Consumer columnist and West Hartford resident Harlan Levy has more than 20 years of experience writing stories about everyday experiences that anyone could encounter.

Harlan Levy. Courtesy photo

By Harlan Levy

Before I get to my two main topics, here are two clever food “hacks,” the first for Thanksgiving:

• Freeze leftover sauces: It would be a crime to throw away those delicious gravies and sauces you spent time creating for Thursday’s feast. So don’t. Just freeze extra broth or sauces in ice cube trays. Once frozen, transfer the cubes to a freezer bag for easy, portion-controlled use.
• Keep peanut butter from separating: What kid doesn’t love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Do this: Store jars of natural peanut butter upside down to prevent the oil from separating and rising to the top.

International trade

A few years ago my wife and I traveled to Amsterdam for a delightful vacation. One high point was visiting the Van Gogh Museum (pronounced “Van Goff,” not “Van Go”). Before leaving we visited the gift shop where I bought several microfiber lens cleaning cloths featuring Van Gogh paintings, which I use currently to clean my glasses.

Two  weeks ago I received an email from the museum, advertising an event there. I then thought why not buy another lens cleaning cloth on its website, which I did, costing 2.44 euros, almost $3. When checking out I saw the shipping cost was (gasp) 22 euros ($25). I gulped and thought, what the hell. I wanted the new lens cleaner, so I paid up. Then, a week later I received an email from delivery service DHL Express requiring $19.52 in an import duty payment, courtesy of the beloved Trump tariffs. I paid it and soon received my lens cleaner – a $3 item costing me almost $50 in fees. What a bargain!

Lesson: When ordering an item from abroad check the shipping and import duty fees first. They may not be worth it. I’m using my lens cleaner every day to get my money’s worth from my whimsical purchase and to revive memories of an excellent vacation.

To silence calls and notifications you don’t want, you click on Focus and proceed.. Photo credit: Harlan Levy

Smart-phone vacation

Who wants to get constantly interrupted by endless alerts, calls, and messages – mainly calls from friends, strangers, fund-raisers, and persistent unwelcome robo-callers – on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and any other holidays or stretch of time? I mean, gimme a break!

You don’t have to – by taking the following steps (from online research) to create a custom vacation mode just once, which you can turn on whenever you want to be unreachable. It will send most callers to voicemail and mutes notifications, while allowing messages and calls from specific persons to get through, also permitting alerts from designated apps.

For iPhones (and the steps are about the same for Android phones): Go to settings. Scroll down, and click on “Focus.” Click on the “+” button in the upper right corner. Click on “Custom” from the resulting menu. Then create a label – “Vacation.” Then pick an icon and a color for your label. Click on “Next” at the bottom of the screen. Up come options you can pick for your Vacation mode. Tap on “Customize” to proceed. Then pick the people whom you want to contact you and the apps, if any, that you want to send notifications. Click on the “Options” menu for settings for how you want to display the silenced notifications.

You can schedule the time and your location when to automatically turn on Vacation mode, or you can tell Siri when to turn it on and off. Also, on the Focus menu you can use your Focus mode to apply to all your Apple products. And you can click on Focus Status to show a note stating notifications are silenced when people try to text you.

For emergency alerts go to settings and click on “Notifications,” and click on “Wireless Emergency Alerts.”

Now you know.

Yeah. I know it’s complicated, but isn’t the peace and quiet on your phone worth it?

NOTE: If you have a consumer problem, contact me at [email protected] (“Consumer” in subject line), and, with the power of the press, maybe I can help.

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