Once a month seems to be the natural frequency

of my blogging.

Forgive the late post, I did have a couple of drafts started, but it's been a very hectic month. I had my last thesis committee meeting before my dissertation defense on Friday morning, and turned in a 41 page report the week before that. That was the short version, too. So, I've been busy.

But, the good news is that I've been approved to go ahead writing & organize a defense date. I had asked for 8 weeks to write, but my committee said I'd need more (which is fine with me, I didn't want to seem like I was asking for too much time, but truthfully, I'm sure I'll need it). The longer timeline also will make scheduling people easier, as it'll be after the start of the academic fall term, not right on the tail end of the summer break. I guess the only downside is that I'll miss having any time off before moving to TN, unless I ask for another 2-4 week reprieve on my start date at the new job.

After the whole meeting, I took the weekend for myself, and D & I prepped the walls & ceiling in the front two rooms for painting. We also managed a trip to Home Depot in which we pretty much purchased only the items we needed for this one job. Everything's pretty much sanded, and more than 1/2 of the trim has been taped, so we're in better shape than I thought we'd be & painting will probably happen soon.

Today I stayed home, but I finished my work goal, and did a little bit of organizational thought about what I need to accomplish in the next few weeks. Still, I'm already overcome by the feeling that I'm not working hard enough, that I'm behind on this deadline, so this is not going to be a fun three months. Oh well, at the end of it, I'll be a Dr.

Hot Salsa, Chocolate-Ginger Cookies, and French Bread

After a few weeks hiatus due to just-too-much-work, the Pittsburgh cookie railroad is back on track (ha! I managed to squeeze a pun-like thing in there). I promised to make cookies this week, but didn't feel quite up to the curry cardamom gems that I made last time. And then ate all of them, so I had nothing to deliver. I wanted something chocolate-y, but not chocolate chip. Something exotic.

I had purchased some candied ginger a few weeks ago, at my local Indian grocery. I had plenty of cocoa and chocolate squares, so I went to the trusty Internets and searched for something chocolate and ginger. And I found these:

Chocolate-Ginger Crinkle Cookies

I made up the dough, with minor changes. Just the usual, I didn't have quite enough chocolate, Drew wanted more brown sugar, etc. The dough was really liquidy, more like brownie dough, but I remembered that the regular chocolate crinkles are also like this, so I didn't try to fix it at all.

This morning, the dough was hard as a rock. More like fudge. So, I carved it up a teaspoonful at a time, and set to work baking. They came out awesome!!! I'll definitely be making these again.

Prior to the start of the cookies, I was struggling to come up with something for dinner. I made Indian earlier in the week, so that was out. We thought about grilling, but we need a new chimney coal starter thing, and our local True Value only had a gigantic, overpriced one. (We did pick up a bunch of new plants and some mushroom compost though, so I have a few veggies planted and happy in the back.)

We settled on chicken tacos, but I was out of most veggies that go into my usual salsa. I did have some canned tomatoes from two summers ago, but I was hesitant to use them. They're whole yellow grape and red cherry tomatoes, but I included 1/2 a habanero pepper in each jar, and from previous experience, this made everything I used them in unbearably hot, even when the habanero was not removed prior to cooking.

I ground them up anyway, and threw some fresh garden oregano, onion, and cilantro. It was still insanely hot, but seemed like it was still useable. The rest of the tacos is pretty standard - I use the packet method, and soft corn tortillas - but they were great! The salsa hotness mellowed after sitting for a while, and the taco seasoning stuff worked pretty well to tamp down more of the heat. So I know at least one more use for the remaining two jars sitting in my cupboard.

While the cookies were baking this morning, I got started on some more baguettes, but tried out King Arthur's bread flour and Fannie Farmer's recipe. It's always a challenge for me to not overknead the bread, especially since my trusty Kitchen-Aid mixer tends to make kneading unnecessary anyway. Dough is in first rising now, and my fingers are crossed that it will come out well :)

Good news, everyone!

Most of the last month has been all-about-work for me, either doing it (a lot of imaging on two projects), or stressing out about it (am I making the right decision? Is it going to be enjoyable, or am I going to regret taking an academic post-doc? Or this academic post-doc?) As you can see, my anxiety talent is in over-drive, as usual.

Thankfully, this was broken up by a great visit home for my nephew's birthday. We had lots of cake, a fun time at the birthday place (with slides & lots of inflatable obstacle courses, a museum (where I made full use of my student discount) with bugs & rocks & things & a primo parking spot in Cambridge, lots of games, rock-climbing, & a nice visit with my Dad. I didn't look at any work-related stuff at all, & I came back relaxed & refreshed.

