LOCAL SERVICES

BE ST A LTERATIONS

WINNER - HONG KONG TAILOR

2ND - OUR TAILOR

3RD - LILI’S CLEANERS & TAILORS

BEST AUTO REPAIR SHOP

WINNER - EAST DALLAS AUTOMOTIVE

2ND - LAKEWOOD AUTO DETAIL SHOP

3RD - LAKEWOOD EUROPEAN CAR CARE

BEST BARBER SHOP

WINNER - OLD EAST DALLAS BARBERSHOP

2ND - VIRTUS BARBER AND CO

3RD - CLARK’S BARBERSHOP

BEST CAR WASH

WINNER - CARMEL CAR WASH

2ND - WAVE WASH - GREENVILLE

3RD - ROSS’S AUTO DETAILING

BEST CHIROPRACTOR

WINNER - THE JOINT CHIROPRACTIC - CASA

LINDA

2ND - RESTORATION DALLAS CHIROPRACTIC

3RD - TEXAS CHIRO HEALTH OF LAKEWOOD

BEST CLEANING SERVICE

WINNER - EMILY’S MAIDS

2ND - LAKEWOOD WINDOW CLEANING

3RD - MAIDPRO

BEST DENTIST

WINNER - LAKEWOOD FAMILY DENTAL CARE

2ND - WHITE ROCK DENTAL

3RD - KELLI SLATE, DDS

BEST DRY CLEANING

WINNER - UPTOWN CLEANERS NO. 1

2ND - JOE O’S CLEANERS

3RD - ECO CLEANERS

BEST FINANCIAL PLANNER

WINNER - LPL FINANCIAL

2ND - JOAN NYE FINANCIAL ADVISOR

3RD - WAYFINDER WEALTH

BEST FLORIST

WINNER - MCSHAN FLORIST INC.

2ND - EN FLEUR

3RD - THE T SHOP

BEST GYM

WINNER - WHITE ROCK YMCA

2ND - EAST DALLAS CROSSFIT

3RD - F45 TRAINING LAKEWOOD TX

Our Neighborhood

By PATTI VINSON

Home grown

Making meals with ingredients straight from the garden

Lakewood neighbor Peter Schaar was giving me the grand tour of his garden recently when he plucked a leaf and handed it to me. “Here, taste this,” he says.

There’s a certain level of trust involved when someone encourages you to eat a plant you can’t identify, but Schaar, a longtime gardener and retired mathematician and scientist, knows his plants. He cooks with them several times each week.

But don’t bother asking him for recipes.

“My cooking is spontaneous, using well-known techniques and combinations I think will work,” Schaar says.

Yes, he browses through cookbooks, but he says he uses them m only as inspiration and general guidelines.

Now 86, Schaar took over in the kitchen out of necessity in the 1980s: He received medical test results he wasn’t pleased with and decided to tackle the problem with a healthier diet.

He approaches cooking as a scientist: “I see connections and patterns” in recipes, he says.

It’s no surprise he views cooking through a scientific lens, given his background and education. Schaar’s Ph.D. in biophysics from UT Health Sciences Center enabled a career at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, followed by years as a rocket scientist — quite literally — at LTV in Grand Prairie.

“I designed and led teams in building real-time simulations that tested missile guidance and control systems,” he says.

The end of the Cold War brought an end to his work there, at which point he took an improbable turn into a second career as a garden designer and horticultural consultant.

He had begun gardening back in 1969, when he and his late wife, Julie, bought a house.

“I was faced with maintaining the grounds, which forced me to start learning about gardening.”

Schaar is largely self-taught, but he picked up tips by joining the Dallas Area Historical Rose Society and the Native Plant Society of Texas. As he learned more, he shared his expertise by teaching organic gardening at Brookhaven College and waterwise organic gardening at Texas Discovery Gardens.

Over time, he began to include edible plants here and there in his lush green spaces. As he walks through the garden, he points out familiar herbs: rosemary, sweet basil, Mexican mint marigold, spearmint. They’re all put to good use in Schaar’s salads and sauces.

He’ll frequently flavor cooked meats, pasta sauces and stews with his Mediterranean oregano, Mexican oregano and autumn sage. And his roast chicken is likely to be stuffed with hierba anis or culinary sage plucked from his backyard.

If fish is on the menu, Schaar might add flavor with black and blue sage. Or he’s been known to wrap and roast it in hoja santa leaves. His large turmeric leaves also serve as a wrap for steaming and flavoring fish and chicken.

Schaar stuffs and fries the blossoms from his yucca plant, cooks down his Swiss chard for healthy greens, and creates salads with his harvested arugula, jewels of ophir, and oxalis crassipes. Sometimes he’ll add a bit of flair and dramatic presentation to salads with a sprinkling of begonia flowers, which taste distinctly lemony.

He cooks not only for himself, but for others, too. As part of the meals team at First Unitarian Church of Dallas, he delivers dishes such as caldo de pescado, Brazilian stew, and tortas de huevos to those in the congregation who need support. Not surprisingly, he enjoys hosting dinner parties, and he delights in bring -