Charity Robey

A budding scientist blooms on Shelter Island

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO Senior Emily Hyatt will attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a prestigious school of science and engineering.

Published in the Shelter Island Reporter on June 23, 2016

Given a choice, most teenagers would avoid changing high schools. Emily Hyatt has no regrets for making the change.

She will graduate from the Shelter Island High School this Saturday, a gifted student, budding scientific researcher and student leader, all qualities she possessed before she moved to the Island three years ago but which hadn’t blossomed into accomplishments.

From kindergarten through 9th grade she attended school in Southold, and to hear her tell it, moving to the Island to finish high school was a positive turning point in her young life.

“I changed here,” she said. “There, I was socially awkward, but now I’m president of the National Honor Society and a student leader of HUGS [a leadership development and drug and alcohol prevention group]. I never would have done those things in Southold. I would not have put myself out there.”

Emily grew up in Southold with her mother and father, Lynn and Fred Hyatt. Her father, the owner of Peconic Plant Care, works on Shelter Island, so even before she started going to school here, Emily knew the Island, and had friends and childhood memories, including the annual “Snapper Derby.”

“I always liked science from the very beginning of school,” she said, crediting Ms. Berezny, one of her elementary school teachers, with firing her early fascination with the physical and natural world.

But when she took introductory biology in 7th grade, her attitude changed. A substitute took over for the regular teacher, the class was chaotic, and Emily did poorly. In spite of this setback, her interest in science remained strong and she got involved in an after-school robotics activity.

After her parents divorced and her father remarried, she moved, just prior to 10th grade, to the Island with her father and his new wife, Kathleen Lynch.

At the Shelter Island School she joined the Intel science program, where she met Dan Williams, Shelter Island’s respected science teacher, and one of the most popular teachers at the school. Emily said, “He treated us like adults.”

The first year of the three-year Intel program is a seminar, followed by two years where students do their own research. Emily wanted to model a protein, but had to decide which one, since there are countless proteins in humans and other animals. Finally, she picked one that she knew a little bit about because it is a human protein present in cells, ribosome recycling factor (RRF.)

The goal of Emily’s research is to better understand the structure of the RRF. To do this she needed to create a 3-D model of the protein to analyze, and the first step was to grow a crystal she could use to create the model, which she did in April of this year.

Through Mr. Williams’ connection to Brookhaven National Laboratory, a molecular biologist there, Dr. Alexei Soares, agreed to analyze the crystals that Emily grew, using a sophisticated piece of equipment called a beamline to model the structure of RRF using a computer. Using the model, it may be possible to understand ways of turning on or off processes of the protein, processes that may affect bacterial disease.

Emily’s involvement in this type of sophisticated research is so extraordinary that Mr. Williams, who teaches a crystallography class over the summer to high school teachers at Brookhaven, may use Emily’s data as an example to help other science teachers understand the process of crystallization and structure solving.

Balancing out Emily’s drive to conduct scientific research is her participation in volleyball, softball and cheerleading, and her time as a student leader of HUGS.

Emily is president of the National Honor Society (NHS), an organization that recognizes academic achievement as well as service. One of NHS’s activities is the “Cardboard Campout” an annual event to raise awareness of homelessness by attempting to recreate some of the conditions that homeless people endure. Emily and the other members of the NHS spent the night in cardboard boxes on the front lawn of the school.

For Emily, the experience got a little too real.

She fell asleep quickly in her box, but then woke in the middle of the night hearing disturbing noises that sounded like frightened voices and banging doors. Assuming everyone else was asleep, she was too terrified to move and cowered in the box for many long minutes until the voices came nearer and she realized the rest of the group had gone on a noisy midnight walk around the school and were not sleeping in nearby boxes.

One of Emily’s teachers suggested she consider applying to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) a school known for the quality of its technological research and science programs. She followed that advice and will now attend RPI in the fall, with plans to major in biochemistry and to go on to get a Ph.D.

“I hope to be doing research in college,” she said. “I want to be a lab scientist, not a doctor.”

