Category: Nutrition

recipes, diets

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Chefs Dining Museums News Nutrition NYC Restaurants

Serving Up a Dish of Heart and Sole

Serving Up a Dish of Heart and Sole

Holocaust survivors are considered some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Serving Up a Dish of Heart and Sole
David Teyf – Executive Chef

One Manhattan restaurateur is making sure they get a dose of comfort – and good food – while staying indoors to remain safe.

Madison and Park Hospitality Group’s David Teyf, the executive chef who operates Lox at Cafe Bergson at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, is preparing pre-packaged kosher meals for Holocaust survivors.

With a small team, Teyf then bring the meals directly to these seniors across New York City.

“I am personally cooking and delivering these meals. I know that my grandparents, who were Holocaust survivors, are smiling down on me. This is something I want to do to honor them and because it’s the right thing to do,” Teyf says. “It’s in my soul to give back.”

An estimated 38,000 Holocaust survivors live in the greater New York City metropolitan area, according to Selfhelp Community Services. More than 50% of them live in poverty.

The pandemic is particularly traumatizing, echoing their lives more than 75 years ago during the Holocaust when food and resources were scarce. Because of coronavirus restrictions, they struggle with a lack of resources and community as they isolate at home.

Teyf has partnered with the Museum and the Met Council to identify 50 Holocaust survivors who need assistance. Additionally, the Museum is reaching out to other survivors to assess their needs so Teyf can provide more support.

He also is setting up an arrangement to deliver more kosher meals to essential healthcare workers at hospitals throughout New York City. The meals include salads, entrees, and desserts.

 

Serving Up a Dish of Heart and Sole
Jewish dish from Teyf’s restaurant

Teyf’s family has more than a century of epicurean experience.

“My great-grandfather started baking matzah for the Jewish community in Minsk in 1920,” he says. Each of his grandparents was the sole family survivor of the Holocaust. “After the Holocaust, my grandfather continued his father’s tradition of baking matzah for the Jewish community, which he had ultimately risked his life during Communist times until 1979. In 1979, my grandfather decided to pick the whole family up and leave Minsk for the United States for our Jewish freedom.”

Museum President and CEO Jack Kliger praised Teyf’s philanthropy.

“David is doing a real mitzvah,” Kliger says. “The Met Council and David are being generous with their hearts and minds: stepping up to serve others when there is a great need in our city.”

Categories
Dining Featured Nutrition

Vegan Recipes to Cook at Home During Quarantine

Quarantiners were so excited to cook at home at the beginning of isolation – we saw many great recipes on social media. By now, most of you probably ran out of creativity and can’t wait to dine out.

But while our favorite restaurants remain closed, maybe these recipes from Parma will inspire you to continue to cook even more delicious meals. They are all vegan and made with their non-dairy parmesan cheese. A Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo? Yes, this is possible. You can still be in your food comfort zone while discovering new cuisines inside your own kitchen? 

Vegan Fettuccine Alfredo

Ingredients

  • Noodles or Zucchini Noodles*
  • 1 Cup Cashews (depending on how thick you want your sauce)
  • ½ Lemon to taste
  • 1 Cup Parma! (1 – 3.5oz bottle)
  • 1-2 Cups Water
  • Salt to taste
  • Basil or parsley as garnish

Directions

Cook your noodles as directed. Blend the dry cashews into a flour. Add 1/2 the Parma! then slowly blend in water. Add additional Parma! to desired consistency and taste; add salt to taste. Put a portion of noodles onto a plate or bowl, add a dollop of sauce on top. Garnish with Parma! and fresh herbs.

*Zucchini Noodles – 1 or 2 Zucchini – use a Spiral Slicer for angel hair pasta or a Spirooli Slicer for thicker noodles, or using a wide grater, make long thin strips.

If you are using wide zucchini strips, layout the strip put a dollop of cheese on top, and roll it up.

Parma! Poppers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Saute peppers, onion, and mushrooms until soft.
  3. Mix all ingredients together. Stuff jalapenos. Sprinkle Parma! on top. Place on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes.

