Baseball season is about to start and March Madness enters its Final Four. But the games that really matter begin tonight—at Drew University.
Teams of students will run or walk continuously all night long in a relay race that is both memorial and celebration. The American Cancer Society calls it a Relay For Life.
Tonight’s event is the first of dozens of relays being held this spring and summer in New Jersey. More than 70 in all.
At Drew, the students will pause briefly at sundown to place candles in special bags that line the track, and surround spectators. The flickering lights are a memorial to those who have fought the fight, and lost.
Cancer survivors will take a single lap alone. Then, they’ll be surrounded by team members, and go on, all through the night, running or walking. Any speed is fine; talking, singing, and eating are all part of the process.
They’ll sleep when they can—as long as someone from the team is always moving forward. “Cancer doesn’t sleep,” Marjorie Kaplan, director of media relations for the American Cancer Society, reminds us.
Like the disease they are battling, the long night is a challenge. But there is strength and power in numbers. Last year’s Relays For Life, in New Jersey alone, raised more than five million dollars. There are similar events around the country, and the world.
Tomorrow at sunrise, the students’ relay will end. Fueled by the support of family and friends, the survivors will be energized to face another day. And, as anyone who has ever battled the disease knows, it’s one day at a time.
You can do that a lot of places around the state. One of the largest egg hunts this Palm Sunday is at Seaside Heights.
More than 12,000 eggs filled with prizes from boardwalk merchants will be buried in the sand. Starts at 1 p.m. Call (732) 854-8000 or visit www.seasideheightstourism.com. Another Sunday egg hunt is at the Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center in Millville. Three-year-olds go at 10:30 a.m. and 4- to -8- year-olds at 11:30. Eggs aren’t the only fragile things at Wheaton, home to the Museum of American Glass. After the egg hunt stay to watch craftsmen create glass art, a South Jersey cultural tradition.
Ready the Garden
It’s been dormant all winter. Time to nurture it back. March 31 from 10 a.m. to noon Somerset County’s Leonard J. Buck Garden in Far Hills offers a workshop where you can learn about soil preparation, fertilizers and planting tips for perennials and annuals. $15 per person. Call (908) 234-2677 or click “ Information” and then “Calendar of Events” at www.somersetcountyparks.org.
Prep The Boat
Stop by the Wildwoods Boat and Fishing Show, all weekend long at the Wildwoods Convention Center. Plenty of new boats to admire, fishing gear, and used vessels as well, at the Montgomery Ave. Parking lot (www.gwcoc.org/boatshow).
Improve the Home
Planning to redo the kitchen? Thinking about redecoration? Get inspired at The Better Living Home Show at the Morristown Armory. Friday 3-9 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. Call (973) 224-2797 for more details. Admission is $8 but you can save two bucks if you print the coupon at www.jmkshows.com.
Watch Migration
The first birds of spring are starting to show up, and New Jersey Audubon is ready to show you where. Join the experts at Sandy Hook Saturday or Sunday at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, both at 8:45 a.m. They’ll be looking for early migrating songbirds, waterfowl, waders and raptors. Or check to the Delaware Water Gap for woodcocks performing their annual spring nuptial dance. For details check the calendar at www.njaudubon.org.
Sometimes we want an A-list chef, a great wine list, ultra-professional service. Other times, we crave small and homey. And cheaper.
We look for that undiscovered place that serves comfort food in a place you wouldn’t think to look. We don’t mean the ubiquitous diners, pizza joints, Chinese takeouts or burger-and-beer pubs. We’re talking eclectic comfort food, the kind you don’t find in a lot of other neighborhood restaurants.
Like Churrasco Grill (973 263-1590) in Lake Hiawatha. “Churrasco” is the Argentinean word for barbecue. And that’s what greets you—a colossal brick grill facing the dozen or so tables in the tiny, cramped dining room.
As waiters and patrons bump into each other, the chef stands before the red-hot (sometimes flaming) charcoal, grilling seafood, chicken and steak, steak, steak. Did we say steak? The menu lists four kinds, from $13.95 to $22.95.
Argentina-born owner José Pérez, who spent ten years as manager of New York’s luxurious Patroon restaurant, also brings dishes beyond South American steakhouse. You can get Asian noodles with seafood or poached filet of fish with fines herbes. From the Spanish-speaking Caribbean—four thousand miles from Buenos Aires—there’s black beans and the classic tostones, fried green plantains.
Another homey place that serves eclectic comfort food is at the other end of the state. McGlade’s Backstreet Café in West Cape May (609 884-7660) does not overlook the ocean and is not in a beautifully renovated Victorian. Instead, it’s in a little strip mall half a mile from the beaches and gingerbread mansions that make Cape May City famous.
You won’t find a lot of tourists. This is where locals go for dinner out.
What attracts them is the food—fish is a specialty—at reasonable prices. “Culinary Institute of America alumna Theresa McGlade’s a fanatic about fresh ingredients, from the Jersey tomatoes in the salads to the strawberries in the homemade shortcake,” say our friends at www.capemaytimes.com, who first brought us to McGlade’s a couple of years ago.
