Turkey heroin and an orphan thanksgiving.

Ah yes. This is late. You'll get over it.

Foodies say they hate thanksgiving. It is the one holiday where people focus on food. Yet, do the hoi polloi actually enjoy the food? Is this quintessential meal a celebration of flavors, an occasion of people finally pushing back that unhealthy monotony of fast food and frozen comestibles?

No! Thanksgiving is often a logistical nightmare for the food enthusiast. The turkey can't be dry. The sides must cook at the same time. Everything has to be hot. Aunt Cathy's son has spilled the mulled cider. Your mother in law is searching for the most infinitesimal lump in the gravy.

Ok, set down the paper bag. After all, if we take a philosophical step back, we'd realize that this turkey day meal reflects human nature: inevitably imperfect, mildly under-appreciated, and generally o k. With the full spectrum of catastrophic variety and consequent hilarity, of course.

Yet, I am still quite naive in my cooking; I still daydream of the day when I can host a tasteful thanksgiving meal, complete with adorable appetizers, elegant desserts, and an exquisite main course. Anyone who knows my utter lack of logistical management, however, could realistically anticipate a meal that is late, a bit quirky, but pretty darn good. A girl can still dream, however.

Dreams, delusions, they're all the same, aren't they? Such lovely musings caused me to volunteer making the turkey for a first-year grad student orphan thanksgiving. It would be a bonding potluck, a sort of 'best of' celebration. That is, unless I utterly destroyed the 25 lb bird.

That's right. 25 lbs. That is twice the size of a normal turkey, but we didn't have the room to roast two smaller birds simultaneously. In order to keep it's flavor while roasting the necessary 6 hours, my friend and I decided to try an intriguing technique: brining.

Step 1: call up my friend who's at Davis. She's a) a fantastic cook, and we cook well together, and b) she's the queen of the universe, and therefore great karmic protection against the Gods of Rubbery Poultry. We started our brining investigation.

Brining: a magical process that keeps lipid-lacking meat moist. I have not read any scientific literature on the matter, but my guess is that equilibrating the turkey cells in massive amounts of salt and sugar makes them hypertonic, which keeps them from releasing water early on in cooking. If the juices aren't in the pan, they must be in the bird. So, we shoved the thing into a cooler and soaked it in brine poured over ice (1 lb salt, 1 lb brown sugar dissolved in chicken stock, and some random seasonings).

Equipment: I do not own a baster. Ok, I had one in the times of yore, but I destroyed it in an entirely different story. Who wants to spend money on a cheap plastic tube with a cheap plastic ball? The scientist's solution: steal a 60mL syringe from lab. Done.

A backup plan: I was still worried that the sheer mass of the turkey would bump the cooking time up so high that the breast would dry out before the rest cooked. So, I hunted arond for a sterile needle that would fit my syringe, thinking I could inject meat with fat/flavor later if needed.

Unfortunately, the average structural biology lab does not have large needles. We have small needles... the equivalent of acupuncture needles as far as a turkey is concerned. I asked a fellow grad student and cooking aficionado his opinion on needle sizes. I got a witty yet condescending reply along the lines of, "Well, if you insist on poking holes in your food..." Well, balls to him. One of my roommates pokes rat brains with needles. He grabbed one that could work as an injection-backup apparatus.

Now, few things look as unappealing as whole, raw poultry. To me there is something almost perverse about naked, gutted birds. They might be the SVU of the culinary world. The whole thing looks so awkward and wrong, but you can't look away. Mainly because pulling a cold, slimy, heavy turkey out of a murky cooler takes focus. We rinsed it off, patted it dry, and artfully plopped it on our improvised roasting rack of carrots and celery. We further molested it by stuffing garlic, lemon, cinnamon, onions, and herbs up the head and ass. It was seasoned and brushed with oil before shoving it in the oven.

Commence the marathon! The miracle was that when it came time to baste it every 20 min or so, there were no pan juices! I had to add chicken stock to the bottom of the pan, and use that to baste. Which meant that I never needed to inject any part of the bird. My daydreams of eagerly injecting mLs of turkey heroin never materialized. Brining is the antidrug of brining.

Our ugly sex-crime victim blossomed into a supermodel fit for any table runway. It was so tender we didn't need knives to cut the meat, once carved. This was good--we didn't have any knives. Even better, my classmates arrived bearing the best dishes from their families. It was a best-of feast, and we all ate so much I'm surprised my body can still produce insulin.

Since thanksgiving, I've become enamored with roasting. It is cheap, tasty, and easy. Rather than post the turkey recipe (which no one would use for a year) Here is a super-simple chicken idea. The seasoning and stuffing is merely a suggestion: use whatever you want. No syringes or needles, necessary.



Roasted Clementine Red-Pepper Chicken

1 medium sized chicken (~7lbs)
1/2 head of garlic, sliced in half
3 cloves garlic, minced

3-4 clementines (or 1/2 orange), zested and sliced in half.
1/2 onion, roughly sliced
1 T red pepper flakes
whatever herbs you want, dry or fresh
salt/pepper
oil.

Oven --> 400 F

Mix salt, pepper, garlic, zest, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Take chicken, remove insides, rinse under cold water, and pat dry. Rub mixture over chicken. Put garlic, lemon, clementine halves and herbs inside bird. place in roasting dish, drizzle with oil.

Roast at 400 for 10-15 min, until skin crisps. Decrease heat to 375 and continue cooking until juices run clear when thigh is pierced, or until thermometer inserted between thigh and body reads 180 F.

Save the carcass to boil down for delicious soups and stews.

Thou Shalt Not lie. Thou Shalt Bake Muffins.

We. All. Lie. Don't deny it, we all do. To what degree may vary, but there is some deviation from the truth relayed in nearly every facet of human communication. We've amusingly color-coded this sin in English, which makes me anticipate a political-correctness group to demand we stop such racist metaphor usage. Nonetheless, even if our lies are primarily white, we cannot ignore their existence.

I therefore must confess: sometimes, I enjoy lying. Specifically, I like meaningless, gratuitous lying at bars and parties. I'm Susie, Paige, Michelle... why name children when you can name yourself? I've been a linguistics student, history teacher, a life coach, all in two hours. I told a crazy old guy at a blues bar that I had a medical condition that prevented me from dancing. If someone were to call my number, they'd get the outgoing phone message of ASU. It's amazing how many sundevils wouldn't recognize '965 8300' as NOT a private cell phone.

Why lie? It's not that I lie to every guy I meet. When a random guy on the bus wants to know my name, why lie? I will never see this person again. I won't remain more anonymous because I gave an alias. In fact, these guys probably hit on every female they see who does not have leprosy. So, why? It's fun! Even if it does not do anything in the mind of the li-ee, it gives me space as the li-ar. There is something exciting about being someone else, and I get the added satisfaction that this complete stranger who wants access to my is not privy into my personal microcosm. I guess lying is the most fun and creative safety barrier one can construct. Take that, therapists.

Ironically, real lying is no fun at all. For example, the National Science Foundation fellowship applications for grads in life sciences were due this past week. Even though everyone in my program is fully funded, the external money equates to getting priority in lab choosing, a better CV, and a few extra bucks. This application will round out a square dozen that I've completed in the past year. I would then know a bit about the application processes. It s u c k s. Why? It is a tightrope feat in lying.

These programs say multiple essays help get a more in-depth picture of the applicant: they want to get to know you better. Hence, we are to be ourselves. However, this picture is being fit into a very different frame: the outline of the ideal candidate.

It is the dichotomy between this frame and that picture that drives us poor little polaroids insane. Afraid of being just another vanilla social security number sucking up lab funding, we apply for fellowships and awards. The deities at the funding committees like people who came to the US not speaking English from the Ukraine, learned the language and customs (along with those of seven other countries,) and now have published six Nature papers, while helping orphans in the Ukraine embrace education as he once did. Sorry, I was born into a middle class family, led a middle class life, and don't know any orphans in Ukraine. In fact, I used to draw on the walls with crayon and probably ate paste when I was four. I do science too. Don't I count?

