I have noticed after showing hundreds of houses over the years that even homes that seem quite tidy and clean will often have refrigerators that look and smell quite bad. I think sometimes the refrigerator is the last thing people think about when cleaning the house. It’s actually pretty easy with a minimum of effort to keep this appliance clean and sweet smelling, and also a safe spot to store your food.

The optimum temperature in the refrigerator is between 33- and 39-degrees Fahrenheit. Fridge less full? Go for the higher end. Fridge full in the summer? Low end. Keep the refrigerator no more than 70% full, optimally. Leave space for leftovers and new groceries. You also want air to circulate freely. Going through the fridge often is essential to keep it smelling fresh. I usually throw out my kitchen garbage every 3-4 days. This is the time to go through the fridge. Leftovers after 4 days? Gone! Old veggies and fruit? Gone, or made into smoothies or soup. 

Cleaning is an ongoing process. Wipe up spills immediately. Wipe down handles daily and outside weekly. Every three months empty it and take out all removable parts. Wash interior and parts with hot water and a little dishwashing soap. Need more power? Never use bleach or any other non-food friendly cleaner. I usually soak a paper towel in soapy water and let it set on any particular sticky messes. Use a little baking soda with a toothbrush for any needed scrubbing. Speaking of baking soda, it’s still a great deodorizer that’s safe around food! You can even sprinkle it on the bottom of your veggie and fruit bins. Cover with paper towels before loading in the produce. Vacuum underneath and behind, dust accumulating makes the appliance work harder. 

Put any leftovers in a sealed container or zipper bags. Never store open cans as they can transfer the can metal to the food once opened. Most fruit should not be refrigerated unless very ripe to extend life. Most root vegetables should be left in a cool dark place, not refrigerated. Make sure to cool down any hot leftovers before refrigerating. Do this within 2 hours. You can cool leftovers by spreading them out on a cookie sheet or in a container placed in an ice bath. This prevents food-borne illness. 

Organizing properly will also reduce the risk of food-borne illness. Reserve the top shelf for all foods ready to eat including leftovers. Milk, eggs, and dairy on middle shelves. Despite having been built in, these items do not belong in the door. Save the door for all your condiments. Go through these when you do your 3 month clean. Check for expiration dates. Wipe clean with warm water. All raw meat and fish go on the lowest shelf, leaving no chance to drip on any ready to eat food. Place meat and fish in an open container, glass or plastic, to further quarantine. Keep fruit and veggies separate so the ethylene gas from the fruit doesn’t spoil the veggies. 

So, with a little work you too can have a sweet-smelling refrigerator and you can sleep soundly knowing your family is safe! You’d be surprised how much food-borne illness is caused by improper food handling. Also, when you decide to sell your house, the Buyer’s agents won’t be wrinkling their noses when they open the door. 

Kathleen Weaver-Zech and Dean’s Team Chicago

Chicagoans will bid adieu to this last weekend of January by welcoming in the Lunar New Year of 2023!  Come out and join us as we celebrate The Rabbit!!

Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar.  This year celebrates the Rabbit!  Here are a few events you might like to visit:

Come enjoy performances of local performers, artists, dance, traditional and contemporary music, food vendors, and much more at Global Connections:  Lunar New Year this Saturday (1 p.m.-5 p.m.) at Navy Pier’s Aon Grand Ballroom (600 E. Grand Ave.) in the Streeterville neighborhood.  This year’s celebration takes you through the lens of AAPI cultures highlighting the next generation of Asian Americans with featured performances, additional K Pop performances, and much more!

The Uptown neighborhood’s annual Argyle Lunar New Year Celebration kicks off the Year of the Rabbit with dazzling dragons, drummers, and more this Saturday (12 p.m.-4 p.m.).  The parade will begin at 1 p.m. at Argyle Street and Winthrop Avenue then heads west on Argyle, north on Broadway, east on Winona, and south on Sheridan back to Argyle.  The parade will not be proceeding down Ainslie this year due to construction.  Over 20+ local community groups, cultural institutions, dancers, and performers will be in attendance as well as plenty of family-friendly activities for all to enjoy!

Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit in Chinatown at the neighborhood’s Lunar New Year Parade this Sunday from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. at 24^th Street and Wentworth Avenue which will travel north on Wentworth to the viewing stand at Cermak Road.  The parade will feature traditional dragon and lion dancing teams, colorful decorated floats, marching bands, and marching groups.  Plus, red lanterns symbolizing good fortune will be strewn above and along Chinatown’s Wentworth Avenue, while local businesses will be decorated with pictures and signs depicting rabbits!

Enjoy a day of Disney magic at the United Center (1901 W. Madison St.) on the Near West Side as Disney on Ice Presents:  Frozen & Encanto, which wraps-up its stay at the United Center this weekend.  Kids of all ages will be delighted by ice skating performances by their favorite characters!  Plus, you can purchase a character experience that includes crafting and interactive time with Elsa from Frozen and Mirabel from Encanto!!

Winter is the best time to warm the cockles of your heart at this year’s Mac & Cheese Crawl this Saturday (11 a.m.-7 p.m.) at various locations in Wrigleyville.  Tickets include admission to all bars on the crawl and 7 free mac & cheese servings along with drink specials, giveaways, and more!  It’s time to get your fill of those delicious, heart-warming cheesy noodles!!

Oh Boy, we’re down to the last four teams before the Big Game!  Here’s your NFL Conference Championship line-up for this Sunday:  49ers (13-4) at Eagles (14-3) (2:00 p.m.) and Bengals (12-4) at Chiefs (14-3) (5:30 p.m.).  Will there be any upsets by the underdogs?  We’ll have to wait and see!

Sue Moss and Dean’s Team Chicago

Happy Lunar New Year, Dean’s Team readers! This year’s Lunar New Year started Sunday, January 22, and spans 15 days until the full moon (February 5). Chicago’s Asian communities on the North (Argyle Street/Broadway) and South (Chinatown, 16^th and Wentworth) are gearing up for a spectacular Year of the Rabbit! 

After all, several sources cite the rabbit as the luckiest of the 12 animals, and is considered a gentle animal that thinks before acting. 

In Chicago, one restaurant is so carefully thought out, it deserves our attention. Lakeview’s 2d Restaurant, opened in 2022, is a 22-seat immersive, interactive and eminently Instagrammable two-dimensional “comic artopia,“ according to its website. The black and white hand-drawn 1600-foot space resembles a mashup of ‘Emily in Paris‘ meeting A-ha’s video ‘Take on Me. ‘ (ask your parents for reference!) 

While this family-owned Asian café may be called 2d, trust me when I say that their approach to food, commitment to their community, and commitment to quality service and fun for all is very much a four-dimensional experience for patrons. 

You can see 2d Restaurant’s wife-and-husband team of Vanessa Thanh Vu, the Interior Designer and Chef Kevin Yu’s commitment and thoughtfulness, so appropriate for the Year of the Rabbit, in their limited menu, which specializes in plant-based Asian chicken sandwiches, Vietnamese coffee concoctions, and 2d Mochi (Pon De Ring) Donuts. 

They even explain why their specialty is the ‘What-the-Chicken’ sandwich. “It’s all about sustainability,” they explain on their website. “On  average, plant-based chicken use less land, water, and produces less CO2 than chicken from birds. “ Good to know. And bravo!

And their donuts? They are “freshly made daily using the 2d exclusive mochi donut recipe, which we sourced three different blends of mochi powder and tapioca powder to mix our signature cake flour to create one of the kind 2d mochi donuts.” It’s also “relatively low” in gluten and fat. Bravo again! 

Start your adventure with their Original What-the-chicken sandwich, an ultra-crispy WTC chicken, topped with fresh shredded cabbage topped with Japanese mayo. PLT What-the-chicken sandwich, which pairs plant-based chicken, lettuce and tomato with Japanese mayo. (think BLT, use chicken, and give it an Asian twist). 