A true sign of her vocation is when Emily applies scientific methods to everyday life, including cooking. “I made some chia pudding and it did not come out well,” she said. “I did think maybe next time I’ll use less cocoa powder.”

Looking back at the effect of the move three years ago from Southold to Shelter Island, Emily said, “At the Shelter Island School I have a feeling of being in a community, and of more connection. Before, I never said anything. I’m much louder now.”

Cause for celebration

 Published in the Shelter Island Reporter on June 23, 2016

Perhaps you will dress up, don a tie, or shave some stubbly part of your body.

You may travel a great distance, sitting in a car for hours wearing pantyhose, or packed into an airplane with a dress that wrinkles easily in the overhead compartment under someone’s rollaway.

Once you arrive you will stand with friends and family at an outdoor event, possibly in a broiling sun, or huddled under an enormous umbrella against the rain.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be offered a white wooden folding chair with the back angled against your spine like a karate chop.

June is prime time for the rites of passage; weddings and graduations certainly, but also engagements, birthdays and baby showers. Can all this trouble and expense possibly be worth it?

At my sister’s wedding ceremony decades ago, the groom addressed this question in his remarks to the assembled guests. The nuptials, which took place in a sandy clearing outside my parents’ home on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp, was a small affair except for the mosquitoes.

Horst, who has now been my brother-in-law for 25 years, read to us from Goethe: “It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.”

He went on to say that perhaps a wedding is not really cause for celebration, but just a first step.

This came as a jolt to those of us who had traveled far to come to the edge of a snake-infested swamp to witness the step. After the ceremony, excellent pastries and cakes were served, baked by Horst’s mother, and all was good.

Actually, I think my brother-in-law is exactly right, and that’s why I enjoy graduations more than weddings and christenings and much more than a bris. Graduations celebrate real accomplishment. The person I honor with my presence has earned it by completing a complex series of tasks over years that now result in a diploma. Definitely worth celebrating.

Schools recognize the significance of graduation ceremonies and will take steps to see that deserving students and their families don’t miss out on an important rite. At my oldest son’s college graduation, we were delighted to see his freshman year roommate receive a diploma, which he showed off at the reception. “I have to get this back to the registrar by 5,” he said. “I still have a few credits to complete this summer.”

Some graduating seniors avail themselves of a large audience of friends and family to express themselves. Nick Petrella, who works at Bella Vita Pizza on summer weekends, has cultivated a reputation as a serial pants-free graduate. His mother Robbin reported that during his high school graduation, he was wearing pants in the processional but skillfully removed them when he was seated, under the eyes of the chaperones posted at the end of the rows of prospective graduates.

His brother alerted the rest of the family via text message that Nick was not wearing pants. By then, word of Nick’s missing wardrobe item had gone viral, and every graduating senior was witness to his transverse of the stage, wearing only the traditional robe and boxers, (and a tie of course) to accept his diploma. He put pants back on after taking his seat. Nick repeated his signature move for his college graduation four years later.

Part of what makes graduations so satisfying is being able to celebrate, in addition to the hard work of the graduate, your own contributions to the prize. Whether you are a dad thinking of the many nights you drilled your 6th grader on spelling words like “conscience,” “conscientious” and “contemptible,” or a grandma reflecting on a savings account drained by personal checks to the Office of the Bursar, the graduates’ families get bragging rights for the time, money and moral support that made graduation day possible.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, over three million people will graduate from high school in the United States this year. Nineteen of them are from the Shelter Island High School. This year’s class is an accomplished group of people who plan to go forth and study everything from diesel mechanics to microbiology.

As the seniors look back at their high school experience in the pages of this newspaper, it’s the teachers who fired them up who they have publicly thanked; Mr. Brace, Mr. Brennan, Mr. Brigham, Ms. Galasso, Mr. Miedema, Mr. Mundy, Mr. Theinert, Mrs. Treharne, and Mr. Williams.

Now that’s worth dressing up for.

