Send in the clowns! Circus performers promoting sustainability visit Erie schools
The Grand Falloons engaged with third and fifth-grade students to give them an educational experience about the impact of our everyday choices on the planet.
Over 100 local students learn about craftsmanship at skilled trades fair
The group usually performs for New York and New Jersey public schools, but was made possible by the Erie County Planning Department and Community Development.
Jessica Stutzman, director of community relations for Millcreek Township, said it's important for students to get these impactful lessons in an exciting way.
Erie nonprofit hosting Cupcake Wars promoting mental health awareness
'They're going to learn a lot of information today, and it's not from a text book or reading; it's hands on, and it's engaging, so I hope they remember this for years to come,' said Stutzman.
The group will be at Tracy Elementary School on Thursday and will perform at Erie's Public Schools as well.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Newsweek
10 hours ago
- Newsweek
Chloe Coscarelli is Reclaiming her Name, Vegan Cooking at New Restaurant
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Chloe Coscarelli is taking things one step at a time. The chef and cookbook author originally gained notoriety as the first vegan winner of Cupcake Wars in 2011, which launched her career and established her as a pioneer of plant-based cuisine in the mainstream culinary world. "I started out on my journey just becoming vegan and wanting more accessible food options, and that's kind of how I melded my passion for cooking with my mission to make plant-based options more accessible to a wider group of people," she told Newsweek. Her first restaurant, By Chloe, opened in New York City's West Village neighborhood in 2015. But she was forced out of the establishment by her "deceitful partners" in 2017, and By Chloe filed for bankruptcy in 2020, Coscarelli said in Instagram posts. Now, she is back at her original Bleecker Street location with a new venture and a new perspective on the culinary world. Chloe, a fast-casual plant-based restaurant, opened last July. "When I very first started, at the beginning of my career, and had my dream of my own restaurant, I imagined it to be like a very linear journey, and that just wasn't the case at all," she said. "[Failure] definitely taught me to just continue to put one foot in front of the other. ... It's your attitude that kind of shapes what's next." In a risky industry like the restaurant business, Cascarelli said, it can be crippling to focus only on what can go wrong. Instead, she thinks about what she can accomplish each day. "If you think too big picture about your business, it can almost just feel like there's no hope, which isn't true," she said. "You do what you need to do each day to get to the next day, and you just keep growing in an incremental way to accomplish your goals. I try to always focus myself on what's right in front of me versus all the things that could possibly go wrong or collapse with the industry as a whole." The restaurant business can be unpredictable, stressful and cutthroat, as any episode of The Bear will demonstrate. But Coscarelli has created an environment at her restaurant that provides an opportunity for staff to learn and grow, even when they make mistakes. Women's Global Impact: Chloe Coscarelli Women's Global Impact: Chloe Coscarelli Newsweek Illustration/Canva/Getty Alyssa Fasciano is the operations manager at Chloe. She has worked with Coscarelli for over a decade, starting as a cashier at By Chloe. Fasciano told Newsweek that Coscarelli has created a space where the staff is proud to work. "She creates this environment of confidence in the people that work for her, also allowing for a zero-pressure type of vibe—and that's not typical in the restaurant world," Fasciano said. "We have great staff retention. Everybody loves working with her, and it's really strange to say, but people like coming to work." Fasciano said the culinary industry "can harden you" as a woman because it is so male dominated, and it is common to feel undermined or not taken seriously. She said Coscarelli leads by example and shows her strength not through her words but her actions in and out of the kitchen. "She's really blazed a trail, and it's her own way of doing it," she said. "The vision we have for workplace [and] for our customers is just always going to be kindness first. We work our butts off, but we really do enjoy doing it." When Coscarelli first opened her restaurant 10 years ago, the buzz of plant-based eating was electric, Fasciano said. The shift to veganism was one of the most exciting pivots she'd seen in the culinary world, as people were excited about "how you can transform vegetables into something that still satiates and hits the spot," she said. Nowadays, social media is filled with fad diets and warnings about which ingredients or food items are better or more toxic than others. A lot of misinformation, Fasciano said, can spread online like wildfire. "I mean, you can have somebody on TikTok create a video that goes viral, that can just absolutely annihilate your business in a matter of days." Coscarelli can't control what diet trends circulate online, she can control only what she puts on customers' plates. Over the last few years, diet trends that focus on increasing protein intake—which many people associate with meat-centric or keto meals. But Coscarelli said many of the menu items at Chloe are packed with plant-based protein, a fact she loves to tell patrons enjoying her kale Caesar salad with tempeh, a soybean-based protein source. "Trends in nutrition come and go, but I think that eating more plant-forward food is something that is going to forever be trending up," she said. Coscarelli said there are many reasons why someone tries vegan cuisine: sustainability and environmental impacts, animal welfare, religion or overall health and nutrition. Vegan eating doesn't have to be all or nothing, she said, it "welcomes people in, wherever they're at." "I never want to place too much emphasis on the label of it because even if you want to try a vegan meal once a week or [as] one component to your meal, or maybe you want to try a meatless patty in your burger, but you're not fully ready to call yourself following a full vegan lifestyle, that's OK," Coscarelli said. Her mission is to make plant-based meals more accessible for everyone. