Road Scholar does a marvelous job of providing knowledgeable lecturers and tour guides, and Charleston was the perfect place to learn some of our nation’s history, seamy side and all.

One of the plantations we visited was the 18th century Middleton Place, a carefully preserved national historic landmark that survived the American revolution, the Civil War, economic upheavals and the devastating earthquake of 1886.

But beyond the breathtaking gardens and grand residence were the more than 2,800 enslaved Africans and African Americans – seven generations – owned by the Middleton family from 1738 to 1865 who made their economic empire and way of life possible.

The Middleton Place Foundation, a nonprofit educational trust that owns and operates Middleton Place, has made its key mission to research, document and share their stories. Their comprehensive 10-year study led to a permanent exhibit, Eliza’s House, a Reconstruction-era African American freedman’s dwelling; a book, “Beyond the Fields – Slavery at Middleton Place” published in 2008; and a documentary film of the same name.

At lunchtime we were treated to a typical Southern spread including some iconic Southern dishes: collard greens, corn pudding, biscuits, cornbread and, of course, Southern fried chicken.

If you think Col. Sanders invented the dish, you would be wrong. Early accounts from China, the Middle East, and West Africa go as far back as 9,500 years ago. Many believe that the Scots, who emigrated to the South in the 1700s and brought with them their custom of frying chicken in fat, invented the dish. Others believe it was brought from Africa.

The earliest published recipe for fried chicken appeared in “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” by an English cook, Hannah Glasse. The recipe called for frying seasoned and floured chicken in lard.

The first recipe for fried chicken in the United States was printed in 1824 in “The Virginia House-Wife” by Mary Randolph, a White woman from a slaveholding family and a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson.

With the advent of fast food – Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeye’s, Chick-fil-A and the like – this Southern dish went national.

Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.

PERFECT SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN

Southern cooks use a marinade of buttermilk for its distinctive tangy flavor. I found this authentic Southern version in “Deep South Dish: Homestyle Southern Recipes” (Quail Ridge Press, $19.95) by Mary Foreman.

If you don’t have a thermometer, oil is generally ready when a pinch of flour tossed in sizzles.

Ingredients:

Brine 1:

• 1 (3 to 4 pound) whole fryer, cut up
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt8 to 10 ice cubes

Brine 2:

• About 2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup hot sauce

Chicken:

• 2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• Peanut oil or cooking oil, for frying
• 2 tablespoons bacon fat, lard, or shortening

Method:

1. Brine 1: In large non-metallic bowl, dissolve salt in enough water to cover chicken; stir in ice. Add chicken; cover; refrigerate overnight.

2. Brine 2: Next morning, drain, and return chicken to bowl; cover chicken with buttermilk; mix in hot sauce; cover, and refrigerate until supper time.

3. Drain chicken in colander 15 minutes until room temperature.

4. Chicken: In large bowl, whisk flour with all seasonings. Set aside 1/3 cup; coat chicken pieces; place on rack.

5. Fill chicken fryer or cast–iron skillet with enough oil so chicken will completely submerge; add bacon fat. Heat oil to 375 degrees. Fry chicken in small batches, 10 to 14 minutes. Regulate heat; maintain 375 degrees. Drain on paper towels.

6. For gravy, stir 1/3 cup flour into 1/3 cup frying oil in skillet over medium heat until browned. Add 2 cups water; bring to a boil; cook and stir until thickened.

Professor María Soledad Ramírez is passionate about her work in microbiology and its far-reaching potential to save the lives of people who are infected by dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria.

Antimicrobial resistance is an urgent global public health threat, according to the Centers for Disease Control, killing at least 1.27 million people worldwide and associated with nearly 5 million deaths in 2019.

“In microbiology, you have different organisms that can cause infection, such as viruses, parasites, fungus and bacteria. We work with bacteria,” Ramírez said, describing the work she does with her students as a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Cal State Fullerton.

“One of the main things that we are trying to do is to find novel or different approaches, or combination of approaches, to try to combat the multidrug-resistant pathogens — in this case, multidrug-resistant bacteria,” she said.

Ramírez has been sharing her passion and knowledge with undergraduate and graduate students since her arrival at Cal State Fullerton in 2014. In 2021, she was awarded the L. Donald Shields Excellence in Scholarship and Creativity Award for her work.

“We approach the crisis of the problem of the antimicrobial resistance from different sides,” Ramírez said. “One side is trying to find novel strategies to see if we can restore the susceptibility of multidrug-resistant bacteria — and what we saw is that we can, with the combination of novel molecules that we are testing. We observed that some of the compounds we are working with are killing the bacteria.

“And from the other side, we also try to understand why the bacteria are gaining resistance. That’s why we also do a lot of studies at the molecular and also transcriptomic (RNA) level, exposing the bacteria to different fluids. We also study at the genomic level the presence of novel genes, or mutations in genes, that can explain why the bacteria is now resistant to certain antibiotics or groups of antibiotics.”