 

Shelter Island 10K nutrition-Preparing for a race at the cocktail hour

Published in the Shelter Island Reporter 10K supplement on June 9, 2016

The start of the Shelter Island 10K, unlike almost any other foot race you can name, is at 5:30 pm. At a time when the sun is over the yardarm, and many people are settling down with a cold beverage, 10K participants will be pounding down Ram Island Drive and up Cobbetts Lane in pursuit of their personal bests.

For foot races that begin in the morning, pre-race nutrition is pretty straightforward. Eat modestly-sized, carbohydrate-rich meals for three days before the event, and then something easily digestible, like a bagel before the start.

Shelter Island 10K runners trying to reach their peak performance, will need a different eating strategy, one that combines three days of pre-race carbohydrate rich meals with a couple of nutritious, light and easily-digestible race-day meals.

Bluefish is a local delicacy that is terrific roasted with garlic. This recipe calls for fresh garlic or garlic scapes, which are much milder than regular garlic, and don’t need much cooking. They are the perfect flavoring for delicate food like fish, or baked tomatoes that need only a short blast of heat to attain perfection.

Young garlic is available at farm stands now, and you’ll find piles of curly green garlic scapes and tender bulbs at the Shelter Island Farmer’s market on Saturday morning at Haven’s House, and at the Sylvester Manor Farmstand on Manwaring Road.

Protein rich quinoa is actually a seed from a South American plant that was first domesticated in the Andes. Tasty and versatile, it has become ubiquitous since the United Nations declared 2013, “The International Year of Quinoa.” If you have any eight-year-old children in your life, you can amuse them by informing them that that quinoa is grown near Lake Titicaca.

Tabbouleh made with quinoa is a great choice for race-day, easy to make and even easier to digest. The seeds of the quinoa develop a white curly tail as they cook, like a Nike swoosh, nature’s way of telling you they are ready to eat.

Couscous is a type of pasta made from durum wheat, that is a staple in the North African diet. The yellow grains of couscous are steamed, and transformed into a nutty and delicious base for contrasting flavors and textures. Like quinoa, couscous is a high protein source of carbohydrates.

 Roasted bluefish with young garlic

Serves 3-4.

4 heaping tablespoons diced garlic scapes, or young garlic.

2 tablespoons of olive oil plus a little more to coat the pan

1 grind of pepper

½ teaspoon of salt

2 pounds bluefish filets

1. Combine the garlic scapes, olive oil, pepper and salt and rub the mixture on top of the bluefish filets.
2. Coat a pre-heated iron skillet or heavy ovenproof pan with a film of olive oil and place the bluefish filets skin side up. Nestle most of the garlic under the filets, leaving a few on top to brown.
3. Roast in a preheated 425-degree oven for 10 minutes, or until the skin just begins to char on the edges and the flesh flakes when tested with a fork.

 

Baked tomatoes

Serves 4 as a side dish.

2 large tomatoes split in half

2 tablespoons diced garlic scapes or young garlic

2 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs

Pinch of salt

2 generous grinds of pepper

1-tablespoon olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place the split tomatoes halves, cut side up in a lightly oiled baking dish.
3. Combine the garlic scapes, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and olive oil in a bowl and toss lightly.
4. Cover each tomato half with the breadcrumb mixture.
5. Drizzle a little more olive oil on each tomato.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, until the tops are browned and the tomatoes are soft, but not collapsed.

A quinoa-based tabbouleh with a shot of feta cheese is a carb-delivery system and light enough to eat on race-day.

Quinoa tabbouleh

Adapted from Ina Garten

2 cups water

1-teaspoon salt

1-cup quinoa

8 oz. cherry tomatoes, halved

½ red onion finely chopped

¼ cup minced parsley

¼ cup minced mint

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup rice vinegar

½ cup feta cheese, crumbled

1. Heat water to a boil. Add salt and quinoa, cover, and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. You will see small, curly white swirls in the quinoa grains, which shows that they are cooked. Drain any water that has not been absorbed.
2. Combine the tomatoes, onion, parsley, and mint in a serving bowl.
3. Fold the olive oil into the quinoa, add the rice vinegar.
4. Fold the quinoa mixture into the serving bowl and combine with the feta.
5. Serve at room temperature.