Creamy Pesto Pasta

Ingredients 

  • 16ox box pasta (your favorite)
  • 8oz sliced mushrooms
  • 1 bunch asparagus, ends removed, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1/4 large red onion chopped
  • 2 cups fresh packed basil leaves
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 lemon (zest and juice)
  • 2/3 cup veggie or olive oil
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts
  • 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 2+ TBSP Parma Original

Directions

Preheat oven to 425. Begin cooking pasta in boiling water. While pasta is boiling, combine mushrooms, asparagus, onions, a little oil/salt/pepper, spread onto a baking sheet and bake 12-15 minutes. To make the Creamy Pesto Pasta sauce combine the basil, garlic, lemon zest + juice, oil, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper in a food processor or large personal blender and blend until creamy. When pasta is done, drain all but 1/4 cup water (a little pasta water helps the creaminess), combine pasta with mushrooms, asparagus, onions, and pesto, sprinkle generously with Parma and serve.

On Parma! website, you can see more recipes and check out their products.

 

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Categories
Art Fitness Health Nutrition NYC Wellness

Performing Artists

Performing Artists
By Nigel Barker

I sit here with sun rays beaming through my window, and I look out over the vast new luxury high-rises and newly present nooks and crannies that weren’t visible as recently as this time last year.

With every change of a season, as cliché as it may be, I’m always struck by how quickly time flies.

Then again, living in New York City, I’m also impressed with how much we can accomplish in such a short amount of time when we put our minds to it whether it’s calling for action from our political leaders, adding new architecture to our iconic skyline, or transforming an entire floor from a raw space into an artistic wonderland.

 

Performing Artists
Cover Fall 2017 By Nigel Barker

 

And then there’s the change you can make in yourself with hard work, dedication, and passion.

 

Read about our cover talent, shot by the incredible Nigel Barker, and learn how this man from a small American town was able to do what he loves with talent, a strong mind, and an even stronger physique.

 

The 2017 Art issue cover came about because of my long term relationship with the founder of DogPound Kirk Myers. First, he was my personal trainer, then he became Downtown’s first fitness editor and quickly turned into a dear friend, who had dreams of his own.

Preforming Artists
DogPound New York IG

We discussed how we could showcase artists, but artists and art come in many different shapes, sizes and forms, not just ones with a brush or camera but athletes.

 

Performing Artists
By Nigel Barker

 

Looking at him now, you wouldn’t think that Kirk Myers used to be overweight.

 

 

Performing Artists
Kirk Myers then and now

 

“I was uneducated about healthy eating,” he begins.

“I drank ‘skim’ chocolate milk and thought it was healthy,” he adds with a smile.

Now, knowing much better, he’s come a long way. He credits much of it to education and preparation. And that’s exactly why he’s taken on a more educational approach to fitness.

As the owner of the popular NYC and LA gym the Dogpound, Kirk Myers’ body is one of his most important tools. To work the hours he does training his clients and running a business in NYC endurance and strength are key.

“I think most people who have their own business understand that it doesn’t come overnight. It takes years and years of grinding and learning from your mistakes,” he says.

Performing Artists
DogPound IG Victoria Models

 

“You must also be open to change, open to feedback, and eager to improve your craft at all times, in every aspect. If your business is not growing, you are dying.”

And even though his business is growing, he keeps a focus on the individual.

For Kirk, it all comes down to training and making a difference for other people.

 

Performing Artists
DogPound LA IG

“You can really change people’s lives and the way they feel day to day,” he says. “That’s something that I can’t get enough of, it really is priceless.” Kirk Myers DogPound 

This article ran Art Issue Downtown 2017

Special thanks to for this shoot location to The Silverstein Organization; our incredible Board Chairman Dara McQuillan, Chief Marketing Officer at Silverstein, his guidance and belief in what we do here at Downtown each and every day is so vitally important to who we are as a brand.

 

Categories
Featured Living Nutrition

Cooking Matzah in 18 Minutes by Rachel McMinn

Cooking Matzah in 18 Minutes

Passover is one of the Jewish holidays that stands out for me because my family always gathered together for a large and delicious Seder.

 

Everyone brought their signature dish to the table, and we saw the return of the hard as a rock Passover rolls that we swallowed down with gallons of water once a year. The daffodils, tulips, and hyacinth that grew in our front yard were always cut into a few vibrant bouquets and put on the seder table, heavy with the scent of spring. I’d always be helping out in the kitchen as my mother prepared matzoh ball soup, roasted turkey, chopped liver, charoset, bitter herbs – and all the trimmings. Even though I wasn’t the youngest, I always carefully practiced the four questions – just in case.

 

Cooking Matzah in 18 Minutes
Photo by Rachel McMinn,

Yet, for whatever reason, we never made the mainstay of the holiday: the matzah. Each year we would buy box after box of the stiff cardboard-like matzah that fills the shelves every March and early April. This year I decided to start the tradition of making fresh matzah with my young daughter so that it can become one of the memories she carries with her when she hears the word “Passover.”

