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One perk of moving from the Northeast to Texas was learning to add a little spice to things, like sprinkling Tajín on watermelon or enjoying a mangonada on a hot day. The same is true for candy: You should try the luxury of eating dulces enchilados—candies covered in a tangy, sweet, sour, and spicy mixture. Dulces enchilados are popular in Mexico and Texas, and they’ve become increasingly popular elsewhere thanks to TikTok and Instagram. And the minute you taste them, you’ll understand why it’s hard to go back to regular candy afterwards.

The good news is that dulces enchilados are pretty easy to make on your own and only require a few ingredients. You need powdered sugar, regular sugar, chamoy, and a spice mixture of your choice—the most common one being Tajín spice.

Chamoy is a popular condiment made of apricot, chilies, salt, and lime juice, and is added to foods like dried fruit, fresh fruit, mangonadas, and candies. The company Tajín (which isn’t just the spice mixture) makes its own line of chamoy, while a number of other brands make their own.

How to make dulces enchilados 

Making dulces enchilados means making a paste to cover the candies, then adding in a spice mixture of your choice. As The Saucy Kitchen suggests, it’s best to opt for sweet and tangy candies, like gummy worms, gummy rings, gummy bears, Skittles, Gushers, or the like. (Chocolate or milk-based candies tend not to be the best choice.)

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To make the coating, mix chamoy and powdered sugar together in a 1:1 ratio. For a small batch—roughly about a single-serve package of Skittles—two tablespoons of chamoy and two tablespoons of powdered sugar is enough. Mix it together until it forms a translucent red paste, then add the mixture to your candy of choice, stirring until it’s fully coated. After that, just add in the spice at your preferred level. You can sprinkle a little over the top or mix it directly into the candy mixture.

The Saucy Kitchen suggests mixing half a cup Tajín spice mixture with 1/3 cup of sugar. Personally, I skipped the sugar and just used plain Tajín spice, but that can vary based on your own taste buds. Once it’s done, you’ll want to either eat it right away or store it in an airtight container.

 

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What you need: A white dress shirt, tighty-whities, socks, a candlestick, sunglasses

Pop culture costumes are risky in the streaming age because there’s no longer a monoculture guaranteeing everyone will know what you’re supposed to be. So go as something really old, like Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear in the film Risky Business. (I initially referred to this movie as being 30 years old, but sorry, it’s actually nearly four decades old.) Plus, it’s the easiest costume in the universe: Just take off your pants, put on a pair of socks, white underpants, and a dress shirt, and be prepared to dance on command. Sunglasses are optional: Cruise doesn’t actually wear his iconic Wayfarers in the underwear dancing scene.

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I believe fiercely in the value of homemade Halloween costumes. The idea of buying a pre-made costume is offensive to me personally. As I set out this week to put the finishing touches on my outfits for Halloweekend, I’m making a conscious effort not to ruin the pieces of clothing involved. When making a costume, some clothing will get ruined, but not all of it has to. Here are a few ways to keep your clothes in order and still look great for the big day(s) this year.

Protect your clothing’s edges

If you’re wearing face and body makeup, you run the risk of staining the edges of your clothes. Any staining that happens on the underside of a shirt is not really a big deal, but the collars and seams around the sleeves are another story. Grab some painter’s tape, preferably in the color of the shirt you’re wearing, and place it on these exposed edges, with the majority of it on the underside and just a hint peeking out around the edge. This will stop body paint from bleeding onto the collar and other visible parts of your shirt.

Make sure to apply all your paint before you put the clothes on and give it plenty of time to dry. Set it with translucent powder and makeup setting spray to reduce the likelihood of it transferring.

Don’t dye clothing directly

Some costumes may call for you to dye or rip your clothes, but if you’re going the standard route of simply bloodying yourself up, you don’t actually need to turn your shirts red. Lifehacker writer Allie Reinmann suggests “using red tape around an impaling object in an abstract way to show blood,” but you can also try making a sort-of blood patch.

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Grab some wax paper and a hot glue gun. Lay the paper flat and squirt the hot glue onto it in the shape of dripping blood. Let it dry overnight, then paint it red. I’ve done this with nail polish in the past, but you can use spray paint. Peel it off once the paint has dried and attach it to your clothes by poking a safety pin through it from the back of the shirt and through the edge of the fake blood, securing the pin on the underside of the shirt.

