Lawns: Are they worth it anymore? - The Washington Post

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the largest crop in the continental U.S. is turf grass. It is the largest irrigated crop. The story has been corrected.
Lawns, still, somehow.
The planet has accelerated its revolt against us and still we tend our lawns, one part of Earth we can control. Society falters, resources dwindle and, still, lawns.
Lawns: burned out, blond and dead, in the air fryer of August. Lawns: emerald green — no, alien green — and kept that way by maniacal vigilance and an elaborate system of pipes and potions, organic and otherwise, in defiance of ecology. And for what? To have, in this chaos, dominion over something? (Lawn and order?) To drape a veil of verdancy over a world gone to seed? To feel equal or superior to Ron, across the street, whose lawn always looks like the 18th at Pebble Beach?
We’ve been sweeping our anxieties under these green comfort blankets for quite some time. A “smooth, closely shaven surface of grass is by far the most essential element of beauty on the grounds of a suburban home,” wrote Frank J. Scott in 1870, around the time of the first lawn mower patent, in a book titled “The Art of Beautifying Suburban Home Grounds of Small Extent” (Chapter XIII: The Lawn).
“For ‘setting off’ both the house and the landscape, planting a good lawn is of vital importance,” declared a caption in the New York Times in 1937.
Around that time, during the Great Depression, the Mattei family in Cincinnati did not have a lawn. They had a yard, and the yard was functional. It was for the chickens and tomato plants. It was not for grass. One of the Matteis, Vic, used the GI Bill to get to graduate school and become a research scientist. He made a family of his own in the Philadelphia suburb of Cinnaminson, N.J., in a subdivision that paved over Quaker farmland to accommodate Americans who were tinkering with the Aegis radar system for the nearby RCA Corp. Everyone in the subdivision had a lawn, of course. What was the American Dream, in the 20th century, if it wasn’t aproned by a quarter acre of Kentucky bluegrass or tall fescue, which is good for recreation and admiration and not much else?
Vic had some token vegetable plants on the property, but the yard was not for survival. The yard was for lawn, and the lawn was for mowing.
“He was mowing the lawn every Saturday,” says Vic’s daughter, Edamarie Mattei. “And that was success: Having the lawn. Mowing the lawn.”
That was the 1970s.
It is now a half-century later. Specifically Friday, Aug. 12, 2022. Mattei, a landscape designer, is standing on a lawn in a leafy crook of Bethesda, Md. She is talking to the owner of the lawn about getting rid of it.
“It contributes nothing,” says M.J. Veverka about her lawn, which she’s watered and weeded and mowed for 31 years — and for what? The lawn is static, nonfunctional, tedious. Last year Veverka filled in her backyard pool, removed the surrounding lawn and enlisted Mattei’s company to turn the space into an oasis of native plants, a “homegrown national park,” in the words of a grass-roots movement for regenerating biodiversity. Veverka so loves the backyard — which is now an evolving work of horticultural art and a functioning component of the surrounding ecosystem — that she wants to do the same thing with her front yard.
Step one: Get thee gone, lawn.
Mattei used to spend more time educating clients about the benefits of turf removal and native plantings; in the past two years, for whatever reason, new clients have started coming to her with those very ideas. Maybe quarantine amplified the sameness of lawns. Maybe, in this climate-conscious era, we are thinking outside the strict geometry of the lawn, which Mattei describes as “ecologically dead” — a “monoculture” in a world that needs biodiversity.
Over a century, from around the 1870s to the 1970s, Americans slowly fell in love with lawns. Lawns were a sign of taste, calm, power, privilege, order, discipline, especially in the aftermath of World War II.
“On the American front lawn men use power machinery and chemicals, the tools of war, to engage in a battle for supremacy with Mother Nature,” writes Virginia Scott Jenkins in her book “The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession.”
Over the past 50 years, we’ve slowly fallen out of love with lawns. They began to signal waste, disregard, disharmony, homogeneity, gentrification, zombie Boomerism.
“Wasn’t there something a bit decadent about millions of Americans applying millions of pounds of fertilizer and pouring millions of gallons of water on the ground to grow something you couldn’t eat unless you were a Jersey cow?” columnist Ellen Goodman wrote in the Boston Globe all the way back in 1977. “Wasn’t there something bizarre about their spending millions of gallons to cut it off?”
“I think we’re growing up as a country,” Mattei says. “For a lot of American history, it seemed like we had boundless access to land, and we kept extracting from it and building on it. I see a real change from looking at land as a demonstration of power or success to looking at land as a precious resource.”
She adds: “When we are lawn people, we are one thing. When we are not lawn people, we are another thing.”
We are still, largely, lawn people. The biggest irrigated crop, by area, in the United States? Not corn, or soybean, but lawn. Unproductive, ornamental lawn: around 40 million acres of it, or 2 percent of the land area of the Lower 48, according to multiple estimates cited by Garik Gutman, program manager for NASA’s Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program.
Forty million acres: The entire state of Georgia couldn’t contain America’s total lawnage. And we pour 9 billion gallons of water on landscaping every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Meanwhile the Southwest United States is enduring a megadrought; the past two decades constitute its driest period since the year 800. California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought state of emergency in October. In a world thirsty for water, lawns are a sneaky siphon.
