The annual East open house for eighth graders from Cherry Hill middle schools is an opportunity for incoming freshmen to catch a glimpse at their future scholastic home, and for East clubs to leave a lasting impression on potential future members. The gay-straight-alliance hopes to create a vibrant and welcoming stand that reflects its inclusive, open-minded and colorful disposition.

In addition to open house night, the GSA talked about the creation of the first South Jersey chapter of PFLAG, the national organization Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, in Collingswood. The net meeting of the gay-straight-alliance will be Tuesday, February 9 after school.

Swift plead not guilty to purposely arriving late to every stop on her 15-minute route whenever student Richard King had a Calculus AP test.

“I was 23 seconds late to his stop the other day, or so this loony tells me,” she said, referring to King. “When he stepped onto the bus, he slapped me right across the face. Then he handed me a stopwatch and told me to start practicing on weekends.”

King claims, however, that East’s ambiance fueled his passionate response to Swift’s tardiness. “I have a 94 in Calc now because I got an 89 on that test: and that’s just not good enough. I dreamt last night of cougars, everywhere, scratching unit circles into my arms and I still can’t find theta!”

At this point in Swift’s trial, a court-appointed physician administered a sedative to King.

Later, King recounted the initiation of his mathematical woes. “Well, at first I thought ‘maybe she’s just sleepy today,’ or, ‘maybe there was a mother hen crossing the road,’” King said. “But I suspected something else when she started closing the doors on me.”

Swift, however, said she used the mechanical doors out of fear that King, who “always stood in perfect posture by the curb holding his textbook… stroking it,” would berate her driving skills by analyzing her bus route mathematically.

Wheezing from the pneumonia he contracted from waiting for the bus outside on December 15, the day of his Calculus AP unit test, King recalled a particular incident in greater detail, for which Swift was arraigned.

“I saw a speck of yellow from around the corner while I was just skimming the basic integration formulas. I got so startled she had arrived almost on-time that I flung my book a few feet in front of me. Then… I saw my bus driver jerk the wheel and jump the curb. She wanted my book, and she destroyed it.”

“That part is true, actually,” Swift said while on the stand.

East principal Ron O’Schmeeza said, “The word… ‘calculus’… contains the word ‘us.’ I think it is imperative that we… work as a team… a community… to ensure that the East community keeps the ‘us’… in calculus. Thank you.”

Be sure to stop by East’s Coffee House on January 23rd, 2010. The event will be from 7-10 pm, and all proceeds will go to NJ Cares, an institute dedicated to helping children who have suffered from child abuse.

For more recipes and ideas, go to www.bakerella.com

Recipes:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles (courtesy loveandoliveoil.com)
Makes approx. 3-4 dozen.

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

14 oz dark chocolate candy coating

Directions

Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add soymilk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed (or by hand) until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.

Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.

When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1″ balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in freezer and let chill for 30 minutes.

Melt chocolate candy coating in a double boiler or in microwave according to package directions. Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. Tap fork on side of pan to remove any excess coating, and return to waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 1 week (though good luck making them last that long).

Cake Balls (courtesy of bakerella.com)

Ingredients
1 box cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.)
1 package chocolate bark (regular or white chocolate)
wax paper

Directions
1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)

homemade cream cheese icing:

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 stick butter
1/4 tsp vanilla
heaping 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/8 cup granulated sugar

Directions
-beat all ingredients together in mixer until thick and creamy

No Bake Oatmeal Cookie Balls
Adapted from allrecipes.com

Ingredients
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 ripe bananas
2tbsps butter
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

In a large bowl, combine the oats, sugar and cocoa. With clean hands, mix in the water, vanilla, bananas and peanut butter.
heat butter in a skillet until it caramelizes slightly and then add to batter.
Wash hands, then roll the dough into balls 1 to 2 inches in diameter. Roll balls in confectioners’ sugar until thickly coated.
Chill 20 minutes before serving.

The stage crew, fueled by Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins, sawdust and paint, juggled chit-chat with friends with manufacturing two of East’s biggest crowd-gatherers.

Mr. Gambino (’03) and Robert Weaver (’03) directed the night’s work. The next stage crew call is Thursday January 14 from 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, followed by Saturday January 16, from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Although the Man of La Mancha set remains with unpainted pieces of wooden infrastructure, in just two months the extraordinary tale of Don Quixote and his chivalric quests will occupy the stage.

Recipes:

Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1½ tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
16 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup molasses
1 large egg

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and spices to combine; set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in the molasses and egg until combined. Add in the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Cover the bowl and chill the dough for at least one hour.

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface to about ¼-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place the cookie shapes onto the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and let cool completely. Decorate as desired.