Recently, the professor and her students discovered a potential treatment against the bacterium called Acinetobacter baumannii, which is found in hospitals and is resistant to many antibiotics. Their research was reported in the August issue of Scientific Reports.

This is important because there are few effective treatments against Acinetobacter baumannii, which can cause infections in the blood, urinary tract and lungs, and also in wounds, according to the CDC. Infections often occur in patients who are on ventilators, are in intensive care, have catheters or who are in the hospital for a long time.

Ramírez and her students tested different lactic acid bacteria strains to see if they could stop Acinetobacter baumannii from growing.

“We found that one in particular that we call CRL 2244 was exerting a huge, strong activity against the pathogenic strains that we had been testing,” she said.

Her enthusiasm has influenced her students; some of whom see her as a role model and have chosen to follow in her footsteps into microbiology. Several have authored their own research papers, some have gone on to get their doctorates and one graduate student is now working at Pfizer on vaccine development, Ramírez said.

“When they are with me, I try to share my passion for what I do. I share with them my research skills and, well, I get excited. We have lab meetings where we discuss our results. I always try to incentivize them to present the work in our area when there’s an opportunity here on campus. I also encourage them to apply to fellowships.”

Though neither of her parents were scientists, they encouraged Ramírez to pursue her education and achieve her doctorate. “I grew up in a very small town in the province of Buenos Aires that is called San Antonio de Areco,” she said. “I studied in the University of Buenos Aires and I received my degree of biochemistry and then I did my Ph.D. in microbiology. I was able to enter in a research career in Argentina until I applied for the professor position here.”

She has published numerous papers throughout the last decade.

Ramírez and her students collaborate with other professors, for instance, CSUF’s Marcelo Tolmasky, who also works with antimicrobial resistance. But they are not the only ones tackling the problem of drug-resistant bacteria.

“In other countries, in other institutions, there are many people working on this,” Ramírez said. “We need to find novel alternatives or novel antibiotics or a novel way to treat the patients that have infections with highly resistant microorganisms so that we can save that life.”

The first of its kind locally, OCSD challenged local university teams to develop innovative design ideas and energy-efficient housing solutions that support California’s goal of becoming “100% reliant on renewable energy by 2045.” With the belief that “education is the key to addressing climate change,” the competition allowed students to showcase their market-ready concepts for the public to tour over the two-weekend event.

As one of the 14 participating schools (10 competitive and four exhibitors), CSUF’s team kicked off the process more than a year ago with Phoolendra Mishra, CSUF professor and chair of the university’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, as its faculty adviser. The project, which was conducted outside of standard coursework, brought together a wide range of majors, including engineering, arts, computer science, biology and business marketing. The students began by putting their heads together to develop unique sustainable solutions that could be implemented in the built environment.

“The process was wide open, so anybody could bring in their ideas,” Mishra said. “The only goal was to identify the problems and come up with sustainable solutions. And then we worked together to say, OK, let’s move ahead with this one.”

The team explored solutions for design and construction methods that reduced energy consumption such as wall membrane and insulation, roof design and ventilation, thermal moisture and soundproofing, and water conservation.

While the Titan team did not participate in the full decathlon competition this year, the CSUF students did construct housing models that were featured in the Exhibition portion of the event. Their exhibit consisted of two structures, constructed side by side — one that demonstrated current California building codes and another that showcased more sustainable approaches. The team built the structures in such a way as to keep their innovative solutions visible to the public.

“We kept it incomplete, meaning you can see inside the house,” Mishra said. “You can see how insulation is done, how our HVAC system is designed … everything was open so people can walk through, and they can see and understand what we are trying to present.”

CSUF senior civil engineering major Daniel Santa Maria was the team lead for the insulation portion of the building process. He and his teammates developed a double-wall construction assembly that reduces thermal bridging, essentially keeping heat out of the structure.

“The biggest problems that you see in standard housing (construction) are that insulation is there, but there are little pockets here and there where heat can slip through,” Santa Maria said. “So to solve that, we decided to emphasize our insulation envelope so that all the way around the house there was consistent insulation.

Isai Jimenez, who is also a senior majoring in civil engineering, worked on the team that was in charge of creating the building envelope, with an emphasis on keeping air and moisture out using a “smart membrane.”

“The idea was to protect the insulation and protect the structure from water damage and air intrusion,” Jimenez said. “We used a membrane … an air retarder and vapor retarder. It separates air from outside and inside, and it also doesn’t allow water vapor to penetrate or diffuse through it all.”

Both Jimenez and Santa Maria were hands-on and worked on the construction phase of the project, building the components that showcased the teams’ solutions. Additionally, they and several other Titans were on hand during the event to walk visitors through the exhibits and explain their design concepts. The experience brought sustainable practices to the forefront of learning for the students.

“I think for this project specifically, it opened up my eyes, especially for why you would want to use sustainable materials,” Santa Maria said. “It’s something that’s simple that could be accessible to people currently and that can be repeated long term.”