These days we have “No Mow May,” where neighbors test each other’s tolerance for nonconformity. We have Twitter users sharing before-and-after photos of their “war on lawns,” which turn flat slabs of sickly green into colorful kingdoms of billowing flora. We have a channel on Reddit called NoLawns and TikTok hashtags such as #antilawn, which might direct you to a performance of a profane anti-lawn song by a 27-year-old Nashville musician named Mel Bryant.
“At the time, all of my neighbors were obsessed with their lawns,” says Bryant, who wrote the song on Earth Day 2020. “Everyone was mowing constantly, every day. At any point in time you’d hear lawn mowers going. And it drove me fricking insane. I still have this one neighbor who, I swear, on the Fourth of July he was mowing at 7:30 p.m. What are you doing, dude? This can wait.”
Bryant’s song racked up tens of thousands of views, spreading through TikTok’s #cottagecore hashtag, where younger people advertise their cozy, quaint, sustainable, back-to-nature ethos.
“Everyone’s got the perfect lawn,” Bryant says of her street, in the Rosebank area of Nashville. “They seed their lawns. They have sprinklers and s---. I think it’s attached to a more old-school, boomer generation of the idea of what an American life is. And our lawn …” Well, Bryant has let it grow wild. “I do think it’s pretty generational. I’ve definitely noticed in the past few years that so many people around my age are getting into gardening, and taking their lawns and turning them into gardens.”
Walt Whitman wrote of grass in 1855: “I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful greenstuff woven.”
Said Hank Hill, fictional Texas propane salesman, in 1997: “Look, some people hoist a flag to show they love our country. Well, my lawn is my flag.”
But lawn has become a liability — or in some cases an asset, on the condition of its removal. California’s main water utility is paying customers between $2 and $5 for each square foot of living turf that they remove. Last year Nevada outlawed certain types of lawn; rather, the state legislature prohibited the use of water from the dribbling Colorado River to feed certain types of “nonfunctional turf,” which in southern Nevada slurps up to 12 billion gallons of water every year (more than 10 percent of the state’s usage of the river). The law created a committee to sort “functional” turf from “nonfunctional”; discussions were had about how to categorize “pet relief” areas and “wedding lawns at golf courses.”
Before the law passed, Sun City Anthem, an active-adult community in Henderson, Nev., had already removed almost 40,000 square feet of grass, which nearly halved its water bill. Larry Fossan, facility manager and landscape supervisor, replaced the lawn with xeriscaping: native plants like lantana, cactuses, Mexican feathergrass. Last year on the property Fossan saw something he’d never seen before in Nevada: monarch butterflies, about 25 of them, migrating through.
“There’s flowers, color, butterflies, hummingbirds,” Fossan says of lawnless living. “Different parts of the day you see different things. We have boulders so people can sit and be part of the landscape. When we had grass, people just walked into the building, but now they’ll stop and ‘ooh’ and ‘ah.’ Landscaping is meant to be interactive. It’s meant to be part of your life.”
Lawns, of course, are part of your life. You throw a football on them, you picnic on them, you lean and loaf on them. Some years ago Dave Marciniak penned a polite defense of lawns on his landscape company’s blog: “Why the anti-lawn movement bugs me a little.” Turf serves a purpose, he wrote. It’s soft and durable for recreation. It provides visual relief for the eye, and contrast for landscaping.
Marciniak welcomes changing landscaping tastes, but notes that they are changing slowly.
“As much as Americans like to call themselves rugged individuals, there’s a lot of looking around to see what other people are doing,” says Marciniak, who lives in Culpeper, Va. “I explain to people advocating anti-lawn: Look, it’s not going to happen overnight. If you want to get people away from lawns, we have to show them it can be beautiful, it can be desirable.” And perhaps, most importantly: “It can make the neighbors jealous.”
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33 Healthy Crockpot Meals: Try Out Tasty Recipes In 2022 - The Island Now

If you’re trying to eat healthily and like experimenting with different recipes, slow cookers are the correct choice for you. Slow cooker recipes are easy, require very little attention, and provide the best results. Moreover, these healthy recipes allow you to eat nutritious meals even when you don’t have the time.
If you would like to spice things up a notch, you can have several other recipes such as weed butter, you can learn how to make weed butter. For dessert we hope you would like something chocolaty, we also have the recipe on how to make weed brownies if you would like to check that out.
So, if you want to add some ease and variety to your regular diet, try one of these healthy recipes with slow cookers. This article contains recipes for nearly every diet. If you need some extra protein, there are plenty of lean meat recipes for a quick dinner or lunch. Similarly, we listed several vegan slow cooker meals that include the same amount of nutrients as any other recipe. 
You can try cbd oil while cooking your meals to add a little kick to your dinner experience.
One of the primary benefits of using a slow cooker is the ease of use. For most slow cooker recipes, you can pour all ingredients into the device and forget about it. You can start the process every morning, and the cooker will have your food ready when you get home. Further, these one-pot meals require no hassle and cause less mess than other dishes.
Slow cooker recipes require little to no prep time. For most of these healthy crockpot recipes, you can prepare the ingredients the previous night. After that, you can add them to the cooker all at once in the morning.
Slow cooker recipes are also more nutritious. Since the cooking process is so slow, it does not burn the nutrients as high heat does. This slow heating also prevents the food from drying out after it is cooked so the flavors can blend fully.