Light Egg Nog

Ingredients
2 cups nonfat milk
2 large strips orange and/or lemon zest
1 vanilla bean
2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
Freshly grated nutmeg for garnish

Directions
1. Combine 1 1/2 cups milk and the citrus zest in a medium saucepan. split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds; and the seeds and pod to saucepan an bring to a simmer over heat. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, egg yolk, sugar and cornstarch in a medium bowl until light yellow.
2. Gradually pour the hot milk mix into the egg mixture, whisking constantly, then pour back into the pan. Place over medium eat and stir constantly with a wooden in a figure-eight motion until the eggnog begins to thicken, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and immediately stir in the remaining 1/2 cup milk to stop the cooking. transfer the eggnog to a large bowl and place over a large bowl of ice to cool, then chill until ready to serve.
3. Remove zest and vanilla pod. garnish with nutmeg

Cupcakes:

1 box cake mix
1 cup buttermilk in place of amount of water called for on box of cake mix
Amount of oil called for on box of cake mix
4 eggs, instead of number called for on box of cake mix

Use a hand mixer to moisten batter, then beat for 2 minutes on high.

For the decorations:

Ice cupcakes and roll edges in sweetened shredded coconut. Place small cupcake on its side on the large cupcake.

Scarf: Cut Fruit Roll-ups into scarf shape with serrated knife. Wrap around “neck” of cupcakes.
Mouth: Insert chocolate sprinkles into smaller cupcake in the shape of a smile
Nose: Microwave an orange starburst for a few seconds until it is soft enough to form with your hands into the shape of a nose. Form points on both ends, insert one end into small cupcake.
Eyes: Insert a mini choclate chip on the small cupcake, pointed side in, for each eye.
Hat: Take one half of an Oreo cookie and use icing to apply to the “head” of the snowman. Use icing to apply a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup with the inner brown wrapper still on.
Earmuffs: Cut a Fruit Roll-up into the length of half of a scarf, and roll it together to form a long tube. Use icing to attach a skittle or M&M to each side. Put in the freezer for a minute or two to allow it to set so the skittles of M&Ms stay in place.

This “makeover,” if it even equates that, has highlighted a unique trend of hair-care segregation, at least to me. There are understated, over-expressed caveats of “guys go to barber shops, girls go to salons,” which have produced a split-end of the hair-care business. There is an implicit bias against males getting anything more than a 5-minute haircut, or even stepping foot into a salon, as if those actions aren’t manly enough.

I found out literally last minute that I had a 4:00 appointment at Salon Rouge to have a stylist go wild with my one-inch of blonde hair. Eager to change my token hairstyle, I entered the high-end salon ready to give whoever held the scissors free reign over my hair.

Ever since my seventh grade history teacher enthusiastically remarked that my spiked hair looked good, I have worn the ubiquitous male version of the up-do. Guys don’t have much leeway with hair styles, aside from the few who are patient enough to grow it out: I am not one of those people, so I settled for the traditional close-cut haircut.

Desiree, a sociable young stylist with a wavy blonde reverse-mullet type of haircut, asked me if I wanted my hair to “speak, scream or whisper.” After initially choosing a mild-mannered tone, I opted for my follicles to scream. Unfortunately, the color specialist thought my hair would be best suited for natural highlights. The nearly-colorless verdict was disappointing, but not completely: I was getting highlights for the first time.

Hair care, from a simple cut to more complex chemical procedures, is not (or at least should not be) an esoteric business driven by gender; feminine or masculine, gender should not limit one from being adventurous with his or her appearance. I’ve been to barber shops, cut my own hair and gone to hair salons. Salons offer an ambiance of being a part of a community of others in similar situations, as opposed to the one-on-one environment of a barbershop. In my experiences, stylists are more conversational, more rushed, but acute with their work; barbers are more reserved, work slower but are less precise. Stylists, too, encourage innovation, change and are eager to craft a new haircut, whereas barbers return an old haircut to a customer.

But the question remains, and may always remain: Do guys really need a candy-cane pole to feel secure about getting a haircut? Of the four hours I spent at Salon Rouge, surrounded by female customers and employees, I never felt a singe gender-driven glare from anyone. No one seemed to care that a guy had stopped by to get his hair done, and I found that observation to be refreshing. Of the four hours I spent at the salon, it took only one-and-a-half hours for my hair to be washed, cut, colored, rinsed, dried and cut again.

To me, those archaic delegations of guys to the barbershop and girls to the salon seem unreasonably tedious.

I don’t care where you get your haircut and whether I get my hair cut at a barbershop, a hair salon or in my own bathroom is really none of anyone’s business.

Well, except for this eyebrow-raising (and hair cutting) experience.

Soffer joined ABC Television Network/Touchstone Television in New York in 2003, where he is now Manager of Casting. Despite his prominence in the television industry, the conversation quickly turned matters concerning the gay and lesbian community, both at East and beyond.

Soffer called the people gathered in C115, gay and straight alike, “pioneers.”

He noted the courage it takes to advocate for a minority group, and lamented the fear some individuals have about joining GSA.

“They think about it, they talk about,” he said, but they lack the confidence to walk through the door.

In a conversational style, Soffer sat on the front desk taking questions from recent East graduates, current students and two faculty members, including the gay-straight alliance advisor and retired East teacher, Mrs. Ida Varon

Referencing his current stomping grounds, the entertainment industry, Soffer, who is gay and recently married his partner of six years, said, “with guys it’s usually 50-50,” in terms of being gay.