 

Couscous with golden raisins, scallions, carrots, almonds and a touch of curry spice for a lunch that won’t weigh you down as you run.

Couscous Salad

Serves 4.

2 cups water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1-cup couscous

1/3 cup golden raisins

1/2-cup garlic chopped scallions

½ cup diced carrots

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/2 cup minced parsley

1-tablespoon rice wine vinegar

2 teaspoons curry powder

1/2-teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Bring the water to a boil, stir in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and couscous.
2. Remove from heat, fold in the raisins, cover, and let it steam for 15 minutes.
3. Drain any excess water, fluff the couscous with a fork, and combine with the scallions, carrots, and almonds.
4. Mix the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, with parsley, the rice vinegar, curry powder, salt, and pepper.
5. Serve at room temperature.

 

Jeanette Flynn-Shelter Island's Newest Lion

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO Back in good health, with work she loves and her kids doing well, Jeanette Flynn is counting her blessings and thanking her community, friends and neighbors.

Published in the Shelter Island Reporter on June 9, 2016

Jeanette Flynn is a sunny, can-do person, who chooses not to stew about the very real challenges she has faced in her life.

She has a new job she loves, a roof over her head and two children doing well in college. Still, she admitted some parts of her life do sit heavy with her, especially first thing in the morning.

“There’s 20 minutes of every day that sucks for me,” she said. “But then I get in the shower and keep going.”

Jeanette has lived on Shelter Island for less than a decade, but in her time here has become so much a part of the community that when she fell seriously ill with a viral disease a few years back, there was no shortage of friends and neighbors to help her through it.

Margaret Doyle and Melanie Matz visited her at an off-Island physical rehabilitation center three days a week. Linda Bonaccorso brought baked ziti. Heidi Fokine picked up Jeanette’s kids, Tara and Johnny, took them to her house, helped them with homework and fed them dinner.

“Mom, we had beets for dinner last night!” they told Jeanette.

Baskets of food appeared at Jeanette’s door. Melanie even organized a zumbathon to raise money to help support the family through a very rough time. “I think I truly fell in love with this community at that point,” said Jeanette.

Today, Jeanette is healthy and much happier, working full time for the town as clerk to 12 committees, including the very active Planning Board, ZBA, and Waterways committees. In addition to sitting in on meetings and taking minutes, she coordinates the calendar and contributes to the smooth running of government by making sure when topics that the various committees discuss overlap, someone connects the dots.

In her “spare time” she logs another 10 hours a week at the Shelter Island Public Library, where she has worked since 2007. She also volunteers, teaching religious education for first communion at Our Lady of the Isle. On June 9 she was installed as a Shelter Island Lion.

Jeanette was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Flushing. Her father worked at New York Telephone for over 30 years and was in the New York National Guard, part of the 69th Infantry Regiment, the “Fighting Sixty-Nine.”

“My Dad’s work ethic shaped who I am,” Jeanette said. “He was and still is the hardest working man I know.”

Her parish and grammar school was St. Andrew Avellino Roman Catholic Church and she attended the all-girls St. Vincent Ferrer High School. But her parents didn’t pressure her to go to college. The oldest of four, her siblings settled nearby; her sister Corinne in Center Moriches, brother Sean and Kathleen in Smithtown.

After high school, Jeanette worked and went to school at night, excelling academically. Meanwhile, her brother who was two years younger, enrolled at SUNY Oswego, which her parents agreed to pay for. At the time, Jeanette said she resented the double standard, but eventually her parents agreed to help her attend Binghamton University, where she had been accepted.

The summer before she was to enroll at Binghamton, she was in New York City with friends and met a man on the Circle Line named John Sturges and fell in love. After one semester at Binghamton, Jeanette left school and moved to Brooklyn to be with John.

Eventually she realized the man she loved had a serious drug problem and in 1994 she found herself pregnant with Tara, unwilling to marry John and estranged from her parents. She was, she said, “the black sheep of the family.”