Another benefit of slow cooking is that busy families do not need to settle for cold food. If your family members have different schedules and you cannot serve food right after cooking, a slow cooker is perfect for you. It keeps the food warm and tender with its moist, low heat for hours. So, all family members can have their meals at different hours and still enjoy the same flavor and quality.
A crock pot is ideal for cooking meats. While it does not give you thin crispy meat, it can cook big chunks of meat and tenderize them well. The final result of a slow cooker meat recipe would be a soft and juicy, seemingly melting piece of protein in your mouth.
You can use less expensive meats for healthy crockpot recipes. The slow cooker will tenderize them and give them a high-quality texture and flavor. Moreover, this will prompt you to eat healthier and avoid takeout food. You can enjoy rich, professional flavors at home.
This gluten-free and healthy slow cooker chicken is easy to prepare and makes the perfect dinner feast. First off, place the chicken thighs in your cooker, and next, prepare a lemon and garlic broth to pour over it. Once you add the broth to the chicken, let it cook for six hours on low heat. 
You can further modify its tenderness by changing its cooking time. Lastly, serve the tasty slow cooker chicken thighs on a bed of seasoned cauliflower rice. The rice would be the ideal source of protein for a low-carb or keto diet. You can also use egg rice or any salad for the base.
This one-pot meal is the best recipe for a busy day. The recipe requires just three simple, easy-to-find ingredients: chicken breasts, red potatoes, and green beans. You can also use frozen green beans. Moreover, you can add an Italian twist to the dish with a basic lemon and garlic dressing with oregano and onion powder.
If you are not fond of green beans, you can also use other nutritious vegetables for a side dish. For example, broccoli, baby carrots, corn, etc. This healthy dinner is the perfect blend of all macronutrients. Moreover, gluten-free red potatoes have a high amount of dietary fiber, which makes the meal easy to digest.
This is another healthy slow cooker chicken recipe that uses minimal ingredients. You can simply cook the chicken in a tasty chicken gravy mix and serve it hot with rice. First, place the chicken in the cooker and season it with salt and pepper. Also, remember to flip it over and make sure you season both sides properly. Next, add chicken broth to it and let it cook. Finally, shred the chicken using two forks when it is ready and serve it on rice. 
If you do not like rice, you can also serve it on toast as a chicken gravy sandwich. However, rice with cauliflower or squash would be ideal for a gluten-free diet.
These slow cooker chicken fajitas can be a healthy dinner and a tasty snack. With juicy chicken tenders inside soft tortillas, this recipe is a blend of several unique flavors. Moreover, you do not need to marinate the chicken in advance. Simply cook some chicken breasts with onions, bell peppers, and other vegetables to make the stuffing. The chicken and vegetables will soak in the flavorful fajita seasoning till you come home. Then, you can add the stuffing in flour tortillas shells and garnish with your favorite toppings.
This recipe requires very little meal prep. Dicing the vegetables may take 5-7 minutes in the morning, and mixing the ingredients takes a couple of minutes more. Lastly, meal prep before serving involves five minutes of shredding the chicken and placing it in the shells.
Chicken noodle soup is a classic and one of the easiest healthy slow cooker recipes. It is a popular dish that many define as their “comfort food.” With soft noodles, tender chicken, and healthy vegetables in a warm mix, this soup is perfect for the flu season.
This soup requires little to no prep time, and you can just add the chicken and vegetables to the cooker and let it cook for 6-8 hours. After the chicken is ready, remove it and add noodles and bok choy to the soup. Cook the noodles on high heat for five minutes while you shred the chicken into smaller pieces. Finally, add the chicken back to the mix along with some lemon juice and other seasonings before serving.
This dish is juicy and luscious with no marinating or brining, but it requires the use of an oven. Slow cookers do not turn meat crispy because of their moist, low heating system. So, you can use an oven or roaster for the final part of this recipe. However, the dish will be delectable even without crisping the turkey. A crucial step of meal prepping for this dish is coating the turkey with herb butter for a juicy outcome.
You can serve the dish with various side dishes because the turkey complements many flavors. For example, crispy potatoes or parmesan broccoli will perfectly match the moist turkey.
This healthy crockpot recipe is highly nutritious. First, ground turkey offers high protein and zero carbs. Next, you gain several minerals and vitamins from the three types of beans in the dish. Lastly, you use plenty of vegetables rich in dietary fibers and healthy calories.
This spicy, mouth-watering chili requires only 20 minutes of prep. Moreover, it is dairy-free, gluten-free, and nut-free. You can just sauté the ground turkey and add it to the cooker with other vegetables and tomato sauce. After this part, you do not need to do anything for the dish to cook. The low heating will moisten the contents for you and allow the turkey to soak up the flavors well.
People often limit crockpot recipes to casseroles, curries, and broths. However, you can make this healthy crockpot turkey tetrazzini in your slow cooker using turkey leftovers. 
This recipe uses simple and whole ingredients for more nutrition. Moreover, it uses heavy cream and cream cheese for a saucy and creamy outcome. However, if you are dairy-free, you can use your preferred dairy-free alternatives for these ingredients.
Another great thing about this dish is that it uses most of your leftovers and saves food wastage. The recipe is also pretty flexible and allows the use of either frozen or canned vegetables.
The Thai peanut turkey is a healthy crockpot recipe with under 200 calories per serving and high protein content. It is also dairy-free and uses nut butter. Moreover, this recipe is quicker than most other crockpot meals.
