Yann linked me to this TED talk by Rory Sutherland, but it's worth reposting here. Brilliant.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Best Halloween Costume Ever
Ridiculously cool animatronic / puppet / I-don't-know-what-all dinosaurs on some random German TV show. Wow.
(Seen on Zooillogix.)
(Seen on Zooillogix.)
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Ig Nobels 2009
The Ig Nobel prizes for 2009 have been announced!
Lots of highlights, although I have to give the top honor to the winners of the Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for:
I want to read their grant application!
Lots of highlights, although I have to give the top honor to the winners of the Peace Prize: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for:
"determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle."
REFERENCE: "Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?" Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42. DOI:10.1016/j.jflm.2008.07.013.
I want to read their grant application!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Fly Me Away
I'm off to Ann Arbor this morning for the first of two post-doc interviews this week. Yikes. We'll see how it goes...
Friday, September 25, 2009
It's All Marketing's Fault
Michael Pollan's talk last night was pretty cool, and today's XKCD touches on an issue he made quite a fuss about. And you wonder why I got out of Food Science.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Sweet Potato and Corn Soup
Fall is coming, and so is Michael Pollan, so here's a nice, mostly local dish to warm you up on an autumnal evening. I got this recipe from my Dad, but I'm not sure where he found it. Cayenne and jalapeños aren't his usual style.
Start off by peeling and chopping up half a dozen medium sweet potatoes and cutting the kernels off three ears of corn:
You'll also need to chop up one or two jalapeño peppers:
Now you're ready to get cooking. Start by sautéing a cup of chopped onions (I happened to have a white and a red onion lying around, but any old onion will do) and a tablespoon of diced garlic in a tablespoon of peanut oil for a few minutes.
Then add 8 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable stock, either way):
Toss in the sweet potatoes:
Bring it all to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes or so after that, or until the potatoes are nice and soft.
Take the soup off the heat, and (in the step voted most likely to result in a major kitchen disaster), puree the lot of it:
After cleaning up the mess and thinking how nice it would be to have an immersion blender, add the corn and peppers to the soup:
Finally, dump in a quarter cup of molasses (or maple syrup), along with a tablespoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon each of cayenne and ground black pepper, and a pinch or so of cinnamon for seasoning:
Bring it all back to a simmer, garnish with some chopped green onions, and serve with a chunk of nice bread (in this case, spicy cheese bread from the farmer's market).
Pretty good, despite the baptism of fire for my shiny new toaster. You haven't really been cooking if you don't have to clean stuff off the walls afterwards. Enjoy!
Start off by peeling and chopping up half a dozen medium sweet potatoes and cutting the kernels off three ears of corn:
You'll also need to chop up one or two jalapeño peppers:
Now you're ready to get cooking. Start by sautéing a cup of chopped onions (I happened to have a white and a red onion lying around, but any old onion will do) and a tablespoon of diced garlic in a tablespoon of peanut oil for a few minutes.
Then add 8 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable stock, either way):
Toss in the sweet potatoes:
Bring it all to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes or so after that, or until the potatoes are nice and soft.
Take the soup off the heat, and (in the step voted most likely to result in a major kitchen disaster), puree the lot of it:
After cleaning up the mess and thinking how nice it would be to have an immersion blender, add the corn and peppers to the soup:
Finally, dump in a quarter cup of molasses (or maple syrup), along with a tablespoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon each of cayenne and ground black pepper, and a pinch or so of cinnamon for seasoning:
Bring it all back to a simmer, garnish with some chopped green onions, and serve with a chunk of nice bread (in this case, spicy cheese bread from the farmer's market).
Pretty good, despite the baptism of fire for my shiny new toaster. You haven't really been cooking if you don't have to clean stuff off the walls afterwards. Enjoy!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Scratchiness in the throat
I'm hoping the scratchiness and headache is just stress and the aftereffects of Yann's bachelor party last night, and not the creeping swine pestilence. Basic Instructions provides helpful advice, as always.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Hunting And/Or Gathering
Another excellent haul from the Farmer's Market today. I've got big plans for these veggies...
