Saved From Chocolate Until October

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published April 28, 2025] ©2025

For those of us who serious chocolate addicts, there are two seasons of the year, Easter and Halloween, that are positively perilous.  I basically can’t go into CVS.  All those Cadbury eggs and chocolate bunnies at Easter call out to me. 

Unfortunately, I answer.  They know they have me on speed dial. 

I have been promised that at my funeral, some seriously unflattering (actually downright vicious) chocolate stories will abound.  The kids will relate how I had them hide the Halloween candy from me but then rifled their rooms for it when they were at their dad’s.  Or when they went out Trick or Treating, I had them stop by the house from time to time to dump out their bags so I could poach the mini Mounds Bars. 

It is not surprising that I have long collected articles about the genuine health benefits of chocolate.  Apparently it’s full of antioxidants and all kinds of other heart and brain enhancing benefits that I don’t look at too closely because the words in front of those benefits are always “when eaten in moderation.” 

It doesn’t seem to matter how much I try to restrain myself.  I’ve attributed my inability to lose weight to the Lindor Truffles commercial: “Do you dream in chocolate?” You betcha.  That’s what’s sabotaging my dietary efforts: it’s all that chocolate I consume in my sleep.  My ever-skeptical primary care physician suggested I should consider eating less chocolate in my sleep and while I’m at it, start exercising in my sleep as well.  She just never lets up.

But here’s where I think you have to view nutrition creatively. 

For example, unknown to any but the most dedicated wrapper-reading chocoholics, one can supply ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of one’s daily calcium, riboflavin, protein AND fiber requirements (never mind a whopping 50% of your daily iron) with only twenty-five vending machine-size packages of M&Ms – all with no trans-fats and staying WELL within your daily sodium and cholesterol allotments.   It is unclear how there can actually be any fiber in M&Ms but the label says there is and surely they wouldn’t lie about it.  Must be the cornstarch?   (Source:  Nutrition Through Candy:  Eating Your Way to Better Health with Sugar and Red Dye #2, by Inga.)

One of my most serious chocolate addictions involves Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut heroin popular in Europe and even more popular with me. This stuff was a mainstay of my diet during the time we lived in Sweden. I never even knew it existed until then.

Nutella has actually been available for quite a while in the U.S. in the peanut butter aisle.  Its most common application is as a spread on white bread, the breakfast of non-champions. 

But in Inga-think, Nutella is hazelnuts which are definitely healthy for you, enrobed in a bit of that anti-oxidant cocoa butter.  How can this not be a health food?

Nutella makes a sinfully oozy filling for a crepe.  (The crepe is also supposed to have fruit but I regard this as a distracting contaminant.)  It’s equally great on ice cream.  Or rubbed on Olof and… oops, getting carried away here. 

Sadly, someone of my age and avoirdupois does have to show some restraint. I long ago concluded that putting Nutella on bread only dilutes its rich chocolately gooeyness; it should ideally be mainlined, er, consumed in its purest right-out-of the-jar form.  But I pledged to restrict myself to a tablespoon per day – 100 calories, 6 grams of fat, no worse than peanut butter.

It turns out, however, that if you use a soup spoon (the equivalent of a tablespoon) and you buy the large economy size jar of Nutella, you can get the spoon buried into the Nutella jar about five inches up the handle.  Then with dedicated practice (it’s all in the wrist), one twists the spoon until a giganto glob of Nutella at least three inches in diameter is wrapped around it.  A power drill may be employed if necessary. 

Of course, to get full immersion of the spoon into the Nutella, one’s fingers often inadvertently end up in the contents of the jar, sometimes one’s entire thumb!  And if one is not careful, the index and middle fingers as well!  Which must be licked!  And which is the only explanation as to why a large economy size jar of Nutella has at best three tablespoons.  And is also how I lived in Stockholm with no car, walked five miles a day, and gained twelve pounds. 

Fortunately for me, Easter is now over and those mini Mounds Bars in their mega-sized Halloween-portioned bags won’t be taunting me at CVS for another five months.  But Nutella, alas, will still be on the supermarket shelf.  Shamelessly calling out to me. 

 

 

Considering Running For Mayor

["Let Inga Tell You,"La Jolla Light, published April 21, 2025] 2025

I don't think there is a single person in San Diego, including me, who doesn't think they could run the city better than whomever happens to be running it at the moment. Doesn't matter which party happens to be in office at any given time. And for the record, I voted for the current mayor.