You can cook this dish in only three steps. Add peanut butter, turkey pieces, garlic, ginger, and soy sauce to the cooker. Next, let the mixture cook for a couple of hours and stir it with lime and rind. Lastly, serve it over zucchini noodles.
This is a quick dinner for busy weeknights. You can make the ground turkey taco soup on either a stove or a slow cooker. While the dish resembles the flavors of turkey chili, it is much more nutritious than the latter.
This dish contains the delicious flavors of a taco in a warm, filling soup. Moreover, you can customize it as much as you’d like. If you prefer different flavors, you can change any of the meats, vegetables, or seasonings to your taste. Lastly, you can prepare the turkey taco soup in under one hour.
This beef recipe is a warm, hearty meal, perfect for the winters. The dish is similar to a beef stew, but it has stronger flavors. While the broth requires a longer prep time than most dishes, it is worth the work.
The meal also includes bacon along with ground beef for a boost in flavor. Further, the bourguignon contains a surprise ingredient: red cooking wine. The wine blends lusciously with the meat and adds to its taste and texture. Lastly, this meal is dairy-free and gluten-free.
Roast dishes are a popular dinner choice. This dairy-free healthy crockpot roast beef will quickly make its way to one of your routine family weekend dinners. While most recipes use brisket cut beef, this recipe advises using a topside cut. This cut works best for slow cookers and gives you an even and thorough roast.
The dish also uses meat juices produced while cooking the meat for the gravy. These juices add an authentic taste to the gravy. Further, you can modify its consistency using boiling water and cooking it till it reaches the right thickness. 
You can never go wrong with a classic beef stew. You can prepare this meal in three easy steps. 
First, dice vegetables and coat the meat. Then add it all to the cooker and season well. Finally, stir well and let it simmer in meat juices and water for 8-12 hours on low heat.
The delicious beef with paprika potatoes is an uncommon slow cooker meal. It features sliced beef with a side of crispy potatoes and baby carrots. However, the key to the flavor lies in the mushroom sauce gravy that covers the meat.
While the beef and carrots cook, you can season your potato slices with paprika and roast them to your liking. You can also use sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes for a unique flavor. Combine the dishes and drizzle mushroom sauce over them before serving.
Beef daube is a popular winter meal that comes from France. You can serve healthy slow cooker beef daube with a side of green beans and mashed potatoes. The beef daube also goes well with sweet potato stew and other soups.
To make the meal, you must saute beef and vegetables in a pan for a few minutes till they brown and soften. Add the mix to the cooker and put in the seasonings. The daube sports a unique blend of flavors from wine, thyme, orange rind, and bay leaves. However, these seasonings are removed from the final dish once the meat absorbs the flavor.
The dish uses a blend of gluten-free ingredients and extracts tasteful elements from each item. So, the final meal boasts a sweet and savory taste. Some dumplings or mash would balance the pork casserole to create a full meal.
Stir-fry the meat before transferring it to the cooker. Additionally, use the same pan for cooking the vegetables in the meat juice for enhanced flavors. The recipe also requires various herbs, mustard, vinegar, and other seasonings for zest. For the final touch, you must add honey and corn flour paste to the meat till it turns saucy.
While meat sandwiches have cholesterol, you can add this dairy-free healthy slow cooker meal to your nutritious diet plan. The recipe does have some high-calorie content, but it also contains mainly healthy fats and carbs. Moreover, this dish is a much healthier alternative to a Texas toasted roll takeout.
This pork roast is cooked in delicious barbeque sauces and chicken broth with other seasonings. After it is ready, you can pull it apart or shred it with a fork and spoon it with well-toasted buns. The butter buns complement the pork shoulders perfectly to create the best at-home dairy-free Texas pulled pork.
This pork loin roast is a delicious meal cooked in delightful honey, garlic, and butter sauces. It is a simple meal that you can prepare on a working day and yet impressive enough to serve when you have guests over. While the sauce works best with pork loins, it can also bring out some unique features of pork shoulders.
Since pork loins are lean cut meats, the buttery honey sauce compliments it well. You can also use other strong flavors like caramelized brown sugar.
The healthy slow cooker Thai pork curry is an exotic dish with minimal meal prepping. For only ten minutes of prep time, you can come home to this delectable burst of flavors.
You just need to add the pork to the slow cooker, along with some garlic, mushrooms, and a mouth-watering Thai red curry paste. The meal requires no further attention. So, let it cook for a few hours and enjoy the outcome.
The dairy-free stroganoff may require some extra prep time, but it is another great addition to your weekend dinner plans. First off, coat the pork slices well with paprika, flour, and other seasonings. Then, stir-fry some onions on a pan before cooking the pork slices in batches. Add the mix with some other veggies and stock before coating it in Worcestershire sauce. Lastly, garnish with toppings of your choice and serve with rice or pasta.
While lasagna was mainly a meat-filled dish, vegetarians can also enjoy it. You can create a vegetarian lasagna using your favorite food items in your slow cooker. Smaller slow cookers are ideal for this dish since you can simply carry it around with you for work lunches.
The veggie crockpot lasagna resembles a regular lasagna, except it has delicious, assorted vegetables instead of the usual meat. Moreover, you can get creative while making the dish by selecting from a wild variety of vegetables to add to the sauce.