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 18.8 million people live in low-income and low-access food areas—between one and 10 miles from a supermarket. In these food deserts, access to nutritious, affordable food, like fresh produce, is limited. Meanwhile, the U.S. has more than 200,000 fast-food restaurants across the country providing cheap, convenient meals that mostly center around meat and dairy. Coscarelli's goal is to enable busy people to access vegan alternatives that are fast, convenient and affordable. "This is where the creativity part comes into it, which is the part that I love the most: How do I make this crave-able and enjoyable [for] everyone? How do I make people want this, not just because they feel it's better for them or better for the planet but because it's actually more delicious?" she said. Chef Chloe Coscarelli speaks on the "Fostering Creativity While Impacting the Bottom Line" panel during the Women's Global Impact forum on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at One World Trade Center in New York City. Chef Chloe Coscarelli speaks on the "Fostering Creativity While Impacting the Bottom Line" panel during the Women's Global Impact forum on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at One World Trade Center in New York City. Weston Kloefkorn | For Newsweek This is her mission and life's work, and her commitment to authenticity and consistency in her dishes shields her from the tumultuous nature of food trends. "Chloe [Coscarelli] has maintained her style of food throughout a decade, and even before that, you can find her on YouTube doing these same-style recipes," Fasciano said. "We really found something that people enjoy, and we keep it really simple and consistent, and people come back." Creativity is an essential part of what Coscarelli does every day. She recently joined a panel on fostering creativity while growing profits at Newsweek's recent Women's Global Impact Forum on August 5, 2025. On the panel, Coscarelli said that creativity is "the heartbeat" of her business. "It's why our customers come to us; it's why our team works with us," she said on the panel. "We try to keep things fun. Because I think having fun is what drives creativity, and I always tell our team, if we're not actually having fun, then our customers aren't having fun, and they can feel that." To achieve this balance, Coscarelli said, hiring the right team is paramount. Having a solid support system enables her to scale her business and navigate the ups and downs of the industry. "I'm lucky enough to have had an amazing team around me, and through a lot of that turmoil, it makes you appreciate how if you do work with the right people that see the same vision as you, even if it takes you longer to get there, anything is possible at the end of the day," she said. When her last business was taken away from her, Coscarelli said it seemed that it was the end of her career. But now, she trusts that she and her team "will always find a way" through challenging times because they are all driven by a greater shared mission. "Through everything that she's had to endure, she's just handled it all with so much grace," Fasciano said. "I'm really proud of her being able to come back and reopen her concept her way. For people who are in this industry, especially as females, it can send a really great message about the fact that there are bad people, but then you see Chloe and how she's been able to overcome and do what she loves, which is giving people really good food at an affordable price." Chloe Coscarelli, Allison Stransky, Tanya Taylor and Nicole Wegman speak on the "Fostering Creativity While Impacting the Bottom Line" panel during the Women's Global Impact forum on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at One World Trade... Chloe Coscarelli, Allison Stransky, Tanya Taylor and Nicole Wegman speak on the "Fostering Creativity While Impacting the Bottom Line" panel during the Women's Global Impact forum on Tuesday, August 5, 2025, at One World Trade Center in New York City. More Weston Kloefkorn | For Newsweek In many ways, Coscarelli is returning to the basics with Chloe. At this point in her decade-long career, Coscarelli said, she's measuring success in the small moments. She enjoys the tiny interactions with customers at the restaurant. They often tell her how her food has changed their health or their perspective on vegan meals or how her story has inspired their own career. "Everyone's driven by something different. For me, it's in those small moments or when I'm watching someone eat, and I see a reaction from them—it feels really gratifying," she said. For any women looking to make it in the culinary world, Coscarelli advises honing the perspective you want to share through your food and "don't listen to anyone that tries to tell you that you're not good enough or you can't do it or the industry's too hard or stacked against you." "Believing in yourself above everyone else at the end of the day is the only way forward," she said. "And the more that we can all pursue our passions and support each other, the more we can achieve."
