Rich Schaffer, head of the Suffolk County Democratic Committee, congratulates Errol Toulon Jr. on his win. Photo by Rita J. Egan
Tuesday was a busy night where candidates across Long Island came together to wait for the 2021 election results.
TBR News Media spent the last month interviewing local officials and their opponents on the ballots, listening and reporting on what they can bring to the table if reelected or elected.
We congratulate the winners of this year’s races, and we are looking forward to working alongside them.
But there is one thing that concerned us as our reporters waited to hear the announcements of both parties late Tuesday night.
Several candidates did not actively campaign this time around, including for example William Amato who ran on the Republican ticket against Errol Toulon Jr. (D) for his seat as the Suffolk County sheriff.
Toulon, who has been county sheriff since 2017, was declared winner with 141,931 votes (54.30%). Amato somehow came close with 119,357 (45.67%).
Interesting for someone who never showed his face at any debate or public outing.
It seems as though voters just went down the row for whatever party they chose. Did anyone take the time out to research which candidate would actually be there for their constituents?
We know that this speaks more of what’s going on in the nation than about the candidates themselves. We understand the political divide and we don’t blame anyone for their beliefs.
But it’s disappointing to think that someone who had no intention of actively being there throughout the campaign could have won such an important position.
Would Amato have been ready to serve if he had won those extra few thousand votes?
We encourage voters to do their part — submitting a ballot is just part of it. Read your local news, listen to debates and educate yourselves on what is going on in your community. Instead of voting for someone who may not actually be qualified, it’s important to understand who’s behind the name and what they can bring to the table.
Remember, if you don’t like your choices in a race, you don’t have to vote for anyone in that column on your ballot. Send a message to local political committees that asks for strong candidates who are ready to serve, instead of rubber stamping someone who just happens to belong to the same party as you.
Elected officials have difficult work to do, and if someone isn’t showing up when it comes time to campaign, that’s not a good sign.
The campfire has gone super suburban and morphed into a new phenomenon, the fire pit. Here in the burbs, most likely prompted by COVID and the need and desire for outdoor dining, it’s become a popular entertaining and dinner venue.
Fire pits range from built-in masonic works of art to portable little round metal versions available at hardware and home improvement stores. Plain or fancy, the great thing about them is that aside from providing warmth for autumn chilled bodies, they also offer a wonderful excuse for gathering round them and sipping and slurping tummy warming comfort foods.
If you don’t already have some, invest in some soup mugs or bowls with handles. Simmer a pot of stew or chili or soup, toast your family and friends with a hearty wine, serve up a fire pit meal and get into the mellow mode.
Chicken Stew
YIELD: Makes 4 to 6 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 celery ribs, sliced into 1” pieces
1 carrot, peeled and sliced diagonally into 1” pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
One 14 1/2 ounce can diced tomatoes with their juice
2 cups chicken broth or stock
Chopped basil leaves from one medium sprig
1/2 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced
One 14-ounce can navy or great northern beans, rinsed and drained
DIRECTIONS:
In a heavy 6 quart saucepan heat the oil over medium heat, add celery, carrot and onion and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent, about 5 minutes; season with salt and pepper, add tomatoes, broth, basil, thyme, tomato paste, chicken and potatoes; press chicken down into pot to completely submerge. Over low heat, bring liquid to a simmer and cook uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally and turning the chicken once; add beans, stir and continue to cook until liquid is reduced and thickened, about 15 minutes. Remove chicken, shred or cut into bite size pieces, return them to pot, adjust seasoning and bring back to a simmer.Ladle into bowls and serve with crusty bread and a hearty ripe cheese.
Carla’s Chili
YIELD: Makes 4 to 6 servings
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large Italian frying pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1 large onion, chopped
1 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon crushed hot red pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste
One 28-ounce can diced tomatoes with their juice
One 14-ounce can large red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 cup beef broth
DIRECTIONS:
In a large skillet heat oil on medium-high heat; add pepper, jalapeno and onion; stirring often, cook until they start to soften. Add beef and breaking it up into little pieces with a wooden spoon, cook until it’s brown, about 3 to 5 minutes; add chili powder, cumin, hot pepper, and tomato paste; cook and stir about one minute. Add tomatoes, beans, salt, cayenneand broth, bring to a boil, then simmer 20 to 30 minutes. Serve piping hot with chopped scallions, sour cream, shredded manchego cheese and tortilla chips.
