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PORTLAND — Hot yoga might just be the cilantro of the exercise world, since many have a love or hate relationship with it, but yoga practitioners swear by its health benefits.

Yoga in general is a popular workout that works on body alignment, breathing, strength and flexibility, however, the added benefits of performing poses in a heated room further increases these effects, resulting in a deeper mind-body-spirit connection.

At Core & Restore Yoga in Portland, owner Rosanna Singer has created a welcoming community of both yogis (those proficient in yoga) and beginners that spans all age ranges.

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Walking into the studio at 666 Portland Cobalt Road, one immediately gets a spa-like vibe. Eucalyptus incense is burning in a back room, and a delicate aroma wafts into the lobby, which has wooden walls inset with planters. A small buddha sculpture sits on the front desk, a nod to yoga’s origins centuries ago in India.

Classes, both heated and unheated, are held every day in varying levels. There are three levels of power yoga (hot) classes conducted in a spacious and bright room with heated panels to keep temperatures between 90 and 100 degrees.

Steam ensures practitioners get their sweat on, and the room has about 60 percent humidity. Practitioners bring in their mats and water bottles to stay hydrated during the hour-long classes while instructors guide them through a series of movements.

Stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic, practicing yoga at home, as many studios were forced to close, Singer wasn’t planning to open up a studio. When the opportunity presented itself a year later, the timing was right and she leapt on it.

She opened her studio in September 2021, and has a busy schedule with a handful of fellow teachers and two to five classes daily. The power classes are especially popular and usually draw 15 to 25 people per class.

Singer, who practices yoga daily, has been a yogi for 12 years and has an extensive background in fitness and martial arts. She went on to achieve a black belt in karate before developing a passion for yoga.

Singer eagerly touts the health benefits of yoga, especially power yoga. “It builds strength, flexibility and endurance. The hot power classes challenge you both physically and mentally,” she said, noting that people are moving around a hot room, unlike Bikram-style classes, where one does the same 26 poses.

The hot vinyasa (flow) style classes, set to music, emphasize sequential, or dynamic, movements between postures and stretches while controlling one’s breathing. The focus is on linking breath to movements.

“It is a great, great workout for your body, mind and soul. The key is the heat gets into your joints and your muscles,” Singer said. “When you first step into the room, you can feel it, and it goes into your joints and makes your muscles feel nice when you are moving. Sometimes, it feels really good, and you have to be careful and back off because you could overextend your muscles and hurt yourself."

Besides the physical challenges, there are also mental challenge of being able to stay in the hot room for an hour. A friend suggested the studio to Adrienne Gervais of Glastonbury, who has been practicing yoga for over 10 years. “I just feel like the heat adds a whole other mind element.

"You have to really focus and not let it distract you. I feel like it’s an extra challenge,” Gervais said. “If you ever have a day where you feel like you can’t do something, or you realize something might be a challenge, come to hot yoga, because you realize for that hour, you can pretty much do anything if you can get through this class.”

Singer acknowledges not everyone loves the hot classes and some might be apprehensive to try it. “I don’t think you know until you really try it, and you can’t just try it one time. You have to try it a few times. You have to kind of give it three months to see the benefits."

Those who can do hot power yoga classes can do any yoga class, she said.

Also praising the difference classes can make is Stephanie Darrow of Essex, a onetime walker and runner who injured her Achilles tendon and then took up hot yoga. “Now, I have something that gives me that euphoric workout feel,” she said. Classes also force her to be disciplined and focused in the moment, Darrow added.

Dave Mendelson of Middletown and his wife attended Core & Restore power classes several times a week for a year. “The flexibility is very important. I really notice when I don’t do it," he said.

"When I skip class for a week or two, I feel stiffer,” Mendelson explained. “If I do yoga consistently, I just move through the day better. It’s the little things I notice: It’s easier to bend and move my body straight out of bed and my core is so much stronger.”

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It’s a good spring for water lovers, and a good time to make sure your faucet or toilet isn’t wasting water.

And speaking of water lovers, trout and salmon are plentiful in the state’s lakes and streams, but it will cost more this year to bring them home for dinner.

“We are above our historic average for water levels” in the 10 lakes that make up the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority’s reservoirs, according to spokesman Dan Doyle. “This year already, from January to March, there’s been 5 more inches of rain” than in the average first three months of the year.

