Middletown in the Media

Last week Middletown was mentioned a few notable times in the state and national media.

In the August 5th Episode of Connecticut Public Radio's Where We Live, Middletown was used repeatedly as a good example of a city which had worked hard to create and maintain a viable Main Street and core city. You can listen to the episode here.

On Saturday, Barbara Ehrenreich published a powerful essay about how poverty now bestows criminality on people suffering from poverty. Middletown earns a fleeting mention for its attempts to ban food sharing by Food Not Bombs.

Major Motion in Middletown – Rising Stars in Training at MXCC

For the first four weeks of June, more than a dozen of Hollywood and New York’s finest motion picture professionals shared their experience and talents with 50 ambitious film trainees in the Connecticut Film Industry Training Program (FITP), presented for the second year at Middlesex Community College. FITP is part of the state’s initiative to attract feature film and episodic television production to Connecticut. The program trains people to work as crew members in various departments, including Assistant Directing, Camera, Lighting and Camera Grip, Script Supervision, Location Management, Production Office Coordination and Sound.

FITP is a four-week intensive program, resulting in the production of a short film, Down to the Wire. The film began shooting June 19 on the MxCC campus. Production wrapped on June 26, with a screening of the first cut of the film for all participants. The film is directed by Lewis Gould, Producer of Law and Order, and Director of Medium and Judging Amy. Middletown resident and Emmy award winning producer/director Lisa Simmons and MxCC professors John Shafer and Rich Lenoce coordinate FITP and are producing the film. MxCC alum Giovanna Vecchitto wrote the screenplay.

During filming the 50 trainees acted as crew under the 10 professionals while on the set. Students trained on and used cinema-quality equipment including 35mm Panavision film and Panasonic digital-cinema video cameras, professional sound equipment, lighting and grip trucks and the computer hardware and software necessary to make a film.

Competition for entry into this year’s program was stiff, with hundreds of people applying for only 50 available slots. Trainees range in age from 19-55. Though they come from all different backgrounds, each participant shares a passion for working in the film industry.

According to one graduate of last year’s program, “FITP teaches you all of the things they don’t teach you in film school.” Many of those 2008 graduates are now working on feature films and network television programs as these productions are attracted to Connecticut due to the state’s tax credits.

The program ran through June 26. FITP is funded by a grant from the Office of Workforce Competitiveness.

Photos of the set in action can be found here and here. (It works for Facebook users... another more public portfolio may happen eventually...)

Food Stamp Challenge

This from Middlesex United Way:

Starting on Monday, June 15th United Way employees and volunteers will take part in a week-long, $24.50 food stamp challenge to raise awareness about hunger and food insecurity in our community. As food and energy costs rise, we are very concerned about low-income families' ability to provide enough healthy food for their children. We are taking this challenge with them in mind, and we invite you to join us.

After paying for housing, utilities, health care expenses, child care, and transportation, many low-income households have little or no money remaining to spend on food without the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known at the Food Stamp program). Most households receiving this assistance report that their benefits do not last the entire month and many are forced to turn to food pantries and soup kitchens that are already experiencing an increased demand for their services. Currently, the program provides just $3.50 per person per day for food (or $24.50 for the week).

We do understand that food stamps may not be the only source for food for families. Most families will likely be able to pay for some food out of their pockets and may qualify for other support programs. The SNAP program is just that - a supplemental nutrition program not meant to be the sole source for families. Eligibility for food stamps is based on many criteria and the benefits for this and other programs can vary.

We are using the $3.50 allotment as our guide for this challenge to:

• Show that the buying power of food stamps is not what it used to be;
• Open up a discussion about the struggles families are facing to meet the costs of living;
• Show the difficulty in eating healthy on such a tight budget;
• Generate understanding and awareness of hunger and food insecurity in our community; and
• Encourage you to give, advocate, and volunteer in the community to end hunger.

Middlesex United Way challenges you to live on the average food stamp allotment of $3.50 per person per day. United Way staff and volunteers will take the challenge beginning on Monday, June 15th leading up to the national United Way Day of Action on Sunday, June 21st. Be sure to read our blog throughout the week and see how we're doing. Executive Director Kevin Wilhelm is scheduled to appear on The Best of the Valley radio show on WMRD on Wednesday, June 17th at 12:30 p.m. during the challenge week.

Here are the rules and guidelines for the challenge should you choose to participate:

• No food may be accepted as a gift during this time (that means no cookies from coworkers!);
• If you need a condiment, you must purchase it with your monetary allotment;
• If you choose to take the challenge for the 7-day week, all that is eaten must be purchsed with the $24.50. You cannot eat food that was not paid for with the allotment but is already in your refrigerator or pantry;
• All that is purchased with your allotment must be food; and
• You may start with provisions of what a typical food pantry would supply to a person who is completely without food and needs emergency stocking. This would not count towards your $3.50 per day allotment. This is a list of typcial: 1 jar red sauce; 1 pound pasta; 1 bottle of juice; 2 cans vegetables; 2 cans soup; 1 can fruit; 1 can tuna; 1 can meals; 1 box cereal; 1 jar peanut butter; 1 starch side; 1 snack; 1 meat for 1 meal; 1 dozen eggs; 1 pound butter.