Bean and Escarole Soup
YIELD: Makes 6 servings.
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 head escarole, trimmed, washed and chopped
4 to 5 cups chicken broth
One 14-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Extra virgin olive oil
DIRECTIONS:
In large heavy pot, heat 1/4 cup olive oil over medium heat; add garlic and continue to cook until it releases its fragrance, 15 to 30 seconds. Immediately add escarole and cook until it wilts, about 2 minutes; add broth, beans and salt and pepper, cover and simmer until mixture is heated through, 5 to 10 minutes. Serve with grated cheese, extra virgin olive oil and crusty Italian bread.
Elisa Hendrey of Sound Beach snapped this photo in October at Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai. She writes, ‘Last days for kayaking at Mt. Sinai Harbor before the weather gets too cold. I was struck by the vibrant colors on this blue-skied early autumn day.’
David McCandlish, center, with postdoctoral researchers Anna Posfai and Juannan Zhou. Photo by Gina Motisi, 2020/ CSHL
By Daniel Dunaief
If cancer were simple, scientists would have solved the riddle and moved on to other challenges.
Often, each type of the disease involves a combination of changes that, taken together, not only lead to the progression of cancer, but also to the potential resistance to specific types of treatment.
Using math, David McCandlish, Assistant Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, is studying how the combination of various disruptions to the genome contribute to the development of cancer.
McCandlish recently published a study with colleagues at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
David McCandlish. Photo by Gina Motisi, 2020/CSHL
The research didn’t explore any single type of cancer, but, rather applied the method looking for patterns across a range of types of cancers. The notion of understanding the way these genetic alterations affect cancer is a “key motivating idea behind this work,” McCandlish said.
So far, the method has identified several candidates that need further work to confirm.
“Cancer would be a lot easier to treat if it was just one gene,” said Justin Kinney, Associate Professor at CSHL and a collaborator on the work. “It’s the combination that makes it so hard to understand.”
Ultimately, this kind of research could lead researchers and, eventually, health care professionals, to search for genetic biomarkers that indicate the likely effect of the cancer on the body. This disease playbook could help doctors anticipate and head off the next moves with various types of treatments.
“This could potentially lead to a more fundamental understanding of what makes cancer progress and that understanding would very likely open up new possibilities in cancer treatments,” Kinney said.
To be sure, at this point, the approach thus far informs basic research, which, in future years, could lead to clinical improvements.
“We are working on this method, which is very general and applicable to many different types of data,” McCandlish said. “Applications to making decisions about patients are really down the road.”
McCandlish described how he is trying to map out the space that cancer evolves in by understanding the shape of that space and integrating that with other information, such as drug susceptibility or survival time.
“We are trying to ask: how do these variables behave in different regions of this space of possibilities?” he said.
McCandlish is making this approach available to scientists in a range of fields, from those scientists interpreting and understanding the effects of mutations on the development of cancer to those researchers pursuing a more basic appreciation of how such changes affect the development and functioning of proteins.
“This is accessible to a wide array of biologists who are interested in genetics and, specifically in genetic interactions,” said McCandlish.
The main advance in this research is to take a framework called maximum entropy estimationand improve its flexibility by using math to capture more of the underlying biological principals at work. Maximum entropy estimation is based on the idea of inferring the most uniform distribution of behaviors or outcomes with the least information that’s compatible with specific aspects of experimental observations.
Using this philosophy, scientists can derive familiar probability distributions like the bell curve and the exponential distribution. By relaxing these estimates, scientists can infer more complicated shapes.
This more subtle approach enhances the predictive value, which captures the distributions of data better, McCandlish explained. “We’re trying to capture and model cancer progression in a new and more expressive way that we hope will be able to tell us more about the underlying biology.”
The idea for this paper started when McCandlish, Kinney andJason Sheltzer, a former fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and a current Assistant Professor of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine, discussed the possibilities after McCandlish attended a talk by Wei-Chia Chen, a post doctoral researcher in Kinney’s lab.
Chen will continue to pursue questions related to this effort when he starts a faculty position in the physics department at National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan this spring.
Chen will use artificial intelligence to handle higher dimensional data sets, which will allow him “to implement effective approximations” of the effect of specific combinations of genetic alterations, Kinney said.
Kinney believes teamwork made this new approach, which the high-impact, high-profile journal PNAS published, possible.
