SUSHI FOR LUNCH
Bruce Adams of Northport captured this incredible shot of a bald eagle carrying lunch back to his family in the Town of Huntington on May 10. He writes, ‘Papa Eagle delivers a juicy eel for his two Eaglets and Mama Eagle.’
Send your Photo of the Week to [email protected].
According to what I recently read, over half of the high schools in the United States are doing away with recognition of the highest achieving students. They are no longer naming valedictorians and salutatorians at graduation. I find that shocking.
No, I was neither valedictorian nor salutatorian at my high school graduation, so that is not the cause of my
disappointment at this latest piece of participation trophy news. No one is hurt if there is no “best.” Everyone feels good about himself or herself, and there certainly isn’t any unhealthy competition, right? Everyone gets the same diploma. Everyone is equal.
How idiotic! Everyone is not equal just because everyone showed up. Some put more effort into the learning process than others. Perhaps some were not as gifted as others but had a greater drive to learn and to excel. Shouldn’t those top students be rewarded with the recognition they deserve? Shouldn’t they be regarded as role models? They will often go on to be the leaders of our country at the end of the day.
Class ranking is also being abandoned. This is just another example of dumbing down America. In our vast and rich continent, our most valuable resources are the education and knowledge, along with the drive and motivation of our population. When we declare that all men (insert “persons”) are created equal, we mean we have equal rights to excel and should be given every opportunity and encouragement to do so.
I did graduate from a highly competitive high school. I had to pass a test to get in, and I had to pass innumerable tests over the years to stay in. We all moaned about how competitive the school was. Our final grades were posted on the main hallway walls at the end of each semester, along with our rank in our class. “So terrible,” we said, “so unhealthy.” But you know what? I worked harder, studied longer, learned more, because I wanted to see my name higher up on those lists.
Englishman Roger Bannister didn’t break the 4-minute mile alone in 1954 at an Oxford University track. He did it because there were two other runners in the race, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, who challenged him for the lead. The competition spurred Bannister to give his best and then some. And when he did break the long-standing barrier, the magic 4-minute figure, he thanked his pacemakers, Chataway and Brasher.
Some disagree that winning a prize or trophy of some sort is what we should be encouraging. They say instead we should inspire an internal desire for learning and self-betterment. But if both work together, an external reward system and an internal drive, we have the best combination for success. Take away the external and the fizz goes out of the drink.
We can teach students how to make competition work for them, rather than tell students that competition is bad. Competitors make worthy colleagues. Sometimes they make best friends.
Part of what we supposedly teach in schools is preparation for what we call “the real world.” Now everything about our world is competitive: What school we get into, which college we attend, what job we will be able to beat out the competition for, which of us will get promoted, get pay raises, even who we will marry. Heck, will the hometown team win the ballgame tonight?
Now some people refuse to play the competitive game, and that’s all right too. They get jobs that pay them enough to get by, they don’t aspire to the conspicuous consumption of much of our society, and they live solid lives with perhaps relatively less stress. Not everyone wants to be a record-breaking athlete. Just getting by is enough. They have the right to the pursuit of happiness according to their own wishes. But sooner or later they have to compete for something — or someone. It is the way of the world, and it is a skill that can be learned without damaging our students. The consolation to not being the best is that everyone is special in some way, not that everyone is equal because they all showed up.
From the time we’re teenagers, we’re taught to control our emotions. As we get older, people tell us not to make emotional decisions.
We see our emotions, particularly the ones in the moment, as being at odds with the rational decision-making side of our thought processes.
We roll our eyes and shake our heads when a teenager makes decisions or declarations that seem driven more by the hormones surging through their growing bodies than by the intellect we hope they’ve developed.
And yet, every so often, we and our teenagers take those raw emotions out for a few hours or even days.
This past weekend, my wife and I did our periodic Texas two-step, where she brought our son to his baseball game in one state and I drove hundreds of miles to our daughter’s volleyball tournament in another.
The journey involves considerable effort, finding food that doesn’t upset allergies or sensitive stomachs at a time when indigestion or a poorly timed pit stop could derail the day.
The games themselves are filled with a wide range of emotions, as a player’s confidence and ability can rise and fall quickly from one point to the next, with slumping shoulders quickly replaced by ecstatic high fives.