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Phase Contrast, Eat Your Heart Out
Linked from BoingBoing, but nevertheless:
Check this out.
Absolutely stunning glass sculptures of viruses and bacteria by Luke Jerram. Beautiful.
Check this out.
Absolutely stunning glass sculptures of viruses and bacteria by Luke Jerram. Beautiful.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Adventures In Foreign Lands
So, just before all of the excitement of the last month came crashing down on me, I got a chance to spend a week in Oxford, England, at a research conference. It was a tremendous opportunity, and good fun all around.
It was the Gordon Research Conference on Vitamin B12 and Corphins, and was a really cool opportunity to present my research to a lot of big name scientists and do a whole lot of networking. More on that later. The coolest thing about it was the venue: Magdalen College (pronounced "Maudlin") at Oxford University.
The way Oxford works is that the University sets the curriculum and owns a lot of labs and teaching facilities, but the students live in individual colleges, which are formally independent from the university. Magdalen isn't the oldest college at Oxford by far, but it has been there since the mid-1400's. The architecture is stunning. Here I am in front of the college chapel, which has really neat monochromatic stained glass and a 15th century copy of the Last Supper inside.
This is the New Building, where Oscar Wilde lived when he was a student here. There were students playing croquet on the lawn at one point during the week. I swear, the grass is cut to the point where it's never more than a half an inch long. The grounds staff are mad.
We were put up in some 17th century houses which had been renovated recently as undergraduate dormitories. They were all right, and made up 3 sides of a nice little brick courtyard:
The fourth side was a chunk of the medieval city wall:
The way the Gordon Conferences work is that for a solid week, scientists in a certain specialized field get together to present unpublished and exciting work in that field. The big names and heavy hitters get longer talks, and some junior folks get invited to give shorter talks, in this auditorium here:
I was really honored to give a 15 minute talk on my project, although it was a little disheartening to find that I can, in fact, sum up 5 years of work in 15 minutes. It seemed to be very well received, though. I got a lot of questions, and had several people come up and want to talk science afterwards, which was pretty exciting. I think I may have promised to do some experiments for Bernhard Kraütler (the organizer of the meeting), but I'm not completely sure...
They scheduled the meeting in a really nice way. There was a morning session from 9 to noon and an evening session from 7 to 9, with poster sessions in the late afternoon. The middle of the day was free for touring around town, which was great. Oxford is a fantastic city, and I recommend it to anyone.
We went to a bunch of places, including Oxford Castle (a functioning prison from ~1200 until 1985, now a museum):
and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which was amazing:
I also had some nice morning walks around the grounds of Magdalen - very restful after long days of thinking hard and networking. It's hard to be "on" for a week straight.
In between science and tourism, the conference also fed us pretty well. We ate at the Magdalen dining hall, which was somewhat familiar...
I probably gained 5 pounds. An exercise regime of eating a big meal, sitting on your butt for 3 hours, eating a big meal, wandering in a antique-induced daze, eating a big meal, sitting on your butt for 3 hours, then going out for late nights of beer-fueled nerdery for a week takes it out of a guy, I'll tell you.
I'd do it again in a minute. Makes me think maybe I'm in the right line of work.
It was the Gordon Research Conference on Vitamin B12 and Corphins, and was a really cool opportunity to present my research to a lot of big name scientists and do a whole lot of networking. More on that later. The coolest thing about it was the venue: Magdalen College (pronounced "Maudlin") at Oxford University.
The way Oxford works is that the University sets the curriculum and owns a lot of labs and teaching facilities, but the students live in individual colleges, which are formally independent from the university. Magdalen isn't the oldest college at Oxford by far, but it has been there since the mid-1400's. The architecture is stunning. Here I am in front of the college chapel, which has really neat monochromatic stained glass and a 15th century copy of the Last Supper inside.
This is the New Building, where Oscar Wilde lived when he was a student here. There were students playing croquet on the lawn at one point during the week. I swear, the grass is cut to the point where it's never more than a half an inch long. The grounds staff are mad.
