Some days the spirit simply refuses to listen to the logical. I find these are the days I disappear from the world with a book, reveling in literary escapism, or insist on playing on the swings when I'm two hours late for work. Tonight I unfathomably refuse sleep and strangely want to write something with the word "lugubriously" in it.
Fortunately, I have no personal need for such a modifier. Of course I adore the little adverb--it flourishes its connotation so well. Truly, onomatopoeia is not limited to monosyllabic interjections from comic books. Yet still, this has nothing to do with hamsters.
Neither pet hamster in my current lab is definitively lugubrious. There are two, cis and trans, and they are strictly pets. The closest either gets to being an experiment is running over my desk and nibbling at my lab notebook. The cute little bastards do what hamsters do best: eat, pee, and look adorable.
I was coddling Cis while an experiment ran one day before I was unhappily reminded that I had ethics class in twenty minutes. (ironically, Trans has become incorrigibly fat and bites. Love may be blind, but hamsters merely warrant fascination, which can most certainly discriminate.)
I just rambled about the ebb and flow of daily life, so I needn't bore you further on the matter. Allow me to present figure 1 instead:
Thus, you can imagine the appeal of sitting through the antiquated mumblings of a nice (yet ancient) professor on a topic that is inevitably oversimplified or overcomplicated. I joked to the lab "might as well as take the hamster with me for company."
Let me tell you, there comes a strange pleasure in showing up to a class on scientific ethics late, holding a 2 L flask with a hamster sloshing around inside. Ethics. hamster.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been. I did not show up to a vegan rally with a T-bone steak. Yet, the look on a friend post-doc's face when I sauntered in, tiny rodent cruising around the roomy glassware-turned-hamsterflask. suggested that I hide from the PETA Gestapo for a little while. I practiced as much discretion as a hamster in a flask will allow, and placed it at the feet of a bewildered classmate before promptly falling asleep.
I woke up halfway through class and played with Cis. She was having the time of her life. Imagine, your meager existence confined to a hamster cage! Makes one wonder about self-posing microcosms and loss of perspective. New smells, too much food, all of these strangers; why go back home? I nearly had an issue when runaway hamster jumped off my lap and scurried towards the 52 pairs of feet connected to students re-learning why James Watson is an utter bastard. Fortunately, my neighbor and I scooped her up.
Do not mistake me-- I think ethics are exceedingly important, interesting, and necessary for mental development in science. Ethics in fish are also very important. It is an amusingly awkward segway, but I did recently start reading about environmentally sound choices of fish. For some fish, it is best to buy farmed, while for others wild caught is better. Furthermore, although many 'pescatarians' suggest that eating fish is less of a crime against animals, eating certain kinds of fish can actually be quite damaging to both species and ecosystem.
Anyway, it's cool, you should check out the list before heading out to sushi:
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx
That being said, I was cool enough to buy a lot of Alaskan salmon from Costco, because Costco makes you forget you live on under 30K a year. My current fast and easy fish dish I h
appily made up a few months ago. Chili garlic sauce that I bought on a whim at the store for 2 dollars mixed with raspberry jam left over from a cake, splashed with some OJ makes an interesting sweet-spicy combination that compliments the meaty fish. Caramelizing some shallot or onion beforehand makes the entire thing very easy, healthy, and interesting. I love to serve a small portion of fish with a mountain of spinach and arugula--that way I can be too lazy to prepare some sort of carb, and I can pretend I'm Popeye. Yet seriously, they provide a very nice canvas for the simple flavors at play. The colors even contrast so nicely that people think you are a far better cook than you are. I made this for a friend, and he thought he was special or something for such a meal. Little did he know I just knew I had to cook the fish, and it would take less time than making anything else. Buahahaha. Ethical? Delicious.
Raspberry chili salmon
Salmon: could be a slice of fillet, or even a salmon steak.
Salt, pepper
1/2 onion, diced finely
2 large spoonfuls of seedless raspberry jam
1/2 spoonful of chili garlic sauce
healthy splash oj
Pat dry salmon. Season with salt and peper. Heat some olive oil in a pan, sear fish over high eat, a few minutes on each side. Hint-- for fish, it will slide on the skillet when that side is done. If it doesn't move, don't poke it. Take fish, wrap in tin foil to make a loose packet, and pop in a 300 oven while you make sauce.
Pour olive oil into pan. Add onions, turn heat down, and cook until onions are tender and verging on carmelized. Add remaining ingredients, stir to mix. Let simmer down and allow onion to get really soft.
Pull fish out of oven every 10 min to ensure it is not over done. Hint-- fish is done when flesh is flaky, but does not look dry. If fish is still undercooked (deep pink in center, not flaking) just pop in microwave for 30 seconds and so. (Real fancy, eh?)
Plate salmon on bed of greens. Spoon sauce over fish.