In the stands and outside the lines, the emotional echoes continue to reverberate.
One girl sat next to her father, sobbing uncontrollably with her ankle high on the chair in front of her. Her father put his arm around her shoulders and spoke quiet, encouraging words into her ear. Her coach came over, in front of a stand filled with strangers, and said the girl would be able to play the next day as soon as the swelling in her ankle went down — the coach didn’t want to risk further injury. The girl nodded that she heard her coach, but couldn’t stop the torrent of tears.
Not far from her, a mother seethed as her daughter missed a shot. The mother was angry, defensive and, eventually, apologetic to the parents of the other players for her daughter’s performance. Other parents assured her that it was fine and that everyone could see her daughter was trying her best.
Another parent hooted and hollered, clapping long after the point ended, as her daughter rose above her diminutive frame to hit the ball around a group of much taller girls.
Many of the emotional moments included unbridled joy, as a group of girls continued to embrace each other after winning a tough match, replaying point after point and laughing about the time the ball hit them in the head or they collided with a teammate on the floor.
What will they remember next week, next month or in 20 years? Will it be satisfying when they find a picture of a younger version of themselves, beaming from ear to ear with girls they may not have seen for many years?
Even if they do think about one particular point or a strategic decision that paid off in a game against talented competition, they will also remember where and how they expressed those raw, dramatic emotions.
While feelings can get in the way of whatever grand plan we’re executing in our head, holding us back from
taking a risk or preventing us from showing how much we care, they can and do enhance the way we experience our lives. Despite all the work driving behind slow-moving vehicles which take wide right turns and encourage you to call a number to let someone know how they’re driving, the effort — even when the event doesn’t turn out as well as we might hope — is well worth the opportunity to drop the mask and indulge those emotions.
By Daniel Dunaief
Picture a chalkboard filled with information. It could include everything from the basics — our names and phone numbers, to memories of a hike along the Appalachian Trail, to what we thought the first time we saw our spouse.
Diseases like Alzheimer’s act like erasers, slowly moving around the chalkboard, sometimes leaving traces of the original memories, while other times removing them almost completely. What if the images, lines and words from the chalk could somehow be restored?
Ya Wang, a mechanical engineering assistant professor at Stony Brook University, is working on a process that can regenerate neurons, which could help with a range of degenerative diseases. She is hoping to develop therapies that might restore neurons by using incredibly small magnetic nanoparticles.
Wang recently received the National Science Foundation Career Award, which is a prestigious prize given to faculty in the early stages of their careers. The award lasts for five years and includes a $500,000 grant.
Wang would like to understand the way small particles can stimulate the brain to rebuild neurons. The award is based on “years of effort,” she said. “I’m happy but not surprised” with the investment in work she believes can help people with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
“All neuron degeneration diseases will benefit from this study,” Wang said. “We have a large population in New York alone with patients with neuron degeneration diseases.” She hopes the grant will help trigger advancements in medicine and tissue engineering.
Wang’s “work on modeling the dynamic behavior of magnetic nanoparticles within the brain microenvironment would lay the foundation for quantifying the neuron regeneration process,” Jeff Ge, the chairman and professor of mechanical engineering, said in a statement.
Wang said she understands the way neurodegenerative diseases affect people. She has watched her father, who lives in China, manage through Parkinson’s disease for 15 years.
Ge suggested that this approach has real therapeutic potential. “This opens up the exciting new possibility for the development of a new microchip for brain research,” he said.
At this point, Wang has been able to demonstrate the feasibility of neuron regeneration with individual nerve cells. The next step after that would be to work on animal models and, eventually, in a human clinical trial.
That last step is a “long way” off, Wang suggested, as she and others will need to make significant advancements to take this potential therapeutic breakthrough from the cell stage to the clinic.
She is working with a form of coated iron oxide that is small enough to pass through the incredibly fine protective area of the blood/brain barrier. Without a coating, the iron oxide can be toxic, but with that protective surface, it is “more biofriendly,” she said.
The size of the particles are about 20 nanometers. By contrast, a human hair is 80,000 nanometers thick. These particles use mechanical forces that act on neurons to promote the growth or elongation of axons.