We were put up in some 17th century houses which had been renovated recently as undergraduate dormitories. They were all right, and made up 3 sides of a nice little brick courtyard:
The fourth side was a chunk of the medieval city wall:
The way the Gordon Conferences work is that for a solid week, scientists in a certain specialized field get together to present unpublished and exciting work in that field. The big names and heavy hitters get longer talks, and some junior folks get invited to give shorter talks, in this auditorium here:
I was really honored to give a 15 minute talk on my project, although it was a little disheartening to find that I can, in fact, sum up 5 years of work in 15 minutes. It seemed to be very well received, though. I got a lot of questions, and had several people come up and want to talk science afterwards, which was pretty exciting. I think I may have promised to do some experiments for Bernhard Kraütler (the organizer of the meeting), but I'm not completely sure...
They scheduled the meeting in a really nice way. There was a morning session from 9 to noon and an evening session from 7 to 9, with poster sessions in the late afternoon. The middle of the day was free for touring around town, which was great. Oxford is a fantastic city, and I recommend it to anyone.
We went to a bunch of places, including Oxford Castle (a functioning prison from ~1200 until 1985, now a museum):
and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which was amazing:
I also had some nice morning walks around the grounds of Magdalen - very restful after long days of thinking hard and networking. It's hard to be "on" for a week straight.
In between science and tourism, the conference also fed us pretty well. We ate at the Magdalen dining hall, which was somewhat familiar...
I probably gained 5 pounds. An exercise regime of eating a big meal, sitting on your butt for 3 hours, eating a big meal, wandering in a antique-induced daze, eating a big meal, sitting on your butt for 3 hours, then going out for late nights of beer-fueled nerdery for a week takes it out of a guy, I'll tell you.
I'd do it again in a minute. Makes me think maybe I'm in the right line of work.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Where Can I Get A Good Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster Around Here?
Hey, look: it's the original BBC Radio broadcasts of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Interesting to see which jokes were there from the beginning...
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Strangely Compelling
I'm not sure why I like That 1 Guy so much, but I suspect it's a matter of deep-seated washtub neurosis.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Foreign Futures
So, I just finished reading Ian McDonald's spectacular collection of short stories Cyberabad Days, set in India in the near future (say, 30 to 50 years from now), and it got me to thinking.
Altogether too much science fiction is set in an obviously American future. Star Wars and Trek are obvious examples, but I'm looking at my shelf, and nearly all the science fiction, no matter how far in the future or how distant from Earth, is full of basically American, Western cultures. Seems lazy, now that I notice it.
I think this might be why I liked District 9 so much. I mean, sure, it had exactly one three-dimensional character and plot holes you could fly an alien mothership through, but there's no denying it's a South African movie. That made it much more interesting than it otherwise would have been.
I'm going to have to track down Ian McDonald's novel about his future India, River of Gods. I was really impressed with his writing, and with his depiction of a distinctly Indian future. Obviously he's not from India, and I don't know enough to know what he got right and what he got wrong, but I really liked it.
The future should be, will be a foreign country. Maybe the best way to really drive that home in fiction is to take advantage of the tremendous diversity of cultures that we actually have here and now. Hmmmm.
Altogether too much science fiction is set in an obviously American future. Star Wars and Trek are obvious examples, but I'm looking at my shelf, and nearly all the science fiction, no matter how far in the future or how distant from Earth, is full of basically American, Western cultures. Seems lazy, now that I notice it.
I think this might be why I liked District 9 so much. I mean, sure, it had exactly one three-dimensional character and plot holes you could fly an alien mothership through, but there's no denying it's a South African movie. That made it much more interesting than it otherwise would have been.
I'm going to have to track down Ian McDonald's novel about his future India, River of Gods. I was really impressed with his writing, and with his depiction of a distinctly Indian future. Obviously he's not from India, and I don't know enough to know what he got right and what he got wrong, but I really liked it.