Everything comes down to 'spin'. You want to present the truth in exactly the right light to make you seem desirable. I feel like a grad student equivalent of a cougar who makes sure that every date is at a dimly lit restaurant, gets botox one week beforehand, and only wears hideous pantsuits that vainly attempt to cover love handles.

There you go. The truth is dead. That's terrible marketing, and no fun. I guess the postmoderns were right; we are all swimming in a meaningless pool of ambiguity.

Wrong. Why? Because God made muffins. And so should we. I love muffins. You can put them on sticks. They also lie. They scream, "We're cute like cupcakes, but we're morning food! Look, we have fruit, we must be healthy!" and then the unsuspecting victim pops five of the suckers in his or her mouth. Insulin shock and diabetes then ensue. Muffins are not healthy. They have a lot of fat and sugar. That is why they taste good.

Yet surely, homemade muffins exude coziness. Sometimes I feel like I am enjoying a leisurely breakfast in my forest cottage, not gingerly peeling silicone baking cups off piping hot muffins before dashing off to lab. Muffins and tea infuse contentment: I think of leisurely days and O'Henry short stories when I reach for some oolong and a muffin.

These muffins are 95% not my recipe. Rather, I woke up one day and wanted comfort. So, I googled the ingredients that were in our fridge (minus the non-muffin potential ones) and hit the jackpot: a delicious sounding recipe that amazingly uses things that you have. More importantly, they make a swanking photo.

So, humans lie. Muffins lie. It is better to make muffins than to tell lies. Unless they are meaningless exercises in creativity. Right?

Ok, maybe I'll put down the ethics and pick up the baking.

Cran-Apple carrot muffins.

2 c apples, diced fine
1 c sugar
1 c chopped fresh cranberries (food processor would make life easy)
1 c shredded carrots
1/2 c veggie oil
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2.5 c flour
1 T baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 T cinnamon
1 t allspice
1/2 t cloves
1 t ground ginger
1/2 t salt

oven to 375 F

Sift flour, salt, spices, baking powder and soda in a bowl, set aside.

Mix carrots, apples, sugar, and cranberries, let sit five min. Add eggs and oil, stir. Stir in dry ingredients in batches. Spoon into a greased muffin pan. Bake at 375 F for 25 min, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Halloween: Trick or fellowship?

When I was young, Halloween was an exercise in creatively wearing snowpants. Such is life when you life in wretched Iowa and snow starts in October. The artistry stemmed from creating a costume that could be worn under fifteen layers of clothing and still made you look like Tinkerbell, not a giant Technicolor marshmallow.

Halloween always drums up nostalgia: waddling around in the cold and delighting over the candy procured. Everyone would have the best houses mapped out, and we'd all try to convince our parents that we should go trick-or-treating six miles from home, because those houses had king sized candy bars, but Mrs. Richter down the street handed out stale old raisins.

However, as one ages, Halloween transforms from a practice in dressing warmly to a practice in freezing one's ass off. Soon Mom and Dad don't have to worry about their precious little children catching cold because the little munchkins are now college students parading around as slutty bumblebees. Perhaps it's part of the fundamental human preponderance of identity: we do not know who we are, but becoming who we are not allows us to break constraining mores and explore life outside the Self. Or, maybe too much alcohol and gratuitous sex doesn't count when you're a sexy astronaut.

I guess I never fully understood collegiate Halloween. Grad school sheds new light to the holiday, however. Suddenly nerdy costumes dominate, even if some are nerdy-sexy costumes. Many a student went as the organisms they study: pond scum, sea squirts, garden variety prokaryotes galore. I had friends who went as a trio of scientific journals, and a few others who went as enzymes.

For me, this year brought out neither nerdy nor sexy side. Rather, it awoke a far more dangerous facet: kleptomania.

It began innocently enough. I joked about a bright orange dress I own that makes me look like a traffic cone (albeit a nice traffic cone). The next morning there was a battered, but endearing traffic cone in front of my bedroom door in the hallway. I have fantastic roommates. We swapped it for a really pretty cone the next evening. The next thing I knew, I was clipping caution tape from an abandoned construction site at a Home Depot. It was a narrow section of the parking lot and cars were honking angrily at my friend who pulled over while I surreptitiously scuttled across the street and snipped precious yards of "CAUTION CUIDADO" repeats.

Some finds were easy. I nabbed a foot or so of the "DANGER DO NOT ENTER" red tape on the way to an interview with a professor. Yet, if I was to really pull off the costume, I needed something definitive. I wanted a cone. Not the cute dweeby cone sitting in our kitchen, although it was shiny and adorable. I wanted the cylindrical pillar-looking traffic cones. It would be the ideal cane. I would become the Gandolf of road construction--my orange stave would boom authority as I shouted "Though shalt not pass!" Or something. Hard as I looked, there were none to be found that weren't bolted to the ground.

Serendipitously, the day before Halloween, a miracle struck. I was innocently wandering to my biochemistry discussion section. There, in the grass, was a traffic pillar. MY traffic pillar. It was beaten, detached from it's heavy base, and merely relaxing in the yard. I looked around. No construction to be seen. Someone had stolen it and tired of its novelty. It was unwanted, abandoned, and alone; devalued in our careless materialistic society. I picked it up. It was perfect, fitting into my hand and lending the perfect amount of weight for a cane. It made the perfect armrest. I brought it to class. "What did you do now?" "She mugged a construction worker, clearly." My professor could only laugh when he walked in to see a bright orange pillar behind my desk.

After that there was no hope. I became a full-fledged construction paraphernalia kleptomaniac. I took one of the scores of construction signs on site at school. I found an expired 'no parking, construction zone' sign on my way home. Everywhere I saw signs and cones I could take for my costume. In short, I was drastically increasing my chances of being the first grad student in my class to quit because she was sent to jail. Why go Grand Theft Auto when you can go Grand Theft Traffic Cone?

It was glorious. I made barricades to wear. One guy kept calling me 'cuidado lady' because I wore the bilingual tape as a headband. There was just one thing spoiling a marvelous weekend. Work. This week brings a second midterm and the NSF fellowship deadline. Neither of which are particularly daunting if I was capable of working like a normal human being. Alas, I write at the whopping speed of three sentences a night. They aren't even good sentences. The fellowhsip involves three essays: personal statement, research history, and proposed project. The pitiful thing is that I only have the proposal to write! The other two essays I have already written, and I managed to win other things with them, so they can't be that bad. I can write the proposal on my current rotation project. It should be straightforward and simple. Yet... three sentences every six hours. It also looks like a peer-reviewed journal threw up in my room.

On the up side, I have gotten good at swinging at the neighborhood playground, making weird shouting noises, talking to the neighborhood cats, and creating pumpkin pie smoothies.

I love pumpkin custard. It is so creamy, perfectly spiced, and an overall reminder of the gentle decadence fall can bring. Only pumpkin pies take time! Crust takes patience and is 50% fat. I can't handle that. Instead, I now have a smoothie. It's a drinkable pumpkin pie--perfect to satisfy that sweet craving when you don't have the time to waste on a full-out pie. I like to put honey teddy grahams as I eat it, to give it some crunchy crust.

NSF, you better watch out. If I'm capable of stealing cones from the institution that pays my stipend, imagine what I'll do if you don't give me that fellowship. Needless to say, you won't get a smoothie.

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie
1 c pureed pumpkin
1/2 c vanilla lowfat or full-fat yogurt. (Recommended, mountain high)
1/2 c evaporated milk (or a healthy splash of normal milk)
pinch nutmeg, allspice, and clove
healthy pinch cinnamon
whipped cream/topping for garnish
teddy grahams.

Mix first five ingredients until homogeneous. Add dollop of cream, sprinkle a little more cinnamon, and garnish with teddy grahams. It's fun to make screaming noises as you eat the tiny bears. Or not.

Will Tango for Bacon

Some say fall is a great time to fall in love. Change is everywhere, and life feels as crisp as the autumn air. I say that's bullshit, but I did fall in love with tango.