UPI
17-06-2025
- UPI
Justin Willman conjures laughter in 'Magic Lover' special
Justin Willman combines stage magic with stand-up comedy in his new special "Magic Lover," available Tuesday on Netflix. Photo courtesy of Netflix June 17 (UPI) -- Comedian and magician Justin Willman combines his two passions in his new Netflix special, Magic Lover, and the performer said he finds the two arts to be "very similar." Willman, 44, is known for combining magic and comedy in his Netflix series Magic for Humans and The Magic Prank Show, as well as his former hosting gigs on shows including Cupcake Wars and Baking Impossible. Magic Lover, his first-ever combination magic show and stand-up comedy special, is out Tuesday on Netflix. Willman told UPI in a recent interview that comedy and magic are a natural pairing. "I think magic inherently kind of has comedy baked into it," he said. "Because I find even when I'm not doing a trick that's funny, people's reaction to having their mind blown is often to laugh. So there's almost like a biological connection between the two." Willman said jokes and magic tricks can also be very similar in structure. "A joke has a setup and a punchline, and a trick has a setup and a reveal. I think those are very similar. And in intertwining magic and comedy, you know, the tricky part is to make sure they don't distract or dilute one another." Willman said he has been "spending years" trying to strike the right balance between magic and comedy, which he said "comes down to timing." "I find a good joke to be great misdirection because when someone's laughing, they're not burning you with their eyes necessarily. So I think I initially was drawn to magic and comedy kind of being a combo just because of the psychological utilitarian purpose that comedy had as a misdirection device." Magical origins Willman said his love of the performing arts started with comedy. "The love of comedy is what came first. I very vividly remember begging to stay up late and watch Johnny Carson with my parents when I was 6, 7, 8 years old." Willman said he would pick apart the jokes that made his parents laugh to try to see what made them funny. "My parents were both serious people, and obviously as I kid I could make them laugh, but the way that I would see comedy make them laugh felt different," he recalled. "Like it was like a superpower that I wanted to unlock, but I had no clue how to." The aspiring young comedian hit a literal bump in the road at the age of 12 when he broke both of his arms trying to ride a bike while wearing in-line skates. "When I got my cast off months later, my doctor randomly recommended I learn card tricks as physical therapy. So he prescribed me magic, basically," Willman said. Willman spent months mastering basic tricks, and by the age of 14 he was performing at children's parties. "That's when I kind of realized, I made 40 bucks just now for 45 minutes of work. Like, I could make a living doing this. And that's kind of when the show business career, I guess, technically started." When good tricks go bad Willman said part of the appeal of magic is the uncertainly -- never quite knowing when something isn't going to go quite as planned. "I did have a really bad experience once. I was doing a kid's birthday party outside. It was a beautiful day. I made a bird appear, my dove, and it flew up into a tree. I forgot that my pet bird could fly. I try to act like that's supposed to happen, you know, 'the show must go on,'" he said. However, the situation went from bad to worse when Willman spotted a hawk circling overhead. "And, in front of the children, this hawk swoops down, snatches my dove and flies away with it," he said. "Kids were crying, I couldn't really play it off. It was pretty brutal. From that point on, I kinda realized 'Maybe using my pets that I love in my act is not the way to go.'" These days, animals play less of a role in Willman's stage performances, but there are still numerous variables involved. Much of his act involves "mind tricks," such as baiting an audience member into thinking of a particular word. The secret, Willman said, is always having a contingency plan -- and, if the contingency plan has to happen, making sure the audience doesn't realize that what they are seeing is "Plan B." "I love the idea that every show is a bit of a wild card," he said. "Like if every show [had] zero risk involved and exactly what I want to happen will happen, it feels a little, I don't know, unexciting to me." He said his 30 years of experience in magic has given him more of a "thrill-seeking" approach to the craft. "I think that little bit of uncertainty, where a lot is left to an audience's will or ability to change their minds, I think is what people think about later," Willman said. The variables are "where the magic is," he said. Magic for the modern age The art of magic has evolved in the decades since Willman started performing, and he said the rise of technologies like CGI, video effects, AI and deepfakes have "forced a lot more creativity" when it comes to trying to inspire awe in viewers. "It definitely has at least made me want to make the magic about something more than just the trick," he said. "Whether it's about something funny or earnest or heartfelt or absurd or about something topical, it's not just about the trick. The trick is a delivery device for this point of view or this angle or my hot take on something." Despite being best known for TV, Willman said he feels magic is meant to be experienced live, and he planned his special around trying to make Netflix viewers feel like a part of the live audience. "I approach everything that I do that is filmed, whether it's Magic for Humans or this special -- I try to make it feel like you are experiencing it like the person who's there, using as few cuts as possible." Willman said he hopes his special will inspire viewers to want to go out to see live magic shows in person. "If you enjoyed it on your couch watching the TV, you will love it in person," he said. "I think wherever technology and AI and all this goes, it won't ever change. ... Experiencing this crazy thing in person, I feel like we will crave that kind of tactile wonder more than ever. At least, I really hope so. I'm banking on it. I have no fallback plan." Justin Willman: Magic Lover is available to stream now on Netflix.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Yahoo
Send in the clowns! Circus performers promoting sustainability visit Erie schools
Students at Millcreek Township's Chestnut Hill Elementary School learned about science and sustainability in a high-energy, interactive way. The Grand Falloons engaged with third and fifth-grade students to give them an educational experience about the impact of our everyday choices on the planet. Over 100 local students learn about craftsmanship at skilled trades fair The group usually performs for New York and New Jersey public schools, but was made possible by the Erie County Planning Department and Community Development. Jessica Stutzman, director of community relations for Millcreek Township, said it's important for students to get these impactful lessons in an exciting way. Erie nonprofit hosting Cupcake Wars promoting mental health awareness 'They're going to learn a lot of information today, and it's not from a text book or reading; it's hands on, and it's engaging, so I hope they remember this for years to come,' said Stutzman. The group will be at Tracy Elementary School on Thursday and will perform at Erie's Public Schools as well. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
