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Randi Weiner has been covering Rockland education issues since 1998.
An Ohio native and 1976 graduate of Bowling Green State University, she covered local government, marine issues, business, police news, courts and schools for daily newspapers in Ohio and Michigan before joining the Journal News in 1989. Her local assignments included early morning rewrite and police news for the Commuter Final, and covering Ardsley, Elmsford, Tarrytown and Irvington government, police and schools for the Reporter Dispatch and the Tarrytown Daily News from 1989 to 1996. In 1996, she transferred to the Rockland Journal News, where she edited the Crossroads Page and wrote a history column for two years before moving to education coverage.
She has earned writing awards from the Associated Press, the Michigan Press Association and Harte Hanks Communications, and was lead writer for a runner-up Best of Gannett award-winning story in 2001.
She has tended bar and danced in a beledi troup, sat on the boards of two community theaters and earned a best supporting actress award for amateur stagework in Ohio. She currently plays mandolin with the Shamrogues, Connecticut’s largest Irish band.
Randi lives in Connecticut with her husband, Dave, and has three children.
E-mail Randi Weiner at rcweiner@lohud.com
I was watching my oldest putter around the kitchen making mini cheesecakes for an upcoming party a few days ago, an activity that recalled to mind a photograph of her baking shortly after we moved to the East Coast.
She was standing on a chair, her hair tied back, an apron draped over her sweatshirt and [...]
We were talking the other day about the toaster, and how, when my son goes off on his own some day, the toaster goes with him.
It’s become a feature of our household that people who complain long enough get put in charge of what they dislike. That’s why my youngest now makes the pancake batter [...]
When my mother-in-law comes for Thanksgiving, we take the turkey carcass and make soup. When it’s just the family, we dispense with a whole turkey and make house rice out of the remainders.
It may be a generational thing. My mother-in-law grew up during the Great Depression on an Ohio farm in a large family — [...]
A coworker used the term “food overdose” this morning to describe the feeling she had when she got up hungry but not interested in eating after yesterday’s big bash.
I thought that was a perfect description for those of us fortunate enough to have a big feast on Thanksgiving. And where others might use the description [...]
The other day my youngest asked that I modify the lunch I pack her and leave out the chocolate peanut butter cup.
She doesn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria except on Fridays, so whatever I put in her brown bag is eaten in her classroom, she said, and she worries that someone in the class might [...]
Last week, I interviewed Sandi Jeanette of Good Samaritan Hospital about a talk she was giving on kid nutrition, health and obesity at Pearl River’s recent Parent University.
During our chat, she mentioned she was handing out recipes for healthy snacks for kids (and adults) that didn’t have that ‘low-fat’ taste. She kindly faxed me a [...]
My kitchen isn’t particularly large, which is why when my youngsters want to cook, I go read a book.
Sunday morning, my oldest decided to make our favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I was hanging around unloading the dishwasher, and did some fetch and carry work for her.
“Hey, I usually use a stick of margarine along [...]
For the first time in I can’t remember when, none of my offspring are going out Trick-or-Treating on Halloween.
I thought I’d be done with costumes and cold, rainy nights under umbrellas long ago, but my youngest went out last year with her other high school sophomore friends and we get students from the nearby college [...]
My sister is coming to visit next week, and her trip out to the East Coast will coincide with her birthday.
So my daughters and I were on line yesterday trying to figure out what to get her that she’ll like, that won’t take up space on the airplane on her way back and that won’t [...]
While rooting around in the basement a few days ago, I came across my mother’s good china.
My mother, like many of her generation, had several different sets of dishes: everyday pottery, good china and what we called “bank” china because she purchased a piece from the bank every time she made a deposit.
This wasn’t the [...]
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As most parents soon discover, feeding a family is rarely that easy, whether its nursing a fussy newborn or trying to get a hot meal into a squirming toddler (or attempting both at the same time.) And that's not even the days when work runs late, the main course burns, or your adventurous little sushi eater announces from now on she will only eat food that is pink. As parents ourselves, we've been there, done that, even learned a few tricks along the way. And we're pretty sure so have you. Maybe together we can make eating together as a family -- gulp! -- fun again.     Hema Easley has been a reporter for The Journal News since July 2002, first covering municipal government and then nonprofit agencies, women's issues and the South Asian and Muslim community in the Lower Hudson Valley. In her previous job, Hema was a correspondent for the Associated Press in South Asia. She lives with her husband and two sons in Orange County. Katie Ryan O'Connor, a Journal News editor and 35-year-old mother of three, never quite appreciated the work that went into feeding kids until she had to do it herself as a mother. If she had a food-and-kids philosophy it would be something like this: try your best to offer as much healthy food as possible, but sometimes fruits just have to be counted as vegetables and there are far worse things than chicken and spaghetti. Again. Tracey Princiotta, a 37-year-old mother of one, loves to cook, bake and eat, and is relieved that her son appears to be equally willing to chow down -- even if it's baby food and formula right now. Despite her husband's intense aversion to vegetables, she has high hopes of nurturing a true chowhound who will try everything at least once. And if all else fails, she's not above sneaking veggies into other foods. Marcela Rojas has been a municipal reporter with The Journal News since January 2003. She is a native of Putnam County and grew up eating Peruvian food. She didn't realize until she was 13 that rice did not come with everyone's meal. After several years of living in Los Angeles -- where she grew a fondness for Thai food -- she returned to Putnam County where she now lives with her husband and daughter. Zyla (rhymes with Lilah) just turned 1 in March and, so far (her mother is pleased to note), loves to eat everything. Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, a Journal News reporter, started her career as a journalist in 1999 after graduating with a master's degree from New York University. Before joining the paper in 2006, Swapna worked as a municipal reporter for the Home News Tribune in New Jersey, and took a baby sabbatical to care for her two children, now ages 7 and 5. She has currently outsourced feeding her children and husband to her mother, who is visiting from India. Her friend and colleague Katie O'Connor, informs Swapna that she wouldn't mind being fed Indian food by her mother, too.
Randi Weiner has been a reporter with The Journal News since 1989, having covered police, government and schools in Westchester and in Rockland. An Ohio native and 1976 graduate of Bowling Green State University, she worked for daily newspapers in Ohio and Michigan before moving east. She has tended bar and danced in a beledi troup and sat on the boards of two community theaters. She plays mandolin with the Shamrogues, Connecticuts largest Irish band. Randi lives in Connecticut with her husband and has three children. |
Copyright ©2009 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties in New York.
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