The future should be, will be a foreign country. Maybe the best way to really drive that home in fiction is to take advantage of the tremendous diversity of cultures that we actually have here and now. Hmmmm.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Poetry Corner
Ignore the goofy animation, but here's a recording of a good short poem by Robert W. Service (author of my favorite poem ever):
I also found a recording of Mr. Service himself reading "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", which is cool. His voice is different than I had imagined, somehow.
I also found a recording of Mr. Service himself reading "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", which is cool. His voice is different than I had imagined, somehow.
Unfortunate Events
The most boring blog posts in the world explain why someone hasn't posted, but nevertheless...
For those who don't know, Anita and I are splitting up. It's probably for the best; we've both been pretty unhappy for the last several months. Still, it's kind of a crappy situation, and most importantly, the whole emotional setup has been distracting me from keeping up my online presence.
Anyhow, I'm off to the lab (by way of the scone shop), but stay tuned for a more regular update schedule. If I've got this thing, I might as well use it, yeah?
Oh, yeah, I've also just started a Facebook page (welcome to 2004, Mike!), so look me up and add me if you like.
For those who don't know, Anita and I are splitting up. It's probably for the best; we've both been pretty unhappy for the last several months. Still, it's kind of a crappy situation, and most importantly, the whole emotional setup has been distracting me from keeping up my online presence.
Anyhow, I'm off to the lab (by way of the scone shop), but stay tuned for a more regular update schedule. If I've got this thing, I might as well use it, yeah?
Oh, yeah, I've also just started a Facebook page (welcome to 2004, Mike!), so look me up and add me if you like.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Cross-blogging
While noodling around the internet the other day, we found this:
It's the world's tallest goat tower. From the collections of the Folly Fancier blog.
I'm not saying that Frogmore Manor requires a goat tower, Dad, but some sort of folly seems in order. Perhaps a small ruin? Or a toad palace. Something to confuse the local wildlife, you know?
It's the world's tallest goat tower. From the collections of the Folly Fancier blog.
I'm not saying that Frogmore Manor requires a goat tower, Dad, but some sort of folly seems in order. Perhaps a small ruin? Or a toad palace. Something to confuse the local wildlife, you know?
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Busy, busy, busy
Oof da. Lots of excitement going on...
Gave a presentation yesterday at the Bact. department retreat which went pretty well. It's always a challenge getting people interested in physiology and in B12, but I think I managed it - folks asked lots of questions, which makes me feel good. Mostly I'm glad to have it done with, because...
2 weeks until the big American Society for Microbiology meeting in Philadelphia. I'm giving a poster, and hoping to get some networking done looking for a good post-doc. Stressful. It should be fun, but I'm freaking out.
Also, I'm pretty sure the "contaminant" band in my enzyme preps is actually the enzyme itself. Dang it. Back to the drawing board.
Gave a presentation yesterday at the Bact. department retreat which went pretty well. It's always a challenge getting people interested in physiology and in B12, but I think I managed it - folks asked lots of questions, which makes me feel good. Mostly I'm glad to have it done with, because...
2 weeks until the big American Society for Microbiology meeting in Philadelphia. I'm giving a poster, and hoping to get some networking done looking for a good post-doc. Stressful. It should be fun, but I'm freaking out.
Also, I'm pretty sure the "contaminant" band in my enzyme preps is actually the enzyme itself. Dang it. Back to the drawing board.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Killer Banjo Music
I'm trying to learn "Kitchen Girl", so I looked around to see what versions I could find out there, and this one blew me away. Also, now I know about cello banjos, which is at least half the battle.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
AirPenguin!
From New Scientist: giant flying robot penguins! I'm going to type that again. Giant flying robot penguins!
Man, the future is awesome.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
We have a date!
A graduation date, that is. Looks like I'll be turning in my thesis on May 15th, 2010. Woo! A little over a year, and we'll bid Madison adieu.
Strictly speaking, I've got enough to graduate now. (Paper number three just got accepted - we're just waiting on the proofs.) It just doesn't make a ton of sense to be in a big rush to leave. I'm being really productive, and can probably get out two or three more papers in the next year pretty easily. Universities are hurting for money right now, too, so it's probably smart to stay someplace funded until the old economy starts to swing back up again.
