Donna Schmidt, Editor

Donna Schmidt is the Founder of her own Communications Company (Donna Schmidt Communications) where she assists local businesses strategize creative, targeted marketing programs. She is also a social media manager for businesses without an in-house marketing department, freelance feature story & content writer and Communications and Community Affairs Manager at Active International in Pearl River.

Schmidt designed, wrote and published a real estate magazine under a family publishing company for many years and has written for Gannett Food Blog, "Small Bites"; AOL's Nyack-Piermont, Pearl River, New City and Nanuet Patch; www.haverstrawlife.com; Rivertown Magazine; www.nyacknewsandviews; www.rocklandlifestyle.org; New City Life Magazine; Rockland County Times and other local publications and blogs.

She has Co-Chaired a community group for a local Community Farm – Cropsey Community Farm and Co-Chaired the JCC Cultural Arts Festival. She has assisted many Rockland Non-Profits by telling their story in words assisting their promotion efforts.

Lover of fine food, great wine, her two mini-dachshunds and grown children, she holds true to the belief that life is for the living. Jump on In!

See her blog at www.whatcomesnaturally.org.

If you are interested in submitting a press release, article or wish to find out how to sponsor an article or series, please contact Donna at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Banner ads are also available.

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Viviane Bauquet Farre - Food

Viviane Bauquet Farre, of Piermont, is a champion of gourmet-yet-simple home cooking. A native of a French island in the South Pacific and a former fashion designer, Viviane creates exuberant recipes that are rooted in Southern French and Italian cuisines. The food she creates is both fresh and modern, and grounded in a deep love for seasonal ingredients.

Viviane's e-magazine, foodandstyle.com, launched in 2009, has won plaudits from home chefs the world over, and been heralded both in print and across the Web, in forums as diverse as BonAppetit.com, Vegetarian Times, and Saveur.com (which also crowned her site one of the "Best of the Web"). With several dozen episodes already wrapped, Viviane's rich YouTube channel is growing rapidly both in size and visibility. She is also a regular contributor to the Taste section of The Huffington Post, among other sites.

In 2013, Viviane launched Food & Style Club. A customizable "living cookbook," Food & Style Club offers subscribers a weekly flow of brand new seasonal recipes created by Viviane, with step-by-step video instructions, direct access to the chef, the ability to create your own recipe box, and more. The Club has become an essential — and treasured — cooking companion for scores of home chefs.

Viviane's love of ingredients, and the richness of her food offering, extends to wine as well. The recipient of an Advanced Certificate in Wine and Spirits, from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, she offers suggested pairings for many of her recipes — with a focus on producers who make wines that are pure and express a sense of place.

Viviane's philosophy can be summarized in two simple sentences: Flavor First! And... Food Is Love.

"Viviane is a visionary cook."

— author and New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik

Links

Food & Style: http://foodandstyle.com/

Food & Style Club: https://foodandstyleclub.com//

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Gene Paul - Theater

The Mission

Gene along with seven other men, flew “special operations” in B-24s, clandestine night operations from a then secret base in England known only as Station 179 (Harrington). The base was located about ten miles west of Kettering, Northamptonshire. They shared the base with two other bomb groups. Polinsky was a navigator in this Air Force special operations group; the 492nd/801st Bomb Group known as the “Carpetbaggers.” 

A book was written about his crew in 2005. That year he met people who were on the ground, who were part of the underground and part of the reception committee that he had never met before. He also learned all about the missions that he and his crew were involved with and were secret to him until 2005. It made a huge impact on his life. He now feels a community with these men that he never experienced. “I cannot get over the range of gratitude the Belgians feel toward Americans. It really overwhelms me. They took us to visit cemeteries, I went to Bastogne, Ardennes — they took me all over.

Gene was invited to that reception in Belgium and has gone back every year. He is the only survivor of his crew.

The Life

Gene has a long story about being an actor, writer, producer, director, father and husband.

“I became friendly with Lee Strasberg after the war and got involved with the American Theater Wing. I was a very good actor and a medium director,” he said.

Currently he writes theater reviews and has written reviews since college. He goes into Manhattan at least two to three times a week to see a show. Broadway, in the Park, Off Broadway — you name it, he has seen it. He writes under the pseudonym name Eugene Paul.

Gene met his wife and very much the love of his life in college in 1937. “When I sat down in class, Mary Post was sitting right next to me.” he smiled. They had four children and much to his genetic luck his great, great grandfather lived to be 107. “I will definitely shoot past 100,” he said.

The Theater

“The best show this year I have seen this year was Twelfth Night. If you went early, you could watch the actors get dressed and in makeup right on the stage!” he said

The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of King Lear, starring Tony Award winner John Lithgow and Academy Award nominee Annette Bening he felt was beyond fantastic. He said if you have not seen Once The Musical, run – don’t walk.

“Neil Patrick Harris in Hedwig and the Angry Itch…what can I say? He blew my mind. I could not believe what this man can do. I am convinced he can do anything.”

Gene also spoke very highly of the Westchester Premier Theater, and goes there often for a show and a delicious prime rib. He admitted that he goes everywhere and sees everything except for one theater on White Street that is up three flights.

We are thrilled to have Gene as a contributing writer to Nyack Hamlet Hub, Gene turned 94 September 11, 2014.