This isn't terribly surprising. Personally, music sparks a nearly tangible dopamine response. Stimulants like caffeine fail to keep me awake, but take me to a good club at 1am and I will dance for at least the next two hours. People generalize why many women and some men like to dance. The same people conclude that women like moving to music and men like women. Ah, there is no reciprocity in life, is there?

I went salsa dancing recently in an attempt to de-funkify and let loose. I got pretty lucky: the music was live, there were plenty of good dancers, and I successfully told anyone hitting on me that I was Susie, a linguistics major from Florida. My feet were so tired I didn't go running the next day. I blame it on the partner who thought standing in place while I did never-ending sets of triple spins was good dancing. It was as if he was thinking "Ooooh, she turns! Let's do it again. Oooh! She turned again!" WTF dude, you should try spinning nonstop. What do I look like, Dancing with the Stars? I felt like I was on the Salsa Teacups of Death. However I won't like; it was a lot of fun.

Why? Dance evokes that delicious feeling that arises when the body connects music and space. Suddenly all the emotions that leapt out of the brain at the first measure have a physical outlet. You not only change your body to fit the music, but you change the very environment: the palpable expression of elusive musical nuances.

Fancy words for a girl who danced a hoedown on a kitchen chair to Christmas carols before a midterm. In October. In dalmatian spotted PJ pants.

My new love is tango. Argentine tango is simply beautiful. It isn't necessarily the fiery flash-and-trash performances you see on stage and in film, although many are fabulous. Rather, the movements have a very organic superficiality. You can watch avid tangueros savor every flourish--regardless if they are seasoned dancers or an elderly couple on the floor. It is not a polished presence, but rather a raw consequence of the music that cannot be hidden or easily falsified. Some dances I love because they allow me to be someone else. Tango I love because it shows me that this someone else--is actually me.

Grammatical ambiguities aside, I'm obsessed. I listen to tangos at work, check out violin tangos to play at home, and dance with anyone who puts up with me. I'm having difficulty unlearning ballroom habits (Argentine tango does not have the arched, extended frame of ballroom tango), but my inner pseudo-dancer in me is whining like a five year old child. "Dance NOW! I want to learn more NOW!" Definitely matches the the music, no?

If I fell in love with tango, I became infatuated with bacon. Don't ask why, I have no clue. In fact, most animal fat scares me. I bake with butter because there is no good subsitute, my cream soups lack cream, and I trim every molecule of fat off my meat. Nonetheless I want bacon like I want my experiments to work. Grilled figs wrapped in bacon. Pineapple bacon prawns. Cheddar bacon biscuits. More sentences without verbs. As long as it includes bacon. One friend asked me if I was pregnant. Another friend joked, "I bet your brain when you wake up is like, 'Science! BACON! Tango.'" Damn straight it is.

The problem is that I haven't gone food shopping in two weeks. There is no food in the house. Absolutely no bacon. What to do? I managed to make amazing muffins: you know you bake too much when the leftovers make apple cranberry oat muffins. Too bad delicious muffins do not have bacon, which is what I want like I want oxygen.

To remedy the situation, I went for a run. One must do something to burn off massive amounts of pork fat. Afterwards I went to the store, yelling "Baccoooooon!!!" while dashing inside; much to the dismay; much to the dismay of my fellow shoppers. I waited fifteen minutes for my number to be called at the meat counter. The lady before me asked for a pound of bacon. "Good choice!" I quipped. "Oh, it's for a friend, she's too skinny. I haven't craved bacon since I was pregnant." Oh shit. I got my half-pound of thickly sliced pepper bacon. It was the lone outlier in a shopping cart of produce and low-fat yogurt. Statistical deviations have never tasted so good.

Now what? I could roll up my sleeves and cook something. Too bad neurosis are impatient. First order of business was a simple bacon cheese sandwich. Once that salty crisp ecstasy hit my palette I knew I was in business. Diced apples, shallot and garlic hit a saute pan. The mixture went into a bowl and met cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon. Can you say 'delicious filling?' I used it in stuffed pork chops, but it also makes a wicked stuffed turkey burger. There is something that hits the spot, and then there is something that reminds you why life is worth living. Generally life doesn't go your way. Things fail, people disagree, and discontent rules without interruption. But sometimes, all you need is a little bacon. And maybe a tango.


Mustard-crusted pork chops with apple bacon stuffing
2 pork chops (thick cut)
2 T whole-grain mustard
1 small apple, diced (pick a tart and crisp variety, like golden delicious, honey crisp, fuji, or macintosh)
3 strips thick-cut bacon, fried and crumbled
1/2 c sharp cheddar cheese
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot or 1/2 small red onion, diced
1/4 c chicken broth
2 t apple cider vinegar

Saute apples, garlic, and shallot in olive oil until shallot is slightly translucent. Put into a small bowl. Add bacon and cheddar cheese, mix.

Cut a slit into the pork chop, making as wide and deep a pocket as possible. Salt/pepper the meat. Spoon mustard on either side of the chop to make a nice crust. Put stuffing into the pocket, packing in firmly. (It helps to rest it on the non-slit edge.)

Heat a little olive oil in a skillet over med-high heat. Cook pork in skillet for 2 min on each side. Then, add chicken broth and vinegar, turn heat down to medium, and cover with lid. Allow to simmer/steam for at least another 5 min, or until cooked (depends on thickness of pork chop.

In the beginning, God made Sudafed.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a grad student in possession of a death-cold must be in want of some meds.

Post the parodied work, and I'll bake you cookies. (Assuming I can or will be able to get them to you...)

A new rite of initiation has furthered me along the path to acclimation: the cold. Any university is a veritable cesspool of pathogens. Thousands of people, plenty of stress, and not enough handwashing makes a simple cold virus akin to the Borg.

Colds are an interesting pathological purgatory. Anyone who has a cold will tell you they wish to die. The body aches, the lungs can't breathe, the head wants to explode, and the spirit shrivels in despair. Yet everyone waves it off, "Oh, it's just a cold, it won't kill you." It makes me want to cough violently on their sanctimonious bottles of Purel and launch flaming boxes of Kleenex into their houses. Unfortunately, the sinus headache makes coughing excruciating, and Kleenex is more vital than oxygen at the moment. I grunt indistinguishably and slink away.

Indeed, viruses show that a streamlined agenda (reproduce) is a force to be reckoned with. I love small molecule research, and small molecules haven't done squat when it comes to fighting viral infections. This is why I'm glad to have an adaptive immune system, which I am so painfully learning about in class. While I'm ready to cough up my own spleen, my professor is elaborating on the nuances of T cell co-stimulation. I don't give a rat's ass about CD28. Where is the nearest fifth of robitussin I can chug?

Sidenote--anti-tussives are the molecular mirror images of narcotics. If you want a funny story, ask about the time I actually did drink half a family sized bottle of robitussin.

My personal signature disease phenotype is my voice. It is the first thing to go when I get sick, probably because I use it incessantly when healthy. Karma is a bitch. I go from pseudo-normal female to emphysema-robot-noise instantly. This gathers much sympathy and hilarity. Friends tell me to lay off the cigarettes, co-workers tell me to go home NOW before I contaminate anything. One roommate told me that for a while I had the 'sick yet sexy' voice. I'm not sure what she was talking about--I sounded like Stephen Hawking.

It is rather entertaining, though to be sick when you have an overly expressive face. Steve Wonder could tell I'm sick before I said a word. I look terrible, and the minute I start to recover everyone says "Ah, I can tell you are feeling better! You looked like shit the other day." Why thank you! I was in fact hoping to start a new career in diseased modeling. Why display an eating disorder when you can strut the swine flu, rock the cholera, or put some sizzle back into SARS? Alas, my dreams are crushed!

During this illness, some amazing (and brave) friends in my PhD program invited our house over for lunch. How sophisticated! The food they made was incredibly delicious, and the spread was straight out of Martha Stewart. Only better, because our friends aren't bitchy and aren't convicted of insider trading. This naturally calls for a mature and quaint dish to bring over, right? I didn't have one of those, but I did have a pumpkin cranberry bread recipe. Using the fresh pumpkin puree and my roommates as taste testers, we made some tasty loaves. It is hard to bake something you can't taste- especially when figuring out how much spice to add. I'd ask
"Does this need more cloves, or more allspice?"
"What's allspice?"
"This is allspice" (hands jar)
"ooooh, this smells good!"