Save room for the donuts! Delectable, Winnie-the-Pooh inspired Eeyore Grey, the Winnie-the-Pooh, with peanut butter and honey, Passion Fruit Pebble, and the Blue Man, named for the famed interactive performance artists experience. Those are just a few of the whimsical flavors and colors inspired by the North Side of Chicago, children’s stories, holidays and area landmarks. They also have unique Chicago Bulls merch based on Benny the Bull, their mascot. 

2d has captured the hearts of Google reviewers. One wrote, 

“Thought the whole experience, atmosphere, and food was awesome! Hear me out, order the chicken tenders and the strawberry cheesecake donuts and take a bite of both at the same time. Fire. I was in taste bud heaven. It is pricey to go but sometimes you gotta splurge and enjoy things. Do it! Go and enjoy!”

Lunar New Year’s Celebration, Chicago Bulls Merch and Special Donut

They’re going all out for Lunar New Year, with events, red envelop giveaways, traditional food tasting, and more! Using the talents of students from nearby Haines Elementary School and partner Chicago Bulls, 2d Restaurant created a special mochi donut for the lunar new year. All profits from the donut will be donated to Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation, which is dedicated to eliminating pediatric cancer and providing help and support to pediatric cancer patients and their families. 

2d is located at 3155 N. Halsted Street. They are open Thursdays, 9am–4pm, Fridays 9am–5pm, Saturdays, 8am–8pm, Sundays, 8am–6pm, and Mondays, 9am–4pm. For reservations and information, click here. 

Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago

Without realizing it, we’re affected by the colors that surround us throughout the day. While the walls of your home may be plastered with the same neutral tone while it’s on the market, part of making it your new home is customizing it to your own preferences. A coat of paint on the walls around you can make a big difference.

Before you head out to the hardware store, however, you should carefully consider your color choices. The right color can create warmth or ignite your appetite. Using basic color psychology, you can realize how experiencing certain colors can change your mood. Here are a few color suggestions for your living space.

Stimulating Conversation

In certain areas of your home, you’ll likely want to encourage conversation. This can include a living room where you regularly welcome guests or the dining room where you enjoy family dinners. For rooms where conversations will often take place, consider bright colors like red and blue. You don’t have to bathe your entire kitchen in vibrant red. Instead consider using vibrant colors as accents throughout the room.

Relaxing

Shades of purple are ideal for rooms where you plan to relax and unwind, such as bedrooms and master baths. These colors can also ignite the imagination, making them ideal for daydreaming or brainstorming ideas for your next home-remodeling project. Consider a rich purple or lavender for these rooms for an instant calming effect after a long, hard day.

Hunger

Since the color red is thought to stimulate hunger, it’s probably best to avoid using it in rooms where you’ll be enjoying late-night TV. However, when used in the kitchen, it can be a great tool to make sure your kids eat dinner rather than playing with their food. It might not be the best color for your dining room walls, but it could be implemented into your placemats or your table’s centerpiece.

Productivity

If you have a home office, productivity is likely your main goal. The color blue has been connected with an increase in productivity. In addition to increasing productivity, blue also has a calming effect, which can help you set aside distractions and focus on the task at hand.

Colors to Avoid

While many people associate yellow with sunshine and long summer days, color psychologists have found it can increase anxiety. Some studies have even found that babies cry more in yellow rooms and some people even go so far as to say the color can exacerbate psychological problems. If you want to use yellow in your decorating scheme, consider using it sparingly and try to avoid it altogether in nurseries and bedrooms. For best results, utilize the relaxing shades mention above in nurseries and children’s rooms.

Whether you’re putting a fresh coat of paint on your walls or upgrading your furnishings, a little color psychology can make your home a more welcoming place. When you carefully choose the right color for each room, you make subtle changes that will have a subliminal impact on everyone who spends time in that room.