The decathlon is held every other year, and with this experience under their belts, Mishra is confident CSUF will be able to enter a full decathlon team during the event’s next cycle. As a result of their participation, the Titans not only gained experience in teamwork and leadership but are now challenged to keep sustainability practices top of mind for future projects.

“Sustainability will be the priority for almost any home design and many of the problems that require solving in the future,” Mishra said. “It’s not just an idea, but they were able to build it. Keeping that in their mind and getting that experience … will make a difference in their careers as they move forward.”

And when Soto turns back the clock, it’s not only the hands of the clock turning.

“I still jump in with guys and show them what I know. I think that’s important,” said Soto, the head coach of the CSUDH men’s soccer team. “They read about me and see that I was an All-American and say, ‘You’re not bad.’ Yeah, I’m not bad. I’m double their age.”

Yes, some things never change. Middle-aged Eddie Soto can still turn heads on a soccer field. The boy who once came home from seeing Argentinian icon Diego Maradona’s transcendent 1986 World Cup performance in Mexico City, threw away his baseball glove and became a soccer player so good he made the U.S Junior National Team two years later still turns heads with a ball at his feet.

The young man who tore up the Cal State Fullerton record book, scoring a still-record 18 goals in 1994 and leading the Titans to the national semifinals the year before still turns heads. He turned enough heads to earn induction into the Cal State Fullerton Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2023. The former soccer forward will join soccer goalkeeper Karen Bardsley, wrestler T.J. Dillashaw, golfer Martha Wilkinson-Kirouac, former director of sports medicine Julie Max and the 1979 baseball team in this year’s class.

When Soto learned the news over the summer, for once, his head turned.

“I was shocked. We only have one soccer player in the Cal State Fullerton Hall of Fame and that’s Mike Fox. You look at the history of the program and the teams we’ve had and the players we’ve had and me being only the second player inducted is very humbling. I’m hoping it leads to more. I’m hoping it leads to some of our teams being inducted.”

Soto was quick to point out the team he thinks belongs — that 1993 Titans’ team that went 16-7-0, beat Oregon State, Cal, UCLA and Washington in the regular season and Fresno State, the University of San Diego and the University of San Francisco in the NCAA Tournament, reaching the national semifinals.

“We were a mid-major. Within three years, we were in the Final Four,” Soto said. “A lot of us played together, and we had so much success growing up, and it carried over into the Cal State Fullerton soccer program. We were all so successful playing together in club and all so driven. We looked forward to playing big teams, playing at Titan Stadium with our incredible fan base, the ‘Rag Patrol.’ (Head coach) Al Mistri was courageous enough to have us play ACC and Big Ten teams, and we would win. We were winning locally and on the national scene.

“It wasn’t just UCLA and USC as national powers on the West Coast. It was Cal State Fullerton as well.”

And Soto was a big reason why. In 1992, his first year with the Titans, Soto scored 12 goals, tied for eighth in the program’s single-season record book. During that 1993 season, he tallied eight. In 1994, Soto etched his name atop the program’s statistical pyramid, scoring 18 goals and adding five assists as the Titans reached the NCAA quarterfinals. The 18 goals remain a single-season record and the 41 points is third on the all-time single-season points ladder.

In his three years at CSUF, Soto scored 38 goals (tied for second), added 20 assists (tied for third) and finished with 98 career points (third). He was a second-team All-American in 1992 and honorable mention in 1993. Meanwhile, the Titans were 42-20-2 during Soto’s career.

This turned the heads of the fledgling New York Metro Stars of the new Major League Soccer, which drafted Soto in the eighth round of the inaugural MLS Player Draft. But the week he was supposed to play the L.A. Galaxy in the Rose Bowl for his first MLS game, the team released him.

“I was devastated. Confused. I was a young kid who didn’t understand what was happening,” he said. “It was odd the way things were run back then, but just like everything in life, you need luck and being in the right place at the right time, and I just didn’t have either. I had a really hard time with it because it was the first time where I wasn’t good enough.”

Soto redoubled his workouts. In 1998, he was drafted in the second round of the MLS Supplemental Draft by the San Jose Clash, but again, released in the preseason. As he saw it, Soto was a victim of a geographic bias in both places: he wasn’t from the New York/East Coast region with the Metro Stars and wasn’t a Northern California product with the Clash.

Soto eventually found a home with the United Soccer League A-League Orange County Zodiac, where he led the league in goals during his five-year stint in the A-League. By 2000, Soto had enough of the A-League grind. He retired.

He didn’t stay away from the field long. When he was playing at CSUF, he was approached to coach a club team in Brea. Soto jumped at the chance, leading an Under-15 team to its league title. For his efforts, he got fired.

“It was the first coaching job I ever had, and I got fired. But I was hooked,” he said. “I love helping. I love giving back. You get these kids who aspire to reach the level I did. I really enjoyed that aspect of it.”

