Healthy girl summer is officially on the menu!

Chef Emily Susman is telling ET about the feel-good habits she’s embracing this season, from alcohol-free sips and easy weeknight dinners to the simple hosting philosophy she swears by.

With more than 25 years in the food and beverage industry, Susman knows a thing or two about bringing people together. Her latest venture, Navi Mocktails, was inspired by a personal shift that changed the way she approached gatherings.

“I stopped drinking in 2021, and what caught me off guard wasn’t the decision itself, it was how weird social situations suddenly felt,” Susman shares.

“You show up to a party and someone hands you a water or a Shirley Temple, and you feel like a footnote. I wanted something that actually belonged at the table and something you’d be excited to drink.”

The result is a line of functional mocktail blends in take-anywhere sachets that give everyone something festive to raise a glass with.

“As a chef and someone who cares deeply about wellness, I’m always thinking about what food and drinks can do for you,” she explains.

“The collagen and protein add nutritional value, and I love L-theanine because it promotes a sense of calm without leaving you feeling foggy the next morning. You can be present, enjoy the moment, and wake up feeling good.”

That balanced mindset doesn’t stop at happy hour.

“I used to treat healthy choices like I was white knuckling my way through something, and it was exhausting,” Susman recalls. “Once you stop framing it as restriction and start framing it as taking care of yourself, it stops feeling like a sacrifice.”

When it comes to summer eating, Susman is all about keeping things fresh, flavorful, and low maintenance.

“I grill everything,” she shares. “It’s my summer philosophy. The flavor is incredible, it’s naturally lighter, and it requires almost no fuss.”

This year’s warm-weather lineup includes grilled skirt steak with bright chimichurri, grilled shrimp tacos topped with mango salsa, and Mediterranean chicken bowls loaded with fresh herbs and roasted vegetables. On the side, she’s serving up watermelon feta salad, grilled corn, and cucumber salad with lemon and dill.

But summer isn’t all backyard barbecues and outdoor dinners. For days packed with errands, travel or beach trips, Susman keeps easy staples within arm’s reach.

“Healthy eating becomes so much easier when you make it convenient,” she notes. “I always keep hard-boiled eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, grilled chicken, and quality deli turkey on hand. For snacks, I love fresh vegetables with hummus, fruit or something protein-based that actually keeps me full.”

When entertaining, her approach is equally relaxed.

“Have great food, great drinks, and make sure every person there feels included,” she recommends. “Set up a drink station with options for everyone and lean into simple, seasonal dishes. Summer produce is so good that you really don’t need to do much to it.”

For Susman, the secret to a great summer gathering has less to do with what’s on the table and more to do with who’s around it.

“The parties people actually remember aren’t about being perfect. They’re about the people.”

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By Jonathan Klotz
| Updated 1 hour ago

If you’re of a certain age, you’ve lived through multiple generations of entertainment media. Given the current state of physical media, people have finally had enough and are refusing to let go of Blu-Rays. Before Blu-Rays, before DVD, there was VHS. It revolutionized movies when it arrived, but left with a whimper. VHS hung around longer than you think, since the last movie on VHS was the understated and underrated 2005 release, A History of Violence. 21 years later, and the film is tearing up the HBO Max charts since it arrived. 

A History Of Violence Has A History Of Success

March 14, 2006, is the day that A History of Violence was released on VHS. Nearly a year after its May 2005 debut in theaters. A slow burn of an action thriller about a man trying to escape his past, and the damage it does to his family, is an unlikely release during the start of the Summer blockbuster season, but Warner Bros (via New Line Media) had faith in the film. $61 million dollars at the box office later, and that faith was rewarded. 

A History of Violence adapts the Vertigo DC graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, making it the unlikeliest DC movie. Viggio Mortenson, fresh off Lord of the Rings, plays Tom Stack, the mild-mannered diner owner whose life is turned upside down when two men from Philly enter his diner. Maria Bello is his loving wife, Edie, and together, they have two children, Jack and Sarah. It’s an idyllic life. Until it’s not. 