 

So, because the Jewish people had only 18 minutes to prepare their bread before they fled from Egypt, we made our matzah in only 18 minutes, too. Here’s how you can make it in your home.

 

 

Cooking Matzah in 18 Minutes
Photo by Rachel McMinn

 

Tools: Large bowl, baking sheet or pizza stone, rolling pin, flat surface to roll dough on, a fork, measuring cups

Ingredients: 1 cup flour, 1/3 to ½ cup water, a sprinkle of flour for your flat surface

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees
  2. In a large bowl, mix your flour and water together by hand. It should form a dough that sticks together well but is neither sticky nor too crumbly. Add more or less water to achieve this.
  3. Place your ball of dough on your flat surface and knead the dough briefly to ensure it is the right consistency. Start rolling out your dough until it is pretty thin, less than ¼ inch.
  4. Use the fork to poke holes in the dough, all over. Make sure the holes go all the way through the dough. We don’t want the dough to bubble or rise at all.
  5. Place your dough onto your baking sheet or stone and place in the oven.
  6. Cook for approximately 5-7 minutes and then carefully flip the matzah to ensure both sides are cooked. Continue cooking for about another 4-5 minutes until the sides are browned and the top is lightly browned.
  7. Let your matzah cool and enjoy!

 

Cooking Matzah in 18 Minutes
Image credit: Rachel McMinn

 

Cooking Matzah in 18 Minutes
Image credit: Rachel McMinn

 

Rachel McMinn is an early childhood educator at Buckle My Shoe Preschool in Tribeca, who has taught the young 2year old children for almost nine years. She holds a Masters in Early Childhood Education from Hunter College and a Writing degree from Pratt Institute. She lives in Brooklyn with her daughter, post-production & screenwriting husband, and two attention-seeking cats.

Buckle My Shoe | Facebook | Instagram

Categories
Doctors Featured News Nutrition NYC Wellness

Weill Cornell Medicine Releases Scheduling Changes

A STATEMENT FROM WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

A STATEMENT FROM WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

Our patients’ health and safety are our top priorities at Weill Cornell Medicine.
As part of our core mission and commitment to care, we continue to focus on the health and safety of you, your loved ones and our staff. Our team at Weill Cornell Medicine is centered around providing care for the sickest of patients and those who are in need during this unprecedented time.
We are taking a number of precautionary steps to minimize the risk of exposure to patients and our community. These changes will help us further concentrate the use of our equipment, preserve supplies and shift our healthcare resources during this healthcare emergency so that we may provide care to those who need it most.
NOTICE TO ALL PATIENTS:
Elective procedures are postponed and routine care visits are now cancelled.
In response to the current COVID-19 public health crisis, we have made the decision to postpone elective procedures and cancel all non-urgent office visits beginning immediately and until further notice.
We ask that you please contact your physician’s office to receive more information about your specific care, including rescheduling.
Please do not walk in to any of our practices without an appointment. We ask that you first call the hotline or our practice staff before visiting any of our locations.
What to do if you have an upcoming non-urgent, routine visit: 
If you have an upcoming visit that you consider non-urgent and routine, we kindly ask that you cancel your visit through Weill Cornell Connect or by contacting your provider’s practice.
Please have patience with our staff as we are experiencing high call volume.
If you need to keep your appointment, please reach out to your practice to inquire about Video Visits. Many of our Primary Care and specialty physicians have increased the usage of Telemedicine services for both adults and children during this time.
To stay up to date on the latest information and updates to our policies, please visit our dedicated COVID-19 webpage or our patient news page which include answers to your most frequently asked questions.
A hotline has been established for the patients of NewYork-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia Doctors.
If you or your family is concerned about symptoms, have questions about testing or would like to speak with someone about any other COVID-19 related concerns,
please call the hotline at (646)697-4000
We apologize for the inconvenience these changes pose to you and your family, and we appreciate your understanding. Thank you for your continued trust.
Warm regards, 
Your Care Team at Weill Cornell Medicine 
Weill Cornell Medicine (PRNewsFoto/Weill Cornell Medicine)

 

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Doctors Featured News Nutrition NYC Wellness

CM Chin Calls For Emergency Assistance To Frontline Senior Center Workers

Photo: Alice Teeple

In charge of feeding and protecting the most at-risk population to COVID-19, providers ask for emergency resources and guidance from the City

Today, Council Member Chin sent a letter to the Department for the Aging to elevate a number of requests and concerns from senior providers at the frontlines of the effort to combat the spread of COVID-19.