Having a date is a huge relief, though. I can finally start to really think about what I need to do and when I need to have things done by. I'm excited. I'm starting to feel a little old to still be a "student", you know?
Strictly speaking, I've got enough to graduate now. (Paper number three just got accepted - we're just waiting on the proofs.) It just doesn't make a ton of sense to be in a big rush to leave. I'm being really productive, and can probably get out two or three more papers in the next year pretty easily. Universities are hurting for money right now, too, so it's probably smart to stay someplace funded until the old economy starts to swing back up again.
Having a date is a huge relief, though. I can finally start to really think about what I need to do and when I need to have things done by. I'm excited. I'm starting to feel a little old to still be a "student", you know?
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Cookin' With Cat #5
Well, spring is officially here: my allergies have arrived. Pfui. It happens every year; just when it starts to get warm and nice outside, the trees decide to get together and punch me good and hard in the sinuses.
Regardless, it's time to wrap up the first season of Cookin' With Cat with another simple, delicious dish (slightly modified from the same source as the last few): pork cutlets with smothered parmesan green beans!
Start out by sautéing 3 or 4 thinly-sliced shallots and a couple of chopped garlic cloves until they're nice and golden in 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, along with a quarter teaspoon of salt and an eighth of a teaspoon of black pepper:
Next, add two-thirds of a cup of white wine and boil until reduced by half:
Add two-thirds of a cup of cream, half a cup of water, two teaspoons of chopped fresh sage (this is key!), another quarter teaspoon of salt and eighth of a teaspoon of pepper, and bring just to a boil:
Now for the super-easy, time-saving step: dump in a big bag of frozen french-cut green beans:
Cover it up and simmer gently, stirring every now and then, for about 20 minutes - until the beans are thawed and cooked. Then, pour the beans and sauce into a bowl and set it aside somewhere where it'll stay warm.
Now, wipe out your skillet, and cook up a batch of boneless pork cutlets however you like them. I went for a simple sprinkle with salt and pepper, trying not to overcook them too badly.
Once the meat is done, put it on a plate and dump the beans back in the pan to warm up, scraping up all the browned meat bits from the bottom of the pan:
Add half a cup of grated parmesan and, if you have some, a bunch of chopped parsley:
Stir to melt everything together, and serve the meat on top of a big dollop of beans. We had brown rice, too, which worked really well!
Notice Tobu in the background there, showing his usual level of interest in Cookin'.
So, for our first five episodes, we've had okonomiyaki, Monte Cubano sandwiches, garlicky black pepper shrimp with black-eyed peas, Provençal chicken and tomato roast, and pork chops with creamed green beans. Lots of tasty food! I think the real winner (besides Anita's always-reliable okonomiyaki) has to be the shrimp. We'll be making that again for sure. The others are good, but maybe not exciting enough to make again. We'll see.
Regardless, it's time to wrap up the first season of Cookin' With Cat with another simple, delicious dish (slightly modified from the same source as the last few): pork cutlets with smothered parmesan green beans!
Start out by sautéing 3 or 4 thinly-sliced shallots and a couple of chopped garlic cloves until they're nice and golden in 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, along with a quarter teaspoon of salt and an eighth of a teaspoon of black pepper:
Next, add two-thirds of a cup of white wine and boil until reduced by half:
Add two-thirds of a cup of cream, half a cup of water, two teaspoons of chopped fresh sage (this is key!), another quarter teaspoon of salt and eighth of a teaspoon of pepper, and bring just to a boil:
Now for the super-easy, time-saving step: dump in a big bag of frozen french-cut green beans:
Cover it up and simmer gently, stirring every now and then, for about 20 minutes - until the beans are thawed and cooked. Then, pour the beans and sauce into a bowl and set it aside somewhere where it'll stay warm.
Now, wipe out your skillet, and cook up a batch of boneless pork cutlets however you like them. I went for a simple sprinkle with salt and pepper, trying not to overcook them too badly.