And so on. The cream cheese drizzle on top was even more obscure. When I came up with the recipe I didn't have any cream. So I used ice cream, and fell in love with the result. This time I didn't even have a hand mixer, nor powdered sugar. So, I softned the cream cheese, added ice cream, and nuked it for a couple minutes. Then I added sugar and a splash of vanilla. It makes an amazing shmear to go with fall food. And it really is a technique a la college-tackiness. But try this recipe. It is absurdly easy.



Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin
1/2 c veggie oil
1 c white sugar, 1 c brown
2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t NaCl
1/4 t cloves, 1/4 t allspice, 1/4 t ginger (you can use whatever pumpkin spices you like, or pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 t nutmeg
1 t cinnamon
2 c fresh cranberries

Oven to 350 F
Combine eggs, puree, and oil in one bowl. Dry ingredients go in the other. Add dry to wet, mix enough to bring together. Add cranberries. Pour into greased loaf pan, bake about 1 hour.
Makes one loaf.

Icing:
Cream cheese, ice cream, powdered sugar, vanilla.
Do this to taste.

Beat cream cheese. Add melted ice cream. Add powdered sugar. Add vanilla.

October News: The Nobel Pumpkins

Ah yes, fall is here. The bay area is not known for large seasonal variations, yet the leaves are indeed changing color, talk of thanksgiving and Halloween is creeping in, and my roommates are buying pumpkin beers. It is time to stock up on your carotenoids (molecules like beta carotene that make life beautiful and orange) because chlorophyll is on vacation, and we must take advantage of squash, sweet potatoes, and yams.

October also brings the Nobel Prizes. Allow me:
Once upon a time, a very ingenious Swede named Alfred invented dynamite. He thought it was helping makind by creating something that could aid construction of bridges, tunnels, etc. Silly, Silly Alfie. Quickly the man realized that humans found dynamite much more entertaining up each other rather than stupid inanimate objects. Oops. Young Alfie felt bad, so when he became Old And Dying Alfie, he set up a Prize. It was a prize of Super Swedish Superiority: governed by committees and a 'trust.'
And that is how (in my bastardized recollection) the Nobel Prizes started.

So a bunch of stuffy old white guys determine who has contributed to humanity. I think it would be more entertaining if the winners couldn't exchange the currency--so Laureates end up investing 10 million Kronor in Ikea allen wrenches or Stockholm souvenirs.

Liz Blackburn (medicine prize this year) did her work on telomeres (wikipedia it) while at UC Berkeley. The thing is, that happened 25 years ago (common for science Nobels) and now she is at UCSF. So she will not get a Nobel Laureate parking space at Berkeley, which all residents NLs recieve. It is a shame, because parking in such prime real estate is probably worth more than the money. One day I'll park in a NL space and get this ticket: "You're ordinary. Go park in the boonies, you bastard." Too bad I bike to lab everyday.

The other relevant breaking news? There is a shortage of canned pumpkin this year, sound the alarms! Pies are out of reach. Soups, cupcakes, bread, cookies... that subtly sweet earthiness is no longer form in those unchanging orange tin cans! Fall has ended. We must trade our Thanksgiving pies for sackcloth, our fall custards for ashes. Repent to the God of Squash, and He may bless this Gomorrah with the convenience of our darling canned pumpkin.

Or... you can buy pumpkins and make it yourself. It is actually fairly easy, if you time it correctly. Please note the following.

1) Buy sugar pumpkins, pie pumpkins, or sugar-pie pumpkins. They are all the same squash: pumpkins that have softer, sweeter flesh that is best for pumpkins. Keep the normal pumpkins for Jack-o-Lanterns, because they tend to be stringy and tough.
2)Keep in mind that pumpkins are mostly filled with pulp that you don't eat. Pick a pumpkin that feels heavy for it's size, and don't expect a gallon of puree for a pumpkin the size of a marmoset.
3) Give yourself time. The stuff must be strained out--so don't make the puree the day you intend to cook with it. It needs to cool, be pureed, and then strained. I cooked these pumpkins after a party on Saturday and let it drain overnight before making pumpkin cranberry bread on Sunday. (I'd advise cooking BEFORE partying, or you end up in your kitchen late at night wondering what synaptic misfire led to you attacking cooked orange-ness with an immersion blender.)

Pumpkins
Buy a pumpkin. Don't steal, they're cheap. And how do you run out of a store with a pumpkin? Scoop out insides with a spoon. Reserve seeds for roasting. Lay face-down on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Cover with foil. Bake at 375 F for 1.5 hours, or just until tender. (I had two pumpkins, one bigger than a softball and one smaller than a size-3 soccer ball. It took one hour) Take out and let cool, or you will burn your hands (Stirfrycookies, J. of Stupid Cooking, 2009.)

Scoop out flesh into a bowl. Either blend with an immersion blender, or use normal blender/food processor and work in batches. Dump puree into strainer, place over a bowl, and let sit in the fridge, covered, for at least a few hours. Longer is better.

That is it! With my two smallish pumpkins I got about 4 c puree. Once made it'll last a few days in the fridge, and much longer in the freezer. I like this method because it is the least messy and doesn't involve water, so the stuff doesn't need a million cheesecloths to drain. The pumpkin is sweeter and lighter in color than the canned, but it is fairly easy to make, and gives a nice autumnal clarity to whatever you're making. Add it to pancakes or oatmeal, for starters.

A real recipe? Stay tuned--it'll be pumpkin cranberry bread, with a cream cheese drizzle. So much more optimistic than real news!

Taxidermied hamsters and a complete lack of focus

Midterms are here! Therefore, I taxidermied a family of hamsters.
Ok, maybe not.

The exclamation point clearly denotes an air of joy; as if mind-numbing tests on stuff you plan to study for the rest of your life but currently hate were just like rainbow ice-pops. Mary Poppins can suck it, because the only thing that helps midterms go down is alcohol. And, considering that I decided to stop buying alcohol so that I could afford to take tango classes, I was thoroughly screwed.

I tried to cram for my biochemistry exam the weekend beforehand. Here is how that went:

1. Wake up.
2. Make tea, start breakfast.
3. Pull out computer, download enough articles to make one pee one's pants.
4. Neighbor starts power saw. Sounds like Marilyn Manson exploded a pipeline.
5. Eat breakfast, look over first paper. Nearly pee my pants.
6. Sawing stops. Sigh in relief.
7. Oxyacetalene torch starts. What. the. hell. Would get up to look out window, but was so surrounded by papers didn't want to move. Assume neighbor is welding an oil rig.
8. Try to read paper. Paper doesn't really make sense. Paper has 49 more pages, and 20 other friends. Intensely hate paper.
9. Neighbor switches off torch. Sawing resumes.
10. Resist urge to turn on college football.
11. Torch relights. Hear casual Spanish conversation on a cell phone about the weekend. Who chitchats while holding a lit torch?
12. Change papers. Take a break and go online. The internet is fascinating. Scientific artciles are not. Read about a man selling taxidermied hamsters.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/rcs/1127138244.html

Continue, ad nauseum. Needless to say, I got very little done before watching ASU play UGA while indexing lecture notes. I was very proud of the Sundevils, who managed to hold their own against a ranked SEC team in Georgia. This was, until they lost this past weekend to the Beavers. Truly, sports are the eternal tease of humanity.

Towards the end of the weekend, I give up. I will fail, it will suck, and I will get over it. One test probably won't get me kicked out of grad school, and let's face it--I incessantly babble about life plans that do not involve a PhD. I could always become a baker, yoga teacher, or South American Ninja.

Take the test. Obscenities fail to capture my state of mind. I could barely see straight while stumbling out the door. It was if my brain had focused so much on those nine sheets of paper that life on the outside demanded a re-acclimation period. This was it. I was done. I'd drop out, tech in industry for a year, and join the Peace Corps. Clearly, I would be much better at digging ditches for orphans in Indonesia than doing biochemistry.