“This problem was an absolutely collaborative work that none of us individually could have done,” Kinney said. He described the work as having a “new exploratory impact” that provides a way of looking at the combination of genomic changes that “we haven’t had before.”
Working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which McCandlish has done since 2017, enables collaborations across different disciplines.
“We have this quantitative biology group, we also have people working on neuroscience, cancer, and plant biology,” McCandlish added.
McCandlish is also currently also working with Professor Zachary Lippman and his graduate student Lyndsey Aguirre to understand how multiple mutations interact to influence how the fruit on tomato plants develop.
“The idea is that there are these huge spaces of genetic possibilities where you can combine different mutations in different ways,” McCandlish explained. “We want to find those key places in that space where there’s a tipping point or a fork in the road. We want to be able to identify those places to follow up or to ask what’s special about this set of mutations that makes it such a critical decision point.”
A native of Highland Park, New Jersey, McCandlish was interested in math and science during his formative years.
As for the work, McCandlish appreciates how it developed from the way these collative researchers interacted.
“This would never have happened if we weren’t going to each other’s talks,” he said.
Downtown Port Jefferson flooded during Superstorm Sandy. File photo
By Daniel Dunaief
Daniel Dunaief
Nine years ago, Superstorm Sandy came roaring through the area, causing flooding, knocking out power and disrupting work and school.
All these years later, New York is not prepared for other significant storms, despite studies suggesting that future, slow moving hurricanes with heavy rain could overwhelm infrastructure in and around Long Island.
“While we have dithered, New Orleans, Houston and other U.S. cities have gained federal support for regional protection strategies — which will be funded with our tax dollars,” according to an information packet created by the New York New Jersey Storm Surge Working Group. “We can’t waste another decade pursuing local responses to regional threats.”
In a ninth anniversary boat tour designed to address the challenges from a future Sandy or even a Hurricane Ida, the working group, which is chaired by School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University Malcolm Bowman, outlined four messages.
First, the group suggested that coastal flooding presented a significant danger. Storm surge, sea level rise and storm water from extreme rain present an “existential threat” to the area.
Second, the group concluded that coastal flooding is a regional challenge that requires a regional solution. These scientists urge the two middle Atlantic states to consider creating a layered defense system, which they argue would be cost effective to protect property and the environment.
Third, and perhaps most damaging, the group concludes that the area is as vulnerable now as it was nine years ago in the days before Hurricane Sandy arrived. The group wrote that “no regional costal resilience plan” is in place to protect over 1,000 miles of the New York and New Jersey metropolitan coastline.
Fourth, the changing political climate presents an opportunity to do something. The group highlighted how a new governor of New York, the start of a new term or releected governor in New Jersey, a new mayor of New York City and the restarting of the $20 million New York and New Jersey Harbor and Tributaries Focus Area Feasibility Study, or HATS, presents a “once in a lifetime opportunity to act now to address the existential threat of costal flooding with a regional coastline resilience system that meets our social justice, environmental justice, quality of life and economic development goals.”
Bowman urged New York and New Jersey residents to consider the progress other states and countries have made.
“Houston is going ahead,” Bowman said, even while New York hasn’t taken any significant steps.
Bowman said part of the challenge in creating any change that protects the area comes from the lack of any enduring focus on a vulnerability that isn’t evident to residents on a daily basis.
“People have short memories,” Bowman said. “It’s not on their minds” even if they endured the disruption and devastation from storms like Sandy and Ida.
Necessity and the lack of deep pockets in other countries is the mother of invention.
“A lot of countries can’t afford” to rebuild the way New York and New Jersey did after Hurricane Sandy,” Bowman said. “They are forced to be more careful.”
Bowman said any major project to protect the area needs a hero who can tackle the details, navigate through the politics and execute on viable ideas.
The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan had “that kind of charisma,” Bowman said. “We need somebody who everybody sees as the hero. I don’t see that person” at this point.
For New York and New Jersey, the longer time passes without any protective measures, “the more the danger will increase,” Bowman cautioned.
Elections have ended and the newly elected and reelected officials are going to have to cope with a disturbing fact: people don’t trust government. This change in attitude has been a long time coming. It didn’t just happen suddenly. I know, I have lived through the change.