If there were one movie theater that has truly seen it all, it has to be Lakeview’s Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Avenue. When it opened in 1929, sound films were a new technology, and unlike other theatres designed for vaudeville and burlesque, the Music Box was built specifically with the intention of screening sound films. 

Designed by architects Edward Steinborn and Louis I. Simon, the architectural style of the 750-seat theatre was called ‘atmospheric,’ an eclectic mélange of Italian, Spanish and ‘Pardon-My-Fantasy put together with passion,” according to former Chicago Tribune architecture critic Paul Gapp. “The overall effect is to make the patron feel that they are watching a film in an open-air palazzo.” The ceiling of the Music Box was fashioned to look like “a starry, starry night.” 

The Oldest Movie Theatre in Chicago? 

Is the Music Box the oldest movie theatre in Chicago? Let’s say that it’s definitely the longest-running theatre showing movies. Lincoln Park’s Biograph Theater (also known as the theater where gangster John Dillinger was shot) is the oldest venue, built in 1914. But that building is now owned by Victory Gardens Theatre and hosts live shows. 

Opened Two Months Before The Great Depression 

The Music Box Theatre opened August 22, 1929 just two months before the Great Depression,” says the theatre on its website. “It was a time before fluorescent lighting, megaplexes, and artificial butter.”  

On opening night, they showed ‘Mother’s Boy,’ starring Morton Downey, Sr., an Irish crooner. No plot summary appears to exist about the film. According to a Chicago Tribune article celebrating its 90^th birthday,movie critic Michael Phillips wrote that it was nearly named the New Blaine Theatre, in honor of Blaine Elementary School across Southport Avenue, slightly to the north. The theater was squarely in the exhibition vanguard then, designed and equipped as a boutique-sized alternative to the massive Balaban & Katz auditoriums of the day, such as the Chicago Theatre. 

The Music Box continued to show those new ‘talkies’ but became a pawn in 1931, when it was one of several theaters bombed during an ongoing dispute between the Allied Independent Theaters’ Association and the Motion Picture Operators’ Union as the theater was employing non-union projectionists, according to Wikipedia. And in the 1970’s, when cities across the nation were crumbling, it took a detour into playing porn movies, and later, became a Spanish and Arabic-language movie house. 

1980s Restoration 

In 1983, the Music Box was shuttered briefly as Robert Chaney, Christopher Carlo and Stan Hightower formed the Music Box Theatre Corporation, and restored and reopened the theater with a format of double feature revival and repertory films. 

Eventually, foreign films and independent and cult films were added to the roster and repertory screenings were moved to weekend matinee and midnight time slots.

Today: Festivals, Special Showings, Sing-alongs 

According to Cinema Treasures, in 1991, a 100-seat theatre was built in an existing storefront adjacent to the lobby. This second screen was designed to echo the architecture of the main auditorium, as an Atmospheric style, but because of the 13-foot ceiling height, the feel is that of sitting under a garden trellis with stars in the night sky beyond. 

And they are known for their movie festivals. The Music Box hosts several Film Festivals each year: Chicago Critics Film Festival, Chicago Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, 70mm Film Festival and is a venue for the Chicago International Film Festival.

The Secret to Its Success

“The key to our longevity,”  one of the owners told the Chicago Tribune, “is that we’ve refused to pigeon-hole our audiences. Fifteen, 16 years ago, (the theater) heard about a sing-a-long ‘Sound of Music’ out in LA; now we do eight shows across two weeks.” 

Promises Kept

“And although our ticket prices have changed slightly over the past 90 or so years,” the owners promise, “The butter on our popcorn is still real.”

Nobody’s Perfect: Billy Wilder Matinees Film Series

From now through February 26, the Music Box is hosting a cinematic tribute Wilder’s career, which spanned nearly five decades. From ‘Double Indemnity’ to ‘Sunset Boulevard’ to ‘Some Like it Hot,’ the Oscar-winning Wilder became one of the most accomplished writer-directors in Hollywood. For tickets and information, click here. 

Alison Moran-Powers and Dean’s Team Chicago