As a part of the NSF award, Wang will have the opportunity to apply some of the funds toward education. She has enjoyed being a mentor to high school students, some of whom have been Siemens Foundation semifinalists. Indeed, her former students have gone on to attend college at Stanford, Harvard and Cal Tech. “I was very happy advising them,” she said. “High school kids are extremely interested in the topic.”
A few months before she scored her NSF award, Wang also won an Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy award for $1 million from the Department of Energy. In this area, Wang also plans to build on earlier work, developing a smart heating and cooling system that enables a system to direct climate control efforts directly at the occupant or occupants in the room.
Extending on that work, Wang, who will collaborate in this effort with Jon Longtin in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at SBU and Tom Butcher and Rebecca Trojanowski at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is addressing the problem in which the system no longer registers the presence of a person in the room.
Wang has “developed an innovation modification to a simple, inexpensive time-honored position sensor, but that suffers from requiring that something be moving in order to detect motion,” Longtin explained in an email. The sensors can’t detect a person that is not moving. The challenge, Longtin continued, is in fooling the sensor into thinking something is there in motion to keep it active.
Wang described a situation in which a hotel had connected an occupant-detecting system to its HVAC system. When a person fell asleep in the room, however, the air conditioning turned off automatically. On a hot summer night, the person was frustrated. She put colored paper and a fan in front of the sensor, which kept the cool air from turning off.
Instead of using a fan and colored paper, the new system Wang is developing cuts the flow of heat to the sensor, which enhances its ability to recognize stationary or moving people.
Wang and her colleagues will use low-power liquid crystal technology with no moving parts. “The sensor detects you because you are a human with heat,” she said. “Even though you are not moving, the amount of heat is changing.”
The sensor will be different in various locations. People in Houston will have different temperature conditions than those in Wisconsin. Using a machine-learning algorithm, Wang said she can pre-train the system to respond to different people and different conditions.
She has developed a smart phone app so that the house can react to the different temperature preferences of a husband and wife. People can also choose night or day modes.
Wang also plans to work on a system that is akin to the way cars have different temperature zones, allowing one side of the car to be hotter than the other. She intends to develop a similar design for each room.
By Elof Axel Carlson
It is impossible to know ourselves in all the aspects of our lives that we can examine. But we can know a lot about ourselves through science.
I will start at the level most of us operate in — the macroscopic world in which we see ourselves as a person. I see myself as an old person, almost 85 years old. I see myself as a male, a husband, a father (three out of six of our children still living). I also see myself functionally — I am a scientist, a geneticist and historian of science.
I have 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. I am an American, born and mostly raised in Brooklyn. I did my undergraduate work at NYU. I got my doctorate at Indiana University with Nobel laureate H. J. Muller. I presently live in Bloomington, Indiana. I have sailed around the world twice teaching on board Semester at Sea. I have had 12 books published. I loved teaching and doing research at Queen’s University in Canada, at UCLA and at Stony Brook University.
Biologically I have some knowledge of much of my gross anatomy and as a biologist I have some familiarity with my organ systems and how they work. I have observed some of my cells under a microscope when I took a course on histology at NYU as an undergraduate and I prepared slides of my blood. I have seen my 46 chromosomes when I had my karyotype taken some 50 years ago at UCLA. I have not yet had any of my 20,000 genes sequenced.
But even if I had my entire genome sequenced, I know that no one reading those sequences would be able to infer my life described in the first three paragraphs of this essay because our social traits are largely acquired by where we grow up, the circumstances of our lives in the generation in which we are born and a good measure of luck.
It was luck that gave me an opportunity to read classical literature aloud for five years to a blind teacher in my high school. It was luck that made me meet the person to whom I am now married, and Nedra and I have had 58 wonderful years together.
I am part cyborg with eye glasses (for reading), cataract-free plastic lenses in my eyeballs, six implants in my jaws and two hearing aids. I have the benefit of an altered immune system created by vaccinations that have spared me from diphtheria, typhoid fever, smallpox, pneumonia and many varieties of influenza. I’ve lived through measles, mumps and chicken pox without bad outcomes. When traveling around the world, I prevented malaria by taking daily Atabrine pills. I would probably have died 10 years ago had there not been statins to regulate my cholesterol metabolism.
I know how I am connected in many ways. My biological ancestors are Swedish on my father’s side and Ashkenazic Ukraine on my mother’s side. My intellectual pedigree through Muller I have traced to Darwin, Newton and Galileo. It made me aware of how few compose the world of scholars in the immense diversity of humanity.