Also for the record, I am a fourth-generation feminist and Democrat married to a life-long Republican, although Olof and I have both voted across party lines on many occasions. It's a dynamic that feels very familiar to me. My father was a conservative Republican and my mother a liberal feminist Democrat. It made for a lot of lively, but respectful, dinner table conversation.

My husband is still fervently hoping the Republican party will return to what he thinks of as its former glory. I, of course, think it never had one. But conversations are pretty lively at our dinner table too but in the current era, for different reasons entirely. Olof and I have never been more politically aligned.

There are several local issues that truly puzzle me and, in my view, totally lack even a modicum of sense. The city has a significant budget shortfall and has to make cuts. But if you've passed legislation that doesn't require parking for new construction within a half mile of a transit route (i.e. a bus or trolley line) then proposing cutting bus routes and schedules seems like it should be among the last items to go.

My husband Olof and I lived in Stockholm without a car and were so enamored of public transit by the time we returned that we attempted to use public transit whenever possible. Olof was even willing to get up an hour early every morning to take the bus instead of the 20-minute drive. It just couldn t be done. He couldn't be late for the eight o clock meetings since he was the one running them. Within six months, he was back to using his car. 

And while we're on that subject, a half mile is a hefty hike, especially if the terrain is hilly and you're lugging groceries and/or toddlers. One of the reasons Stockholm s transit system works so well is that you're rarely more than two blocks from some kind of transit. We just aren't ever going to have that here. But making it yet harder to use public transit seems like a huge step in the wrong direction. 

Moving on, given how many pot holes need to be filled and streetlights repaired, I am still trying to get my head around $4,232,339 for the roundabout on Loring Street and Foothill Boulevard. OK, it does include some storm drains too but this project seems to have gone on for years. And I hope someone can explain to me why it was ever a priority in the first place? (I am willing to concede that there is some pressing issue there that I, and pretty much everyone on Next Door, are unaware of.) You could do a lot of city repairs for that kind of money. Maybe even add some bus routes! 

And then there s the new trash fees Personally, I never buy anything that I don t know the cost of ahead of time. Well, medical care, but you don t have a choice. The projected $23-$25 a month was just that: a projection. Now that it has passed, the actual fee was bait-and-switched to $53 a month (more than double the estimate) and projected to go up to $65 in July of 2027. The outcry has been sufficient that it is most recently proposed to come down around $5 to $47.59 (then rising to $59.42 in 2027) but still waaaay higher than the public was suckered into believing.

Customers willing to use the smallest size (35 gallon) bins may get a reduced rate. A minor detail is that Environmental Services currently only has 35-gallon cans for green waste; they discontinued the 35-gallon black bins (for trash) and blue bins (for recycling) years ago. As one who needs the smallest size blue bin because of space limitations in my back walkway, I have had to buy them at Home Depot (you have to buy a specific brand to accommodate the Environmental Services trucks) for $132.49 (including tax) plus $55 delivery (unless you go pick it up there after it is delivered to the store.) Are they planning to start supplying the 35-gallon sizes in trash and recycle colors again? If so, can I get a refund?

But the most incomprehensible issue of all is how the proposed 23-story building on Turquoise Street was ever a possibility. Proposition D, passed in 1972 established a 30-foot maximum structure height in coastal areas of the City of San Diego known as the Coastal Height Limit Overlay Zone.

Prop D was passed largely in response to the construction of the 18-story condo complex at 939 Coast Boulevard and the realization that La Jolla s waterfront would soon look like Miami Beach. So, how why does this 23-story monstrosity that will only provide a few units of alleged affordable housing ever get considered for a nanosecond? Inquiring minds want to know. Lots and lots of inquiring minds. Would a family needing affordable housing even want to live in such a building? Would any of these units even be big enough? The list of reasons why this project is a ridiculously bad idea is long and has been covered extensively in the Light and on local news stations, but even a 5-story building is too high for this street. How did it even get this far? And how did our leaders even allow it to? Let me repeat: how did our local leaders even allow it to? Why are the locals even having to spend their energy fighting such a fundamentally insane project?

Ok, the short answer is that the state (unbelievably) allows it to. The state Department of Housing and Community Development has said the state density bonus law can supersede local restrictions, including voter-approved initiatives such as the 30-foot coastal height limit. 

California s 1979 and since much-amended density bonus law provides incentives and waivers for developers to build residential units considered affordable for lower-income households.

However, in the Turquoise case, HCD sent a  technical assistance letter in December stating that San Diego could deny the project by proving that some or all of the developer s requested bonuses, waivers and incentives are not necessary to create the 10 affordable housing units. 