Get home. There is a tent on the patio. It is a four person, bright green tent. What? Was there a slumber party I was not aware of? Who is camping on a Tuesday night ON OUR PORCH? Who owned this tent? Our stipends are pretty low, but we did not need a fifth roommate to live on the deck. Last time I checked.

Turns out the tent is the neighbor's; the same neighbor who was torching the Alaskan pipeline while on his phone on a Saturday morning. Apparently the tent blew into our patio. I guess it got tired of Kansas, but the only witch to land on would be our hallucinating squirrel, Fritz. (see post on 'cracked out squirrels') It missed. That make my housemates and I the munchkins. Too bad we don't have those cool outfits.

One night after work I came home famished and short on time. So, I rolled out some of hte pizza dough I had made the weekend prior. I had no tomato sauce, but I did have roasted vegetable soup of approximate pizza sauce consistency. I threw together the weirdest topping combination of my life. Mozzarella, parmesan, and Danish blue cheeses, walnuts, and tomatoes. It worked remarkably well! The tang of the blue cheese complimented the earthy squash flavors in the soup-sauce, and the walnuts had a nice crunch against the oozy melted mozzarella. And added bonus? I managed to roll the crust into the shape of Australia. My housemates insisted on slicing it up along state lines:

So, how bad can life be, if you know that people are taxidermiing deceased rodent pets their chilldren accidentally kill? (Is that hamster-slaughter, instead of manslaughter?) You know you are better off than whatever frazzled parent decides buying this is a good idea... and you can make pizza shaped like any continent you like. Win win!

Roasted Vegetable soup:
half a butternut squash, cleaned out
half an onion
5 cloves garlic
2 portabella mushrooms
1 bunch leeks, cleaned well with green parts cut off
Whatever the hell you want.
Chicken stock

Chop vegetables roughly into big pieces. Dump on tray, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Roast at 400 F until fork tender, but take out garlic after 15 min, or it will char into little coal-cloves.

Dump veggies into a pot, cover with chicken stock, and simmer. Take immersion blender and blend until smooth, or pour into a blender.

The non-Australian Australian Pizza
Your favorite pizza crust (dough from local pizzeria, your own recipe, etc.)*
Tomato paste, or soup
Blue cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
Walnuts
1/2 tomato, sliced and quartered.

Oven to 375 F

roll out dough until you reach desired thickness. Poke holes in dough with a fork, brush with olive oil, and bake in oven 15 minutes-ish.

Remove from oven, spread sauce on crust. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese on sauce. Walnuts and blue cheese crumbles next, followed by tomato slices. Top with parmesan. Bake until crust is golden and cheese is bubbling, about 20 min.

*I promise, I'll post my favorite pizza dough recipe one day.

Berlioz and MLK: delusions and putting the "re" in research.

I had a dream. Actually, I have lots of dreams. Many of them involve exploding glassware and past violin professors lecturing me. Then we all play soccer against some very talented talking chipmunks and dance tango. Turn that into a Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz. Some people don't need opiates... but I digress.

As I was sitting in immunology (I think this class is much better for my culinary tangents than actual learning,) flavors tiptoed into my head. Antibodies morphed into sesame seeds. B-cell development whispered of crystalline ginger. Orange zest seduced my senses long before class got to VDJ recombination. Honestly, I will fail this class.

Yet, it was a cookie: a daring fusion of Asian and butter. It would command the senses, stimulate the palate, and save old ladies from being hit by buses. Crunch, zing, and sweetness in one fattening bite. I pulled out a legal pad, and started designing.

A candy-like cookie that could be cooled into cup-like shapes, filled with a ginger-chocolate ganache, garnished with candied orange zest and ginger. I only had to wait for the week to end.

That day of cooking research went much like normal research: death. Two main problems: don't make anything relating to candy without proper equipment. Thus, a buttered and floured cookie sheet will NOT substitute a silicone mat. The cookie came out as a lacy, sticky disaster that bubbled into the pan and wouldn't come off. Instead of a cup that could hold something, I got a delicate coral-esque garnishe that I had to pry off the pan with the finesse of a bulldozer lifting a concrete foundation. The kitchen radiated a miasma of a sugared Asia and bad cooking aura. The cookies, once cooled, were cute and would not hold anything.

How does this parallel my research. Ah. My enzyme assay result proved exciting at first. It suggested that our interesting hypothesis might hold true. Wait, something actually worked? Elation. That is, until the following week where I managed to destroy everything I touched. In a procedure where sample wells must be free of air bubbles, I made one sample look like Mr. Bubble assaulted the NIH. I forgot to save results. I saved results and realized they sucked. I redu the unsaved experiment, and realize the results sucked. This is why they call it "research" and not "shit we figured out that lives in this test tube".

So, I was left with a delicious chocolate ganache (mixture of cream and chocolate used to make fondue, truffles, etc.) that had a spicy ginger finish, candied ginger, a zested orange, and black roasted sesame seeds. I refused to declare defeat. Yet there was no way in hell I was baking anything else that night.

What else does a girl do? Make the most pretentious ice cream sundae at home, naturally. Vanilla ice cream provides the perfect backdrop for a spicy bite and citrus finish. I didn't even have to candy the orange zest, which was nice. It was sexy in a bowl. My roommates approved. They should: something like this would cost a bunch on a restaurant menu.


[Insert pretentious name here]/ Sexy Asian Sundae

Candied Ginger and syrup:
2 in ginger root, sliced as thinly as possible. Don't slice off fingers, they probably taste terrible.
Water
Sugar

Chocolate Sauce:
1:1 ratio chocolate chips to cream.
Ginger syrup (I used 1 T for about 1 c sauce)

Sundae:
Vanilla icecream (breyer's natural vanilla!)
Black roasted sesame seeds
Zest from 1/2 orange
Candied ginger

To candy ginger:
put ginger in a small saucepot, cover with water. Bring to a boil. Let simmer 15 min, then strain out water. Cover again with water and add sugar. (Try to have an equal ginger:sugar ratio by weight. I guessed.) Bring to a simmer and let simmer for at least 30 min. If water boils too low, add more.

Remove ginger and let syrup reduce down a few min more. Let ginger drain and dry over a baking rack for at least an hour (I put it on tin foil... but I imagine a rack would be better.) Tos with granulated sugar.

Chocolate sauce: the lazy man's ganache:
Heat cream in microwave in 1 min increments until simmering. Pour over chocolate, let stand 2 min. Stir until smooth and shiny. Add in syrup to taste.

Assemble:
Scoop ice cream into a sexy bowl. Not a normal one. Chic will do
Sprinkle sesame seeds
Sprinkle orange zest
Drizzle chocolate ginger sauce
Garnish with candied ginger

My roommates are superheroes, and I'm the Narcoleptic Ostrich

The Beatles should write a song about me.
Oh wait. They're mostly dead.

Yes. I have awesome roommates. In fact, I'm pretty sure one of them is superwoman. Instead of an invisible jet, she wears a headlamp when biking at night. Moreover, I'm pretty sure that after working ridiculous hours and reading way too many scientific papers, she fights crime on the streets of Berkeley.

Another roommate manages to do well and know what the hell is going on, while still watching remarkable amounts of television. Not to mention his research rather freaks me out. Weird Neuroscientists. The third roomate, other than being generally awesome, can make tasty sweet-potato burritos. Finally, my incredible ex-roommate from ASU is Queen of the Universe, and doesn't even have to wait for more than an hour at the DMV.

I'm pretty sure they'll go out and save the world one day. I'll watch and make popcorn.

Ah yes, the narcoleptic ostrich. That would be me. As it should be, because blogs are essentially narcissitic writing exercises in cyber-space. right?

One great travesty of my life is a complete resistance to caffeine. Alas, coffee, energy drinks, amphetamine precursors--I am impervious to all. Not only that, but when tired, my body shuts down immediately, giving rise to plenty f interesting scenarios where I'm found sleeping on the dining room table, the floor, under my lab bench, etc. I have fallen asleep in the middle of scale practice (Jesus must've kept me from dropping my violin), during experiments (failed ones, mind you) and in piano bars on busy Friday nights.