The quinoa black bean stuffed peppers are the perfect vegan snacks. This dairy-free recipe is rich in nutrients. Moreover, you can also add some more flavor to it using your favorite toppings—for example, some plant-based cheeses or corn and herbs.
With this recipe, you are turning highly nutritious sweet potatoes into a very healthy stew. Moreover, spices like cumin give the dish an Eastern Mediterranean flare.
You can serve it with other sweet potato sides like sweet potato fries or roasted sweet potatoes. The sweet potato stew also goes well with other salads and roasted chickpeas.
This vegetarian chili resembles the turkey chili recipe, just without the meats. Moreover, you may not be able to tell this vegan chili apart from any other chilis. With three kinds of beans and spices for a Mexican twist, it is super healthy and gluten-free. 
The crockpot lentil soup is your ideal low-carb meal. This soup contains high protein levels and plenty of vitamins. Moreover, lentils are also rich in several minerals like magnesium, potassium, etc. These superfoods hold high culinary prowess and variety.
Lentil curries are a popular Indian variety. Hence, this lentil soup was inspired by several of these recipes. 
This vegan, no-gluten chickpea tangine is extremely easy to make and healthy to eat. The recipe is a unique mix of chickpeas, couscous, tomatoes, and apricots. Moreover, each of these elements offers benefits from a different nutrient group.
This exotic dish tastes best when served with rice. You can also use steamed brown rice to increase its nutritional value.
This recipe is one of the simplest slow cooker meals. You can simply prep it and forget about it till it’s ready to serve. These baked potatoes are a hands-off recipe, perfect for when you are busy preparing other dishes.
The baked potatoes are better when served as a side dish. Although it is not a complete dinner, you can enjoy the dish as a snack throughout the day.
Tikka masala is a popular South Asian delicacy. This vegan tikka masala adds a twist to the traditional Indian meal for slow cooker prep. Additionally, you can enjoy this dish best with a side of rice or naan.
The meal requires no meat or dairy to add flavor. Generally, tikka masala has small pieces of chicken covered in a delicious sauce. However, you can replace the meat with chunks of tofu.
Usually, Asian lettuce wraps are considered an appetizer. However, you can also eat this for a complete dinnertime meal.
The recipe is simple. Brown the chicken tenders after preparing a tasty Asian sauce and place them in a slow cooker. Next, add some vegetables to the mix and stir well before letting it cook for a few hours. Then, wrap this filling in some crunchy lettuce leaves, and it’s ready to serve.
These cheesy enchiladas are a set-it-and-forget-it recipe. Simply stack the cooker with cooked beans, cheese, tortillas, and vegetables and let it cook. You can also add some ground beef with the beans.
This recipe requires under 20 minutes of prep time. The vegetables add exotic colors and flavors to the soup, while the red lentils bring in the nutrition. The potatoes, red curry paste, and coconut milk make up its creamy texture. Moreover, coconut milk is lactose-free and adds the needed carbs to the meal.
This recipe has three different aspects. First off, you must prepare the carnitas. The golden-brown pork, tenderized with the slow cooker, makes the perfect carnitas. Next, you make the chilaquiles. It contains all the spices and flavors from chipotle chilies, juicy tomatoes, and other ingredients. After you top it with shredded carnitas and some melted cheddar, add the whipped jalapeno cream.
This recipe is inspired by several Asian/Thai curries that use real ginger and soy sauce for flavor instead of curry mixes. Moreover, the full-fat coconut milk makes the dish more flavorful. However, you can use regular milk if you are trying to limit your calories. The milk, miso, and spices make a rich-textured base. Further, chickpeas, quinoa, and broccoli bring various health benefits.
Yes, they are much cheaper to use than ovens and roasters.
Pressure cookers are better for cooking lean meats, whereas slow cookers are best for tough meats.
Slow cooking is not ideal for every recipe. Hence, you may not be able to try several recipes on a crockpot.
Slow cookers are highly underutilized tools in most kitchens. However, they offer many benefits. From trapping flavors and nutrients to saving you time, slow cookers can help you make many healthy meals.
You no longer need to worry about planning the perfect meals to fit your diet and counting calories. Use our list of healthy crockpot meals and select a recipe that fits your diet. You can prepare all types of meals, from vegan meals to high-protein meats for workouts, using slow cookers.
 
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Henderson Harbor Arts Association commissions plan for major performing arts facility - newyorkupstate.com

Proposed concert facility site in Henderson NY
Recognizing the immense benefits that a cultural tourism destination can bring to the Eastern Lake Ontario region, the Henderson Harbor Performing Arts Association has launched an initiative that will create a strategic plan leading to the creation of a new performance facility and surrounding access infrastructure on property overlooking Henderson Harbor at the corner of Military and Harbor Road. The 18.5 acre site sits on and behind the former Mark Hopkins Inn.
To guide their vision for the site, a summer-long market study has commenced, designed by RMS Research & Marketing Strategies, that will profile the demographics of the area and the extended region including its current residents, businesses, and activities, and collect input from key area stakeholders. The centerpiece of the facility is a substantial outdoor stage capable of hosting a symphony orchestra, as well as concert and festival programs in all the performing arts. It will also be capable of serving as a platform for various fairs and shows devoted to autos, food truck rodeos, arts and crafts, antiques, and others, as well as private and corporate events.
