The Brief

It’s no news to anyone that it’s hot outside. Like, really hot. Let’s face it, it’s hard to get anything done in the heat, least of all sweating over the stove to get dinner on the table.

You could use microwaves, toaster ovens, and air fryers as workarounds, which at least cook the food without adding to sweltering temperatures.

But if all you want to do is open the fridge and climb inside, we got you.

[Editor's note: this story first ran last year, but we thought it deserved a re-run now we're hitting sidewalk-melting temperatures]

LAist 89.3’s AirTalk recently asked listeners what they turn to when temperatures rise. Here are their suggestions for food to prepare at home, plus our favorite dishes to order to keep you cool.

Cold soups and salads

“Two French dishes, a potato leek soup served cold and a tuna salad with hard-boiled eggs and many different vegetables.” — Fran in Tehachapi.

“Caprese salad, but I started replacing the mozzarella with sauce and goat cheese and I'll never go back. And of course basil and balsamic vinaigrette.” — Kat in Echo Park.

“Watermelon salad. Cubed watermelon with crumbled white cheese, red onion slices, sunflower seeds, fresh sprigs of mint, basil and lime juice. Pair it with some crisp tortillas and you have a full meal.” — Sandy in Sherman Oaks

Fish aguachile

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Courtesy of Opochtli

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Ceviche 

One thing we know — you shouldn’t have to sacrifice taste when it’s hot outside. Enter ceviche, a cold dish that’s packed with flavor, made by using citrus that “cooks” the fish when the citric acid saturates the protein.

Recently, we’ve become fans of several pop-up cevicherias, which maintain a strong presence on social media. One of our favorites is Opochtli, based in Carson, which regularly hosts pops up in the South Bay and Long Beach.

Named after the Aztec god of hunting and fishing, it’s the brainchild of Juan Loza. One of his best sellers is his tropical ceviche, which features plump shrimp that he sources from Mexico, lime juice, cucumber, and sweet mango, which cuts perfectly through the acid and heat.

Another recent addition is his fish agua chile. Aguachile means chile water, and it’s a spicer version of ceviche. In most cases, it’s made with shrimp; however, Loza opts instead to use white fish, mixing it with lime juice, cucumber, and chile morita, known for its sweet and smoky flavor.

Cold noodles

“I make cold lasagna first thing in the morning. I cook the noodles, then use fresh tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella.” — Army in San Pedro

While cooked hot noodles might be the norm for many Asian cultures, cold noodles are the way to go when it's warm out.

Our go-to is a Vietnamese noodle salad called bun cha gio from Bánh Mì Chè Cali, a chain found in L.A. and Orange County.

Bun cha gio

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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It is made of cooked rice noodles, fresh lettuce, herbs, pickled carrots, and daikon radish, a protein that’s usually a grilled chicken or pork and sliced eggroll for that extra bit of crunch. It’s then covered in nước chấm, a dipping sauce that contains fish sauce, water, citrus, and sugar. Other cold noodle dishes include naengmyeon, made with an icy broth, sliced Korean pear, and hard-boiled egg.

Oreo Thins icebox cake

As for satisfying our sweet tooth while it’s hot — well, an icebox cake nicely fits the bill. We long harbored an obsession with a cake that magically appears after sitting in the fridge. It’s up there with other like-minded desserts, such as Jello, homemade popsicles and other Things Mom Used To Make.

However, this is 2023, and Mom is no longer making our food, so our go-to has had to be this recipe on TikTok by Baked By Melissa. It’s made with Oreo Thins, whipped heavy cream, vanilla paste, sugar, a pinch of salt and sugar, and you’re in cake heaven, baby.

Oreo Thins icebox cake

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Instructions are simple: Empty the entire carton of cream into a bowl, and using a hand or stand mixer or whisk, add the vanilla and a bit of sugar and salt and whisk until you get semi-stiff peaks. Use a spring-form pan lined with plastic wrap, and make a layer of the Oreo Thins. Once the entire bottom is covered, add a layer of cream and repeat until the pan is full. Add another layer of plastic wrap on top, then place in the fridge and leave overnight.

The next day, cut yourself a piece, take your first bite and notice the cookie bits smothered between yummy cream layers. You'll be ridiculously pleased with yourself for executing this dessert without breaking a sweat.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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