As of March 31, the authority’s reservoirs were at 92 percent of capacity, one percentage point above the average, based on data that goes back 100 years. Doyle said the lakes, which together can hold 19.2 billion gallons of water, have gotten an assist from the recent heavy, wet snow. “It melts more slowly; it melts in place,” Doyle said, soaking into the water authority’s 27,000 acres of watershed land and seeping into the lakes.

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Another “contributing factor” is that “they’re projecting one or two weeks later for leaves to come out this year,” in part because of a colder winter. “If leaves aren’t coming out till later, that means more rain that comes down to the ground,” Doyle said.

Fishing season opened at 6 a.m. Saturday, now that the water authority has stocked its reservoirs with 1,712 rainbow trout. But anglers 16 years old and older who intend to keep the trout and salmon they catch, or who fish in four specific areas, must buy a trout and salmon stamp. That costs $5 for residents 18 and older, $3 for 16- and 17-year-old residents and $5 for nonresidents 16 and older, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Stamps are available at the same places that sell fishing licenses.

The four areas where the stamp is required, whether or not the fish is kept, are trout management areas, wild trout management areas, trout parks or in the Atlantic salmon broodstock areas on the Naugatuck and Shetucket rivers. There are exemptions to the stamp requirement, so check the DEEP website (www.ct.gov/deep).

According to the DEEP, adult fishermen and women spend 4.4 million days at their pastime, generating almost $450 million in economic activity, from jobs and sales at bait and tackle shops to restaurants.

The 12 trout in the Maltby Lakes in West Haven, each at least 18 inches long, are ready to reward the angler with a prize, Doyle said. The fish have been tagged and “if you fish up one of these fish, we’ll give you a $20 gift card” to Dick’s Sporting Goods, he said.

A year ago, more than 89 percent of Connecticut was suffering from low water levels, ranging from abnormally dry to severe drought, according to drought.gov. However, Doyle said, “across the state there was a lower-than-usual water level but in this area we did not have a drought.”

But just because we have plenty of water is no reason to waste it. If you have a leaky faucet, “one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons a year,” Doyle said. A leaky toilet can waste more than twice that amount in just a month, he said. To check for leaks, add food coloring to the toilet tank and watch whether it leaks into the bowl.

Just turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth or shaving can save as much as 4 gallons of water. Other tips: scrape but don’t pre-rinse dishes before putting them into the dishwasher — and run the dishwasher only when it’s full.

Gardening is great, but, Doyle said, “water your plants early in the morning or in the evening” and not “when the sun’s at its highest, because that could cause water to evaporate.”

Also, use mulch to lock in moisture, and sweep outdoor surfaces rather than hosing them down. Water flows out of a hose at about 6 gallons per minute. The water authority has more water-saving tips on its website.

For those who want to save the free water that falls, the water authority is selling rain barrels, provided by Rain Water Solutions, for $68. They hook up to downspouts and hold up to 50 gallons, Doyle said. “Last year was our first year, with people concerned with drought conditions around the state” and the authority sold 90 barrels, he said. To order, go to the authority’s website and find “Harvest the Rain” under the “Conservation and Stewardship” tab. The deadline to order is June 17.

Contact Ed Stannard at [email protected] or 203-680-9382.

Smartphones, computers and electric vehicles may be emblems of the modern world, but, says Siddharth Kara, their rechargeable batteries are frequently powered by cobalt mined by workers laboring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kara, a fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School, has been researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labor for two decades. He says that although the DRC has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the planet combined, there's no such thing as a "clean" supply chain of cobalt from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC's cobalt is being extracted by so-called "artisanal" miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labor for the equivalent of just a few dollars a day.

"You have to imagine walking around some of these mining areas and dialing back our clock centuries," Kara says. "People are working in subhuman, grinding, degrading conditions. They use pickaxes, shovels, stretches of rebar to hack and scrounge at the earth in trenches and pits and tunnels to gather cobalt and feed it up the formal supply chain."

Kara says the mining industry has ravaged the landscape of the DRC. Millions of trees have been cut down, the air around mines is hazy with dust and grit, and the water has been contaminated with toxic effluents from the mining processing. What's more, he says, "Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe — and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it day in and day out. Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust."

Cobalt is used in the manufacture of almost all lithium ion rechargeable batteries used in the world today. And while those outside of the DRC differentiate between cobalt extracted by the country's high-tech industrial mining companies and that which was dug by artisanal miners, Kara says the two are fundamentally intertwined.