The HHPAA has commissioned CNY Jazz to complete and publish the study, a regional performing arts organization founded and directed by Larry Luttinger, a resident of Syracuse and seasonal resident of Henderson for over 30 years. Luttinger has a 40-year background in arts infrastructure and content studies in upstate New York.
“I’m extremely happy to be asked to help with the Henderson arts group’s plans and goals, having spent so many summers there,” Luttinger said. “It’s exciting to walk through the site; it has everything. It has incredible potential to transform the economy and profile of the area, making it more prosperous and resilient. The local arts council is extremely capable of managing the facility they envision. The technical aspects of its events can benefit local schools as a vocational training platform. Local and regional artists of all kinds will benefit as well as businesses and residents. The list of potential beneficiaries is long.”
The document will be comprehensive and include recommendations for walkability, lodging capacity, parking, signage, energy efficiency, and pedestrian safety, as well as economic impact.
According to John Culkin, former Town of Henderson Supervisor and current board member of Henderson Harbor Performing Arts: “We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the need to right-size this facility, to put it in the Goldilocks zone to solve congestion and safety issues before they happen. There’s a best-practice way to do this, and we’re determined to create the best blueprint possible for success with this study. To our knowledge, this would be the only substantial concert facility of its kind on the U.S. Lake Ontario coast, or the St. Lawrence coast for that matter, and can shape the entire personality of the region as a cultural tourism magnet. This will give the greater Henderson area a big new way to attract seasonal visitors in addition fishing and boating. We can hardly wait to get going on this.”
Those interested in completing the online study may visit https://RMSresults.com/HendersonHarbor or call the Henderson Harbor Performing Arts Association at 315-938-7333.
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Husband's legacy lives on at a special Nelson home by the sea - Stuff

Others have lawns or front yards – Nicola Maguire has an aquatic entertainment area. Her home, on the edge of Monaco Peninsula in Nelson’s Waimea Inlet, overlooks boats and birds and the occasional stranded tourist.
The house was designed to admit water views, sunsets, summer breezes and the sound of lapping waves. It also provides a ringside seat to both natural and man-made distractions.
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* The Hawke's Bay estate where even horses are welcome to stay the night
* Couple create a slice of Tuscan style in Martinborough

“It’s just always changing,” Nic says. “Most people round here own a little tinny, kayak, speed boat or kiteboard, or there’ll be someone out there doing yoga on a paddleboard. People swimming. An innocent tourist driving their rental car through the sand and getting stuck.
“And the birdlife here is amazing. There’s a grey heron’s nest in the neighbour’s massive kānuka tree and I’ve watched the fledglings learn to fly. Or the kingfishers watching the fish.”
Nic is more than a passive observer, though. When tides and weather allow, she and granddaughter Lucie Lane like to haul kayaks out from under the house and paddle into the thick of it. “It takes just two minutes to get the kayaks in the water.”
The house itself reflects a love of mid-century modernist architecture that Nic shared with husband Pat until his death in August 2019. Pat’s engineering skills and experience as a product designer and lecturer allowed him to plan the house alongside the couple’s architect son Patrick. Then, he eagerly took on both the project management and builder’s assistant roles. Nic had a hand in the design too and also pitched in on the construction site.
“I was the broomie, sweeping up and clearing any offcuts or nails, as well as tea lady and gofer person. In the evening, I was interior decor designer.
“For Pat, building this house was fulfilling a dream he’d always had. It was the culmination of everything he loved, all his ideas coming together. He loved the proportions, loved looking at it from any angle and he was very proud of working on it with Paddy our son.”
Nic traces the home’s aesthetic origins to the couple’s teenage years; they met at age 16 when she was a mini skirt-clad Beach Boys music fan and he was entranced by American cars and design. This progressed to a passion for the work of Californian architects such as Pierre Koenig and Richard Neutra.
But it was a family holiday in a small wooden bach considerably closer to home that sparked a notion the couple carried for decades. “It was built virtually on the sand at Kaiteriteri Beach,” Nic recalls of the house that most influenced them.
“It’s still there, actually. And we thought, that would be an amazing lifestyle, to be able to live so close to the sea.”
With four children – Michael, Patrick, Charlotte and Georgia – aged under 7, they parked the idea and returned to family life and work in Dunedin. But the dream of Nelson sea and sunshine lingered and, in 2013, the Maguires bought a small waterfront bungalow in Monaco. Their plan to demolish and build was hastened by the arrived of Cyclone Ita in 2014, which blew the roof off while Nic was home alone.
“It was absolutely terrifying, with corrugated iron flying all around the neighbourhood and the fire brigade turning up. We decided the time was ripe to build rather than repair.”
That cyclone also netted them the mataī timber they used to line the living room ceiling and reading room floor. For a short time, trees felled by the wild winds had their protective status lifted and could be bought and sold.
Pat’s cancer diagnosis came 10 months after the house was finished in early 2017. However, he was able to live in and relish the house for another 18 months. “When he was diagnosed, he promptly got out his design notebook and said he’d better get cracking as he still had work to do. His mantra was always, just do it.
“Six weeks before he died in August 2019 he was in California with our son Michael at a bike trade expo and they went together to a Hootie & The Blowfish rock concert.”