Please let us know if you would like to join Kevin in his challenge. We are looking for guest bloggers to share their experiences. Contact Kevin at kevin.wilhelm@middlesexunitedway.org.

Kevin appears today (June 17) on WMRD-AM 1150 at 12:30 p.m. to talk with Don DeCesare about the Challenge. Follow his blog at http://mxunitedway.blogspot.com/.

Recommended reading: Barbara Ehrenreich's article in The New York Times Sunday June 14 titled "Too Poor to Make the News" - read it here.

Online Only's

Last week, The New York Times ran a story on the growth of reporter-written websites that cover local news -- you can read it here.

The New Haven Independent had a nice mention, on the cutting edge of the trend, along with online "newspapers" from Seattle, Minneapolis and St. Louis.

I'm always curious about the business model of these projects. [Full disclosure: in case you didn't know, the EYE is an entirely volunteer-written blog at this point.] When your website relies on shoe-leather reporting by paid professionals, there must be a sufficient income stream to keep the thing going, even though, according the story, running an "online only" news source has half of the costs of an ink and paper version. The websites named in the article run the spectrum from advertiser and subscriber-supported for-profit businesses to grant-funded non-profit organizations (more like a public radio channel). In the article, Buzz Woolley, one of the founders of VoiceofSanDiego.com, says he has become convinced that the nonprofit model has the best chance of survival.

“Information is now a public service as much as it’s a commodity,” he said. “It should be thought of the same way as education, health care. It’s one of the things you need to operate a civil society, and the market isn’t doing it very well.”

Food for thought.

Not exactly an original Eye-dea

Okay, so the Eye isn't the first town blog. But we're the Middletown's very own. We didn't get namechecked by the New York Times, but we may be mentioned shortly in stories in some local newspapers. It's nice to see what we could become. We'll keep you posted.

The Vélib' makes la bicyclette fashionable

From the New York Times, a story of alternative transportation in a city which has been inhospitable to two-wheel transport. Voila Vélib'.

Maybe Middletown ought to become Paris on the Cochingchaug.

The last of the mulberry cobbler

On a long morning walk a few weeks ago, I discovered a mulberry tree growing at the rear of St. John's churchyard cemetary on Portland Street. The tree actually grows inside the cemetary fence, but drooping branches make fruit available to anyone passing by.

By the shape of the leaves, the mulberry is either a black mulberry or a white mulberry, both of which are native to Asia, and were imported into this country to use the leaves as feed in an attempt at colonial-era silkmaking. The white mulberry is now considered a pest tree and an invasive species, and was identified as such in a very interesting article about weeds, greenhouse gases and invasive species a few weeks ago in the New York Times Magazine. The red mulberry is native to this part of the country, but apparently relatively rare.

The mulberry is apparently high in vitamins C and K, iron, riboflavin, magnesium and potassium. They taste good too.

I remember eating mulberries as a kid in New Britain. The tree was near my cousin's house, and we could climb and eat until our hands were purple and our stomachs ached.

Eating a handful of berries from the tree on Portland Street reminded me of their distinct taste. They look like a blackberry, but their taste is more complex.

I thought the berries would make a great pie.

So, I took Aidan and Dermot to the churchyard to do some picking and eating. They ate, for sure, but the branches were too high for them to do much picking. I picked for nearly an hour, and still didn't have enough to fill a pie crust. At that point, Aidan barked his knee on a headstone, and, with six hands sticky and stained purple we headed home.

Easy enough to eat one at a time, cleaning for use in pie was painful. Each berry comes off the tree with its stem intact - a single, thin, sharp needle that is difficult to extract, and painful to ingest. An hour later I had the berries clean. If I was making jelly, a simple straining would have separated the useful fruit from the stems. But for pie, a simple straining would have been disastrous, from a texture standpoint.

I didn't have enough fruit to fill a crust, so on July 4, I combined the mulberries with some fresh blueberries and made a sweet-crust cobbler for a backyard cookout. My innate pie-sense was correct.

The cobbler was a hit. The mulberries added just enough complexity of sweet and sour to liven up the usual bland and predictable blueberriness of blueberries, especially cultivated blueberries.

I'm not sure I'll ever take the time to pick and clean enough mulberries for a pie, but the resulting clamor for seconds is some encouragement.

I love to eat and cook with found fruit. There are many abandoned apple and cherry trees around town, and I was much disturbed when Stonehenge nurseries took down two old variety apple trees on the grounds of the Russell House so that the field could more easily be cut with power mowers. The groundspeople at Wesleyan, upon hearing my complaint, declared that the trees were damaged. I picked apples from them for six years, and there was nothing wrong with them. The fruit was not often aesthetially pleasing, but the trees were laden, and the apples made great pie.

BTW, the plum trees on the Western border of Union Park (South Green) are heavy with fruit, but when they turn sweet you'll be competing with the Greek and Italian women who I often encounter picking bags full of fruit. The competition can be fierce, but I'm usually a good foot taller, so the higher-hanging fruit is mine. There is also an old apple tree in the park with remarkably good fruit.