A funeral mass will be offered in Our Lady of the Lake Church, Verona on Monday, August 2 at 10 a.m. Visiting in the Prout Funeral Home, 370 Bloomfield Ave., Verona on Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m.

Born in Glen Ridge, Mr. Osciak has lived in Budd Lake, Hellam, Pa. and Verona. A graduate of Verona High School and the Florida Institute of Technology, he was a computer programmer with Outwater Hardware in Lincoln Park. r. Osciak served as an usher at Our Lady of the Lake Church in Verona.

Mr. Osciak is the son of Stephen and the late Natalie Osciak, the father of Michelle and Allison Osciak, the brother of John S. Osciak, Stephen N. Osciak and Mary J. Thoms and the best friend of Luci Zirpoli.

Memorial donations to the Verona Rescue Squad would be appreciated.

I came across one that had so many bad reviews, and I mean really bad reviews, that my competitive nature just kicked in and I felt I had no choice but to see if I could do better. I had another reason for wanting to make it: I had grown garlic in my herb garden this year and really needed a recipe that required a lot of garlic. Looks like I found it.

You can see the original recipe here; below is my revised one. This dinner turned out delicious and was so easy to make. Great for a day when you really don’t want to throw dinner together at the last minute and don’t have a lot of time for prep work.

(My) Lemon Garlic Chicken

Ingredients:

4 skinless boneless chicken breasts (or more if you need them)

3 lemons juiced (about 1/4 cup)

1 3/4 cup chicken broth

1 onion cut in half vertically then thinly sliced

8 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed  then coarsely chopped

8 carrots, peeled (I bought a big bunch at the farmer’s market and needed to do something with them)

Dried parsley

3 sprigs fresh rosemary (I had a bunch in my herb garden)

Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

What’s Next:

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Saute onion and garlic in a small pan with some olive oil. Transfer to slow cooker.
3. Add chicken, carrots, chicken broth, lemon juice and dried parsley to slow cooker. Stir to combine ingredients.
4. Cover and cook on high for 6 hours.
5. During the last 30-45 minutes add the rosemary.

Notes from my experience:

The original recipe called for cooking the rice in the slow cooker with everything else. In my house, dinner time varies from night to night by about an hour. I made rice on the side. No need to complicate things.

In an effort to capitalize on the flavors of fresh garlic and onion,  I chose to saute the onion and garlic first, which was not part of the original recipe. From experience, raw onions thrown into a slow cooker produce a very strong smell that is not nearly as delicious as when they are pre-cooked.

I love that the recipe does not require precooking the chicken.

As for the vegetables in the recipe, I added carrots because I had them. Depending on the vegetables and how much time you have to plan ahead, you could add just about anything that’s in season now: string beans, wax beans, corn, zucchini, yellow squash or tomatoes. For most of them though, I wouldn’t add more them more than 30 to 40 minutes before you plan to serve the meal.

The contest is called Hairspray’s Dance Invention and here’s what you have to do to participate. First, download the MP3 track that’s at the bottom of this page on the Paper Mill’s Web site. Then, create a new, original dance move that goes with it and videotape your performance. When you’ve got it nailed, upload the tape to the Paper Mill’s Facebook page, along with your name, age, city, state and the name of your dance move.

You’ve got until August 20 to strut your stuff and you’ve got to be at least 13 to participate. And don’t forget to let MyVeronaNJ know if you are participating so we can tell our readers to watch and vote for your dance invention. A team of judges at the Paper Mill will pick eight finalists from the videos that get the most votes and then the public will get a chance to vote again, beginning on September 1. The winner will be announced on September 26 at 7 p.m., at the opening night performance of Hairspray.

All eight finalists will get four tickets to opening night. The overall winner will also receive four admissions to the cast party, and have his or her dance invention performed by Tracy Turnblad herself on stage.

Get dancing!

Now Smillie’s running the show in a different sort of way. In between his sophomore and junior years at Harvard University, he is spending this summer producing shows for the Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Theatre: Speech & Debate, The Real Thing and The Rocky Horror Show, which opens this weekend and runs through August 13. This fall, he will be working at Harvard’s Loeb Mainstage theater producing the Jean Genet play The Balcony, which will run for two weeks in November.