On the topic of gay rights, and the slow progression to equality for members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, he said, “We see the Ellen DeGeneres’ and the Barney Franks. We see gay leaders, we have them, but we don’t see everyday [gay and lesbian] citizens functioning in society.”

“We see the rich poster children,” he continued. “[But], we need people like you and me who are not famous.”

Soffer used an analogy to explain the importance of coming out – which he stressed as a defining, liberating moment which allows LGBT people to “wake up with a sense of purpose.”

If “Mary in accounting,” he said, comes out, then her co-workers will know someone who is gay, and will not be disconnected from the gay community. They like Mary, so they realize that they can like lesbian people, too, and that they aren’t all stereotypically masculine, he said.

Unfortunately, though, discrimination is rampant, and has manifested in seemingly innocuous language, such as the phrase “That’s so gay,” he said.

Sometimes, Soffer said, “people don’t even know that they discriminate [by saying] ‘That’s so gay.’ [But], it’s a negative. It’s the negative word they chose.”

To convey the insulting nature of the phrase, he compared it to someone saying, “That’s so Jewish,” or “That’s so black.”

However, Soffer says that his sister-in-law, whom he called an incredibly accepting person, sometimes uses the phrase, and that “in those situations I try to diffuse it with a joke.”

All kidding aside, Soffer acknowledged the fact that many cross-cultural people still regard homosexuality as an illness.

One straight GSA member recounted how a friend’s mother believed her to be a lesbian and refused to allow her daughter to go to her house.

Soffer said that even if homosexuality were an illness, “since when are we a country that discriminates against sick people?”

A lesbian member of the GSA told of how she overheard a woman say “that’s gross” when a speaker revealed he had AIDS.

She added, “What if we ran away from people with arthritis?”

As pictures from the recent protest outside of East traversed throughout the rows of listeners, Soffer reinforced the implementation of sensitivity training for East teachers. As one attending faculty member noted, oftentimes teachers will be at the computer and will overhear slurs, but will disregard them completely.

At 4:05 p.m., Soffer concluded the discussion with sound advice for the GSA: “make noise.”

Recipes:

Egg-in-a-Hole

Ingredients:
slice of bread (any kind)
large egg
butter
salt
pepper

Directions:
Cut a hole in the center of the slice of bread (about 2 in diameter)

Put 2 tablespoons of butter into a frying pan. When it gets bubbly, add the slice of bread

Crack the egg into the hole in the bread. Let it cook for a minute or so, until the bottom of the egg starts to appear white.

Flip the bread and remove once the egg is cooked (be sure not to cook too long so that the yolk is dry or too short so that the yolk is runny)

Put the cutout part of the bread into the pan to sop up the rest of the butter

Salt and pepper the egg to taste

Fruit Salad

Ingredients:
1 mango
2 kiwis
1 pint of strawberries
2 bananas

Directions:

Cut the mango, kiwis, and strawberries into bite size pieces as shown

Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge until ready to serve

Slice banana into the salad right before serving

Recipes for the foods featured in the show:

Buttermilk mashed potatoes

Ingredients
Kosher salt
1 1/2 pounds boiling potatoes
1/4 cup milk
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a large pot, bring 2 quarts of water and 1 tablespoon of salt to a boil. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and cut them into 1 1/2-inch cubes. Add them to the boiling water and bring the water back to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes fall apart easily when pierced with a fork.

Meanwhile, heat the milk and butter in a small saucepan, making sure it doesn’t boil. Set aside until the potatoes are done.

As soon as the potatoes are tender, drain them in a colander. Place a food mill fitted with a small disk/blade over a heatproof bowl. Pass the potatoes through the food mill, turning the handle back and forth. As soon as the potatoes are mashed, stir in the hot milk mixture with a whisk or rubber spatula. Add enough buttermilk to make the potatoes creamy. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and the pepper, and serve hot. To keep the potatoes warm, place the bowl over a pan of simmering water for up to 30 minutes. You can add a little extra hot milk to keep them creamy.

Herb and Apple stuffing

Ingredients
16 cups 1-inch bread cubes, white or whole wheat (2 baguettes)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
2 cups medium-diced yellow onion (2 large)
2 cups medium-diced celery (3 large stalks)
2 Granny Smith apples, unpeeled, cored and large diced
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds, toasted, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Put the bread cubes on a 13 by 18 by 1-inch baking sheet and bake them in the oven for 7 minutes.

In a large saute pan, melt the butter and add the onion, celery, apples, parsley, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Saute for 10 minutes, until the mixture is soft.

Combine the bread cubes and cooked vegetables in a large bowl and add the chicken stock, and almonds, if desired.

Place the stuffing into the main cavity of the turkey and into the neck of the bird.. I cook a 12-pound turkey for 2 1/2 hours at 350 degrees F in a preheated oven. Make sure the stuffing in the cavity is secured by wrapping the legs tightly with string.

Asparagus

Ingredients
asparagus
extra virgin olive oil
salt pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Line pan with foil and line asparagus up on it, then drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Cook in oven for 10-15 minutes or until crispy