Hooked enough that after he retired, Soto was working at DreamWorks as an IT recruiter. He got another blessing disguised as a phone call when Mistri called him to offer him an assistant job at CSUF.

“I had to think. Do I want to continue on this path, or do I want to jump into coaching full-time?” Soto said, pondering the pay cut he took. “I made the right choice because I’ve never worked a day in my life.”

Soto spent 2½ years as a Titans’ assistant. He spent two years as an assistant to the Long Beach State women’s team, before returning to CSUF under new coach Bob Ammann in 2006. Soto spent one year at his alma mater before UCLA brought him over for an eventual eight-year stint as an assistant.

All the while, Soto coached the L.A. Galaxy’s U-18 Academy Team. On the urging of former UCLA and Seattle Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid, who served as one of his mentors, Soto also coached the U.S. National Beach Soccer team for 12 years. He took the team to two FIFA World Cups and won a CONCACAF Region title. He was turning heads with a ball on his players’ feet.

In 2014, that led to his first head coaching job — at USF, where he won 40 games in five seasons. The 2017 Dons won the West Coast Conference for the first time in nine years and Soto was the WCC Coach of the Year. But Soto’s family was living in Southern California, while he was coaching 400 miles north because he didn’t want to uproot his family.

“I lost four years of my youngest’s soccer career because I wasn’t around. We were successful at USF. We had a high graduation rate, developed players, and had a great program,” Soto said. “But my family wasn’t with me. I knew I needed to be home.”

Soto took the Dominguez Hills job in 2019. He’s satisfied turning heads at the Division II level, where he and his staff were named United Soccer Coaches Division II West Region Coaching Staff of the Year in 2022.

“The amount of passion and compassion I have for these young men; I know how much they love the game, and I know how much I love teaching the game,” Soto said. “I’ve always enjoyed creating an environment where they enjoy coming to practice every day. That’s what I remembered about why I loved the game. That’s the culture I’ve created everywhere I’ve gone, and the kids really love that.”

Cal State Fullerton’s public health lecturer Mark Dust was 29 when he deployed to Iraq in 2005 and spent his 30th birthday in a guard tower at Abu Ghraib prison. During his service in Iraq, he was nearly killed by a roadside bomb, engaged in deadly combat and multiple times came upon the aftermath of a suicide bombing. But he did not realize after he had returned to the U.S. that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Eventually, he recognized the symptoms and started on a journey to study ways to manage and prevent the damaging effects of chronic and traumatic stress. His research on building physiological resilience was recently presented in the professional journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Post-traumatic stress disorder can develop when a person witnesses or experiences a traumatic event that is shocking or life-threatening, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website. Symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, headaches, irritability, and being highly vigilant can begin months or years after the event.

“I knew I had a short temper, and I would have intrusive thoughts,” said Dust, describing his return to the U.S. “And I noticed that I was always just tense around all the crowds.”

Even going to Disneyland with his kids was difficult. He felt threatened all the time. The sight of a pile of trash on the side of the road while driving once triggered sudden, acute fear.

While working toward a master’s degree in business administration, Dust signed up for a course called Executive Mind that taught him mindfulness meditation, hoping it would calm his nervous system so that he would make good decisions.

“I started noticing that I wasn’t being as reactive as I was before,” he said. He also realized that in certain situations his body would tingle as if he were being threatened, even when his mind knew that he was completely safe — and here the beginnings of his research inquiries took hold.

After he completed his MBA, he began working toward his doctorate at the School of Community and Global Health at Claremont Graduate University. He earned his degree in health promotion sciences with a concentration in neurocognitive sciences.

“I had to know, is it possible for us to exercise our nervous system to try to prevent PTSD from happening after a traumatic event?” Dust said.

He recalled that when he’d attended a support group at the Veterans Administration, he became agitated hearing the stories from the veterans sharing traumatic experiences. Just as he’d been fearful in crowds, his body reacted to the stories as if they were happening in the present. Could calming thoughts prevent a stress reaction?

“If the brain doesn’t know the difference between you telling a story and it actually happening, then why can’t we use that for positive?” he said.

The pilot study Dust conducted looked at people who practiced either a visualization technique or a breathing technique to see if they could build resilience against stress. The visualization group’s results trended in a positive direction and could hold promise as a viable way to build resilience, Dust said.

“The visualization exercise uses the power of the brain not knowing the difference between hearing someone else’s story and flipping it on its head for good,” he said. “Instead of generating a fight-or-flight response from the thoughts, we generate a rest-and-relaxation response by telling ourselves a positive story that gives us a sense of comfort, safety or joy and elicits a rest-and-digest physiological response — the antithesis of fight or flight. I think this has a greater potential for building physiological resilience than a breathing exercise.”

Dust teaches stress management and feels that by sharing his personal story he may help someone to effectively treat their stress without turning to drugs or alcohol.