Trust started to fall apart with the Vietnam War. Maybe it even started earlier than that, with the assassination of President Kennedy.I was in my early 20s then, just graduated from college, newly married, in my dream job, looking forward to an unbounded future filled with joyful events. The nation was at peace, there was a young and vigorous president talking about making life better with civil rights legislation, women were speaking up for themselves, it was a hopeful time.
Friday afternoon, a sunny day, business lunch in a midtown Manhattan restaurant with a television on over the bar in the distance, a movie playing about a president who had been shot in the head. But wait. Wait! It wasn’t a movie, it was a news broadcast from Dallas interrupting the regular programming, it was our president, everyone standing up, crying, paying their checks, rushing back to their offices, trying to deal with the unthinkable.
How could this happen? How could Secret Service let this happen? In our country! A president, the President of the United States, could not be protected! Our bubble of safety was bursting, slowly, excruciatingly. Lee Harvey Oswald shot on television while under arrest. In what could you trust?
Who killed Kennedy? All kinds of conspiracy theories, the Warren Commission, an end but never a certainty. Was the government lying to us? Was there a cover-up?
Next came the Vietnam War. First only “advisors,” then military, then body counts, always more Viet Cong than Americans lay on the battlefields. Promises of progress and victory by the government, as casualties and numbers drafted rose. This even as Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara privately expressed doubts of victory as early as 1966. But President Johnson was afraid of losing the 1968 election should the United States withdraw. Instead we lost thousands of young men, all of which eventually was revealed to the public. Protests were the order of the day, and more violence, including the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy and the chaos at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. What’s happening to the nation’s authority figures?
We rolled right into Watergate and Nixon’s resignation. Our President accused of being a liar and a crook. What’s left to believe in? President Jimmy Carter held hostage by the Iranians, the Iran-Contra deception of Ronald Reagan’s second term, Bill Clinton making Monica Lewinsky a household name around the globe. Then the Weapons of Mass Destruction lies by the senior administration officials manipulating us into the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Whom to believe?
Whom to trust? Each lie, each governmental deception blew away more trust, leading to the climax: the disbelief in the COVID-19 vaccine. Even when ex-President Donald Trump urged his audience to get vaccinated on Aug. 21, in Cullman, Alabama, one of the areas struggling to cope with COVID cases and hospitalization, he was booed. “But I recommend take the vaccines,” Trump said. “I did it. It’s good. Take the vaccines.” After that experience, he hasn’t again mentioned vaccination at a rally. But the reaction wasn’t partisan. They were, like Trump, all Republicans who had come to hear him, It was symptomatic of the larger distrust in government.
I was in my early teens when I received the polio vaccination. Polio was a dreaded disease by parents the world over, more so as I remember, than COVID-19. Like today, we were discouraged from assembling in groups or joining crowds. The virus attacks the brain and spinal cord, leaving paralysis and even causing death. When Jonas Salk and his colleagues created the vaccine, we all lined up to take the shot. It was the Eisenhower years. We believed our president.
Those vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world. That’s what approved vaccinations can do.
Build a risk-reduction arsenal with healthy food options
By David Dunaief, M.D.
Dr. David Dunaief
Happy “Movember!” In 2003, The Movember Foundation was founded in Australia to raise awareness and research money for men’s health issues (1). Its mission is to reduce the number of men dying prematurely 25 percent by 2030. From its modest beginnings with 30 participants, The Movember Foundation has expanded to 20 countries, more than six million participants, and funded over 1250 men’s health projects focused on mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer, and testicular canc
Movember Foundation’s prostate cancer initiatives focus on early detection, treatment options, and quality of life considerations for different treatments. Here, I’d like to add prevention options to the conversation.
The best way to avoid prostate cancer is with some simple lifestyle modifications. There are a host of things that may increase your risk and others that may decrease your likelihood of prostate cancer, regardless of family history.
What may increase the risk of prostate cancer? Contributing factors include obesity, animal fat and supplements, such as vitamin E and selenium. Equally as important, factors that may reduce risk include vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables, and tomato sauce or cooked tomatoes.
Vitamin E and selenium –not the right choice
In the SELECT trial, a randomized clinical trial (RCT), a dose of 400 mg of vitamin E actually increased the risk of prostate cancer by 17 percent (2). Though significant, this is not a tremendous clinical effect. It does show that vitamin E should not be used for prevention of prostate cancer. Interestingly, in this study, selenium may have helped to reduce the mortality risk in the selenium plus vitamin E arm, but selenium trended toward a slight increased risk when taken alone. I would not recommend that men take selenium or vitamin E for prevention.