So you can imagine my struggle to stay awake in class. So far I have been woken up by a professor snidely commenting, "...well, it's better than nodding off in a warm classroom" and a fellow student poking me in the arm and asking if I was ok. Either I definitely belong in grad school, or they should kick me out tomorrow. I'm not sure which.

My other skill apparently involves hiding my face. Actually, I don't really understand how this evolved, but I think my penchant for folding myself into weird contortions morphed into me always hiding my face. Actually, I have no clue. Self analysis fails here. I'm well aware of the cowardly implications of my new title, but I wouldn't consider myself one to run from danger... I live in Oakland. (And I've paid for it--if you ever read the first post.)

This falls in line with most of the past week. It has neither been the best of times nor the worst of times, but just one of those stretches where you just can't seem to excel at anything. You are good at falling behind or just scraping by, but actually being on top seems unreachable. It's an optimization of mediocrity, if you will.

Even when cooking I have missed the mark. I have yet to get a proper rising out of a loaf of bread, even when the proofed yeast is so raring to go the bowl of milk and honey looks like a cheap sci-fi movie. I guess my yeasty friends can sense the aura of inadequacy radiating from my bewildered hands.

Similarly, I have dreamed of making baked mac and cheese for my dish to bring for lunch for the week. I prefer to add chicken to increase protein and use roasted butternut squash in place of a fatty traditional roux (roo: the thickener of butter and flour). I had seen similar versions online, and even made mine before at home. This time I had optimized the strategy and was ready to go.

Alas! 'twasn't meant to be. I stupidly kept the heat on after adding the cheese to the mixture, breaking the emulsion. Instead of a thick, creamy cheese sauce with roasted squash undertones, I got cheesy blobs in milk. Yum. Nonetheless it came out ok, just lacking a textural homogeneity key to the comfort-food character of the dish.

Surprisingly, the pasta was amazing as leftovers. I don't know why, or if I was just starving after moderately sucking at science, but reheated it was tasty and satisfying.

Here's the recipe- with the proper directions I failed to follow. As always, adjust to your taste, because it's adjusted to mine. I swear, it should come out right if you aren't... me. :)

Baked Mac 'n cheese

1/2 lb chicken, marinated. (I used a little Dijon mustard, olive oil, garlic, onion, marjoram, and salt/pepper)
1/2 lb pasta (or more, if you want it to last. Doesn't have to be macaroni)
Half onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 t paprika
1 t cayenne pepper
2 t ground mustard
~1.5 c of 2 cheeses, preferably semi-soft ones that melt well. (I used extra-sharp cheddar and monterey jack.)
1 c roasted butternut squash (skin squash, cube half of it into 1 in pieces. Drizzle with olive oil and season. Roast at 400 F until fork tender. You can roast the whole squash one night and toss half with blue cheese crumbles and pecans as a side dish, then use the rest for this.)
1 c lowfat milk
few handfulls Panko (japanese breadcrumbs. or rice krispies, if you can't find those)
olive oil or butter
1/4 c grated parmesan cheese

Roast squash (see above.) When done, mash up and set aside. Marinate chicken, turn oven temp down to 350 when squash is done.

Boil pasta, set aside.

Pan to med-high, add olive oil. Saute small part of onions, garlic, and all of chicken. Set aside.

Turn heat down to med. Add onions and garlic, stir until onions are translucent. Add spices. Add squash, make sure it is very puree-like (I use an immersion blender beforehand if I'm not feeling lazy.) Add milk, bring to simmer.

Turn off heat, stir in cheese. Dump chicken, pasta, and sauce in a casserole dish, toss together.

Mix breadcrumbs with a couple tablespoons of olive oil or melted butter. Mix in parmesan cheese. Sprinkle mixture over pasta. Bake about 25 min, or until top is golden brown and sauce bubbling.

Don't forget-- even if you screw it up, it still tastes good. My kind of cooking.

In discombobulated daydreaming, veritas

"Oh I wish I were an Oscar-Meyer wiener, that is what I truly wish to be...
for if I were an Oscar-Meyer wiener... I wouldn't have to get my PhD!"

I believe it is Cal Tech that compares educating undergrads to blasting them in the face with a fire hydrant. I don't think the hydrant has quite opened on my face, but I think a dog is peeing on it and I'm running the other direction. Constant mental engagement is not the specialty of people who have the neural equivalent of sugared-up chipmunks playing freezetag.

It is not that the science isn't interesting. It is, and it is taught (generally) very well. The thing is that when science is crammed down my throat every waking moment, my inner ADHD wakes up and starts dancing the cha-cha. Or maybe the hustle.

An interesting consequence of such mental choreography is that the instant class material is NOT presented in a structured, fascinating manner, I go off the deep end. In fact, I'm surprised I am still in advanced immunology. Quick preface: if physical biochemistry is essentially math, immunology is essentially Icelandish. This wretched field has so many acronyms and names (acronyms of acronyms, actually) that you almost need a bilingual dictionary to survive.

Thus, I alternate between deep concentration (read: desperation) and composing music/writing recipes on my scientific articles. I focus pretty well at lectures, as long as I spend time before class checking ESPN for latest soccer and football news. However, discussions are student led. Which means that Charlene often spends her time dreaming about steak and sweet potato fries, whole wheat Bavarian pretzels, and prosecco-sorbato floats. Last discussion I wrote an eight bar piece in A minor and common time that made no sense at all and filled the margins with random comments that did not pertain at ALL to the cross priming of CD8 T cells.

For example, the professor was discussing the significance of results in vitro, (test tube) to those done in vivo, (shit, it's alive!). My mind went down this profound path instead:

in vivo, veritas
in vino, veritas
in tequila, veritas.

Amen.

Similarly, I forget to be intelligent. So, when I ask a question about how a diptheria toxin technique in mice can be used to study organ transplants, I end up saying things like "but, the mice aren't groovy with being injected with toxin every day, how can this be a long term model?" "Not groovy" is an unprofessional way of saying "dead." oops.

Non-sequitur: pseudo chili
I like to make big dishes that will last through the week. Finally, I nailed my pseudo-chili. So here it is... for posterity. Or to clutter up the internet. You never know.

1 1.5 qt crockpot
1lb stew meat (I used round steak)
half an onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
spices/herbs (I used salt, pepper, cumin, cilantro, and paprica)
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (maybe 3 T sauce)
1 dark beer (1554! still cooking my way through it)
Olive oil
Tomato paste
crushed tomatoes (about 12 oz)
12 oz black beans
Fresh avocado, for garnish

Pat meat dry. Sprinkle seasonings over meat. Heat olive oil in skillet on high. Sear meat, turning frequently. As soon as all sides are browned, transfer to crock-pot. Sautee onions and garlic in skillet util house smells amazing.

Douse meat in olive oil. Add onions and garlic on top. Pour in beer. Add chipotle peppers. Cook on low heat in the crock-pot for several hours, until meat falls apart under a fork.

Add crushed tomatoes and paste. Heat a while longer. Transfer to bigger container and mix in beans.

To serve, spoon into bowl. Dice fresh avocado and place on top. I actually eat an entire small avocado with one big bowl. You think it might not work. It does.

Cracked out squirrels and wino watermelons

I love pretty flowers. Don't we all? Such delicate symbols of life and beauty, reminding us all that in this chaotic world of jaded souls and consumerist idolatry, nature will always exude a stunning subtlety we can never achieve. That is, until the pretty flowers growing en masse next to your porch are actually angel's trumpets: a member of the hallucinogenic nightshade family (belladona being the most famous member). These babies are chock-full of anti-cholinergics: compounds that reduce the acetylcholine balance in your system. This means increased heart rate, dilated pupils (a sign of beauty in midieval times, hence the name belladonna) and hallucinations in certain doses. However, since nerve gas actually causes acetylcholine to build up in your synapses until you drown in your own bodily fluids, should we ever be attacked, we could light the bush on fire and live an extra five minutes.