So, why doesn't the city go ahead and deny it already?

Signed,

Waiting to hear from you in La Jolla

 

Hacks And Gadgets Part 3: Great And Horrific Gadgets

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published April 14, 2025]  2025

In the first two parts of this series, I explored the strange and amazing world of internet hacks -     suggestions on how you can make life easier for yourself using what are allegedly items you already have in your own home. There are no lack of hacks to boil and peel hardboiled eggs, make insect repellent, unclog drains, clean stove tops, crush garlic, and chop vegetables.

I couldn't help but notice that by the time you used some of those ingredients you already had, you could have bought the commercial product for half the cost.

But I get it: the homemade version will likely not have as many chemicals and it harkens back to the days when homemade recipes for cleaning products were pretty much the norm.

All of this did not prevent me from trying all manner of hacks myself. My results:

As reported last week: Pots will boil over even with a wooden spoon across the top.

Putting a sponge with a scrubber side in your washing machine to collect pet hair and dirt didn't collect much of anything.

Barkeepers Friend did not remove the discoloration from my mother-in-law's Spode china. But it worked great on the bottom of my wok when the toothpaste and green dish soap hack failed. I guess you just have to be flexible.

Then there were the hacks I didn't try: I didn't rub toothpaste on my windshield wipers. I just got new ones. I was trying to figure out how I would explain to my insurance company after the accident why my windshield was obstructed with Crest. 

I was equally nervous about rubbing a potato half on my car windows so there would be no water spots if it rained. (See "toothpaste", above.)

I also forewent using Coca-Cola to remove facial wrinkles. I kept remembering that hack for using Coke to remove grease from your oven hood vent.

Shaving cream failed both as a carpet spot cleaner and mattress stain remover. (Maybe need a different brand?)

There are definitely some hacks I do plan to try, however, when the fly season is upon us. Like putting cinnamon sticks or wine corks atop fruit in a bowl on your counter to keep flies away. Or putting cut-up orange peels in bowl with a teaspoon of sugar plus dish soap and water and setting it on counter. I will definitely report if any of those work.

In Part 1 of this series, I tried using a hack that involved little balls of aluminum foil plus silver coins in a bag of water that is hung up outside. I think this was meant to be an insect deterrent. But whatever it was supposed to do, I couldn't detect that it did anything besides look ridiculous.

I might have failed at many of the hacks, but have become completely hooked on gadgets. Like hacks, they don t always work in your home as well as they do in the video, but many of them do, and they're just totally fun to try. The internet is abuzz with lots of creative garlic mincers, food choppers, wine openers, magic cleaning cloths, sweater de-fuzzers, etc. Not surprisingly, I found them irresistible and seem to have Amazon showing up pretty much daily with a new one.

My home now sports a bathroom sink stopper with a basket, a teeny mushroom-shaped silicone funnel, a digitized tire pressure gauge, an amazing computer devices cleaning kit, a great sweater de-fuzzer, a magnetized clip that keeps the kitchen towel from falling off the stove handle, along with some over-hyped and not very good but fun to try skin creams. So many fun gadgets on Amazon. Truly addictive.

That said, there are some absolutely horrific (in my personal view) gadgets out there.

For example, re-usable machine-washable toilet paper sheets. (Comes in a pack of 25.) Saves paper! Not sure it saves the washing machine! This is definitely another one of those hacks/gadgets that pretty much guarantees you'll never have guests again. (See Part 1 column about using tampons to soak up grease while sauteing ground beef.)

There s also a pot on which you can cook food on your bed if you re too tired to get up. WTF??? How is this not incredibly dangerous?

How about a fast-food dipping sauce holder that attaches to your car air vent. No! You should not dip and drive!

Then there s a UV flashlight that detects blood spatter that someone has tried to wash off. Has someone been watching too much CSI? Still, if I saw one of these in my home, I'd want to re-evaluate my marriage.

You can also buy a step-in gadget that wraps your guests shoes in plastic wrap while they're still wearing them so they don't have to take off their shoes off when they come into your home. Seems...  slippery?

Among my four conclusions are that, first, both hacks and gadgets are really fun to try, even if my success rate with the hacks is less than I might have desired. I really really want at least one of those fly repellent hacks to work come July.

Second: nothing is going to get the hard water deposits off my shower door except new shower doors. Sorry, hacks!

Third: Especially with hacks, do some people have too much time on their hands?

And finally: Is that person me? 

 Some of the cool gadgets I have acquired recently.