Published Work Archives - Page 18 of 23

Perfect Cheesecake Recipe Takes the Cake

January 22, 2025November 6, 2006

MSNBC

MSNBC.com • Nov. 6, 2006

With American’s predilection towards easy and inexpensive, it’s difficult to comprehend just how cheesecake became a family gathering staple. Yet, from Brooklyn splurges at Junior’s Restaurant to Midwestern family reunions, there are few desserts that elicit as strong a sigh of delight — and sense of home — as this finicky, cheese-based custard.

That delectable indulgence doesn’t come easily. From top-notch chefs to down-home cooks, everyone agrees: If there’s one thing to keep in abundant supply when baking a cheesecake, it’s patience.

Farmer Delivers to the Bronx: High Health, Low Fat and Cost

January 22, 2025October 23, 2006

City Limits

City Limits • Oct. 23, 2006

The Bronx’s La Antillana supermarket is getting some stiff competition from an unlikely source: the schoolyard of P.S. 28, across East Tremont Avenue in the Mount Hope neighborhood. Last Thursday, public health leaders and community activists announced the Mount Hope Food Project, a new program aimed at preventing obesity by expanding access to healthy food.

The program’s cornerstone will be a community-supported agriculture (CSA) project, where an upstate farmer brings fresh produce every week to program members at a low cost – roughly $11 per person each week. The ability to get fresh, quality food sold Altagracia deVilla, 44, a home health aide and single mother of three, on the CSA.

Nix the Pancake Mix for Breakfast Perfection

January 22, 2025October 17, 2006

MSNBC

MSNBC.com • Oct. 17, 2006

If you’re like me, your first pancakes came from a griddle manned by your dad on the weekends. My father as chef was a special breed, one whose culinary skills — as with many men of the Boomer generation — were limited to summertime barbeque and Sunday breakfast. Indeed, pancakes likely became “Dad’s specialty” due to one of their finer selling points: They’re extraordinarily simple to make from scratch.

“There’s no need to use a mix when it’s so easy to make them,” marvels Maryana Vollstedt, author of The Big Book of Breakfast. “It’s just about as fast as mixing up a mix.”

The typical American hotcake is soft, spongy and golden brown, with the slightest of crispiness at the edges, and getting there takes mastering the three tenets of pancake cookery: Batter, griddle, and flipping.

Paying Daddy to Be Dad

January 22, 2025October 10, 2006

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post • Oct. 10, 2006

Forget marriage promotion as the solution to poverty. New York State is taking on fathers. The move has been a long time in coming; for all the success welfare reform had in moving single mothers into jobs–albeit low-wage ones–it’s largely been a failure at doing the same for men.

Here in New York, the state welfare agency is launching a special tax credit for noncustodial parents, at least 90 percent of whom are fathers, to encourage (and make it easier for) them to pay child support–the first of its kind in the country. Parents up to date on their child support can get up to $1600 back at tax time–and they don’t cease to be eligible for the program until their income exceeds $32,000 annually, a far more generous threshold than the regular EITC.

Extra Credit For Fathers: Reliability Earns Tax Break

January 22, 2025October 9, 2006

City Limits

City Limits • Oct. 9, 2006

A new tax break will be available come April for lower-income parents responsible for child support, making it the first of its kind in the country. State officials are launching an earned income tax credit (EITC) for noncustodial parents who are current with their child support payments, offering up to $1,600 a year in a refundable credit.

“What we’re trying to do is work on the success of welfare reform, where we saw single moms move off the rolls. But we have not seen the same movement among young men,” said Michael Hayes, spokesperson for the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), which will administer the program.

Thick Enough to Stand up a Straw

January 22, 2025September 26, 2006

MSNBC

MSNBC.com • Sept. 26, 2006

These are difficult times for the milkshake. The coffee craze has brought a series of sophisticated imitators — most of them ending in “cino” — to the table, and whether you’re avoiding fats or carbs this mid-century treat is an offender on both counts.

All of which suggests that if you’re going for a shake, you want it to be worth the trouble. That means adhering to the three pillars of shake-making: quality ice cream, thick consistency, and creamy texture.

Poverty Report Attracting Attention Outside New York

January 22, 2025September 25, 2006

City Limits

City Limits • Sept. 25, 2006

New York City is planning to use new antipoverty initiatives to do more than help just the five boroughs’ poor. At a City Council hearing last week, officials said they’ll also be pushing a legislative agenda to complement the priorities set out in the report of the Commission on Economic Opportunity – a move that observers say could position NYC as a policy trendsetter nationwide.

“There’s many things we can do here locally, but many [for which] we need the partnership of both the state and the federal level,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs, citing access to health insurance and increased workforce development funding as examples. “It is incumbent upon us to bring our advocacy to the state and federal agendas.”

Bloomberg’s War on Poverty

January 22, 2025September 19, 2006

The Huffington Post

The Huffington Post • Sept. 19, 2006

With the Katrina anniversary come and gone, it’s unclear how quickly poverty will recede from public debate. But in New York City, it was yanked back to center stage by yesterday’s announcement of the findings of a high-profile antipoverty commission chartered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Taking on poverty at the local level is a bold proposition–not least because much of the funding for antipoverty initiatives comes from the feds. It’s also an increasingly necessary approach as the federal government further abdicates responsibility for doing so, and funding correspondingly recedes. As such, the experiment in New York helps illuminate a couple important ideas about contemporary poverty–and government’s role in alleviating it.

New Directions Seen in Aid to City’s Poor

January 22, 2025September 5, 2006

City Limits

City Limits • Sept. 5, 2006

City officials are considering a move away from the strictest elements of New York’s poverty policy over the last decade, most notably by creating easier procedures for the poor to receive government aid and considering new ways to help needy people living above the federally-defined poverty threshold.

The Mayor’s Commission for Economic Opportunity drew attention last week after an internal memo detailing its likely recommendations, including targeting resources toward three specific demographic groups, was written about in the New York Times. But a closer look suggests that broader shifts are afoot.

Making Waves

January 22, 2025September 1, 2006

Contribute

Contribute • September/October 2006

In 1989, South African advertising executive Trevor Field wasn’t looking to start a charity. He just couldn’t help himself. One day, during a visit to an agricultural fair outside of Johannesburg, he stumbled across a curious invention — an irrigation system powered by a merry-go-round. As children ran to spin it, they powered a pump that pulled gallon after gallon of water from the ground.

It didn’t take long for Field to realize that he was on to something big. He already knew that about as many people die from bad water in South Africa as from HIV or malaria, and most who do are under the age of five. So why not attach the same kinds of pumps to freshwater storage tanks and bring clean drinking water to sub- Saharan Africa? Paying for it would be a snap, he figured; convince a company to slap an ad on the side of the tank.