The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Editor's Letter

Sweet and Beautiful

by

I’ve been thinking about beauty a lot lately. With 2019 marking the 16th year of publishing Inside Chappaqua we wanted to mark our sweet 16 by featuring some sweet and beautiful content. First off, check out the sumptuous desserts from local restaurants, on pages 31 and 36.

This issue includes several essays on the evolving concept of beauty from different perspectives. High school senior Julia Bialek’s essay discusses how social media puts pressures on teens to conform to a certain unattainable societal standard of beauty but she’s hopeful that more campaigns like Dove’s real beauty will change people’s attitudes about what constitutes beauty.

Marlene Kern Fischer’s essay touches on the cookie cutter mold of beauty that prevailed during the Laverne & Shirley years and how as she has grown a bit older her idea of beauty has evolved. I identify strongly with it. When I was 16, I was in awe of the popular sitcom Beverly Hills 90210. I wanted to look like one of the characters Brenda played by Shannen Doherty so badly that I had my hair cut and colored the same color.

But modern day me would never walk into a salon and ask to look like a celebrity. I’m more comfortable in my own skin and have come to realize that confidence is beautiful. I also thoroughly enjoyed reading Daniel Levitz’s heartwarming essay about his wife’s beauty which still awes him even though they are no longer nineteen-year-olds. I hope you will too!

And there are some additional articles in this issue that also celebrate beautiful things. Empty Bowls, a division of (914) Cares fights hunger locally and this year’s fundraiser in our community pulled in $120,000 in funds to help feed the 1 in 5 Westchester residents who are food insecure. Local award-winning Haiku poet Scott Mason sees the beauty and wonder in nature’s smallest creatures.

Luckily with spring approaching, our town and its surroundings serve as inspiration for his poetry. My favorite sign of spring is the chorus of small frogs called peepers that I hear in the small pond behind my house. My children love the sound of the ducks flapping their wings around in the water.

Here’s to a sweet and beautiful spring for all of you.

Enjoy, 

P.S. I am so proud of our publisher Grace Bennett celebrating a 16th year of publishing Inside Chappaqua and Inside Armonk Magazines. I am also embracing our new slogan: ‘Sharing the Heart of your Community.’ In more news, the Inside Press also launched its latest hyperlocal magazine this month, Inside Pleasantville.

Taking a Break to ‘Just Breathe’

by

As I write this column during winter break, my family is about to embark on our annual pilgrimage to South Florida. We can’t wait for the airplane to depart from Westchester County Airport. We need sunshine, long afternoons by the pool and the gentle breeze of the palm trees.

There is some predictability about these trips. We will use the hotel’s waffle maker for breakfast. One of us will inevitably get sunburnt. I can pretty much guarantee what restaurants we will eat at with the grandparents. My kids not true gourmands yet, relish a dinner at Cheesecake Factory in Delray Beach.

And I will delight in knowing that I don’t have to load and unload the dishwasher. I won’t have to nag my kids to put on their shoes so they can make the bus. I don’t have to concoct a dinner in 20 minutes because everyone is starving and I can abandon my after-school chauffeur duties. In short, I will breathe.

After reading Connie Whitehouse’s essay about high school students exploring gap year options, I completely get it and secretly wish that we were traveling to South Africa instead of South Florida. Although I never went on a gap year or studied abroad, I did live in the UK for two years in my young adulthood with my husband and we can both unequivocally say it was a formative experience. Pushing me out of my comfort zone truly broadened my horizons and changed my perspective on so many things.

With the rigor of high school in a highly competitive yet award-winning school district, I fully understand one parent who commented “I just want my daughter to take a year to breathe and just be.”

As I was discussing the piece with the writer, I said to her “Wow, I wish they had gap year options when I was a high school student.” She said that she overheard many of the parents in attendance at the fair saying they wish they too had gone on a gap year.

So with spring approaching and warmer weather coming, I hope you will get a chance to step outside your comfort zone and

just breathe.

Here’s to a sweet and beautiful spring for all of you.

Enjoy,

 

 

 

P.S. I am so proud of our publisher Grace Bennett celebrating a 16th year of publishing Inside Armonk and Inside Chappaqua Magazines. I am also embracing our new slogan: Sharing the Heart of your Community. In more news, the Inside Press also launched its latest hyperlocal magazine this month, Inside Pleasantville. 

Easy Street

by

When my colleague, Grace Bennett, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of this magazine, mentioned that this issue’s theme is “Happy Days and Back to School”, I let out a groan. I’m sorry but “back to school” and “happy” don’t really go together like peanut butter and jelly, at least in my house. You see this past summer was the most relaxing one I’ve had in a good decade.

With my older two in sleepaway camp and my youngest in full day at her summer camp, I was living on “easy street” as I like to say. Less laundry, dishwashing, chauffeuring and cooking left me with a whole lot of time for summer fun. I made it a point to do something for myself everyday that made me happy – whether meeting a friend for lunch, catching an indie film at Jacob Burns or running with my dog. And I did just that. I felt fulfilled.

Turns out that I wasn’t the only one that had a fulfilling summer. Read through these pages to see a whole slew of Chappaqua residents doing exciting things this summer that are not only fulfilling but also altruistic. Our cover story celebrates a 50-year program, the Chappaqua Summer Scholarship Program, where teens from underperforming high schools in the Bronx are invited to live with local host families in July as they participate in an academic enrichment program. The teens and the host families had a blast. Greeley grad James Rosenberg took a cross-country bike trip to raise money for the women of Kore, Ethiopia and local couple The Roses travelled to McAllen, Texas to help migrant families.

If you are looking for fulfilling opportunities in town this fall, be sure to mark your calendar for Community Day on September 15. There are many non-profits here that are in need of volunteers. Community Day is a great way to get introduced to all of them.

As much as I’ve enjoyed my summer, it is not all doom and gloom when fall arrives. I’m happy to have my whole family back and I’m excited (and sad!) for my youngest to start kindergarten and my oldest to start middle school. I’m not quite sure how that happened so fast but maybe it’s because time flies when you are having fun. Here’s to a fun and fulfilling fall for all!

Enjoy,