Manage your weight
Obesity showed conflicting results, prompting the study authors to analyze the results further. Ac-cording to a review of the literature, obesity may slightly decrease the risk of nonaggressive prostate cancer, however increase risk of aggressive disease (3). The authors attribute the lower incidence of nonaggressive prostate cancer to the possibility that it is more difficult to detect the disease in obese men, since larger prostates make biopsies less effective. What the results tell us is that those who are obese have a greater risk of dying from prostate cancer when it is diagnosed.
Lose or lower your animal fatand meat intake
There appears to be a direct effect between the amount of animal fat we consume and incidence of prostate cancer. In the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a large observational study, those who consumed the highest amount of animal fat had a 63 percent increased risk, compared to those who consumed the least (4).
Here is the kicker: It was not just the percent increase that was important, but the fact that it was an increase in advanced or metastatic prostate cancer. Also, in this study, red meat had an even greater, approximately 2.5-fold, increased risk of advanced disease. If you continue to eat red meat, reduce your frequency as much as possible, targeting once a month or quarter.
In another large, prospective observational study, the authors concluded that red and processed meats increase the risk of advanced prostate cancer through heme iron, barbecuing/grilling and nitrate/nitrite content (5).
I hope you love cooked tomatoes!
Tomato sauce has been shown to potentially reduce the risk of prostate cancer. However, uncooked tomatoes have not shown the same beneficial effects. It is believed that lycopene, which is a type of carotenoid found in tomatoes, is central to this benefit. Tomatoes need to be cooked to release lycopene (6).
In a prospective study involving 47,365 men who were followed for 12 years, the risk of prostate cancer was reduced by 16 percent with higher lycopene intake from a variety of sources (7). When the authors looked at tomato sauce alone, they saw a reduction in risk of 23 percent when comparing those who consumed at least two servings a week to those who consumed less than one serving a month. The reduction in severe, or metastatic, prostate cancer risk was even greater, at 35 per-cent. There was a statistically significant reduction in risk with a very modest amount of tomato sauce.
In the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, the results were similar, with a 21 percent reduction in the risk of prostate cancer (8). Again, tomato sauce was the predominant food responsible for this effect.
Although tomato sauce may be beneficial, many brands are loaded with salt, which creates its own bevy of health risks. I recommend to patients that they either make their own sauce or purchase prepared sauce made without salt.
Eat your (cruciferous) veggies
While results among studies vary, they all agree: consumption of vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables, are beneficial to prostate cancer outcomes.
In a case-control study, participants who consumed at least three servings of cruciferous vegetables per week, versus those who consumed less than one per week, saw a 41 percent reduction in prostate cancer risk (9). What’s even more impressive is the effect was twice that of tomato sauce, yet the intake was similarly modest. Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, kale and arugula, to name a few.
A separate study of 1338 patients with prostate cancer in a larger cancer screening trial concluded that, while vegetable and fruit consumption did not appear to lower outright prostate cancer risk, increased consumption of cruciferous vegetables – specifically broccoli and cauliflower – did reduce the risk of aggressive prostate cancer, particularly of more serious stage 3 and 4 tumors (10). These results were seen with consumption of just one or more servings of each per week, when com-pared to less than one per month.
When it comes to preventing prostate cancer, lifestyle modification, including making dietary changes, can reduce your risk significantly.
References:
(1) www.movember.com. (2) JAMA. 2011; 306: 1549-1556. (3) Epidemiol Rev. 2007;29:88. (4) J Natl Cancer Inst. 1993;85(19):1571. (5) Am J Epidemiol. 2009;170(9):1165. (6) Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2002; 227:914-919. (7) J Natl Cancer Inst. 2002;94(5):391. (8) Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2002; 227:852-859; Int. J. Cancer. 2007;121: 1571–1578. (9) J Natl Cancer Inst. 2000;92(1):61. (10) J Natl Cancer Inst. 2007;99(15):1200-1209.
Dr. David Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com.
Most people enjoy rum in tropical drinks during warm weather while lounging poolside with a bowl of tortilla chips, salsa, and guacamole.
I enjoy “sipping rums,” those dark (mostly), limited production rums, often aged many years in oak barrels. These rums are often the premium, “top-of-the-line” products a distillery makes. Like a well-aged Scotch or Cognac, they are often served in a brandy glass, lightly chilled after dinner.