I owe to many books aspects of my personality, values and goals in life. From Goethe, I have a Faustian personality and try not to repeat my activities each year. From Montaigne I learned to write personal essays. From Samuel Pepys I learned to keep a diary (over 100 volumes and still going). From Freud I learned to sublimate my discontents into works that enrich civilization. From Darwin I learned how all of life is connected and can be related to the past through his theory of evolution by natural selection.
From Socrates I learned the importance of trying his credo, “Know thyself.” From Job I learned the inscrutability of fate and how limited is our control over our lives. From Kant I learned that ethics and moral behavior can be constructed from reason. From Epicurus and Epictetus I learned that one of the great benefits of life is choosing well and using, as best we can, what talents we have within the limits imposed by society’s circumstances.
I think of myself as composed of layers of units. I am a unique organism. I have numerous organs that compose my physical being. I am composed of several trillion cells.
The gene activity in my body and mind are in constant associations with past, present and anticipated activities of cells, some switched on, others off, and at different times and in different places in my body. It is a biological symphony of which I am mostly unaware.
My cells have organelles that are also working on and off to make molecules, digest molecules and recycle molecules. My organelles are composed of macromolecules whose organization and function have been worked out mostly since I was born. I know nothing of my life at the level of individual atoms save for those that are passing through membranes and ion channels or transported by proteins in my cells.
I also know an important lesson of life. There is an enormous amount we do not know and humility alone should restrain us from acting as if we have certainty on our side, especially if our beliefs lead to intentional or unintentional bad consequences. Know thyself may and does celebrate life but it can also be taken as a warning.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
By David Dunaief, M.D.
A TIA (transient ischemic attack) is sometimes referred to as a ministroke. This is a disservice since it makes a TIA sound like something that should be taken lightly. Ischemia is reduced or blocked blood flow to the tissue, due to a clot or narrowing of the arteries. Symptoms may last less than five minutes. However, a TIA is a warning shot across the bow that needs to be taken very seriously on its own merit. It may portend life-threatening or debilitating complications that can be prevented with a combination of medications and lifestyle modifications.
Is TIA common?
It is diagnosed in anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 Americans each year (1). The operative word is “diagnosed,” because it is considered to be significantly underdiagnosed. I have helped manage patients with symptoms as understated as the onset of double vision. Other symptoms may include facial or limb weakness on one side, slurred speech or problems comprehending others, dizziness or difficulty balancing or blindness in one or both eyes (2). TIA incidence increases with age (3).
What is a TIA?
The definition has changed over time from one purely based on time (less than one hour), to differentiate it from a stroke, to one that is tissue based. It is a brief episode of neurological dysfunction caused by focal brain ischemia or retinal ischemia (low blood flow in the back of the eye) without evidence of acute infarction (tissue death) (4). In other words, TIA has a rapid onset with potential to cause temporary muscle weakness, creating difficulty in activities such as walking, speaking and swallowing, as well as dizziness and double vision.
Why take a TIA seriously if its debilitating effects are temporary?
Though they are temporary, TIAs have potential complications, from increased risk of stroke to heightened depressive risk to even death. Despite the seriousness of TIAs, patients or caregivers often delay receiving treatment.
Stroke risk
After a TIA, stroke risk goes up dramatically. Even within the first 24 hours, stroke risk can be 5 percent (5). According to one study, the incidence of stroke is 11 percent after seven days, which means that almost one in 10 people will experience a stroke after a TIA (6). Even worse, over the long term, the probability that a patient will experience a stroke reaches approximately 30 percent, one in three, after five years (7).
To go even further, there was a study that looked at the immediacy of treatment. The EXPRESS study, a population-based study that considered the effect of urgent treatment of TIA and minor stroke on recurrent stroke, evaluated 1,287 patients, comparing their initial treatment times after experiencing a TIA or minor stroke and their subsequent outcomes (8).
The Phase 1 cohort was assessed within a median of three days of symptoms and received a first prescription within 20 days. In Phase 2, median delays for assessment and first prescription were less than one day. All patients were followed for two years after treatment. Phase 2 patients had significantly improved outcomes over the Phase 1 patients. Ninety-day stroke risk was reduced from 10 to 2 percent, an 80 percent improvement.