“Our physiology can drive our thoughts,” he said. “For example, if we start taking short rapid breaths, that increases our heart rate, and an increased heart rate can trigger an adrenaline release, which can make us more alert and introduce thought patterns to scan the environment for threats. Part of building resilience could be a less active physiological response that would reduce the fight-or-flight drive and, in turn, keep our thoughts from going into survival mode.”

Dust is in a unique position to help others who may suffer from PTSD. “I feel like I need to be one of those figures that people can look to and say, ‘Well, if he can do it, I can do it.’ It can be painful, but I think more good comes out of me sharing my story than if I were to keep it under lock and key and not let other people know that what you’re experiencing, I’ve experienced as well, or something similar, and you’re not alone.”

Just as the U.S. and the world started to emerge from an economy-crippling pandemic, war breaks out between Russia and Ukraine along with a deadly conflict in the Middle East, noted Puri, as he addressed hundreds of business leaders at the Disneyland Hotel on Oct. 19.

Domestically, partisan politics exist on both sides of the aisle, and the House of Representatives struggled to find its way in selecting a leader, Puri said.

“As we look around, it seems to be that the world just doesn’t want to heal,” the economist said. “And I’m sure a lot of you are thinking, what about the soft landing? Is it here? Is it going to happen? Well, economists have been predicting it for over a year.”

As always, partnering with Puri for the forecast was Mira Farka, professor of economics at Cal State Fullerton and the co-director of the Woods Center for Economic Analysis and Forecasting.

The 29th annual event was co-presented by CSUF and the Orange County Business Council, which collaborates with leaders in academia and government to help bolster the county’s economic development.

“This event is really a symbolic gesture, a symbolic expression of the relationship that we have with the business community that runs deep, and we really value and hold these relationships dear,” CSUF President Sylvia Alva said. “They’re important to our students. They’re important to our community.”

Farka and Puri predict that a recession will likely hit Southern California and the nation during the second half of 2024.

However, unlike the Great Recession that crippled the global economy from 2008 to 2012, the economists predict it will be a normal or “garden variety” recession.

Ever since the Fed embarked on its unprecedented rate-hiking cycle, raising the interest rate 11 times over the past 18 months, the U.S. economy has been on the verge of a recession, the economists said.

But despite the hikes, real GDP is still growing, and employment has increased by 5.8 million jobs, much faster than the normal rate of growth.

Additionally, the unemployment rate has picked up only slightly.

“So, it seems like whatever the Fed is doing hasn’t had much of an impact so far,” Puri said. “If anything, things seem to be picking up. If you look at the gross domestic product increase, the best measure of overall economic health, it has been very healthy since last year.”

The backbone of this strength of the economy are the consumers, he said.

Consumer spending has been pretty healthy after going down a little bit earlier this year and last year, getting back to the historical average.

And although government spending is masking the effect of “the fastest rate hike cycle in the past 40 years,” a soft landing for the economy is unlikely, the economists said.

The economy is throwing out mixed signals, Farka said.

Some parts of the economy are slowing down while other areas pick up, she said.

“All we’ve been doing over the last 18 months is talking endlessly, really, about this soft landing and recession and kind of going back and forth between the two,” Farka said.

The economist said soft landings and recessions are virtually indistinguishable in the early stages.

“And of course, everybody gets very excited that the soft landing is just around the corner the moment you think that the Fed is done with raising interest rates,” Farka said.  “We think we’re going to have sort of a normal garden variety recession. You can call us reluctant and bearish. And I say reluctant because we hope we’re wrong. Bearish only because in a sense that we think it’s going to be hard for the economy to sort of avoid a recession.”

While inflation has not been halted, the rapid rate hikes of the past 16 months are beginning to have some impact, both nationally and locally, the economists said.

By late 2024 and early 2025, the economists predict the local unemployment rate to reach 5% or higher.

“We are finally at a turning point wherein the Fed policy is in search of a neutral space, hoping to tame the economy without a hard landing,” Puri said. “The strength of consumer spending and robust hiring by businesses have bolstered the overall economic outlook over the past year, but signs of weakness are proliferating. Trends in the national economy are reflected in many ways in our local economies, those of the state and Southern California.”

Farka typically weaves a bit of humor into her forecasts, and that was the case again.

“In fact, in the words of the man who built this house, Walt Disney, ‘I heard there’s going to be a recession. I decided not to participate,’” Farka said. “So, let’s actually decide not to participate, but maybe never participate in the recession. Maybe we’re wrong about everything. Hopefully, your bottom line is better than our forecast.”

While the plan, called the “shared passenger track alternative,” isn’t set in stone, Jim Patrick, a spokesperson for California High-Speed Rail Authority, said it is likely the option the agency will move toward making official and work to get environmental clearance for. It would add a fourth track on the line down to Fullerton; two tracks would be used from there to Anaheim.

The California High-Speed Rail project hopes to move passengers from Anaheim to San Francisco at top speeds of more than 220 mph. Construction work is well underway in the Central Valley to start moving passengers from Bakersfield to Merced by around 2030. Service in the Southern California region is planned for 2040. More than 30 million people a year are expected to ride the line.