These rums are generally not used in cocktails because of their complex and full flavors, high price, and limited availability. Sipping rums may or may not have an age statement on the label.
Below are some of my favorite sipping rums, which hopefully will become your favorites too!
Appleton Reserve Blend, Jamaica: Amber-colored; bouquet of molasses, nuts, oil of bergamot, and burnt butter; quite dry with some burnt bitterness present; nuts, clove, allspice, and mace.
Bacardi “Reserva Limitada,” Puerto Rico: Aged in used Bourbon barrels. Amber-colored; bouquet of tobacco, citrus, honey, vanilla, and maple. In the mouth there is a certain sweetness, full sugar and medium-bodied, with a lingering aftertaste.
Brugal “Extra Viejo” Dominican Republic: Aged in used Bourbon barrels. Amber colored; muted nose with hints of citrus and molasses. Flavors of lime, grass, cinnamon, and molasses. It has a certain brandy taste: a very complex rum.
Diplomatico 12-Year-Old Exclusiva Reserve, Venezuela: Aged in used PX sherry barrels. Amber-colored; nose of citrus, toast, prunes, toffee, orange zest, and nuts; rich flavors of jasmine, toffee, and orange.
Don Q “Gran Añejo” Puerto Rico: Aged in used Sherry barrels. Amber color; closed nose with suggestions of citrus and grass; flavors of toast, vanilla, burnt sugar, cinnamon, banana, and butterscotch.
El Dorado “8” Demerara, Guyana: Amber-colored; nose of allspice, other spices, black pepper, caramel, and toasted marshmallow; the rum explodes in the mouth with nuts, sugarcane, and oranges; medium-body with additional flavors of dates and prunes.
Pyrat XO Reserve, Anguilla: Amber-colored; considerable orange peel, lemon, and lime peel; smells like an orange liqueur; syrupy in the mouth with hints of nutmeg and burnt orange peel.
Ron Abuelo 12 Year, Panama: Amber-colored; complex nose of caramel, molasses, nuts, and toasted oak; quite fruity in the mouth with hints of tobacco, toasted nuts, orange, honey, molasses, and dark cherries.
Ron Zacapa 23 Centenario, Guatemala: Dark mahogany, vanilla, almond, butterscotch, chocolate, and toasted wood with hints of spice.
Vizcaya VXOP “Cask 21” Dominican Republic: Spicy nose (cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, ginger) with flavors of honey, caramel, nuts, and vanilla.
Bob Lipinski is the author of 10 books, including “101: Everything You Need To Know About Whiskey” and “Italian Wine & Cheese Made Simple” (available on Amazon.com). He consults and conducts training seminars on Wine, Spirits, and Food and is available for speaking engagements. He can be reached at www.boblipinski.com OR [email protected].
If you travel around this nation of ours, it becomes obvious that every region has its own variation of what we provincially think of as indigenous to our own region. Case in point: chowder. Here in the Northeast we’re particularly partial to clam chowder, and even that is subdivided into versions particular to some states. Travel a little bit south and you’ll find, not surprisingly, Maryland crab chowder, travel further south for Cajun shrimp chowder and go to the Pacific Northwest for salmon chowder.
Having noted the differences, however, let’s now observe that all of them, no matter their provenance, rely on the same supporting casts of diced veggies, broth, corn and/or cream, and then add a few ingredients that put the region’s stamp on their flavor.
Maryland Crab Chowder
YIELD: Makes 8 first course servings or 4 main course servings.
INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 to 4 carrots, peeled and diced
1 large Yukon Gold potato, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 celery rib, sliced thin
1/2 pound string beans, trimmed and sliced into 1” pieces
Kernels from 2 ears freshly picked and shucked corn
1 cup frozen lima beans
1 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons Old Bay Seasoning
Large pinch dried hot red pepper flakes
One 28-ounce can San Marzano tomatoes, diced
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS:
In a large pot, warm oil over medium-high heat; add carrots potato, onion and celery and, stirring frequently, cook 3 to 5 minutes until onions turn opaque and veggies start to brown. Add 6 cups water, string beans, corn, lima beans, peas, Worcestershire sauce, Old Bay Seasoning, red pepper flakes and tomatoes with their juice.
Over high heat, bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, over medium low heat 30 minutes, until veggies are tender; add crabmeat, stir, cover and continue to simmer about 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot with oyster crackers.