The study’s authors advocate for the creation of TIA clinics that are equipped to diagnose and treat TIA patients to increase the likelihood of early evaluation and treatment and decrease the likelihood of a stroke within 90 days. The moral of the story is: Treat a TIA as a stroke should be treated, the faster the diagnosis and treatment, the lower the likelihood of sequela, or complications.
Predicting the risk of stroke complications
Both DWI (diffusion weighted imaging) and ABCD2 are potentially valuable predictors of stroke after TIA. The ABCD2 is a clinical tool used by physicians. ABCD2 stands for Age, Blood pressure, Clinical features and Diabetes, and it uses a scoring system from 0 to 7 to predict the risk of a stroke within the first two days of a TIA (9).
Heart attack
In one epidemiological study, the incidence of a heart attack after a TIA increased by 200 percent (10). These were patients without known heart disease. Interestingly, the risk of heart attacks was much higher in those over 60 years of age and continued for years after the event. Just because you may not have had a heart attack within three months after a TIA, this is an insidious effect; the average time frame for patients was five years from TIA to heart attack. Even patients taking statins to lower cholesterol were at higher risk of heart attack after a TIA.
Mortality
If stroke and heart attack were not enough, TIAs decrease overall survival by 4 percent after one year, by 13 percent after five years and by 20 percent after nine years, especially in those over age 65, according to a study published in Stroke (11). The reason younger patients had a better survival rate, the authors surmise, is that their comorbidity (additional diseases) profile was more favorable.
Depression
In a cohort (particular group of patients) study that involved over 5,000 participants, TIA was associated with an almost 2.5-times increased risk of depressive disorder (12). Those who had multiple TIAs had a higher likelihood of depressive disorder. Unlike with stroke, in TIA it takes much longer to diagnose depression, about three years after the event.
What can you do?
Awareness and education are important. While 67 percent of stroke patients receive education about their condition, only 35 percent of TIA patients do (13). Many risk factors are potentially modifiable, with high blood pressure being at the top of the list, as well as high cholesterol, increasing age (over 55) and diabetes.
Secondary prevention (preventing recurrence) and prevention of complications are similar to those of stroke protocols. Medications may include aspirin, antiplatelets and anticoagulants. Lifestyle modifications include a Mediterranean and DASH diet combination. Patients should not start an aspirin regimen for chronic preventive use without the guidance of a physician.
In researching information for this article, I realized that there are not many separate studies for TIA; they are usually clumped with stroke studies. This underscores the seriousness of this malady. If you or someone you know has TIA symptoms, the patient needs to see a neurologist and a primary care physician and/or a cardiologist immediately for assessment and treatment to reduce risk of stroke and other long-term effects.
References:
(1) Stroke. Apr 2005;36(4):720-723; Neurology. May 13 2003;60(9):1429-1434. (2) mayoclinic.org. (3) Stroke. Apr 2005;36(4):720-723. (4) N Engl J Med. Nov 21 2002;347(21):1713-1716. (5) Neurology. 2011 Sept 27; 77:1222. (6) Lancet Neurol. Dec 2007;6(12):1063-1072. (7) Albers et al., 1999. (8) Stroke. 2008;39:2400-2401. (9) Lancet. 2007;9558;398:283-292. (10) Stroke. 2011; 42:935-940. (11) Stroke. 2012 Jan;43(1):79-85. (12) Stroke. 2011 Jul;42(7):1857-1861. (13) JAMA. 2005 Mar 23;293(12):1435.
Dr. 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 or consult your personal physician.
By Lisa Scott
The League of Women Voters of Suffolk County (LWVSC) has been writing a monthly column in this paper for the past 10 months. We thank Leah Dunaief for giving us this opportunity to share our insights and information with TBR readers (in print and online) and look forward to continuing this league “outreach” to our fellow Suffolk County residents each month. We chose the title “Making Democracy Work” very deliberately, since “Work” refers to both a functioning democracy as well as alluding to the “roll up your sleeve” efforts of the league and all of you as responsible citizens in Suffolk.