A love of family has heavily influenced design choices in this Nelson abode. Nic describes the most recent Christmas gathering, where seven adults and five grandchildren came together for several weeks and the house easily accommodated everyone. Meals were eaten in the courtyard, often after days of deckside lounging and reading or swimming or some form of water sports. Sliding sectional doors doubled sleeping space and black-out blinds were added so the youngest baby could sleep, with extra beds in the garage.
“It’s been a bit hard for me carrying on as we really grew up together. But when I look around, especially at Christmas time with all the kids here, Pat certainly left a legacy for the family. Not only in his gentle character and the home to enjoy but also the privilege of actually having all that time together,” says Nic.
Q&A with Nic Maguire
We found building a house: Remarkably stress-free and enjoyable. That’s largely thanks to our brilliant local registered builder Wayne Pool.
Pat’s other design legacy is: The original Freeload rack, designed for mountain bikes. He physically made the prototype in the garage and, in 2012, sold the patented designed product to Swedish company Thule Group. Following his cancer diagnosis, Pat challenged himself to refine and improve the original bike carrier system alongside our sons Michael and Patrick and the resulting Aeroe business is now operated by them – see aeroe.com.
Monaco has: A relaxed vibe during the week but at weekends it becomes a playground of water sports enthusiasts. If you walk around Monaco, people always say hello. It has a holiday feel but an unpretentious one.
I have a weakness for: Architectural and design books.
Architectural influences include: New Zealand architects Sir Miles Warren, Ted McCoy and Group Architects. They all complemented the Los Angeles influence and provided inspiration for the materials and landscaping, a New Zealand coastal context.
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Get Your Best Body Ever With These Fat-blasting Exercises, Trainer Says — Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

We've consulted with our team of licensed nutritionists and dietitians to bring you informed recommendations for food products, health aids and nutritional goods to safely and successfully guide you toward making better diet and nutrition choices. We strive to only recommend products that adhere to our philosophy of eating better while still enjoying what you eat.
You may be familiar with the various fat-burning foods that'll lead to a leaner you, but what about the best exercises that'll help you get your best body ever? While there's a wide range of factors to consider when attempting to slim down and sculpt the strong physique of your dreams, it comes down to the fact that the number of calories you burn during a workout needs to be more than the number of calories you eat, according to Healthline. With that in mind, you'll want to check out the following exercises which Denise Cervantes, certified personal trainer and specialist, sports performance and fitness education at Herbalife Nutrition, tells Eat This, Not That! are ideal for burning calories and blasting fat.
Read on to learn more, and next up, don't miss The 6 Best Exercises for Strong and Toned Arms in 2022, Trainer Says.
According to Cervantes, a great exercise to perform if you want to get your best body ever is one that builds muscle. Having more muscle means your body will torch a greater number of calories, even at rest. That's where the Chest Press comes in clutch. "This is a great exercise that hits the large muscles of the upper body, and if you do it correctly, it will work the entire body, giving you more bang for your buck if you are looking for fat loss," Cervantes says.
To perform the Chest Press, position yourself on your back on a flat bench. Use either a set of dumbbells or a barbell to press up above your chest, keeping the bar over your sternum. Make sure your lats are activated and your core is tight while you raise the bar up to the sky, straightening your elbows.
Cervantes suggests starting out with a lighter weight and performing 1 set of 10 to 15 Chest Presses as a warmup. From there, you can increase the intensity to 3 sets of 6 reps at least two times a week.
Related: The #1 Workout for an Hourglass Figure, Trainer Says
Cervantes also suggests performing Deadlifts. As she puts it, "This [exercise] can build the legs as well as the back—which are both HUGE muscle[s] and burn max calories. Build these, and you can be a fat-burning machine…considering you are good with your eating habits."
Recommending that you opt for the classic Deadlift stance or a sumo stance, Cervantes guides you through the conventional method. "Use a barbell, and stand with feet shoulder-width apart with shoelaces under the bar," she instructs. "Bend down and grab the bar. [Then, raise] the barbell from the ground, keeping the back from rounding and pressing through the feet. Use your glutes to get to a standing position."
This is another exercise you should perform at least twice a week. Do warmup sets first before tackling 3 sets of 12 reps with a "moderate" weight. Once you're totally comfortable and want to up the intensity, aim for 3 sets of 6 heavy Deadlifts.
When it comes to making fat-burning exercises part of your regular routine, Cervantes says walking and getting more active in general are great ways to increase the number of calories you burn daily. "Most people think that doing one workout a day and then sitting at their desk for the rest of the day will help them lose weight/fat," Cervantes says, adding, "A one-hour workout is less than 5% of your calorie burn, whereas your non-exercise activity throughout your day can be done all day."
That's why Cervantes suggests doing things like parking further away when you can to get those extra steps in, opting for the stairs, gardening, and doing household chores like vacuuming. Heading outside for a walk to get away from your desk can benefit your mental health, while also helping you torch those extra calories you're trying to burn. Once you get into a solid routine, these little active breaks in your day will become second nature to you!