Jeanette left John in 1998 when their son, Johnny, was six months old and Tara was three to move in with her parents in Suffolk County with whom she had reconciled.

“My kids are very close to my parents, and helped me see their better side, that they aren’t so bad, and helped me forget,” she said. “My children were my life and I had to be for them.”

The kids continued to see their father, but in 2004, when Tara was in fourth grade and Johnny was in second, a day arrived that Jeanette had long feared.

“That was the hardest day of my life, telling my kids that their dad died she said.”

For her part, Jeanette has reached something like forgiveness for John. “Maybe it was acceptance,” she said. “Understanding the disease and knowing that if that wasn’t part of the picture it would have been a different life.”

In 2007 Jeanette moved to the Island and married Andrew Payne. But after seven years together, Jeanette decided that she and her children could no longer live with him, and they subsequently divorced.

Once again, Jeanette faced a crisis, and as they had when she was sick in 2011, the Shelter Island community stepped up to help.

“Sue Binder, no questions asked, let me and my kids move into her cottage,” said Jeanette. “Didn’t want a thing from me. I had a year to figure things out.”

Patty Quigley, Kathy Lynch, Melanie Matz, Margaret Doyle, Susan Binder and Elena DeStefano all showed up to help her move. Kim Reilly brought food, clothes, and gifts. Linda Bonaccorso brought more of her famous baked ziti.

Finding an affordable place to live after the break up of her marriage was a turning point in her life, Jeanette said, and one that she prayed for fervently. Always a hard worker, often with multiple jobs, she said life got a lot better when she was able to sign a lease for a little house for her kids and Petunia, a rescue dog who has been a member of the family since 2005.

“You feel things positively here,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that my kids’ future was good and being here did that.”

Tara has just finished her third year at Marymount Manhattan College, and Johnny just finished his first year at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

She hasn’t seen significant changes in Shelter Island in the years she’s been here. ”We still don’t have a stoplight here,” she said. “I think we’re doing pretty well. No bridge and no stoplight.”

But Jeanette sees working families struggling due to the rising cost of housing, and the sparse availability of affordable homes and rentals.

“It’s supply and demand, but I’m hopeful that we can figure it out,” she said. “My goal is to buy my own home. Right now I have a lease and I’m a lucky person.”

Every day, the 20 minutes Jeanette allows herself to think about dark episodes in her life gives way to the appreciation and gratitude she carries with her for the rest of the day.

“I’ve had many crises and I dealt with them with my faith,” she said, “Always knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

Spending a vacation day on Shelter Island

A Shelter Island view from the ‘Kissing Rock.’ (Credit: Charity Robey)

 

Published in the northforker on May 25, 2016

Shelter Island is more than a charming, boring version of the Hamptons, a bucolic identity that travel writers have stuck on it. The island has welcomed visitors for two centuries with a contrariness that comes with being able to roll up the gangplanks every night and let the rest of the world go to hell. There’s a lot here, especially for people willing to bike or float, and a long summer day is enough time to get a taste. 

Of course, you can drive a car onto the ferry — this is still Long Island. But if you come by bike or rent one from Piccozzi’s Bike Shop (177 North Ferry Road, 631-749-0045), you’ll be pre-adjusted to the pace of the place, summarized by the tag line “Live Slow,” which you may see on a bumper sticker or T-shirt.

Begin your day at Stars Café (17 Grand Avenue, 631-749-5345), located about a quarter-mile from the North Ferry, just up the hill from the bike rental. It’s a great place to have breakfast and plot your route.

Every small town has a place where the mood of the community can be assessed and on Shelter Island, that place is Stars. The regular morning crowd is generally sitting at café tables outside, watching the peaceful and civil coexistence of pedestrians, bicycles and cars at the intersection of Chase and New York avenues and weighing in on island events. New to the menu this year is peanut butter and jelly French toast, a breakfast that can do double-duty as lunch. Owner Pepe Martinez said they are happy to make this delicacy with their gluten-free bread, for those who prefer it.