I don't know the dosage for getting high on the charming flowers on your patio. However, I do know Fritz: the cracked out squirrel that lives on the property. I named him Fritz after watching him dart around schizophrenically on the trees and porch. Squirrels buzz around rather comically; but this dude definitely needs to lay off the drugs. Nothing quite like an idyllic bay area morning. A light breeze lilts through the kitchen while that ever-elusive sun fills the day with wide-eyed optimism. You steep some tea, put on a little Sinatra, and walk out on the porch to water the basil. There is Fritz, staring at you like you lived in the House of Usher. After an intense moment of squirrel stare down, he darts around erratically until he ends up in the psychedelic foliage. His movements have an edginess that transcend 'squirrely' into 'definitely a crackhead'. Ah, I love pleasant mornings, don't you?

Sunday crept in lazily, and the house prepared to relax for the evening. I had snagged a new viognier (a grape I've become obsessed with, despite my preference for red wines.) Now, I have no problem drinking wine out of a plastic cup, straight out of the bottle, in a big gulp... pretty much in any form. In fact, I like to drink "in half steps" which involves blowing across the top of the bottle to get a pitch, then trying to drink the right amount of wine so that the next note is a half step lower. I'm a classy gal. Yet tonight I busted out my nice pinot noir glasses a friend gave me for Christmas. We put on Mozart opera (I prefer his operas to everything else. To me, they exude a brilliance and depth that connects at every level.) Everything was set for a classy evening.

Until the ASU genes kicked in. Rather than cook dinner, I split a baby seedless watermelon in half and grabbed a spoon. Tasty. It complemented the citrusy notes of the viognier. That is when brilliance struck. I had scooped out a smallhole in the watermelon. To the bemusement of my roommates, I tipped my French wine in the fancy glass into the watermelon. It was fantastic. The ripe fruit melded with the crisp wine. I tipped the miniature melon half into my mouth. A playful duet. Tasty! I felt like a genius. Never mind the fact that I turned a potentially elegant evening into... well, wine drinking out of a watermelon.

Wino watermelon:
One small, personal-sized seedless watermelon, ripe.
A white wine of choice (recommended: McManus Viognier, Bears Lair Viognier, or Long Tail Lizard white table wine from Preston wineries, which you can only find in the Tri cities).
1 spoon.

Eat some melon to make a small hole. Fill with wine. Scoop watermelon bites so that they are dipped in wine before tasting. Raise your half melon for any toasts. Pat yourself on the back for combining a quiet evening at home with the county fair.

Leech segmentation development and playing with my pelvis: one day in grad school

All in your average Wednesday...

In the end, regardless of the tale being told, time moves on and eventually no one cares. Apathy takes over the small stretch of time that governs our minuscule existences, and we, in short, get over ourselves.

I find myself nearing equilibrium between managing everyday life and having small, cataclysmic identity crises that result in plans to run out of a room screaming, join the peace corps, and become a rafting guide in the Pacific northwest when I return.

Yoga helps with mental stability. Lab rotations don't start until Tuesday, so I tried out a few different yoga classes. I was ecstatic to find an Ashtanga class on campus! The primary series of ashtanga consists of 119 poses intended to bring healing, but actually tie you in impossible knots and then have you unravel your legs while balanced on your hands in order to pull into a handstand before floating back into a push-up. It was essentially free and on campus?? I was in heaven.

Alas, I must still be in yoga purgatory, because it was atrocious. The teacher didn't follow the series at all, and he kept saying "play with your pelvis... until you find alignment and the energy makes you float up easily!" As a yoga-addict, I get a lot of crap for the sexual innuendos of my hobby. Nonetheless, I nearly exploded with laughter, which is bad news if you are in a headstand. Needless to say, play with your pelvis... with care. I'm not going back.

The class nearly made me late to the faculty evening research presentations (cutely called 'ferps'). I'm part of an enormous umbrella program--so we have people looking at brains, proteins, evolution, and genes. The approaches these scientists take are exciting and leave me rather giddy as I wonder how a fabulous place like Berkeley admitted an absurd little nut-job like me.

However, there are just some days when you can't care anymore. The evolution of leech segmentation did it for me. I can understand studying flies, yeast, infectious bacteria, non-infectious bacteria, cats, dogs, democrats, republicans, and little vials of stuff you forgot to label. Leeches? I cannot care about leeches. So I went online to 'pull off papers to read for class' which turned into 'reading college football news on ESPN.' (As a side note--although this will only continue to foster the "lack-9" shit our conference gets, I was happy as hell to see Oregon lose. Ever since Fiesta Bowl 2007 when Boise State showed the world what's up by beating Oklahoma with absurd plays that made them look like the Harlem globetrotters of football, I have been a small Broncos fan. Besides, some ducks are mean and sucker punch people after the game.)

Ahem. So... biology! The presentations are fascinating. I love to contrast the professor styles. Business casual to 'shouldn't be seen in public' to tshirts and jeans. Some professors speak as if it were a conference, while others crack jokes, "Eukaryotes are fun to sleep with, but I'd never want to work on one."

The moral of the sotry? I'll probably survive my first year. I start lab in two days, so failed experiments will give me something else to bitch about. Yet, I managed to fall asleep in two different libraries in three days; clearly, I am home. Sometimes, life is about getting over yourself. Even if you are supposed to play with your pelvis.

Swingin' smoothie dreamsicle ;-)

It's a delightful little pick-me-up for when you're short of time and tired--so, always! One day I decided to make a smoothie with whatever smoothie-like ingredients I had. This drink is now my favorite, and tastes just like those orange Popsicle-icecream bars from childhood.

1 pt vanilla yoghurt
1 pt vanilla soymilk
1 pt orange juice

Mix together first two in a glass with a spoon. Make a lot of noise, so that it blends better and your roommates think an earthquake started. Add OJ and blend.

If you don't like soymilk, use normal milk. If you don't have vanilla versions of stuff, add honey and vanilla to taste.

Settling in; officially a lunatic; Soup Rant

Transitions suck. But you don't need to hear my angsty emotional goings-on. That is what Lifetime movies and irritating people are for. Yet slowly, the transition has begun from blissful post-graduation bum stretched out on a beach in Costa Rica to focused graduate student reading papers and engaged in science.

I recieved my CA drivers' license. The universe, et al, established that California drivers are lunatics who wish to test Gods' patience by nearly killing something every time they drive. (J. of Life, 2005). And now I'm officially one of them. Oh goody.

Moreover, my roommates have figured out that I'm weird. Too bad for them, we've already signed a lease, muahaha. Fortunately, I end up baking and cooking for the people I live with enough that people tend to forgive the roommate who makes cat noises and does handstands in the hallway.

So what can I cook that provides substance, comfort, and is NOT an alcohol-infused sweet? I adore making soup. Homemade soup epitomizes a sense of peace in the world. Cue John Lennon. It is an orgy of healthy flavors that meld together in a symphony of taste-bud happiness. It even tastes better as it sits in the fridge! Why people confine themselves to those over-preserved sodium traps confuses me. Soup is not hard to make. Some freeze indefinitely. Don't get me wrong, canned convenience is ok, but there is life outside of Campbell's.

Tomato soup is a staple in my diet. I believe the genesis of this method (not recipe) came from Michael Chiarello, but this is my pseudo-protocol. It isn't precise, and never is. Everything is to taste.

Hearty Tomato Soup
2 12 oz cans canned Tomato (whole or diced)
2-4 cloves garlic, peeled (keep in mind I'm asian and addicted to garlic)
Equal pts diced onion, carrot, and celery (I never have celery, and often do w/o)
Chicken Stock (depends on how thick a soup you want.)
Herbs (suggested: basil, thyme, marjoram, or oregano. Dry = 3x stronger than fresh)
Olive oil
Healthy Tbs grape jelly. (Yeah, you heard me)

Oven to 400

Spread tomatoes on a baking sheet. Add garlic cloves. Fresh tomatoes can be sliced into thick steaks and added. Drizzle with olive oil, and salt and pepper. Put into oven until everything is roasted and caramelized and garlic is fork tender. Time will vary on what you've got.