LWVSC has no actual members — our local leagues in Brookhaven, the Hamptons, Huntington, Shelter Island and Smithtown are the member organizations. The board meets monthly as we exchange best practices and insights, address challenges and plan joint league activities and visibility, as well as observe and study county government and issues and construct responses on a county level.
We share, we learn, we argue, we support and we inspire greater league visibility and effectiveness. The league is very much a grassroots organization in which our local community/town leagues are vibrant and active on local issues and study and share state and town issues and insights in order to reach consensus to further action.
The league’s passion and mission focus on voter education (in many forms) as well as advocacy on issues that we’ve studied on all government levels. Our overarching philosophy is being nonpartisan: We never support or oppose candidates or parties. We’re collaborative and have a strong commitment to civil discourse and civic engagement.
We recently held our 50th annual convention, which reflected the activities and events Suffolk local leagues held in the past 12 months. We’d like to share some of these with you in order to celebrate the scope and depth of what the league (your neighbors here in Suffolk County) is able to accomplish.
•We held over 100 voter registration drives and distributed voter registration forms at cooperating retail locations, events, fairs and naturalization ceremonies.
•We sponsored or moderated over 20 candidate debates for school boards and for town and county government offices.
•We work closely with the Suffolk County Board of Elections to better understand election processes and rules, advocate for increased voting accessibility (e.g., early voting, no excuse absentee ballots, etc.) and recently met for an overview of poll worker training.
•There are numerous strong league youth programs that include a selective Students Inside Albany three-day conference; an annual Student Day at the Suffolk County Legislature; a Running and Winning program for girls; working with Girl Scouts on government and woman suffrage badge requirements; presenting a Vote 18 program for high school seniors; and encouraging schools to contact the Board of Elections for education on the voting machine process (using a sample “ice cream ballot”). We developed and publicized public service audio spots for local colleges and communities to remind people about election day and hours and we worked with youth-led political action groups to create Youth Engaging Youth programs to promote civic engagement.
•We hold lots of public information meetings on a wide range of civic topics ranging from elected officials speaking on topics of concern (e.g., Assembly member/committee chair Steve Englebright on offshore drilling and water issues) to an informational meeting on end-of-life choices and decisions. We invite officials such as town justices or town trustees to explain and discuss their roles; host debates on the NYS constitutional convention referendum; presented a panel on immigration on the south fork of Long Island and hold annual town supervisor meetings to discuss challenges and plans.
•There are celebrations, outings and learning opportunities as well: celebrating the LWVUS’ 98th birthday (we were founded by leaders of the woman suffrage movement in 1920); commemorating NYS woman suffrage in 1918 with multiple events, programs and speakers; holding Community Conversation lunches to informally engage with local leaders; organizing tours of less-known communities and sites in our own areas and co-sponsoring films and reading books with panels and discussions.
The public knows the league for debates, voter registration drives and observing at and speaking before local and county government. We’re particularly proud of our annual Directory of Public Officials and the election/voter information available from our website and phones. Learn more about us, help us further achieve our mission to educate and advocate in Suffolk County, join us and support us. Make Democracy Work!
Lisa Scott is president of the League of Women Voters of Suffolk County, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government and influences public policy through education and advocacy. For more information, visit www.lwv-suffolkcounty.org, email [email protected] or call 631-862-6860.
‘EN GARDE!’
Jay Gao of Stony Brook noticed two male fiddler crabs locked in a duel during a visit to West Meadow Beach on May 6 and captured this photo using a Nikon D750. When they’re not using their large claw for fighting, the males use it to wave to females and to stay cool during the summer months. Right, the winner!
Send your Photo of the Week to [email protected].
By Barbara Beltrami
After the harsh winter and capricious spring we’ve endured, Memorial Day comes as a welcome harbinger of summer and all that it embraces. From picnic to pool party, beach to ball game, swimming and surfing and napping in a hammock, this holiday officially ushers in the season and all its pleasures and indulgences. Perhaps the first and most frequent herald, though, is the backyard barbecue. For pure anticipation, the aroma of something on the grill after a long day at the beach, in the pool or, on the flip side, plugging away in the heat is one of summer’s most welcome enticements.
Let us not forget, however, especially in these troubled times, what the holiday is all about. Let us remember all the fallen soldiers who have not lived to enjoy these renewable pleasures of the season that we take so much for granted.