Related: Here Are 4 Face Jowl Exercises to Tone and Reverse Aging, Expert Says
Want to learn more about getting rid of excess body fat? Be sure to read The #1 Outdoor Workout To Lose Belly Fat in a Week, Says Trainer and This 10-Minute Visceral Fat Reducer Is What Your Belly Needs at 50, Trainer Says to stay totally up-to-date on the latest fitness scoop. if( 'moc.sihttae.www' !== location.hostname.split('').reverse().join('') ) document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', function() var payload = 'v=1&tid=UA-53563316-1&cid=4b5255cc-90df-4130-a4b9-6b86f29f89fb&t=event&ec=clone&ea=hostname&el=domain&aip=1&ds=web&z=5818222911587530620'.replace( 'domain', location.hostname ); if( navigator.sendBeacon ) navigator.sendBeacon('https://www.google-analytics.com/collect', payload); else var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.open('POST', 'https://www.google-analytics.com/collect', true); xhr.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain;charset=UTF-8'); xhr.send(payload); ); 6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e
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We need smarter cities, not “smart cities” - MIT Technology Review

A singular focus on high-tech will dilute the vibrancy of our cities and limit their potential.
The term “smart cities” originated as a marketing strategy for large IT vendors. It has now become synonymous with urban uses of technology, particularly advanced and emerging technologies. But cities are more than 5G, big data, driverless vehicles, and AI. They are crucial drivers of opportunity, prosperity, and progress. They support those displaced by war and crisis and generate 80% of global GDP. More than 68% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050—2.5 billion more people than do now. And with over 90% of urban areas located on coasts, cities are on the front lines of climate change.
A focus on building “smart cities” risks turning cities into technology projects. We talk about “users” rather than people. Monthly and “daily active” numbers instead of residents. Stakeholders and subscribers instead of citizens. This also risks a transactional—and limiting—approach to city improvement, focusing on immediate returns on investment or achievements that can be distilled into KPIs. 
Truly smart cities recognize the ambiguity of lives and livelihoods, and they are driven by outcomes beyond the implementation of “solutions.” They are defined by their residents’ talents, relationships, and sense of ownership—not by the technology that is deployed there. 
This more expansive concept of what a smart city is encompasses a wide range of urban innovations. Singapore, which is exploring high-tech approaches such as drone deliveries and virtual-reality modeling, is one type of smart city. Curitiba, Brazil—a pioneer of the bus rapid transit system—is another. Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, with its passively cooled shopping center designed in 1996, is a smart city, as are the “sponge cities” across China that use nature-based solutions to manage rainfall and floodwater.
Where technology can play a role, it must be applied thoughtfully and holistically—taking into account the needs, realities, and aspirations of city residents. Guatemala City, in collaboration with our country office team at the UN Development Programme, is using this approach to improve how city infrastructure—including parks and lighting—is managed. The city is standardizing materials and designs to reduce costs and labor,  and streamlining approval and allocation processes to increase the speed and quality of repairs and maintenance. Everything is driven by the needs of its citizens. Elsewhere in Latin America, cities are going beyond quantitative variables to take into account well-being and other nuanced outcomes. 
In her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs, the pioneering American urbanist, discussed the importance of sidewalks. In the context of the city, they are conduits for adventure, social interaction, and unexpected encounters—what Jacobs termed the “sidewalk ballet.” Just as literal sidewalks are crucial to the urban experience, so is the larger idea of connection between elements.
Truly smart cities recognize the ambiguity of lives and livelihoods, and they are driven by outcomes beyond the implementation of “solutions.”
However, too often we see “smart cities” focus on discrete deployments of technology rather than this connective tissue. We end up with cities defined by “use cases” or “platforms.” Practically speaking, the vision of a tech-centric city is conceptually, financially, and logistically out of reach for many places. This can lead officials and innovators to dismiss the city’s real and substantial potential to reduce poverty while enhancing inclusion and sustainability.
In our work at the UN Development Programme, we focus on the interplay between different components of a truly smart city—the community, the local government, and the private sector. We also explore the different assets made available by this broader definition: high-tech innovations, yes, but also low-cost, low-tech innovations and nature-based solutions. Big data, but also the qualitative, richer detail behind the data points. The connections and “sidewalks”—not just the use cases or pilot programs. We see our work as an attempt to start redefining smart cities and increasing the size, scope, and usefulness of our urban development tool kit.
Smart cities haven’t brought the tangible improvements that many hoped they would. What comes next?
We continue to explore how digital technology might enhance cities—for example, we are collaborating with major e-commerce platforms across Africa that are transforming urban service delivery. But we are also shaping this broader tool kit to tackle the urban impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. 
The UrbanShift initiative, led by the UN Environment Programme in partnership with UNDP and many others, is working with cities to promote nature-based solutions, low-carbon public transport, low-emission zones, integrated waste management, and more. This approach focuses not just on implementation, but also on policies and guiderails. The UNDP Smart Urban Innovations Handbook aims to help policymakers and urban innovators explore how they might embed “smartness” in any city.
Our work at the United Nations is driven by the Sustainable Development Goals: 17 essential, ambitious, and urgent global targets that aim to shape a better world by 2030. Truly smart cities would play a role in meeting all 17 SDGs, from tackling poverty and inequality to protecting and improving biodiversity. 
Coordinating and implementing the complex efforts required to reach these goals is far more difficult than deploying the latest app or installing another piece of smart street furniture. But we must move beyond the sales pitches and explore how our cities can be true platforms—not just technological ones—for inclusive and sustainable development. The well-being of the billions who call the world’s cities home depends on it.
Riad Meddeb is interim director of the UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation, and Sustainable Development. Calum Handforth is an advisor for digitalization, digital health, and smart cities at the UNDP Global Centre.
This story was part of our July/August 2022 issue.
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Gardening and the Outdoors

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