Once the meat is done, put it on a plate and dump the beans back in the pan to warm up, scraping up all the browned meat bits from the bottom of the pan:
Add half a cup of grated parmesan and, if you have some, a bunch of chopped parsley:
Stir to melt everything together, and serve the meat on top of a big dollop of beans. We had brown rice, too, which worked really well!
Notice Tobu in the background there, showing his usual level of interest in Cookin'.
So, for our first five episodes, we've had okonomiyaki, Monte Cubano sandwiches, garlicky black pepper shrimp with black-eyed peas, Provençal chicken and tomato roast, and pork chops with creamed green beans. Lots of tasty food! I think the real winner (besides Anita's always-reliable okonomiyaki) has to be the shrimp. We'll be making that again for sure. The others are good, but maybe not exciting enough to make again. We'll see.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Happy Birthday to me!
I have nothing witty to say about turning 32. I suspect that's a sign of creeping brain fossilization. 32 isn't an especially interesting number, either. What are there 32 of? Bah.
By the by, the "H" in HPLC actually stands for "hatred". Don't be fooled.
By the by, the "H" in HPLC actually stands for "hatred". Don't be fooled.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Speaking of martial arts...
Got my second belt stripe at jiu-jitsu tonight!
I think I'd feel more like I'd earned it if I'd managed to tap anyone out in the last two weeks, but the boss must think I'm getting somewhere. And this time I had my belt tied right... :-)
I think I'd feel more like I'd earned it if I'd managed to tap anyone out in the last two weeks, but the boss must think I'm getting somewhere. And this time I had my belt tied right... :-)
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Cookin' With Cat #4
Well, as promised, it's time once again for Cookin' With Cat. Kaiyo says, "If I'm going to be an internet star, I demand that you make more recipes with tuna." Maybe someday.
Today, however, we have a very simple, delicious Provençal Chicken and Tomato Roast, modified from the same page of the Gourmet magazine as the Monte Cubano sandwiches we made last week. I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this issue!
We started out by putting a Pyrex baking dish in the oven and preheating it to 475°C. Then we took a package of chicken thighs (about a pound), and tossed them with a tablespoon of olive oil and a quarter teaspoon each of salt and pepper:
The next step was to cut up three tomatoes, 2 celery sticks, and two large potatoes into convenient bite-size pieces. It's important to cut the potato into slices no more than a quarter inch thick or so. Then we tossed that with another 2 tablespoons of olive oil and more salt and pepper (again, maybe a quarter teaspoon or so of each):
Pull your preheated baking dish out of the oven and put the oiled-up meat and veggies into it:
Roast for 20 minutes, then turn over the chicken and roast for 15 minutes more. Then, pull out the pan and scatter about a cup of halved grape tomatoes, a tablespoon or so of chopped sun-dried tomatoes, and some olives over the vegetables:
Drizzle a quarter cup of water over the veggies and roast the whole shebang for 10 or 15 more minutes, until the chicken is golden and cooked all the way through.
Et voila! Simple to make, and pretty tasty. It made excellent leftovers. I think I'll probably add more sun-dried tomatoes and some herbs (probably herbs de provence) next time, but the basic principle is sound, and it's next to no work to make. Enjoy!
Whew!
Eventful day yesterday...
Woke up at 3:30, got to lab at 4:15 to start collecting data for a 12-hour growth curve (It's for our collaborators in England. Should be an "easy" third authorship or so.), finished revisions on paper #3 and sent it back to the Journal of Bacteriology, purified protein, and was ready to go for Anita to pick me up at 6:00PM to go meet some folks at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
We saw a set of three short films: Rare Chicken Rescue (about an Australian man's quest for rare breed chickens in Tasmania), Ladies of the Land (about women who are farmers), and Fishin' for Tradition: The Lutefisk Saga, which kind of speaks for itself. It was a lot of fun, and we found out what lefse is! (Potato crepes, more or less.)