This relaxation was only slightly interrupted at the end of my return trip, when I cam bounding out of the airport, only to realize, I couldn't find my car. I had been runninng late when I got to the airport Thursday morning, and many of the Extended parking spots near the terminal were full. I didn't want to park 1/2 mile away, so I drove to the far side of the entrance & found a good place. Ran into the terminal, and didn't write down the location. D'oh!

But, I did rehearse the location several times (14d, 14d, 14d...) to get it into my head. The only problem is that area 14d was to my right when I exited the airport, and I remembered turning to my right to approach the airport when I came in. I wandered around several regions of the parking lot, unable to get the spatial location, remembered information, and direction of parking spaces to come together the right way. Finally, I went to inspect area 14d, and immediately found my car. The only upside is that I thought quite a bit about the different kinds of memory that we have, and the fact that these types of memory may be encoded/retrieved by brain circuitry that is largely segregated (a topic that is relevant to my dissertation). So, I guess I did do a little bit of work, but not too much :)

At my first day back to work, I collected a ton of imaging data. I have 60 stacks to collect in total, and as of today, I've made it through 42 of them. With two more days to image, I think I should have this project pretty well wrapped up. I'm not entirely sure how to analyze this data, but I'll figure something out.

My other project (which was finished, until we decided to add more cases), has a couple of weeks of imaging left on it, and maybe another month of counting cells. Then, write everything up, have a committee meeting, schedule a due date/defense date, clean up all my notes (including copying them, and reorganizing by topic, not date), and move to Nashville. I'm trying to get down there by the beginning of October, and not relishing how crazy my last month or so in Pittsburgh is going to be.

The good news is that I was selected for a fellowship in Neurogenomics. I have to giggle just a lit bit whenever I say that, as it seems like something someone much smarter would have on their CV. But it's going on mine. It basically just covers my salary & gives me some travel money, and requires me to do a few extra meetings & seminars during the year. And, of course, looks good on paper. So, I'll take it, even if it provokes quite a bit of anxiety over whether I'm taking an opportunity from someone who is more deserving.

New recipe, and upcoming Ice Cream

It was another "meh" day, mostly good things happening, but it's still a struggle to not get caught up in some negative thinking & anxiety. I got to work extra early (7:30!), mounted my tissue on slides, and checked out some staining from last week - though I had to hunt around for a working fluorescence microscope.

I lost my battle with not-going-home-early, but I did get a little writing done on the introduction for one paper. This is the project I thought was done back in February, so I started writing the paper for publication. The methods section is done, the results are started, but I got side-tracked with a lot of extra reading when I tried to write the intro. Unfortunately, one of my cases turned out to have extremely low numbers of labeled cells. So, back to the surgical suite. I just finished the preliminary immunochemical reactions on four more cases over the weekend, and will start the tissue for fluorescence tomorrow (along with the tissue for my other project!). So the next 10 weeks, probably, are going to be stressful & tedious :(

I have been working simultaneously on cleaning up my files. Since I've been in the lab, I've filled something like 7 lab notebooks, and they're organized chronologically, not by project. So I'm photocopying everything & re-organizing the copies by project, & will include digital data in the binders, so that things can be found easily when I'm no longer in the lab. I'm glad I've gotten started - but I'm several years behind, so it's not going to be easy.

In cleaning up my office over the last couple of weeks, I unearthed a bunch of recipes I had wanted to try. I had picked up some leeks to make soup earlier in the week, since I have a bunch of potatoes that should be used or planted real soon. But I found this, and was inspired to join Marce in her recent endeavors: a) using up canned & otherwise stockpiled food; and b) Monday beans.

I of course took liberties with the recipe. I had large leeks, so I tried to double the recipe, but then I didn't have enough beans, so it was a little leek heavy, which is fine by me. Also, I used whole milk instead of half&half. And didn't exactly measure it, I think I added a little more than 1 oz. My overall opinion:

1. Very easy to make :)
2. Eh, it was okay, but I think I like potato leek soup better. It wasn't so much soup as bean mush with leeks & mild bacon flavor. I definitely didn't add enough pepper, and it could've used some more salt too.
3. Drew approved, and he doesn't usually like potato leek soup (or, in general, cream soups. But I'm lucky in that he'll eat almost anything without complaint.) He does like beans more than I do though.
4. Maybe it would be better as a side-dish instead of the main event?

I still want to try more recipes from the site, and I like the idea of the blog, but I'll still go to Deborah Madison or this cookbook for ideas on particular vegetables (when I'm not feeling like Indian).

My next adventure will most likely be ice cream for Sunday's dinner. Drew's aunt is coming for a visit, so it's a special Sunday dinner, & the asparagus is in season, so I'll get to eat one of my favorite Marce-meals, Asparagus crepes. I haven't quite decided on what to make for frozen dessert, but I'm thinking citrus-y, either Cardamom Orange ice cream, or a sorbet (Orange or Tarragon Orange). I received an ice cream maker & ice cream recipe book a couple of years ago (for Christmas, maybe?), but have so far only tried the Cinnamon ice cream. That was delicious, but ice cream is actually enough of a pain to make (it's a two-day process) that I can see how it used to really be a treat!

