa is truly a modern retreat. Raw materials of wood, stone, and metal throughout give a rustic edge. We have created three defined spaces for hair, nails, and skincare. Comfort is a priority when you come to La Jolie. We wanted to make sure that from the moment you pull into one of our many parking spaces, you can escape the everyday hustle and enjoy any one of our services in a secluded atmosphere away from the busy downtown center. more
By Laurie Pellichero | Photography courtesy of One Simple Wish
Every voice heard. Every child loved.” That is the goal of One Simple Wish, now celebrating 10 years of making wishes come true for children in foster care.
Founded by Ewing resident Danielle Gletow, the nonprofit organization has helped more than 55,000 children through 700 community partners in 48 states across the country through its online wish-granting platform at www.onesimplewish.org.
By Stuart Mitchner
Amsterdam was the first stop on my first trip to Europe and the first time in my life that I’d walked into a museum on a whim, on my own, casually, without thinking of it as a prescribed learning experience. Every painting was by the same artist. At 19, I knew about Van Gogh of course. I’d seen Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life. But here was the reality, vividly, wildly, uncontainedly there in the gobs, clusters, and swirls of paint everywhere I looked, and no one else was around, no crowds to contend with; somehow some way I’d lucked out and had the place to myself, just me and Van Gogh. I could almost hear him breathing, smell the smoke from his pipe, as if he were working as I watched, no brush, I imagined him squeezing the paint between his fingers and then slapping it on. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I’d landed all by myself on the shore of a new world of art.
By Taylor Smith
The mecca for all objects by designer John Derian is located across three distinct shopfront spaces at 6 East Second Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery in New York City. Derian’s signature découpage glassware is accompanied by hand-selected French and American antiques, home decor, linens, fine art, and accent pieces from around the world. A must-register destination for those who crave charming whimsy combined with craftsmen-like artisanship, customers can direct all inquiries to 212.677.1003. more
The Sea King’s Daughter A Russian Legend
Illustrating Tales and Stories for All Ages
By Wendy Greenberg | Photos courtesy of Gennady Spirin
While the work of artist and illustrator Gennady Spirin has been described as “realism,” he says that he doesn’t like that label. His distinctive illustrations of fairy tales, classic tales, and folk tales are the result of careful research and loving detail combined with imagination and interpretation.
And they resonate with children.
“Children have a realistic view of the world,” he explains. “That is why I try to make it look interesting to them. Children can’t draw what they see because they don’t have the skills yet, so it comes out childlike. They admire real objects the way they look, not a conceptual or a symbolic representation of it.” more
James Steward Steers the University Art Museum Expansion
By Ilene Dube | Portraits by Erica M. Cardenas
Big plans are underway for the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM).
In September, the museum announced Sir David Adjaye as design architect, in collaboration with Cooper Robertson as executive architect, for a new building that will offer “dramatically enlarged space for the exhibition and study of the museum’s encyclopedic collections, special exhibitions, and art conservation, as well as classrooms and office space for the 100-person museum staff.” It is expected to be “an inspirational space, a center of cultural gravity.”
In accepting the position, Sir Adjaye called PUAM “one of the finest university art museums and among the oldest art collecting institutions in America…. The reimagined museum will be the cultural gateway between Princeton University, its students, faculty, and the world, a place of mind-opening encounters with art and ideas.” more
Welcoming Classical Music’s International Champion
By Anne Levin
In a YouTube video taped at a concert in Caracas, Venezuela, on New Year’s Eve 2007, the power of music is vividly on display. The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and the Venezuelan Brass Ensemble — an unusually large group on one stage — are playing the “Mambo” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, and the place is rocking.
Audience members of all ages are on their feet, dancing, cheering, clapping, and tossing confetti at the stage. The musicians, having a hard time staying in their seats, manage to shimmy and sway as they play. On the podium leading this exhilarating pandemonium is Gustavo Dudamel, the youthful, curly-haired conductor who is a legend in his home country and a superstar in the music world. more
By Donald Gilpin | Photographs courtesy of the Institute for Advanced Study
The United States is a country of immigrants, but the question of immigrants and immigration has never been without controversy. It has been especially dominant in the national media during the past two years. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” wrote Emma Lazarus in an 1883 poem to raise money for the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Long before 1883 and in the 135 years since, immigrants, from refugees in direst poverty to students, entrepreneurs, and the most prosperous, have helped to shape the country and have permeated its civic and political dialogue.