"There's complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands," he says. "Industrial mines, almost all of them, have artisanal miners working, digging in and around them, feeding cobalt into the formal supply chain."

Kara acknowledges the important role cobalt plays in tech devices and in the transition to sustainable energy sources. Rather than renouncing cobalt entirely, he says people should focus on fixing the supply chain.

"We shouldn't be transitioning to the use of electric vehicles at the cost of the people and environment of one of the most downtrodden and impoverished corners of the world," he says. "The bottom of the supply chain, where almost all the world's cobalt is coming from, is a horror show."

Technically, under the law, there should not be artisanal mining taking place in any industrial mine. And yet, lo and behold, at most of the industrial mines, there is some artisanal mining taking place. In some cases, predominantly artisanal mining is taking place. And the reason is, it's a penny-wage way to boost production. I mean, imagine you're in a part of the world where there are millions of people who barely get a dollar or two a day who are grindingly poor and will accept almost any labor arrangement just to survive. Well, you put them in a tight pit, cram them with 10,000 other people and pay them a couple of dollars, and they'll produce thousands of tons of cobalt per year for almost no wages. And so that's not legal, but it's happening.

Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything.

Imagine an entire population of people who cannot survive without scrounging in hazardous conditions for a dollar or two a day. There is no alternative there. The mines have taken over everything. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced because their villages were just bulldozed over to make place for large mining concessions. So you have people with no alternative, no other source of income, no livelihood. Now, add to that the menace in many cases of armed forces pressuring people to dig, parents having to make a painful decision, 'Do I send my child to school or do we eat today?' And if they choose the latter, that means bringing all their kids into these toxic pits to dig just to earn that extra fifty cents or a dollar a day, that could mean the difference between eating or not. So in the 21st century, this is modern-day slavery. It's not chattel slavery from the 18th century where you can buy and trade people and own title over a person like property. But the level of degradation, the level of exploitation is on par with old-world slavery.

Imagine a mountain of gravel and stone just avalanching down on people, crushing legs and arms, spines. I met people whose legs had been amputated, who had metal bars in where their legs used to be.

I spoke with many families whose children, husbands, spouses, had suffered horrific injuries. Oftentimes, digging in these larger open-air pits, there are pit wall collapses. Imagine a mountain of gravel and stone just avalanching down on people, crushing legs and arms, spines. I met people whose legs had been amputated, who had metal bars in where their legs used to be. And then the worst of all is what happens in tunnel digging. There are probably 10,000 to 15,000 tunnels that are dug by hand by artisanal miners. None of them have supports, ventilation shafts, rock bolts, anything like that. And these tunnels collapse all the time, burying alive everyone who is down there, including children. It's a demise that is almost impossibly horrific to imagine. And yet I met mothers pounding their chests in grief, talking about their children who had been buried alive in a tunnel collapse. And these stories never get out of the Congo. People just don't know what's happening down there.

There's money to be made in every corner and every direction. And you've got these militias. Sometimes they're called commandos and they will abduct children, traffic children, recruit children from even other parts of the Congo. I met children who had come from hundreds of miles away and have been brought through militia networks down into the copper cobalt mines to dig. And as they dig and earn their dollar or two, that's what funds these militia groups. So children are the most heavily exploited of all the people down there. They're the most vulnerable and oftentimes trafficked and exploited in some cases in very violent circumstances.

Corruption is a big part of the problem. That's what allows so much of this abuse to persist. And the thing is, imagine the Congo. It's a war-torn, deeply impoverished nation that has been subjected to generations of pillage and ransacking going all the way back, now centuries, to the slave trade. And so when big foreign stakeholders come waving around large sums of money, it's not a long stretch of the imagination to see that there would be corruption. ...

The first democratically elected president of the Congo [in 1960], Patrice Lumumba, made a pledge that the country's immense mineral riches and resources would be used for the benefit of the people who live there. And in short order, within six months, he had been deposed, assassinated, chopped to pieces, dissolved in acid and replaced with a bloody dictator, a corrupt dictator who would keep the minerals flowing in the right direction. So if you don't play ball with the power brokers at the top of the chain and with the Global North, Patrice Lumumba showed what's the outcome, what will happen. And I think that's also a part of this lesson that we need to understand historically, when we talk about things like corruption.