Votes on frozen dessert flavors are encouraged in the comments (not limited to the flavors mentioned in the preceding paragraph)!

OMG, I have great Indian cookbooks.

It's a sad fact that it takes me a couple of weeks to actually cook something once I think of the recipe. Generally, I buy most of the ingredients for a recipe, but not all of them, then don't make it to the store again for another week, and by then things are starting to turn south.

Luckily, there are frozen veggies & I do manage to keep us stocked in onions and garlic. And, I stocked up on Indian spices & dal (various kinds) last year, when I cashed in my yearly Amazon gc for these two books:

Healthy South Indian Cooking, by Alamelu Vairavan and Patricia Marquardt

and

An Invitation to Indian Cooking, by Madhur Jaffrey

Best. Purchase. Ever.

I love Indian food, but there is no place here in Pittsburgh that either: 1) is really great; or 2)delivers to our neighborhood. Much less both. And, it's cheaper to cook for us than to eat out all the time. And less greasy.

Plus, we get awesome lunch the next day.

So, I'd been planning to make Eggplant Masala (really good) from HSIC (see above), but ended up using the eggplant I bought to make homemade Baba Ghanouj (from a different cookbook - Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison (my Bible of Vegetarian)). We brought a middle eastern feast to a friends' house for an Equinox party on Saturday, and ate all the leftovers last night.

But back to Indian food. I know Drew loves Biryani, so I planned around that. Frozen chicken breasts? On sale at Giant Eagle, I think 1.79/lb for 3 lbs? Check. Cashews? I bought those too, but won't say how much I paid. Raisins? Check.

The instructions for chicken biryani have you make something else first - Garlic & Pepper Chicken (HSIC). So I made this tonight, along with Green Beans Poriyal.

Garlic Pepper & Chicken
paraphrased from HSIC

I used 3 lbs of chicken, and so had to multiply everything by 1.5 to make it even out. When I cook, I often estimate, so everything is sort of variable (I swear, I do not do this with science recipes). Cut the chicken up into medium (on the small side) pieces. Roughly chop up ~ 15 cloves of garlic. Chop up 1 med-lg onion, probably about 1 cup chopped. Measure out the following, preparing little cups/piles of spices (so you can throw spices in quickly while cooking!): 1) 5 small pieces of stick cinnamon, 2 bay leaves (crumbled), 4 dried chilis (I used Sanaam India Chili Peppers from Penzey's); 2) 1 tsp cumin seeds (I didn't have these so I skipped them), 3/4 tsp fennel seeds, 1.5 tsp urad dal; 3) 2 tsp ground black pepper, 2 tsp cumin powder, 2 tsp salt, 1.5 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp cayenne powder, 1/4 C chopped fresh coriander. Also put the garlic & onion together to be added at once. Finally, mince 2 tbsp on ginger root.

Heat 3 tbsp of canola oil in large skillet (I use my two handled Calphalon cast iron pan (thanks Kristen & Al!). When oil is hot, but not smoking*, add cinnamon sticks, bay leaf, & chili peppers (Group 1 above). Add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, and urad dal (Group 2 above). Add onion & garlic. Saute 3-4 mins & stir in 1 tsp turmeric powder. Add chicken & ginger. Cook covered over low heat until the chicken is partially cooked.

Add black pepper, etc. (Group 3 above). Stir well to coat chicken pieces. Add 1/2 cup of water, stir & recover. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. When done, serve over rice (Jasmine or Basmati - we used white Basmati tonight, but often we go for the brown Basmati, done in a rice cooker).

I tried some at this point, and it was already good, but I cut my chicken pieces to large, so it needed more cooking. Also, I was behind on the other parts of the meal, and the sauce was a little watery, so I turned the heat down a little, and recovered.

In the end, this was really tasty, but I definitely should have gone smaller on the meat pieces.


I also made Green Beans Poriyal (almost verbatim from Healthy South Indian Cooking, by Alamelu Vairavan and Patricia Marquardt
)

Again, keep in mind that things happend quickly when you start - so it helps a lot to group the spices together in small dishes. Silicone cupcake holders actually work really well for this purpose (thanks Mom!). However, I will let you sort out what goes with what :)

Boil 2 cups water, add 1/4 cup yellow split peas & 1/4 tsp turmeric powder. Cook over medium heat, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until peas are done. Drain & set aside. Or, if you're like me, you'll start the next step before the peas are done, end up draining them too soon, then trying to figure out how to cook them just a bit more after you've already added them to the green beans.