Traveling from the Los Angeles Union Station to Anaheim’s ARTIC station is expected take 46 minutes under the new proposal. The route from Los Angeles passes through Norwalk and Fullerton on its way to Anaheim and is estimated to cost more than $6 billion to build.

There are already three existing mainline tracks near Union Station and where a possible Fullerton station would go. Adding the fourth mainline track will give more room for freight rail, Metrolink and high-speed rail to operate in the corridor.

The changes in the Los Angeles to Anaheim segment come in part due to community opposition to a proposed freight facility in Colton.

“So instead of holding freight trains to keep them off the three existing lines, we are building a fourth line,” Patrick said. “We are gonna have two lines for freight trains and two lines for passenger trains running between Los Angeles and Anaheim.”

At times the freight trains could run on the passenger tracks, but not vice versa.

The Rail Authority’s board will hear a presentation of the new option at a Thursday meeting – it is unclear when in the future a decision on the new option will be made.

A part of that presentation is new details for how train crossings will be modified in Anaheim. Rail Authority officials hope to make two new grade separations – to keep trains separated from other traffic at intersections – around the Platinum Triangle at State College Boulevard and Cerritos Avenue and modify four other crossings in Anaheim.

Previously they had planned for seven new grade separations.

City of Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster said Anaheim officials welcome the grade separations being looked at because they focus on future busy areas of the city, around the Platinum Triangle, OC Vibe and the planned Santa Ana Riverwalk.

“We as a city have provided input through the years. At this point, they are in advanced stages of looking at the route into Anaheim with evaluation of what will work best with rail crossings and other specifics,” Lyster said. “In general, we welcome as many separations of roadways and railways as possible, understanding there are always considerations and limitations for impact, feasibility and funding.”

Patrick said every grade crossing at minimum will have four railroad crossing gates. He said the Rail Authority is evaluating crossing configurations in Anaheim and Fullerton with consideration given to reduced servicing capacity since there will be only two trains an hour instead of four.

The Rail Authority is still exploring whether there will be stations in Fullerton and Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs. The presentation prepared for Thursday says city support for stations has been uncertain and would add a few hundred million to construction costs. Patrick said it’s an ongoing discussion between cities and the Rail Authority about what makes sense for the project, cities and ridership.

Fullerton Public Works Director Stephen Bise said the city will study at a later time whether to build a station and will wait to hear more from the state agency about the plans.

“It would be a pretty big endeavor if they were to put a station here,” Bise said.

Bise said a fourth-track expansion will have lots of construction and right-of-way impacts in Fullerton.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority is hosting an online open house on Nov. 29 to talk about the Los Angeles to Anaheim segment.

As I write this, I’m in Temecula at the Vina de Lestonnac Retreat Center operated by the Sisters of the Company of Mary, where I’m spending the week making art with 17 very talented friends.

Fortunately, some of these artists also like to bake, and our snack table groans with all manner of temptations. This year’s most popular item was Rose Mary Jameson’s apple cake, which screams fall with its warm spices and deep apple flavor, a cake that can take you from Halloween, through Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, I had to get the recipe.

With a few changes, Rose Mary converted King Arthur’s recipe to gluten-free, and no one could tell the difference.

“Four, five years ago I was diagnosed with ischemic colitis,” Jameson explained. “The doctor wanted to give me medications, but I asked if a diet would fix it. His first response was, ‘No dairy, no flour.’ It’s challenging.

“You have to read every label, learn the different chemical words they use to hide flour,” she said. “In restaurants the gravies and sauces have wheat. Even French fries. They look crispy, because they’re dredged in flour. But making these changes really worked. I felt much better right away. I find it easy to make better choices, because it’s just not worth the pain.”

Jameson’s husband does most of the shopping.

“He goes on hunts and researches for me. Canyon Bakehouse makes some of the best tasting gluten-free breads I’ve had. Schatt’s is another really good brand, and Live Free,” she said. “That’s the hardest thing, to find is a bread that doesn’t have a weird aftertaste. Why waste the calories if it doesn’t taste good?

“So Delicious brand non-dairy ice cream is really good,” she added. “I like almond milk, coconut milk and oat milk especially. Hard cheese seems to be okay. I always add an egg to the prepackaged gluten-free cake mixes, which tend to be dry, or I’ll add a little more applesauce or liquid, water or oil. And I watch the time.”

For her apple cake, Jameson substituted Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour for the all-purpose flour, one to one.

“I made the rest of it just according to this recipe. In the future I might add one egg so it sticks together and becomes a little more cake-like,” she said. “The frosting is awesome. I substituted almond milk for the regular milk. You can also use the cider.”

Boiled cider, as the name implies, is sweet apple cider that has been boiled down to roughly an eight-to-one concentration. It is thick and syrupy and the secret ingredient for amping up that real apple taste. You can find it on line or at specialty markets.