China cornered the global cobalt market before anyone knew what was happening. It goes back to the year 2009 under the previous president in the Congo,Joseph Kabila. He signed a deal with the Chinese government for access to mining concessions in exchange for development assistance, a commitment to build roads and some public health clinics, schools, hospitals, things like that — and that opened the door. Before anyone knew what happened, Chinese companies had seized ownership of 15 of the 19 primary industrial copper-cobalt mining concessions down there. So they dominate mining excavation on the ground. And not just that, they dominate the chain all the way through to the battery level. They have about 70, 80% of the refined cobalt market and probably half of the battery market.

There are some incidents that are just so burned into me that they'll come at me just like a terror, and it's hard. I just hope I've done justice to those stories and to the people who shared their tragedies with me, courageously shared these tragedies with me. I just want their voices [to] reach the world and then the world will decide what to do with the truth and the testimonies of the Congolese people. But if I've done some justice to bringing those voices out into the world that can scarcely function without the suffering of the Congolese people, then it's all worth it. Even the nightmares and the terrors, it's all worth it.

Sam Briger and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Gisele Grayson adapted it for the web.

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

MIDDLETOWN — This year, Appetite for Life, an annual fundraiser that has raised money for Middlesex Health Cancer Center for more than a decade, has raffle prizes for participants.

The restaurant raffle, Meals That Heal, is offering gift cards from 35 local restaurants. In total, $5,000 in prizes will be awarded, according to a press release.

The drawing will take place June 30 at 2 p.m., and all winners will be notified. Tickets are $20, and only 1,000 tickets are available. They can be purchased at MiddlesexHealth.org/AppetiteForLife.

Another way to support the Middlesex Health Cancer Center is by attending the third annual Middlesex Got Talent, which features Middlesex Health employees. This year’s talent show will be held in person on June 16 from 5 to 7 p.m. at Chicago Sam’s in Cromwell.

WFSB’s Caitlin Francis will be the host, the news release said.

Tickets are $25 if purchased in advance, and $30 that day. Heavy hor d’oeuvres are included with the ticket. There will also be a cash bar and raffle prices.

Participating restaurants

Amici Italian Grill, Middletown

Blue Hound Cookery and Tap Room

Bourassa Catering & Events, Wallingford

Carmella’s / Jerry’s Pizza, Middletown

Chicago Sam’s Sports Bar & Grille, Cromwell

The Cooking Company, Middletown/Higganum

Dairy Queen, Old Saybrook

El Pulpo, Middletown

DaVinci Pizza, Cobalt

Eli Cannon’s, Middletown

Esca Restaurant & Wine Bar, Middletown

Farrell’s Restaurant, Portland

The Feed Bag Pet Supplies, Old Saybrook

Fiore II, Middletown

Fromage Fine Foods & Coffees, Old Saybrook

Grano Arso, Chester

Illiano’s Ristorante & Pizzeria, Middletown

Lan Chi’s Vietnamese Restaurant, Middletown

Landing and Main, Deep River

Luigi’s Restaurant, Old Saybrook

Meriano’s Bake Shop, Madison

Mezzo Grille, Middletown

Mitchell’s on Main, Cromwell

Mondo, Middletown

Niuda, Middletown

Penny Lane Pub, Old Saybrook

Pizza Works, Old Saybrook

Po’s Rice and Spice, East Hampton

Red House, Deep River

Scotch Plains Tavern, Essex

Sliders Grill & Bar, Middletown

Tall Man’s Ice Cream, Cromwell

The Black Seal, Essex

Three Girls Vegan, Guilford

Vero Cucino Rustico

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EAST HAMPTON — Every morning, Amanda Pizzoferrato arises well before dawn — and the rooster’s morning cock-a-doodle-doo — to open The Sleepy Rooster Cafe she owns with twin sister Nicole Pizzoferrato in the Cobalt section of town.

“Roosters are known for being up early and hard workers, and have strong personalities. We both embody that, but it’s always been a joke our whole lives that we’re always tired, always sleepy,” Amanda Pizzoferrato said. “We’re targeting the commuters. You have to get up early for work, but you don’t really want to. You’re tired — just because you have to get up early for work doesn’t mean you’re an early bird.”

The name of the little restaurant, in the space formerly occupied by K. LaMay’s Steamed Cheeseburgers, and before that, Pizzeria Da Vinci (which moved next door), is a humorous play on words. The cafe, which launched Dec. 12, is located off Route 66/East High Street in the Cobalt Flea Market/post office plaza.

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After seeing an ad for the business, full-time accountant Nicole Pizzoferrato made some inquiries, and “it all just kind of fell in place perfectly,” so she convinced her twin to move home from Syracuse, N.Y., to help run the venture.