As New York City grapples with this global health crisis, senior service providers have been taking on a herculean challenge to deliver essential services while protecting the most vulnerable groups impacted by the virus: our City’s seniors, particularly those who are immuno-compromised or have underlying health conditions.

However, without clear guidance from the City, community groups have been forced to make tough calls on their own to shift their work plans to address evolving needs and meet unprecedentedly high demand.

In the face of much uncertainty, Council Member Chin is joining providers to urge for clear assurance from the City that providers will not be penalized if they are unable to meet contract deliverables, a plan to distribute additional resources such as face masks, and a commitment to reimburse providers, many of whom have been dipping into their already strapped budgets to pay for to-go boxes, gloves, hand sanitizers and thermometers.

In the letter, Council Member Chin said, “Our community based organizations have been stepping up in bold new ways to continue their services with the least disruption. They should be rewarded, but many are adjusting their staffing and protocols to meet unprecedented demands while existential fears about their organization’s survival loom over their heads. Our City should be doing all it can to lift the barriers hamstringing these organizations from doing the work being asked of them.”

While DFTA has announced a two-week delay of the Home-Delivered Meals RFP, Council Member Chin is asking for a full pause on the RFP and any other pending procurements.

Attached is Council Member Chin’s letter to the Department for the Aging.

Dear Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez:
As New York City grapples with the global health crisis before us, senior service providers have been rising to the occasion and exceeding expectations to deliver essential services while protecting the most vulnerable groups affected by COVID-19 – older New Yorkers, particularly those who are immuno-compromised or have existing health conditions – from infection. As Chair of the Committee on Aging, I am calling on the Department for the Aging to immediately administer additional funding and resources to the senior service
system, waive all penalties related to utilization rates and other contract deliverables, reimburse providers for emergency expenses, and delay the Home Delivered Meals RFP.
Our community-based organizations have been stepping up in bold new ways to continue their services with the least disruption. They should be rewarded, but many are adjusting their staffing and protocols to meet unprecedented demands while existential fears about their organization’s survival loom over their heads. Our City should be doing all it can to lift the barriers hamstringing these organizations from doing the work being asked of them. At minimum, providers need clear, written assurance that DFTA will not penalize them if they
are unable to meet contract deliverables, and these guidelines should continue through the end of this Fiscal Year on June 30, 2020, as well as assurance that they will continue to receive full reimbursements for existing contracts, even as the nature of these programs shift or come to a halt entirely. We must have their backs.

A crisis of this magnitude allows zero room for ambiguity. Without clear guidance, providers are left to their own devices and forced to make tough calls overnight to adjust their work plans as needs evolve. A lack of clarity and support puts the safety of seniors, staff and volunteers at risk. There has been little guidance from the City on protocols such as wearing face masks, and how staffing will be made whole if staffers are sent home to
quarantine. Further, there has been limited direct guidance from DFTA, with the agency sharing procedures from the federal CDC and state health department though failing to provide additional instruction specific to the programs it knows best. And with many groups further dipping into their already strapped budgets to pay for to-
go boxes, gloves, hand sanitizers and thermometers, they need a commitment that they will be reimbursed for these expenses, and for DFTA to expeditiously share more of these resources directly with providers, especially to supportive senior housing.

Over the past week, providers have taken on a herculean amount of work, and time and time again, they have risen to the challenge. The crisis we are confronting has made the fight for adequate home delivered meals funding all the more salient. While I thank DFTA for moving the RFP, a two week delay is not enough. I am
asking for a pause on this and any other pending procurements. I also request that emergency funding be made available to ensure that providers are reimbursed the full cost of home-delivered meal services. At this state of emergency, we cannot continue to risk insolvency for the providers of this, or any, critical service.

DISTRICT OFFICE:
101 LAFAYETTE ST., SUITE 903
NEW YORK, NY 10013
212-587-3159
FAX: (212) 587-3158
CITY HALL OFFICE:
250 BROADWAY, SUITE 1762
NEW YORK, NY 10007
(212) 788-7259

It is resoundingly clear that New York City’s seniors and senior service providers deserve the utmost attentionand support. Now more than ever, your partnership is critical to providing clarity and direction throughout this period of instability. If you have any questions or want to discuss further, please reach out to Marian Guerra, my
Deputy Chief of Staff, at mguerra@council.nyc.gov.

Margaret S. Chin
Council Member, District 1

 

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