Heat soup pot with olive oil, saute onions, carrot, and celery until it smells fantastic and onions are translucent. Add roasted stuff and stir. Add chicken stock to cover veggies, and sprinkle herbs.

Simmer. You can forget about the soup here and do something else, just keep it covered. This soup is forgiving. Otherwise, 5 min, ish.

Take off heat. Use an immersion blender (looks like a boat motor) and blend to textured soup consistency. Or pour into blender. Add more chicken stock if you wish.

Return to heat, add grape jelly (takes edge off acidity). I also add cayenne, pepper flakes, or Siracha at this point. Test the seasoning.

You can add a small amount of cream, butter, sour cream, full-fat greek yogurt or more olive oil, to taste. Fat scares me, so I don't.

So, recap: Roast, Saute, Combine. Simmer, Blend. Simmer, season, Eat.

Compare to "open can, dump in bowl, nuke." it's harder. Yet soup is like life. You can "emerge from womb. Live. Die." or you can add some flavor to your bland existence and make some damn soup. Yes, it's that important.

Ye olde Stout Wedding Cake: a practice in inefficiency

It all started when a very good friend asked me to make her wedding cake this winter. Let's be frank: my cakes often taste good. They NEVER look good. I demurely told her, "I would be delighted!" (Ok, actually my jaw dropped and I demanded, "are you out of your mind?!"). My brain screamed, "Dear GOD, I am going to die." Painful visions of drawn-out royal icing torture and buttercream-boarding flashed before my eyes. "Death by offset spatula." I was going to be THAT girl. The failed Martha Stewart suicide victim. And have you seen Ms. Stewart? Epic fail.

I started digging through my cake recipes to put together the tiers. So many parameters to consider--cake flour or all-purpose? What gluten content is ideal? Sour cream, oil, or butter for the fat? Chocolate, white, fruitcake? Why won't my oven turn on? It's a difficult process.

Then the bride, whom I love dearly and willingly risk an ignoble pastry death for, calls me.

"The top layer, the one we get to keep--can you put beer in it?"

Oh shit.

"Do you want me to cut a hole in it and fill it with beer?"

"Hahaha. No, I mean, can it be beer flavored?"

Now, I probably cook with beer more than I drink it. (I'm in grad school. This is a serious statement.) I have put beer in cookies, brownies, chicken stock, chili, pastas, bbq sauce, and hundreds of marinades. Never in cake. Why? The perfect cake precariously rests on a precise balance of leavening, four, and wet ingredients. The idea of putting beer--a leavening wet ingredient with high acidity--is terrifying.

When in doubt, copy someone else. I stole a recipe from Bon Appetit that featured chocolate stout. A fellow grad student also wanted to bake, so she came over and we got cracking.

First: my kitchen is partially covered in baby powder. This is because a very crazy species of harmless ant is attacking the freezer. Why? No clue. They must have some sort of Napoleon/Hitler complex and like invading cold climates. The outside of the thing is spotless, and the ants that teleport inside (it's sealed. How do they get inside?!) die. Baby powder deters the critters. So, it looks like a cocaine New Year's party in the kitchen. And we haven't even started.

Second: this cake is a calorie whore. Beer, cocoa, and butter are melted. This is whisked into egg and sour cream before dry ingredients are sifted in. Holy triple-bypass, batman!

Third: The resulting cake was chocolaty, moist, smelled terrific, and didn't taste like beer AT ALL. Infuriating!

Fourth: the white chocolate ganache smelt like a warzone of sugar and fat. That is what white chocolate ganache is. Brilliantly, I poured a cup of beer in the pan. Magically, the stuff didn't seize up. (Beer is acidic. This is bad for a fat emulsion that doesn't even like added water). But now it had to reduce. Damnit. Much stirring later, it was ready to be cooled. But our freezer was currently the Leningrad of the Kamikaze Eskimo-wannabe ants.

Shit.

Every ice tray was emptied into a big bowl and showered in salt. The pot of icing was carefully submerged, and I stirred and prayed. The Pastry Gods were merciful; it stiffened into a caramel-colored hybrid frosting. The cake was smothered in it, and now had enough calories to kill on first sight. It looked like a dilapidated trailer-park cake. For fat people. I should totally make wedding cakes for a living.

Conclusion: It is easy to make tasty beer frosting. It is harder to make tasty beer-cake. But never fear. I have a plan, and when the perfect cake emerges, you will know.

Until then leave me alone. I have to clean up a kitchen that resembles what would happen if you tried to make crack and cupcakes simultaneously.

And that is how a nut-job-grad-student-baker extraordinaire prepares for her first wedding cake.

Stout Frosting:

2 c white chocolate
1 c heavy cream
1 c stout (used young's double chocolate)

Heat beer until reduced in half. Add cream and bring to a simmer. Add chocolate, let stand two min. Stir until smooth, chill until frosting consistency. Wear your fat pants the next day.

Moving is a bitch: the beautiful bay area, proof I should leave, and self-medication.

Ah, the momentous first post. It's like a first date: you want to be witty and charming, yet you don't want to lie too much. That's just waiting for a horrible second date, when the other person gets up and leaves before dessert because they realize you're either boring, an idiot, or you sleep with a stuffed elephant named hubert.

I'm a doofus. It isn't boring, but certainly isn't brilliant. I have realized that I must be a cleaver doofus, because somehow I convinced a lot of smart people that I too am intelligent. Silly, silly professors. Now I'm stuck in grad school, wondering what I'm doing and where the free food is.

The bay area is beautiful. This is a well established fact. However, it is a freezing area. After four years in the desert, I only own four long sleeved shirts. I'm fairly sure that the lack of sunlight will have me coping with rickets from lack of vitamin D. Oh well, that is why God made sweatshirts and fortified milk.

We all know moving is a bitch. No one likes it, everyone complains, and the human population continues hating change on every level. Why would you want to read about my move? Because I have divine proof I should leave Berkeley: also known as the 'I got hit by a cracked out hobo' story.

Biking is the way to go over here. It is fast, cheap, better for you, and doesn't give you dirty looks from environmentalists. I was on a search for a cheap yet functional bike--and failing spectacularly. My definition of cheap and bike shops' definition of cheap vary drastically.

I was test riding a bicycle near a shop and just rounding my first corner when a small old man jumped out at me, swearing obscenely and waving his hands at me, trying to scare scare me of the bike. Clearly the man was on drugs, mentally ill, or both. Fortunately, my undergrad was at a state school where males notify females that they are capable of reproduction by honking loudly and shouting. Four years ago I would've fallen off the bike and then gone on a feminist tirade when I returned. Now I'm in grad school: I'm chill. No problems.

The rest of the ride was great. I was contemplating how to afford such a bike when, 10 min later, I rounded the other corner of the block. Now, my Derrogatory Asshole Blocking Skills (or DABS) were in high gear. This is great when all people do is shout or honk. This is very bad when cracked out hobos get angry, jump out at you, and hit you straight across the face. In fact, DABS is a fantastic way to not feel your face for a good 10 minutes while you digest the fact that you just were attacked by a nutjob the size of Frodo and you haven't even been in the city for five days. Welcome to Berkeley.

Now I must phase out of DABS and learn the sacred art of BSDAK (Bicycle Self Defense and Ass-kicking: pronounced like Nasdaq). I will be ready for a rematch. Until then, I still have to adjust to a new area, new life, and new life crises.

Self medication: What does a girl crave for comfort? Sugar and fat. What does a grad student crave? alcohol. So, the following recipe was born. It's fantastic if you move into a new kitchen and forget certain baking essentials, like baking soda. This is the first generation recipe, so if you don't like it, fix it yourself. Don't blame the girl who got hit by a hobo.

New Belgium Ales 1554 Chocolate Chip Cookies
2.5 c Flour
1 t Salt
1 c Butter, softened
2 Eggs
1 c ea White and Brown sugar
1 t Vanilla
5 T 1554 or similar Beer
1 c Chocolate Chips

Make like normal choclate chip cookies, but add the beer before thse chocolate chips. Bake, unless you like raw cookie dough and don't believe in salmonella.