We find the ambience inside a nice surprise, given the lackluster location. There’s art on the walls, candles on the tables.
Do you know more places like Churrasco and McGlade’s? Unpretentious, out-of-the-way restaurants that serve distinctive home-cooking at reasonable prices? Let us know. We will visit, and write back.
Problem: You need the ultimate dress, glittery beaded bag, and hottest shoes. You have less than $500, but need to look like you’re carrying the Black Card.
Answer: A reader sent us to La Rue Chaude (www.laruechaude.net) in Morristown because it reminded her of shops in her former Soho neighborhood…where $500 might just get you started.
La Rue Chaude, with its attractive, large storefront windows and masonry, would be at home on any Soho street. But the South Street shop caters to its Jersey demo with a range of moderately priced designer dresses (Betsey Johnson, Mac & Jac, Cynthia Steffe), jeans (Hudson, Red Engine) and shoes.
This is the place to get your ballet flats for spring, the kind you want to wear off-stage. La Rue Chaude carries a large selection of London Sole, (www.londonsole.com) the comfie flats that have reached cult status with celebrities. They have no right or left shoe, and pull tight with a drawstring. You’ll want to hurry because you can grab a great pair of metallic gold flats for $66, less than half price.
By all means, buy a beaded evening clutch for $38. Actually, buy two…get something metallic for spring and stash a basic black bag for fall.
You can dress up with a shimmery halter top, or ease into something more conservative, with a knit print, for less than $50.
In the back of the shop, you’ll find designer duds for the stroller set and a few things for the guy who wants to burst out of his J.Crew uniform.
Shops like La Rue Chaude have limited marketing budgets, so it’s up to us to get the word out. If you have a place near you that could pass for SOHO, make sure you let us KNOW-HO. It might make all of us feel like we’re back in the old neighborhood.
At Bograd’s furniture showroom (www.bograds.com) in Riverdale, there is one chair that you need to test drive. When you sit in it, you’ll understand why.
The retailer, known for quality, traditional lines, has set aside a corner of its vast store for a futuristic-looking cluster of leather chairs with built-in massage features, and a flat screen display to tout the product.
Made in Spain, and shipped to only a few select retailers, these Keyton massage chairs (www.keyton.com) are not just vibrators for your back and butt. They remember your shape. They embrace you.
Sink in, press your remote control, and these chairs scan your body. The massage is customized for you. Even for your head and neck.
Close your eyes. Leather-bound fingers are kneading, rolling, or tapping. Then, pick the kind of massage you want. There’s shiatsu massage, an anti-cellulite treatment for your legs, or a lumbar rub that targets your lower back. And lots more.
Marcia Bograd, the store’s leading lady, took a load off her feet and demonstrated the chair. She showed us a variety of leathers and microfiber covers. Hint: Pick the lavender, yellow and orange, and maybe you’ll keep the guys off your chair. There are basic browns and blacks if you decide you want to share. Better still, buy two, and rumble along, side by side!
You can pay nearly five grand for the top of the line, with all the bells and whistles. But heck, it’s not just a chair, it’s an adventure.
The Gap is taking some heat from women who don’t like the decision to close its Forth and Towne stores (www.forthandtowne.com).
No wonder. F&T offers a nice selection of reasonably priced, stylish well-made career clothes, with great service and its hallmark—the biggest dressing rooms around. Big enough to feed a family of four.
Now, I’ve got your attention.
Less dowdy then Talbots, less edgy than its corporate cousin Banana Republic… Forth and Towne found its niche with women 30-40, its intended demographic. The closest store to us is just across the state line in the vast Palisades Center Mall.
And herein lies the problem.
This mega mall is chock-full of super popular, cheaper stores catering to younger women. F&T sits next door to the hugely popular Forever21… and up the escalator from H&M. F&T looks expensive and unexciting by comparison.
Forth and Towneneeded to be in New Jersey. We don’t pay sales tax, so we can afford better clothes. We have a vast population of women who skip cheap chic because they can’t bear wearing baby doll tee shirts at age 40. And, more important: it beats Ann Taylor pricing.
“We love this store,” bemoaned one of the sales clerks at the Palisades location. “Everyone loves this store.” Meanwhile, frenzied shoppers scooped up everything in sight, facing a June closing deadline.
We say to the Gap bean counters, don’t give up on Forth and Towne. Move it south, about nineteen miles to the Garden State Plaza. Put another store at Short Hills, and in Cherry Hill. If you build it, they will come. If for no other reason, than to see those huge dressing rooms!
Problem: You need the ultimate dress, glittery beaded bag, and hottest shoes. You have less than $500, but need to look like you’re carrying the Black Card.
At Bograd’s furniture showroom (
The Gap is taking some heat from women who don’t like the decision to close its Forth and Towne stores (