Before you leave the Heights, a visit to Marie Eiffel Market (184 North Ferry Road, 631-749-0003) is a very good idea, even if you’ve already had breakfast. It’s a great place to buy freshly baked breads and pastries to stock a picnic lunch or eat dockside at the tables in back. Don’t leave without a hunk of her delicious baguette.

The Smith-Taylor cabin on Taylor’s Island. (Credit: Monique Singh-Roy)

The island’s most interesting public space is Taylor’s Island, featuring a turn-of the century timber cabin that’s been restored thanks to the efforts of local preservationist P.A.T. Hunt. Technically, it’s not an island, but a tombolo — an acre of rocks and sand connected to land only at low tide — in the middle of Coecles Harbor. Travel by kayak (you can rent from Shelter Island Kayak Tours, 23 North Ferry Road, 631-749-1990) via the Coecles Harbor Marine Water Trail or put in at the Town Landing on Congdon Road. Get more information and a map at taylorsisland.org/documents/20060500Trail.pdf.

At first glance, Sylvester Manor Educational Farm (21 Manwaring Road) looks like a farm stand with especially great-looking vegetables. But hang out and talk to the folks tending the stand and you’ll quickly discover that this is the business end of a 250-acre educational farm with pigs, chickens, fainting goats and a manor house that was built in 1737 on land that has been farmed since the 17th century. Of course, you can buy some tomatoes, but also consider a walk to see the goats or maybe a tour of the house and grounds.

Then, on to lunch.

The bright yellow walls and tiny lunch counter at Maria’s Kitchen (55 North Ferry Road, 631-749-5450) are cute, but it’s the chalkboard menu neatly listing her signature enchiladas, empanadas, salads and smoothies, which takes up most of a wall, that demonstrates the mission here. Maria is running a serious Mexican eatery and she’s not going to let you leave without tasting something so good that the memory of it will draw you back very soon. Her culinary style reflects her roots in Puebla, Mexico, tempered by a heavy reliance on fresh local produce, a genius for soup-making and a light hand with the hot peppers.

Jim Hull pouring up some of his Forbidden Fruit apple ale.
(Credit: Monique Singh-Roy)

Just next door you’ll find Shelter Island Craft Brewery.

If the idea of a microbrewery is to make small batches of local beer with local ingredients, then the Shelter Island Craft Brewery (55 North Ferry Road, 631-749-5977) is the most micro of all. Owner and brew master Jim Hull forages island gardens and beaches for flavors to incorporate into adventurous island brews. Lemon verbena and local honey contribute to the citrusy charms of Liquid Sunshine Wheat Ale, a favorite that’s almost always on hand.

For evening entertainment, the Perlman Music Program, (73 Shore Road, 212-877-5045) is Toby and Itzhak Perlman’s camp for gifted 8-  to 12-year- olds, who play their stringed instruments like accompaniment for flights of angels. The program holds free concerts every Friday and Saturday night throughout the summer on its tree-studded beachside campus, with Itzhak Perlman conducting — and sometimes performing.

SALT. (Credit: Jo Ann Kirkland)

To cap off your day with a great dinner, consider some of the following options.

• The Islander is a great diner built by, run by and frequented by local people. So if you want to see some, go there. Also go if you want a superior burger. 63 North Ferry Road, 631-749-1998.

• Vine Street Café offers fine dining with a country feel and inspired use of local ingredients. 41 South Ferry Road, 631-749-3210.

• SALT’s lively bar and dining room have lovely views of boatyard and creek and a menu that includes their very popular linguini with local littleneck clams steamed in white wine. 63 S. Menantic Road, Island Boatyard, 631-749-5535.

• Red Maple, a stylish restaurant in the newly renovated inn, The Chequit, features New American food. With my right hand on “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” I swear to you the kale and butternut squash salad with shrimp is fantastic. Tender. The Chequit, 23 Grand Ave., 631-749-0018.