The Best Bad Ass Dad Movie Of All Time

Unlike later films in the “suburban dad is secretly a badass” genre, A History of Violence doesn’t glorify the violence. The action is short, brutish, and bloody, with the real harm being done in what comes after a man is shot … or stabbed. It’s an intelligent, thought-provoking take on the action genre lost in the noise of Nobody 2, Liam Neeson, and countless other imitators. 

The thoughtfulness and intention behind every shot is clear once you realize the director is David Cronenberg. The Master of Body Horror and Viggo Mortenson would continue to work together four more times, including 2007’s Eastern Promises, an even more violent and extreme film. 

The End Of An Era

A History of Violence on VHS is now a collector’s item, with sealed copies going for upwards of $500 on eBay. Other films, including Cars, were released after, but only as part of special, limited-release promotions, and not the wide, dump it in a Wal-Mart scale of Cronenberg’s hit. As for why it was the last film, it came down to timing. Distribution deals were inked years earlier when VHS was obviously on the way out, but still in a majority of homes, before DVD players became commonplace. Sometimes, it’s really that simple. 

Since debuting, re-debuting actually, on HBO Max, A History of Violence has been in the top 10, reaching, as of the time of this writing, the top five. It’s well deserved for one of the best movies of the 2000’s and a career highlight for all involved. If you’re bored of the schlub dad turns out to be an assassin genre, you need to watch this movie and fall in love with the genre all over again.

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 19 seconds ago

One of the many ways Babylon 5 is unique among sci-fi series is that it was written out before the cameras started rolling. That doesn’t mean every script, but the story, the characters, and the plot beats were all developed before the first season was in production. Yet there were still quite a few happy accidents that happened on set to re-direct the series, from the chemistry between Londo and G’Kar, to the addition of Bruce Boxleitner as John Sheridan. Another happy accident is Star Trek veteran Walter Koenig’s performance as Alfred Bester, which was so good that the villainous telepath went from a “Monster of the Week” to a recurring guest star. 

The First Appearance Of Alfred Bester

Koenig first appears as Bester in the Season 1 episode, “Mind War,” which finally goes into the impact of having telepaths running around the space station. Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson) had been established as the resident telepath, helping Londo deal with a delicate personal matter, but in “Mind War,” she’s the one in trouble. Her former teacher, Jason Ironheart, snuck onto the station to hide from the Psi-Cops.  

Bester is one of the two Psi-Cops hunting down Jason, who went rogue after learning that telekinetics were to be trained by the Psi-Corp as assassins. Jason himself was subjected to strange experiments to amplify his abilities, resulting in “mind quakes” that shake the station to its foundations, and eventually, he evolves into a being of pure energy. Before leaving, or “becoming” as he says, he gives Talia the gift of telekinetics, and says to Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) that he’ll see him again “in a million years.” 

You’d think someone ascending to a higher plane of existence would be the highlight of the episode. Walter Koenig managed to steal the show as the uptight and stern Bester, giving Babylon 5 something it had been missing: a villain. Koenig’s performance makes it clear that Bester thinks he’s superior to non-telepaths (and even those less powerful than he is). He also acts like he knows everything going on at all times, which, to his credit, he does. 

Bester Wasn’t Part Of The Plan

Koenig wasn’t meant to be Alfred Bester, instead he was going to be Knight Two in “The Sky Full of Stars,” but a heart attack prevented him from filming. J. Michael Straczynski then went to the drawing board and created Bester specifically for Koenig. The reaction on set was that Koenig had been wasted on Star Trek: The Original Series as Chekov. Fans agreed, blowing up online message boards with love for Koenig after “Mind War” aired. 

“Mind War” is a favorite of fans to this day thanks to the first appearance of Bester, but it also, in retrospect, planted the seed of Sinclair’s fate. Turns out, he really will be able to see the ascended Ironheart in a million years. At the time, no one knew it would be an accurate statement. The first season of Babylon 5 is filled with fun moments that fans didn’t fully understand the meaning of until years later. 

As for Koenig, not only would he return as Bester, but he ended up being prominently featured in Season 5’s Psi-War story arc. Not bad for someone who wasn’t supposed to be back on set.