After that, we went up to Barriques on Monroe street and had danishes and hot chocolate, which were tasty. Finally, we went home and I slept for 12 hours.
More days should be so productive and fun.
How're you all doing?
Woke up at 3:30, got to lab at 4:15 to start collecting data for a 12-hour growth curve (It's for our collaborators in England. Should be an "easy" third authorship or so.), finished revisions on paper #3 and sent it back to the Journal of Bacteriology, purified protein, and was ready to go for Anita to pick me up at 6:00PM to go meet some folks at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
We saw a set of three short films: Rare Chicken Rescue (about an Australian man's quest for rare breed chickens in Tasmania), Ladies of the Land (about women who are farmers), and Fishin' for Tradition: The Lutefisk Saga, which kind of speaks for itself. It was a lot of fun, and we found out what lefse is! (Potato crepes, more or less.)
After that, we went up to Barriques on Monroe street and had danishes and hot chocolate, which were tasty. Finally, we went home and I slept for 12 hours.
More days should be so productive and fun.
How're you all doing?
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Cookin' With Cat #3
Today, we're on to part 2 of our continuing series on page 50 of the March 2009 Gourmet magazine, with Garlicky Black-Pepper Shrimp and Black-Eyed Peas - a little Louisiana for a snowy day in Wisconsin.
Like all the best recipes, this one begins by browning up some bacon:
While the bacon is cooking, chop up 4 scallions, a carrot, a celery stick, half a green pepper, and 2 cloves of garlic:
Once the bacon is done, transfer it to a plate, and sauté the vegetables for about 10 minutes in the bacon fat, along with a bay leaf, a teaspoon of dried thyme, an eighth of a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper:
Add two 15-oz cans of black-eyed peas (rinsed and drained), and two cups of chicken broth, and simmer for another 5 minutes or so:
While that's simmering, season a pound of peeled shrimp with a quarter teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of black pepper, and sauté with 3 cloves of chopped garlic in 3 tablespoons of olive oil just until the shrimp just start to turn opaque:
Then add half a cup of white wine and simmer for a couple of minutes, until the shrimp are fully cooked:
Now, just mix together the black-eyed peas, shrimp, and the chopped up bacon from the beginning of the recipe:
Throw out the bay leaf, and serve with bread for sopping!
This turned out really well. Anita was pushing for more red pepper flakes, but the black pepper is enough to give it a good level of spiciness. The broth picked up the flavors of both the shrimp and the bacon, and is delicious. It was much too good to give any to Kaiyo, which made him a little grumpy...
Stay tuned for next time, when Cookin' With Cat brings you an impressive-looking, but easy to prepare Provençal Chicken and Tomato Roast!
Like all the best recipes, this one begins by browning up some bacon:
While the bacon is cooking, chop up 4 scallions, a carrot, a celery stick, half a green pepper, and 2 cloves of garlic:
Once the bacon is done, transfer it to a plate, and sauté the vegetables for about 10 minutes in the bacon fat, along with a bay leaf, a teaspoon of dried thyme, an eighth of a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper:
Add two 15-oz cans of black-eyed peas (rinsed and drained), and two cups of chicken broth, and simmer for another 5 minutes or so:
While that's simmering, season a pound of peeled shrimp with a quarter teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of black pepper, and sauté with 3 cloves of chopped garlic in 3 tablespoons of olive oil just until the shrimp just start to turn opaque:
Then add half a cup of white wine and simmer for a couple of minutes, until the shrimp are fully cooked:
Now, just mix together the black-eyed peas, shrimp, and the chopped up bacon from the beginning of the recipe:
Throw out the bay leaf, and serve with bread for sopping!
This turned out really well. Anita was pushing for more red pepper flakes, but the black pepper is enough to give it a good level of spiciness. The broth picked up the flavors of both the shrimp and the bacon, and is delicious. It was much too good to give any to Kaiyo, which made him a little grumpy...
Stay tuned for next time, when Cookin' With Cat brings you an impressive-looking, but easy to prepare Provençal Chicken and Tomato Roast!
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