Heat 2 tbsp canola oil (I used 1.5, as I had just reseasoned my other cast iron skillet, I figured I needed less oil) in a skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, but not smoking**, throw in 1 tsp black mustard seeds and 2 tsp urad dal. Stir very quickly to distribute these through the oil, then cover and heat until the mustard seeds pop. When the popping slows/stops, uncover and add 16 oz. frozen green beans. You could use fresh, which is what the original recipe called for, but mine went bad, so I used back-up supplies. If you use frozen, watch out when you put them in, since the moisture + really hot oil doesn't always end well. Add 1 tsp minced fresh ginger, stir, and cook 1-2 mins over medium heat. Add 1 tsp salt & 1/2 tsp chutney powder*** and stir. Cover the whole thing & cook over low heat for 5 minutes.

Add cooked split peas & 1/4 cup powdered coconut. Mix well & remove from heat, covered, until ready to serve. Or, when you suspect the split peas aren't cooked, add ~ 1/4 cup of water to the whole thing, cover, & cook on low heat for another 8-10 minutes. You have the time, because you forgot to actually turn the rice cooker on, so you've got another 20 minutes before dinner. Pour youself a glass of wine, do some dishes, or just catch up with your SO while you wait.



* This is how every single recipe in this book starts. Pretty much.
** Ha! Told you.
*** I don't have this. I don't even have any idea what it is.

Rollercoaster

Wow, grad school really stinks emotionally. I've been up and down on a daily basis the last few days, and kind of crippled by how hopeless my situation feels. I think alot of the drama is coming from the uncertainty that lies ahead of me - another move to a new place, a whole new set of people to get to know and work with - and I knew I would be anxious about it, but just had forgotten what this feels like. And on top of the stress-to-get-finished, it's getting the better of me.

I finished counting all the cells I needed to for Project #3, and made up tables, and wrote the Methods section of the manuscript for it. But when I looked at my numbers, one of my cases stood out as having really low numbers. I think it's because I lost a section or two from the LDT, where the greatest concentration of these cells are. So, at the least, I have to run more immuno on this project, and count a whole nother* set of cells (rrggghhhh, I thought I was done!). At the most, I may end up having to do more surgery anyway. And then more immuno, and then more counting.

Meanwhile, the other project I have has completely imploded, one of the antibodies isn't working right at all, and the microscope I need is broken. So, zero progress on that one.

I think I've gotten better at dealing with these kinds of frustrations, but at this point, I'm just wondering when it's going to end. I mean, it has to at some point, right? But I just can't imagine what that will be like.

So, I'll keep working at it, I will greatly enjoy the few days off I'm taking in April, and, hopefully I will graduate sometime before the end of the fall.

* why isn't this grammatically correct?

New efforts

I don't make resolutions. I think the only New Year's resolution I've ever made is to quit smoking, but that never generally even gets out of the gate. I might have once resolved to stop gossiping; unfortunately, progress on that one has been slow as well.

But I think I still manage to challenge myself in a lot of ways. I always joke at work that science was my worst subject in school, but it's actually true. I'm not really of fan of academic pursuit, yet continue in that path because I feel the training is necessary. I bought a house that has turned out to be a constant challenge (administrative and constructive), and it is probably beyond my actual abilities to renovate (but we'll get there anyway, it'll just cost more than we were prepared for in the beginning). I've studied two foreign languages (and am trying to pick up my third), moved to new and completely unfamiliar places, and pretty consistently picked the hardest options I could find, school/career-wise. There are times when I really wonder what is wrong with me when I look back upon the choices that have led me to where I am in life, but secretly, I am pretty pleased with things. I obviously don't make horrible life choices, but the benefits from them can be difficult to point out.

My newest venture has been a return to knitting. I received some bamboo needles as a gift a few months ago, and I dropped into Michael's** on a whim a couple of weeks back. I picked up a book of sweater patterns, and some yarn, plus some extra yarn that I liked & that had a hat pattern on the back of the label. All the patterns seemed pretty simple, and since I've only ever previously knitted rectangular things, I figured they would be a good next step.

I started a simple sweater last week, and immediately discovered that my casting-on technique is not actually right. Also, I didn't remember how to purl correctly. And I never learned how to read knitting patterns. Thankfully, the internet is here. So, I've had remedial knitting learning, and learned to increase stitches across a row. Here's what I have so far:



It's the back section, and once it's 15.5" long, I have to start doing something else, "binding off" maybe? In the end, it should look like this:



At the very least, I should have a new sweater in about two years :)



**Incidentally, that place has now been added to my mental list of dangerous stores (e.g. Target, Ikea) that always end up costing multiples of the amount you thought you were going to spend. On the plus side, I picked up some Nephew gifts that I think are pretty cool, and my "Christmas box" now is packed full of stuff that can be given when I can't think of anything in December.