“I really like getting people organized and make sure the shows happen,” says Smillie, who is a social studies major and a theater minor. “There’s so much work that goes into it.”

Smillie’s budget for the Harvard shows is a bit larger than what he was accustomed to at VHS. He had $10,000 to spend on the boutique theater summer shows, and will have $8,000 for “The Balcony”, which will be performed in a theater that seats about 600 people. “We’re extremely lucky at Harvard to have a school that recognizes the importance of an arts organization,” he says. “Theater funding here is sizable compared to other schools.”

But Smillie is acutely aware that it is important to manage every nickel, particularly in the current difficult environment for the arts. “Not many people want to keep supporting the arts now,” he says. “My friends who are in theater in New York City say most of their job is trying to solicit donations to get a show off the ground. I wish there were some magic solution to make it easier because it is important to get some artistic expression out there.”

Until that happens, Smillie will have to continue to find ways to talk his theater colleagues out of expensive ideas for their shows. For “Speech & Debate”, that meant using paint to simulate a linoleum floor instead of buying the actual flooring. Not that he doesn’t appreciate the flourishes. To enhance the high school setting of “Speech & Debate”, Smillie and his co-producers sprang for Tater Tots, which the actors handed out to the audience. “I heard from many people that the smell really added to the experience,” Smillie says.

If you’re headed up to Massachusetts and want to get tickets for “Rocky Horror” or “The Balcony”, the Harvard box office is here.

Front Row (l-r): Brendan Powell, Sal Vassallo, Tino Quagliata, Michael Daggett, Brian Feury, David Festa and bat boy, Andrew Priscoe. Second Row (l-r): Robert Coppola, Ian Metzger, Andrew Siegelin, Joey Zecchino, Jason Siegelin and Steven Priscoe. Coaches (l-r: Bob Shafer, Kurt Siegelin, Matt Ciccolini and Head Coach Peter Festa. (Photo courtesy Pam Priscoe)

The Verona 10U Summer Barnstormer baseball team competed in the championship of the 15-team Essex/Morris/Passaic Summer baseball league last night, July 28. Verona had to play and beat two of the top teams in the league (Nutley and South Orange/Maplewood) to get to the championship game against the No.1 seed, Montville.

In a hard fought game in front of a large local fan base, Verona battled but came up short, ending the game with an 11-5 score. Verona was the defending 9U Champions from 2009 and finished this past season 14-3. Over a two-year span, Verona is 27-6.

Then, another round of applause for Jimmy Hill, Jack O’Neil and the entire Lakeside Deli team for a delicious dinner menu. Oh, and Joey Arminio, who even though he had only come to the pool to relax, went home to get his sax and played with a band he has gotten to know well over the years. And the Verona Fire Department, which sent a squad to check up on the transformer fire outside the pool building; it barely put a dent in the festivities.

And finally, a round of applause for all the folks who came out and enjoyed Jimmy & The Parrots, the Jimmy Buffett tribute band that played at Verona Pool last night. They truly got into the spirit of the evening, dancing and splashing to the music, even if some of them tried to bring in beverages more suited to Margaritaville than the pool concession stand. We hope you got your coolers back later.

Dan Robinson was poolside with his camera and took these great shots. Thank you Dan!

You might remember that, earlier this year, Verona’s school kids collected nearly 3,000 pounds of food for the Human Needs. But in the summer months, supplies dwindle and the children who depend on free school lunch programs don’t have those to fall back on.

Calvary Lutheran Church is coordinating a collection of non-perishable food items from all Verona households, beginning with the north side of town. Doorknob hangers detailing the “Can It with Calvary” initiative will be distributed to each north-side home between July 31 and August 2. Collection of donations on the north side will take place on August 7. Suggested donations include: canned fruit, vegetables and beans; peanut butter and jelly; baby food; pasta products and sauce in cans; cereals, powdered milk; and foods high in protein, such as canned meats, stews and soups with meat.

If you don’t live on the north side of town or if you aren’t going to be home on collection day, you can still donate to the food drive. Calvary Lutheran will have food donation boxes at the Hill Street entrance of the church on August 6, 7 and 8. Monetary donations will also be accepted. Please call the church office at 973-239-0577 for further information .