Southern Shrimp Chowder
YIELD: Makes 6 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
6 slices bacon, cooked and diced (fat reserved)
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons flour
1 pound potatoes, peeled and diced
4 cups chicken broth
4 sprigs fresh thyme
3 scallions, cleaned and sliced
3 cups fresh corn kernels
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
DIRECTIONS:
Toss shrimp with Cajun, salt and pepper seasoning to thoroughly coat. Reheat bacon fat and add shrimp; cook over medium heat until they turn pink, about 2 minutes per side; remove and set aside. Drain bacon fat, and discard; then add butter and melt it; add onion and cook until opaque, about 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and flour and cook half a minute more. Add potatoes, broth, thyme and scallions and bring to a boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer till potatoes are cooked, about 10 minutes. Stir in corn and cream and simmer 5 minutes; remove from heat and stir in shrimp, bacon, scallion and cayenne. Serve with biscuits or corn bread.
Pacific Northwest Salmon Chowder
YIELD: Makes 6 servings
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 pound bacon, cut crosswise into 1/2” strips
2 bunches scallions, cleaned and sliced
1 cup fresh corn kernels
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
3 cups milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 pound potatoes, peeled, diced and cooked
1 1/2 pounds fresh salmon, skin removed, then cut into 1’ pieces
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
DIRECTIONS:
In large heavy pot, cook bacon over medium heat, then drain; reserve two tablespoons of fat. Set bacon aside; add scallions, corn, garlic, thyme, bay leaf and hot pepper flakes to bacon fat and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium-low heat until scallions are tender but still bright green, about 5 minutes. Add milk and cream and bring just to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low and add potatoes, salmon, bacon, salt and pepper; cook, stirring frequently, until salmon is cooked through, about 6 to 7 minutes. Stir in lemon juice, remove and discard bay leaf and serve hot with toasted sourdough bread.
In last month’s column, we talked about the importance of keeping an eye on the news regarding real estate trends. I mentioned Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen appeared before a Senate panel on Sept. 28 to testify in a hearing about economic recovery.
Fortunately, the Senate passed a temporary extension of the debt ceiling, which allows the government enough funding until December.
Aftereffects
Decisions like this affect the housing market. When the debt ceiling isn’t raised, interest rates and mortgage rates rise, which influences mortgage rates and in turn new homebuyers and sellers.
There has been a slight increase in mortgage rates. According to Freddie Mac, early in October rates passed 3%. What experts do is watch the U.S Treasury yield when they predict mortgage rates because there is a strong correlation between the yield and the 30-year mortgage rate.
Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac, said, “We expect mortgage rates to continue to rise modestly which will likely have an impact on home prices, causing them to moderate slightly after increasing over the last year.”
Trends
Homeowners for months have enjoyed an attractive year-to-year home price appreciation due to not enough homes on the market. Findings from sources such as FHFA, CoreLogic and S&P/Case Shiller back this up.
Bill McBride, who writes the blog Calculated Risk, said recently that his “sense is the Case Shiller National Annual Growth Rate of 19.7 percent is probably close to a peak. And year-over-year price increases will slow later this year.”
When mortgage rates rise, we usually see changes such as house prices and the length of time it takes a home to sell. Trends are showing the market will slow down slightly in the final quarter of the year.
Analyst expert Ivy Zelman has said that “closings are set to decline roughly 10 percent year over year in the second half of 2021 and home price appreciation is on the cusp of flipping to a decelerating trend.”
What we as real estate experts are talking about is not depreciation. Decelerating at this time means increased home price appreciation at a slower or more moderate rate. This moderate rate, experts believe, will continue into the next year.
Takeaway
We’re seeing this trend around the country. If you’re planning on moving or downsizing to an area that was once considered in demand, make sure to talk to a real estate agent in the town you’re planning to move to, and they can tell you what the current trends are in their market.
The time is now while the housing market is still up. While things are trending slightly to higher interest rates, prices are really good, and the housing market is changing at a moderate pace. Now is the time to get the most for your investment or lock in a fantastic mortgage rate. So … let’s talk.
Michael Ardolino is the Founder/Owner-Broker of Realty Connect USA.
The campfire has gone super suburban and morphed into a new phenomenon, the fire pit. Here in the burbs, most likely prompted by COVID and the need and desire for outdoor dining, it’s become a popular entertaining and dinner venue.
Prev