Island Profile: Janine Mahoney, a special teacher for special students

 

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO Janine Mahoney in her classroom at the Shelter Island School.

Published in the Shelter Island Reporter on June 2, 2016

When Janine Mahoney was a fifth grader in Shoreham, she acquired a pen pal named Christine Hibbert who lived in Mansfield, England and had brown hair, blue eyes and glasses, just like 11-year-old Janine.

Over the four decades that Janine and Christine have exchanged letters, both have married, had daughters and led rich, rewarding lives. But the two women have never actually spoken to each other.

“We’ve never met, we’ve never spoken on the phone, we haven’t emailed,” Janine said.

When Janine began writing to Christine, she already knew she wanted to be a teacher. Since then she’s worked with autistic adults and special education students for most of her adult life. Her consistent focus, and impressive ability to stick with the complex work of making improvement over time, have made her an admirable and effective teacher for people with special needs, some of whom don’t speak or communicate in conventional ways.

Janine’s relationship with her pen pal says a lot about the kind of person she is. Consistent and seeing things through, she’s applied the same skills to her work helping people.

A special ed teacher at the Shelter Island School since 2001, Janine is also the faculty advisor for the National Honor Society (NHS), coordinating the many service projects carried out by the NHS students, including helping staff the Shelter Island 5K to support people with breast cancer and their families.

On June 3, for the 10th year running, she’s participating in “Relay for Life” to benefit the American Cancer Society. This year’s event has 19 students signed up from grades 9 through 12 to participate in the all-night relay walk to raise money.

Janine is a lifetime resident of Suffolk County, born and raised in Shoreham, where her mother Janice Buckley, who now lives in a retirement community in Ridge, raised Janine and her older sister Jennifer.

Janine’s first experience of school was joyful. Her first and second grade teacher, Mrs. Laz, set her on the path to becoming a teacher.

“She had a reading teepee in her room so I built a papoose for my baby doll during our Native American study,” Janine said. “She had a story I wrote published in the local paper. Starting then, I just loved school.”

She and her sister always volunteered and taught Sunday school, inspired by their mother. “She was a single mom,” Janine said. “She drove a bus for people with disabilities and I worked as an aide on the bus.”

After graduating from St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue with a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary and Special Education, she worked at a group home for adults with autism to make sure that she was comfortable with the work. “It turned out that it was a wonderful job,” she said. “I learned so much more than I ever had before.”

Janine’s husband, John, works at Maryhaven Center of Hope in Yaphank, a facility providing services for people with disabilities, where he runs the vocational workshop program. She and John, who hails from Levittown, met at a beach club in the Hamptons when she was 18 and he was 24.

“By the time I was 20, we were married,” Janine said. “We had a little house, off exit 68.”

Her first teaching job was with the Developmental Disabilities Institute, first in Huntington and then in Selden. She was at the Oysterponds School in Orient, teaching six “high-needs” kids who came from school districts all over the North Fork.

Janine and John’s daughter Corinne was a baby, when, in 1996, pregnant with Keri Ann, the family came to Shelter Island for the Labor Day weekend. They stayed at the Azalea House, toured the Island and liked what they saw so much that when they got back to exit 68 they put their home on the market. By June 1997, the family, now four, moved into their new home on Terry Drive.

In 2001, Janine was commuting to her job in Orient and John to his job in Yaphank with two small children. Car seats, diaper bags and the logistics of day care were daunting, even with Jeanine’s mom helping take care of the girls. When a half-time special ed teaching position opened up at the Shelter Island School, Jeanine was determined to make it work, though she needed a full-time job.

“I figured I might have to do something else, like sell candles on the side,” she said.

She went in for what she thought was a second interview, but got a job offer, plus a half-time teacher assistant position. Her first thought: “I do not have to sell candles,” she said.

Janine is inspired by the desire to help improve the lives of her special education students, even those with autism, a notoriously difficult condition to address. She recalled a conference she attended where she spoke with Temple Grandin, the well-known author, and spokesperson for autistic people, who is herself on the autism spectrum.