The 27-year-olds have a special place in their hearts for the first meal of the day.

As a child, Nicole Pizzoferrato loved breakfast, and would eat at a diner every Sunday morning. “I love the homey, farm-y, urban feel, the comfortability it brings. It’s always a happy place to be,” she said.

Her sister runs the day-to-day operations, with help from their mother Wendy, father and siblings. Bruce Moquin, owner of the now-closed Snak Shack, which was just down Route 66 at 197 E. High St., is the chef on weekdays, along with his stepson Luke. “We’re blessed to have him. He’s already taught me so much,” Amanda Pizzoferrato said.

The quick-service cafe targets drivers on the go and commuters. “Everything we make, we try to make it car-friendly,” she said, showing off paper cups that can fit into a car’s drink holder.

Breakfast is served until closing at 2 p.m. The creative menu includes egg sandwiches (The Sleepy Rooster: fried chicken, a fried egg, cheddar cheese and bacon between two waffles with the cafe’s signature maple/jalapeno aioli), sandwiches and wraps (the Perky Turkey comes with turkey, bacon, provolone cheese, avocado, lettuce and tomato), burritos and bowls.

They serve fresh coffee and smoothies (Mudslide, Tropical Holiday, Avocado Apple and others) and small bites (fried waffles with cinnamon and sugar or powdered sugar; waffle fries and tater tots).

Their location on Route 66 affords them business from motorists heading toward Portland, Middletown, Hartford, Marlborough, Hebron and other areas. “It’s the perfect little spot,” Amanda Pizzoferrato said.

“Saturdays are insane — it’s nonstop” — so much so that it’s common to see a line of customers out the door, she said.

Amanda Pizzoferrato, who does the prep and cooking, has known she wanted her own business for some time. She grew up loving food, and as a child, was always baking cakes and cookies. “Most of the time, her food was horrible. That’s what I was thinking. (But), it was so much fun. I was a part of all her taste testing and experiments,” said her mother, Wendy Pizzoferrato.

The sisters are intuitive eaters. “We don’t promote diet culture, we promote ‘eat what makes you happy,’ whether it’s a waffle sandwich, a smoothie, a salad: You honor your cravings, and you eat in moderation. You don’t feel any guilt or shame after eating something that’s known today as unhealthy,” said Amanda Pizzoferrato, who has a sales and marketing background.

Her sister handles the financial end of things. “I’ve always eaten what I wanted to, and recognize I want to make my body healthy,” Nicole Pizzoferrato said.

Her twin has had a complicated relationship with food. “I really got caught up in diet culture. I was over exercising, I was under eating. I was trying every diet: body shaming. It really affected me mentally and physically to the point where I sought out medical help,” said Amanda Pizzoferrato, who moved in with a family friend, also a dietician, after college.

Both women have adopted the nutrition philosophy as a lifestyle. “It was a long process, but my health completely began to change,” said Amanda Pizzoferrato.

Her twin knew she was going through a tough time. “We have a special connection and I really wanted to be there to support her,” she said about bringing the style of eating to the East Hampton area. “We’re similar, but we’re also complete opposites, so we balance each other,” Nicole Pizzoferrato said.

Traditionally, diner food is so tasty because it’s often fried and accompanied by rich sauces, onion rings, fries and other high-calorie foods. Portions are often huge.

At The Sleepy Rooster, everything is made fresh, and the waffles are baked from scratch.

The sisters are hoping to spread their message of healthful eating to young people, some of whom may have conflicted feelings about food. They post inspirational quotes and other health messages on their Facebook page. The feedback has been phenomenal, Amanda Pizzoferrato said.

“I don’t really like being in the spotlight, especially sharing something so vulnerable like that. It’s a little awkward at first, but it was a necessity,” she said. “I tried the corporate world, but it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t giving me that passion, that fulfillment I really need.”

Social media has been their only method of advertising. There, the women get creative with their posts and photographs. They also have been running contests, such as the current promotion: guessing how many roosters are in the cafe. The winner takes home a $15 gift card.

The twins enjoy their new goal: “Embodying our brand — not only promoting our food, but promoting our mission, which is teaching people how to really listen to their body and eat, be happy and do what’s best for them,” Amanda Pizzoferrato said.

The cafe is located at 367 W. High St. For information, call 860-467-6181, visit The Sleepy Rooster Cafe on Facebook or Instagram @thesleepyroostercafe