Fullerton’s Judy Bart Kancigor is the author of “Cooking Jewish” and “The Perfect Passover Cookbook.” Her website is cookingjewish.com.

OLD-FASHIONED APPLE CAKE WITH BROWN SUGAR FROSTING

Ingredients:

• 2 1/3 cups King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons apple pie spice or 1 teaspoon cinnamon +1/4 teaspoon each ginger and nutmeg
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 4 cups peeled, cored, finely chopped apple (1/4 inch to 1/2 inch), about 1 1/3 pounds whole apples
• 2 tablespoons boiled cider, optional
• 1 cup walnuts or pecans, toasted and diced

Frosting:

• 7 tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar or dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup milk or 2 tablespoons milk +2 tablespoons boiled cider
• 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 3/4 teaspoon King Arthur pure vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-by-13 pan or two 8-inch round pans.

2. Mix all cake ingredients except apples and nuts in large bowl. As soon as mixture comes together and becomes pretty uniformly crumbly, stop mixing; you don’t want a cohesive mass.

3. Add apples, boiled cider and nuts; mix until apples release some juice and stiff mixture becomes a thick, creamy batter, between cookie dough and brownie batter consistency. Don’t worry if mixture doesn’t immediately loosen up; this will take about 3 minutes at low speed. Spread batter in prepared pan(s), smoothing it with your wet fingers.

4. Bake cake 45 minutes for 9-by-13 pan or 38 minutes for two 8-inch round pans. A toothpick or paring knife inserted into center should come out clean, or with just a few wet crumbs clinging to it. Temperature at center of cake will be about 205 degrees. Remove cake from oven and place on rack to cool a bit while you make frosting.

5. Frosting: Sift confectioners’ sugar into bowl or onto piece of parchment or wax paper; set aside. (This guarantees lump-free frosting.)

6. Melt butter in medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and salt and cook, stirring, until sugar starts to melt and mixture becomes fairly smooth. While you may still notice a bit of grittiness from sugar, you shouldn’t see any melted butter puddled atop sugar. Add milk and boiled cider, if using, and bring to a boil. Remove syrup from heat and pour into medium-sized mixing bowl (large enough to accommodate confectioners’ sugar). Let syrup cool in bowl 10 minutes.

7. Poor confections’ sugar into warm syrup in bowl, then add vanilla. Whisk until thoroughly combined. Work fast; frosting stiffens up quickly as it cools.

8. Pour warm frosting onto cake, spreading over entire surface. Cut cake, either warm or at room temperature, into slices to serve. Store cake, covered, at room temperature for several days; freeze for longer storage.

Contributing Writer

The restoration of two Fullerton murals is nearly complete, and now officials are scouting funding to restore more of the murals in the Lemon Park area.

“The Town I Live In” and “Brown Car” are among the most visible of the nearly 50-year-old murals, most of which are painted on a pedestrian bridge on Lemon Street north of Orangethorpe Avenue. Local artist Drew Stirdivant started restoration of those two in early August and this week was close to finishing.

Six murals date back to 1978, when teacher David Whalen and local students painted them as part of a local youth project. Renown local muralist Emigdio Vasquez Sr. added two more in the ’90s with the help of at-risk youth. The panels draw from the Mexican-American heritage that is predominate in the surrounding community.

Prior to the current restorations, the last mural to receive a touch-up was “Niños del Mundo” in 2019, restored by Emigdio “Higgy” Vasquez Jr., son of Vasquez Sr. With the latest double-mural restoration, the project is nearly at the halfway point.

The eight-mural endeavor carries a $10,000 to $20,000 price tag per mural restoration, officials estimated. Councilman Ahmad Zahra, who included attention to the murals as part of his 2018 campaign, has been spearheading recent fundraising efforts.

“After things settled down after the pandemic, there was really no funding from the city for anything like this, so I decided to raise the funds independently,” Zahra said. “We set up a special donation link and special accounts for the murals through the city, which people could donate directly into.”

Community efforts totaled $12,000 for the current restoration, including hefty donations from the Orange County Employee Association, Fullerton Firefighters Association, Fullerton Police Officers Association and a local barber shop.

But for some murals, restoration is impossible. Decades-long neglect has rendered the paint too damaged, now requiring recreations instead. This is the case with “Brown Car,” which is being recreated on a special canvas that makes it transportable in case of relocation. An outer layer will safeguard the mural from vandalism, which can be easily washed off without damaging the art’s integrity.

Stirdivant, a tattoo artist and painter of 18 years, said his connection with the murals is a close one. Not only was his wife one of the painters on “Niños del Mundo,” but he walked by them almost daily as he grew up down the street. They gave him a sense of belonging, he said.

“When I was growing up, it was like, ‘What are you doing over here? Get back to your area,’” Stirdivant said. “But those murals made me feel at home, like I wasn’t so alien, like I was accepted. It was like, hey, it’s not just me that’s here. There were people here before me.”

