My Food: Taking It to the Streets
You don’t have to be a foodie to know that Mexican street corn is definitely a thing. Elote, sold like hotdogs out of south-of-the-border street-vendor carts, has migrated onto restaurant menus and into festivals. One local grocery store chain even sells it in the form of a kit.
Omar Espinosa, co-owner and manager of Cilantro Taqueria’s Chesterland location, has been eating street corn ever since he was a child growing up in southern California. Rather than mixing a single creamy, spicy sauce to slather on ears of sweet corn, he offers the ingredients a la carte to facilitate customization of each order. He suggests setting up a station with the following to heat up a barbecue.
Sweet corn. The ears can be boiled, steamed or grilled. Espinosa impales each on a stick. “It makes it a lot easier to carry,” he says.
Mayonnaise. Whatever’s in the refrigerator will do. “If people don’t eat mayonnaise, then we use butter” to spread on the corn so the fixings stick, Espinosa says.
Grated cotija. Espinosa describes the aged cow’s-milk cheese as “Mexican-style parmesan.” In fact, he suggests sprinkling parmesan to taste if cotija isn’t available.
Spices. Espinosa uses Tajin Clasico, a brand-name blend of mild chili peppers, lime and sea salt that doesn’t burn the mouth. (We found a 9-ounce bottle for $4.98 at Walmart.) He suggests sprinkling a ½ tablespoon on the ear of corn, then adding more if desired. “We like to roast hot peppers, blend them up really good, and then throw that on top — that’s for the people that like it really, really spicy,” he adds.
Fresh lime juice. Espinosa squeezes the juice of at least one lime half on his. “Then you’re ready to roll.”
My Home: Cooler Weather Yard Prep
Prepping the yard for winter is the last thing most homeowners want to think about during the precious last days of summer. But experts say fall (six weeks before the first sign of hard frost) is the best time to enhance cold-weather curb appeal. The warm soil temperatures and mild weather create an ideal environment for tree, shrub and grass root growth.
“There’s a lot of sun during the day,” explains Tony Nasrallah of Ground Works Land Design in Westlake. “And it cools at night, so there’s less watering.”
Nasrallah offers a few of the plants that contribute to a landscape worth admiring on the coldest days.
Evergreens. Nasrallah describes pines and firs in a range of greens and blues that designers use as “a base plant palette” to create layers of color and texture that maintain their subtle beauty throughout the year. His go-to is one of the evergreen hollies, shrubs that carry their fruit throughout the winter.
Ornamental grasses. Nasrallah notes that some clients don’t cut back their ornamental grasses. They enjoy the sight and rustling sound of tall, wispy blades blowing in the wind. “Around the holidays, I’ve seen people tie little ribbons or bows around them,” he says.
Deciduous trees with interesting barks. Nasrallah lists paper-bark maples and some birches as examples worthy of focal-point status after the leaves drop. Some, like the dawn redwood, up the ante with their branching patterns.
Lighting. “Landscaping lighting looks great all year long,” Nasrallah declares. He describes the beauty of uplit evergreens flocked in snow, the drama of a bare dawn redwood silhouetted on an exterior home wall, the wow factor of outdoor fireplaces and kitchens illuminated by undercap lights, of sidewalks lined with pathway counterparts. “It’s soft and elegant,” he says of the effect.
My Health: Reducing Political Stress
Politics is a topic that’s best avoided at social events. But the damage it inflicts in the digital age goes beyond heated discussions that ruin cocktail parties.
Dr. Patrick Runnels, a psychiatrist who serves as chief medical officer for population health at University Hospitals, observes that frequent exposure to content that elicits negative emotions — including the political news and commentary proliferating news and social-media sites — contributes to an increase in feelings of anxiety and depression.
“We now live in a world in which a lot of people have a lot more negative opinions about where the world is going, which sure as heck seems to correlate a whole lot with the amount of time we spend and the frequency we spend absorbing negative news,” he says.
The easiest way to reduce the stress engendered by that content is to reduce the frequency and time spent reading, watching and/or listening to it. He suggests limiting the activity to 30 to 60 minutes once or twice a week.
“Things do not change that rapidly,” he reassures. “You’re not getting any benefit from more frequent exposure.”
More difficult to avoid is the stress from interacting with people who insist on expressing their political views, particularly in language, jokes, memes, etc. ranging from less-than-diplomatic to downright offensive. Runnels recommends not judging the source solely on a single verbal comment, e-mail or social-media post and responding.
“All it does is retrench the idea that our differences are greater than our similarities,” he says. “The key to stopping that is not to think about the logic of the argument, which is what everyone wants to do. The right thing to do is to pull out entirely from what the logic is, step back and see the person as a human.”
If you want to maintain the relationship with that person, do not try to change his or her mind. Runnels advises trying some version of, “I hear that you’re kind of upset about things. I’m interested to hear, though, about those things that are positive. I’m curious to know what ways we can talk even though we disagree [on this].”
My Earth: Ridding of Things Responsibly
Sell it? Donate it? Throw it away?
They’re the options people ponder when they upgrade their home audio systems — or when they’re helping friends and relatives downsize.
None of them is ideal.
The stereo components lugged from college dorms to first apartments to new homes can be a time-consuming hassle to unload, even when they’re free, in a digital world. And tossing them with the trash is difficult for the eco-conscious, particularly if they still function.
Bernard (Bernie) Naworski finds homes for many of them at Play It Again Sam, his audio consignment shop and repair facility at 14311 Madison Ave. in Lakewood. His customers range from young adults moving out of their parents’ homes to doctors, lawyers and other high-net-worth individuals.
“When you get back to the ’70s, that’s what everybody wants,” he says.
Naworski notes that the resurgence of vinyl has created a demand for turntables, along with receivers and speakers — one he attributes to listeners’ discovering or rediscovering vinyl’s superior sound quality.
“A needle in a groove gives you the good, the bad and the ugly,” he says. He compares digital formats to a dot-matrix printer’s output. “Every gap between the dots is lost information.”
Naworski also takes cassette decks and 8-track-tape players to sell to those who still have playable media. Although he doesn’t sell video equipment, he makes exceptions for DVD players that play CDs and VCR players. The latter are picked up by people looking to play or convert VHS content — particularly home movies — to a digital format.
Naworski’s pricing depends on an item’s quality and condition. One thing he won’t sell or repair is a stereo console, that casement piece of the ’50s and ’60s housing radios and turntables.
“The only value to it was the woodwork,” he says. “They put the cheapest junk inside. … Make it into an aquarium, a bar, a bookshelf. Or put it on your tree lawn.”
For more information, go to playitagainsam.com or call 216-228-7330.