“She said that we need to expect individuals with autism to function, and we need to help get them there,” Janine said. “Sitting in the basement is not an option.”

Students who are invited to join the NHS have a 90 average or better, are rarely absent from school, and show an interest in public service. As faculty advisor, Jeanine coordinates the service projects that students choose, such as building homes for people in need with Habitat for Humanity.

Last week, Janine and the NHS members returned to a house in Orient where they had hung sheetrock and installed windows last year, to finish the landscaping. A month from now, they will attend a ceremony in which the keys to the house they helped build will be turned over to the new owner.

Looking forward, Jeanine says she owes her pen pal in England a letter, and may even travel to England one day to meet Christine. And she has at least another decade of teaching to look forward to.

“I always love going to school every day, and working with the most amazing colleagues and support staff,” said Jeanine. “I am so glad that we moved here and raised our girls in this community.”

Of the Fork: Compote-crowned cake

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO | From unlikely-looking ingredients a magical dessert pops up.

Many people who enjoy baking share a childhood epiphany that occurred when they were allowed to mix a handful of dusty flour, a lump of butter that smelled like a cow, and a cup of gritty sugar, and make a cookie. The first time you participate in the transformation of two or three seemingly inedible substances into something as delicious as a sugar cookie, it’s a revelation.

That’s why this simple blueberry cake recipe is one of my favorites. It came to me from a friend whose young son had renamed it “Poppy-Uppy” cake because as it bakes, the cake part rises up to cover the blueberries, which sink beneath the surface like tract houses disappearing into a Florida sinkhole.

You can use any cornmeal for this dessert, (which happens to be gluten-free) but coarse ground cornmeal gives it a little crunch, which I really like. If you prefer a less dentally challenging torte, use fine ground cornmeal.

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO | Blueberry cake before baking.

CHARITY ROBEY PHOTO | Blueberry cake after baking.

Rhubarb is plentiful on farm stands in the area, and at Briermere, (4414 Sound Ave, in Riverhead) they have three plantings of rhubarb and are still selling the earliest with the other two nearly ready to harvest. They will probably have rhubarb well into June.

Rhubarb is another one of those seemingly inedible things that is transformed through the miracle of cooking. A celery-like vegetable with leaves that are not just inedible, but actually poisonous, it’s too bitter to eat raw, but becomes a runny, syrupy compote with a very complex, sweet and tangy flavor after about 20 minutes in the oven. The Indian spice mixture called garam masala includes cinnamon and cloves, and seems to bring out the best in rhubarb.

Roast a pound of rhubarb to create enough compote for your breakfast yogurt, spoon it over rice pudding or over vanilla ice cream as the crowning touch for this blueberry cake.

Poppy-Uppy Cake

Serves 6

1 cup cornmeal

1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder

¹⁄8 teaspoon salt

8 ounces butter

1 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups blueberries

1 teaspoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Mix the cornmeal, baking powder and salt with a whisk until the ingredients are evenly distributed.

Cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar in another bowl until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla.

Blend in the dry ingredients.

Spread the batter in a greased 9-inch pie plate or an 8-inch square pan.

Mix the berries and the lemon juice, and pour over the batter.

Mix the cinnamon and remaining tablespoon of sugar and sprinkle over the berries.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until the top is well-browned.

Rhubarb Compote

Used as a topping for the blueberry cake or spooned over ice cream or yogurt, a pound of rhubarb makes enough for at least 15 servings.

1 pound of fresh rhubarb, leaves removed and discarded.

¾ cup sugar

Zest of one lemon

½ teaspoon garam masala

Cut the rhubarb stalks into two- or three-inch pieces, toss with the sugar, and allow it to sit for 15 minutes.

Add the lemon zest and the garam masala, and scrape it into a glass or ceramic baking dish. Cover with foil.

Cook at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, stir, and continue to cook covered, checking every five minutes. When most of the rhubarb stems have collapsed and the mixture is bubbling, remove it from the oven and let it cool covered in the dish. Rhubarb compote can be stored in the refrigerator for at least four days