Use safety pins where you’d normally sew

It might be tempting to sew every piece of your costume together, and I admit I’ve done it. Realistically, though, you’re only wearing this costume for a few hours; it doesn’t have to be perfect. You can use safety pins for most of the fastening you’d use sewing for. For instance, I have a light-up element to one of my costumes this year, but I’m not sewing the battery box into the skirt. I’m creating a pocket for it out of scrap fabric, then safety-pinning that pocket to the inside of the waistband.

Opt for stickers over painted-on designs

If you need a logo on your clothes for some reason, consider printing them onto label paper and making your own custom stickers instead of painting them directly onto the shirt or using an iron transfer method. Sticker glue is easy to remove from clothes (if there’s even any lingering residue at all) and label paper is pretty cheap.

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The Xbox is a fantastic console that ships with pretty good software. Fortunately, it has even greater potential: Your Xbox contains plenty of hidden features that are not enabled by default. All it takes is a deep dive through the settings, however, to make your great console even better.

Reduce your energy bills

Your Xbox has an excellent power-saving mode that may not be enabled by default. If you want to mitigate your gaming habit’s impact on your energy bills, consider tweaking your Xbox’s power saving options.

Power on your console and press the Xbox button on the controller and open Profile & System, then scroll down to select Settings. Go to General > Power options. Select Shutdown (energy saving) and go through the two Turn off after options to change how long the console can remain inactive before it automatically shuts down.

By shutting down the console fully, you can save up to 20 times as much power, but it does come at the cost of some convenient features: Your console will take longer to power on and it won’t automatically update itself when you aren’t using it.

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Fix notifications

Your Xbox loves to send you notifications, which can get annoying; the alerts can block important gameplay elements or pop up when you’re in the middle of a tense online match. So customize them to keep alerts at a minimum.

Go to Xbox settings > Preferences > Notifications. First, fix the positioning of these alerts by going to Default notification position. The lower right corner is usually the most unobtrusive spot, but you can pick one that works with the games you play most often.

Return to the previous page and go to Xbox notifications. Disable notifications for the stuff you don’t need. This page also lets you disable notifications completely, which is alright if you don’t play with friends or use any of Xbox’s social features.

Enable the best accessibility settings

Your Xbox has a whole bunch of features hidden in the accessibility settings page. You can tweak these settings to try Xbox’s night mode to reduce eye strain, remap your controller buttons, and turn off controller vibrations. (Click that link to explore all of the options.)

Optimize the display resolution

You should make sure your Xbox is making the most of your TV. Go to Xbox settings > General > TV & display options and work through all the settings, which will allow you to use the maximum possible resolution while gaming. The Video modes options has a host of refresh rates and other video settings you should check, while the Calibrate TV option confirms your Xbox is able to display colors accurately.

Download essential apps

As you’d expect, most people use their Xbox as a device for gaming, and the console is fully equipped to do that out of the box. However, it’s also an excellent multimedia streaming device, but you need to download a whole bunch of apps to use it for that purpose.

You probably have apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple Music, and Spotify already, but if not, they’re available on the Microsoft Store. Once you’ve downloaded those, however, consider getting the Audio CD Player and Blu-Ray Player apps to make the most of your physical media collection.

Double-check HDMI-CEC options

HDMI-CEC is a useful feature that reduces how many remotes you have to use to control the Xbox and other devices connected to it. If configured correctly, your TV will automatically turn or or off when you boot up or turn off your Xbox.

To configure this setting, go to Xbox settings > General > TV & display options > Device control. Here, you should enable HDMI-CEC as well as other options on this page based on how you want to use this feature.

Every option is self-explanatory, and we’d recommend enabling the following:

• Console turns on other devices.
• Console turns off other devices.
• Switch TV input using controller.

The last option is useful if you have multiple devices connected to the TV. When you press the Xbox button on the controller, the TV will immediately switch to your Xbox.

Get reminders to take regular breaks

It’s easy to get immersed in video games and forget about your own health and the outside world. You can use Xbox’s break reminders feature to make the console remind you to take a periodic break from gaming.

This feature is available under Xbox settings > Preferences > Break reminder.

  

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Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

It’s nearly Halloween, and I know what you’re thinking: “How do I cram more candy into my body?” Eating candy as a snack is a good start, but for a well-balanced Halloween, it’s important to incorporate sweets into your beverages, too. As you plan for this weekend’s festivities, consider buying extra candy to jazz up your creepy cocktails with a candy garnish. They can be a lot more complimentary than you may have thought (read here for pairing ideas). They also significantly raise the festive-factor with their bright colors and flashy packaging. You can garnish your drinks in three spooky ways: rotisserie-style, the simple drop-in technique, or frozen into an ice cube.

Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

I recommend the rotisserie-look for most chocolate candies, like fun-size Milky Ways or Snickers, because what’s the point of fun-size anyway if not for fitting on a skewer for your drink—and you can keep the glitzy metallic wrapper on. The wrapper helps your guests identify the candy they like and, well, unwrapped chocolates are rather turd-shaped and generally don’t look very attractive at the bottom of a Manhattan. (It looks more like the bottom of the East River.)

Additionally, you can skewer them in advance without touching them all, so you can have a pile at-the-ready to drape over cocktails as guests arrive, without the candy being exposed to the elements. It’s also a great option if you’d like to give your guests a choice of whether or not they want candy at all. I used a bamboo skewer, cut in half, but you can purchase large toothpicks that are just as effective. Just make sure the length is longer than the mouth of the glasses you’ll be using.

You can skewer, rotisserie-style, any other soft candies, but do take advantage of themed shaped sweets like gummy vampires, skulls, or gummy eyeballs, though I think those candies are more effective as a drop-in garnish. Eyeballs and gummy worms are fantastic because they look ghostly and warped at the bottom of a martini glass. The cloudier the cocktail, the better. Especially if you’re trying to surprise some guests. Gummy candies are especially great because, unlike Skittles or M&Ms (decidedly non-scary candies), the gelatin keeps them from being readily soluble in water. Gummies won’t dissolve into your drink, so you won’t alter the flavor of the cocktail or the candy by the time you get to the bottom of it. Be aware that sour gummies should match up with the drink you’re putting them in: The sour powder and granulated sugar are exposed on the surface of the candy, and they’ll dissolve into the drink rather quickly. If you decide to use sour candy, stick with garnishing tangy, citrusy cocktails.

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Photo: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

The ice cube method is one of my favorite ways to use candy garnishes. Simply prepare an ice cube tray half-filled with water. Insert any small festive candies that you like. Once again, I suggest candy that doesn’t dissolve quickly, so leave the Smarties alone. (Actually, leave those at the store.) On the bright side, if you do use dissolving candies, you’ll get a colorful ice cube. Gummy eyeballs and vampire teeth look great in cubes. Place one or two candies into each divot—it’s OK if they stick out slightly, sometimes that’s even better. Pop them in the freezer for about three hours until thoroughly frozen. The cubes will cloud up slightly, leading to a sufficiently creepy cube. Dislodge one from the tray, drop it into a rocks glass for a fabulously freaky cocktail, and enjoy the burst of energy from these candy-laden drinks.

   

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Google Docs now has direct integration with Gmail. That might sound weird at first, but the document makes for a great place to write fully formatted emails. If you need to draft a long, or important email, this utility will give you space away from your crowded inbox, with all the familiar formatting tools.

Type the “@” menu shortcut, and use the “Email draft” option from the Building Blocks section. Type out the email, the receiver’s address, and other details. When you’re ready, click the Gmail button to take it over to the Gmail app.

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Korean automaker Kia will recall about 71,000 older 2008 and 2009 Sportage SUV vehicle models in the United States again for continued potential fire risks and advises owners to park the car outside of their homes until repairs are complete, according to a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The same year and model SUV had a recall that appeared to have been addressed back in 2016 for water potentially leaking into the Hydraulic Electronic Control Unit (HECU) and causing a short circuit and catching fire. Now, those same recalled cars are being recalled for a potential engine compartment fire originating from the same piece, the HECU, while parked or driving.

Kia has had eight reported vehicle fires and 15 localized melting or heat incidents since 2017 for the Sportage model that had already been through the 2016 recall, according to a report from Reuters. Kia reports to have had no fatalities, injuries, or crashes due to the HECU catching on fire.

What should you do if your Kia is recalled?

The NHTSA recommends drivers to keep these vehicles outside of structures and away from other vehicles or anything that might potentially catch on fire until they are able to take the car to be repaired. According to the NHTSA, the remedy is still “under development.” Owners who are affected by the recall should expect a mail notification by Dec. 20, 2022.

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If you have questions, you can contact the Kia customer service at 1-800-333-4542. Kia’s number for this recall is SC253. Another option is to call the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline at 1-888-327-4236, or go to www.nhtsa.gov.

Owners can also check if their Kia Sportage is affected by the recall by entering their 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number in the NHTSA website.

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