Here are four of many regional recipes for barbecue sauce guaranteed to whet any summer appetite. Depending on what part of the South or West you hail from, you will think that the barbecue sauce from your region is the only one worth dipping a basting brush into.
For example, Texas barbecue sauce is, as you might expect, redolent with tomatoes and southwestern flavors like chili, whereas South Carolina uses a lot of mustard, which gives its sauce a yellowish hue. Go to Kansas City and you’ll find a sweet sauce that relies heavily on molasses, brown sugar and onion; but its rival, Memphis, boasts a tangy, thin sauce that calls for mustard and a big dose of vinegar. Basically, these recipes call for little more preparation than combining the ingredients. If your roots are in Brooklyn or Queens, you can impartially enjoy them all.
Texas Barbecue Sauce
YIELD: Makes about 3½ cups
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups ketchup
1 large onion, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup A.1 sauce
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon molasses
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
DIRECTIONS:
In a medium nonreactive saucepan combine ingredients and cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat. Let cool, then cover and refrigerate or use immediately to baste steak, pork ribs or chicken legs during last 15 minutes of grilling. Pass any extra sauce with meal and serve with plenty of cole slaw and potato salad.
South Carolina Barbecue Sauce
YIELD: Makes 3 to 3½ cups
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, chopped and sautéed in one tablespoon vegetable oil until soft but not at all browned
2 cups prepared yellow mustard
2/3 cup cider vinegar
¼ cup ketchup
1 teaspoon hot sauce
¾ cup sugar
One chicken bouillon cube, crushed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves or 2 teaspoons dried
1 tablespoon powdered mustard
2 teaspoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
DIRECTIONS:
Heat vegetable oil and sauté onion until golden; remove and set aside. Sauté garlic until soft but not at all brown. Remove and along with onion, add to remaining ingredients; puree together in electric food processor. Cover and refrigerate or use immediately to baste pulled pork or brisket during last 15 minutes of grilling. Serve with sweet potato fries, tomato and kale salad and ice cold beer.
Kansas City Barbecue Sauce
YIELD: Makes 2 cups
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, bruised
½ cup tomato sauce
¼ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon yellow prepared mustard
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
DIRECTIONS:
Heat the vegetable oil in a small skillet; add onion and garlic and sauté till soft. Add remaining ingredients, except liquid smoke, as well as one cup water. Stirring frequently, heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in liquid smoke. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use or use immediately to baste chicken, pork or beef during last 15 minutes of grilling. Serve with fried green tomatoes, french fries and tossed salad.
Memphis Barbecue Sauce
YIELD: Makes 2 cups
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, bruised
1/3 cup cider vinegar
¾ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup steak sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon yellow prepared mustard
Dash of celery seed
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
DIRECTIONS:
Heat the vegetable oil in a small skillet; add onion and garlic and sauté till soft. Add remaining ingredients, except liquid smoke, as well as ½ cup water. Stirring frequently, heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in liquid smoke. Use to baste beef, pork or chicken during last 15 minutes of grilling and serve with corn on the cob, cooked greens and fried potatoes.
Here are some chuckles from the internet. Hope you enjoy them.
1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.
2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, “I’ll serve you, but don’t start anything.”
3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.
4. A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says, “A beer, please — and one for the road.”
6. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”
7. “Doc, I can’t stop singing ‘Green, Green Grass of Home.’” “That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome.” “Is it
common?” “Well, it’s not unusual.”
8. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, “I was artificially inseminated this morning.” “I don’t believe you,” says Dolly. “It’s true, no bull,” exclaims Daisy.
9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.
10. Déjà moo: The feeling that you’ve heard this bull before.
11. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn’t find any.
12. A man woke up in the hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, “Doctor, doctor, I can’t feel my legs.” The doctor replied, “I know, I amputated your arms.”
13. I went to a seafood disco last week … and pulled a mussel.
14. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.
15. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, “Dam!”
16. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Not surprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it, too.
17. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office, and asked them to disperse. “But why?” they asked, as they moved off. “Because I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer,” he explained to them.
18. A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt, and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, “They’re twins. If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.”
19. A dwarf, who was a mystic, escaped from jail. The call went out that there was a small medium at large.
20. And finally, there was the person who sent 20 different puns to his friends with the hope that at least 10 of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in 10 did.
Prev