As for tending to the rest of the murals, the timeline primarily hinges on the funding, but Zahra said that logistics can be just as tricky. The money for the current murals was raised in summer 2022, but it took nearly a year to work out the agreements and other details.

Zahra has hopes that it won’t just be the completion of the murals that brings the community together — it will be the process.

Community involvement was already seen earlier this month, when elementary and high school students from the surrounding neighborhood came to assist with painting, bringing the project full circle with its educational origins.

“These kids are gonna grow up and say, ‘We worked on this,’” Zahra said. “I’ve met a lot of folks that are now my age who say ‘We were kids when we worked on this,’ and so now I’m hoping there’s a new generation that will be looking back someday.”

Since he was a child, Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. has been writing.

It was a creative outlet throughout a challenging upbringing.

Eddy and his two sisters, Gaby and Patty, all children of immigrant parents, grew up on welfare and in subsidized housing.

Their Cuban father was mentally disabled, and their Mexican mother stayed home to take care of him when she wasn’t cleaning houses or hotel rooms.

But challenges didn’t stifle the creative juices in Alverez, who in addition to writing also considered acting before he discovered his sweet spot in academia.

Now, the associate professor in CSUF’s Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies is celebrating a first.

Based on his research into queer Latinx communities in Los Angeles (Eddy grew up in the San Fernando Valley), his exhibition continues its run (Aug. 24 through Jan. 28, 2024) at the Museum of Social Justice in downtown Los Angeles.

“Finding Sequins in the Rubble: Archives of Jotería Memories in Los Angeles” is the museum’s first LGBTQ-focused exhibition. It also marks Alvarez’s first time curating a public history project. And he had some help from students in two of his classes.

“It’s been very scary because I have so much love for my communities, and it’s been lots of work,” says Alvarez, a member of the queer Latinx community of L.A., “but it’s also been so much fun and a very memorable experience.”

Reclaimed empowerment

Write your words

to leave a legacy, a history, a herstory, a queerstory,

so that your words may create paths to follow,

Recipes for self-love, self-healing, survival.

The above is from Alvarez’s poem, “Write Your Words,” and he views the exhibition as a form of poetry.

“It’s a love letter to jotería communities in L.A. and everywhere,” says Alvarez, referring to the word derived from the derogatory terms Joto and Jota that historically have been used to describe people of Mexican descent who do not fit heteronormative standards.

Jotería now is a reclaimed term of empowerment for queer Latinx and indigenous people.

Alvarez’s exhibition was curated from images, artifacts and oral histories, and is designed to focus on the love, joy, activism and family that queer Latinx in Los Angeles have built.

Alvarez first pitched the idea to a former professor at Cal State University Northridge, where Alvarez, a first-generation college student and former elementary school teacher, earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish (he earned master’s and doctorate degrees in Chicana and Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara).

It took a lot of support from former and current colleagues as well as students at CSUF, which Alvarez joined after teaching stints in New York and Portland, to make the exhibition a reality.

Alvarez even got his family involved. A niece helped him pick up artifacts across Los Angeles

Humbling and rewarding

For the exhibition, some of Alvarez’s Titan students transcribed, conducted oral histories, did background research, and put together timelines.

Esmeralda Llerenas, a first-year graduate student pursuing a master’s in counseling with an emphasis in the Latinx community, interviewed a good friend for the exhibit.

“Being able to share his story, and being given the trust to do so, was so humbling and rewarding,” she says.

Llerenas says Alvarez was a source of validation and comfort for her.

“I struggled with my imposter syndrome on this project,” she says. “But he made sure to always be available and supportive, while also providing feedback. I trusted him and his expertise to guide me in the right direction.”

Amalia Contreras, a recent graduate with a major in history and a double minor in Chicano studies with plans to become an educator or a journalist, collected data on oral history interviews that Alvarez conducted.

She organized data from those oral histories using a spreadsheet that pinpointed the places that document important locations of where folks realized their sexuality and had first met their first boyfriend or girlfriend.

“To me,” Contreras says, “Professor Alvarez is the most impactful educator and activist on campus. He has truly been a leader in every sense of the word. He is the reason why I minored in Chicano studies. And his presence in higher education has contributed to so much healing in the Latinx/Chicanx community here at CSUF.”

‘It feels like home’

Alvarez is working on a book, “Finding Sequins in the Rubble: Memory, Space and Aesthetics in Queer Latinx Los Angeles,” an oral history and archival project that maps physical and ephemeral sites of memory and quotidian moments of pleasure and resistance for queer and trans Chicanx and Latinx communities in Los Angeles.

He also is working on a collection of essays and poems about growing up queer.

He’s thrilled to be at CSUF.

“It feels like home,” Alvarez says. “Many of my students have stories like mine, and they are so committed to their learning. Many of them juggle multiple jobs and families and go to school. And I’m lucky to have amazing and supportive colleagues.”

Visit museumofsocialjustice.org to learn more about Alvarez’s exhibit.