After a long day at work (and no dinner) I was H-U-N-G-R-Y.
Not expecting much, I opened the fridge. Ortega taco sauce. Leftover stir fry. Mayo. Sigh.
Let's check the freezer. Frozen peas... cheese... hmmm.... peas and cheese. It rhymes - maybe it'll work!
Just to make sure I wasn't off my rocker, I googled "peas and cheese" to make sure that somewhere on the internet, someone had attempted this peculiar concoction. To my delight, I found a respectable-looking recipe, and I began to gather ingredients.
To begin with, I would need to make a roux. For the non-culinary of you, a roux is when you melt butter and mix a little flour into it until the flour dissolves and cooks a little. Then you add milk and you can build a nice smooth cheese sauce which doesn't get clumpy.
My first roux was a dud. Way too much flour. Plus, not enough milk. After a quick run down to the HRASC, the milk problem was solved. I started again, making sure to put in only a little bit of flour.
At that point it occurred to me that garlic would make a delicious addition at this stage in the game. But, being severely limited in cutlery options, I knew that I would have to pulverize the pungent root with an improvised tool... aha! I will crush the garlic with the frozen carton of soy milk I have been thawing! It's hard as a brick! It will surely do a wonderful job.
So I momentarily abandoned my roux. In retrospect, this was my fatal error. NEVER, EVER, ABANDON A ROUX! A ROUX MUST BE TENDERLY CARED FOR, LIKE A HIGH-MAINTANANCE SIGNIFICANT OTHER.
So I began slamming the garlic with my frozen soy milk carton as hard as I could. But I slammed a little too hard, and the carton burst at one of the seams. I pondered this for a moment, then quickly rushed my garlic over to the roux, which had taken on an ugly shade of dark brown, and was beginning to smell like (according to Brad Rubin) saganaki.
I discarded the spent roux into the sink, where it - of course - solidified and stubbornly stuck to the porcelain. I rolled my eyes at it, and went back to contemplate the soy milk. I decided to rip open the carton and slide the block of frozen stuff into a pitcher to melt. Only it didn't quite make it and there was a lot of messy shoving of icy soy. By the time I got it in the carton my hands were shuh-nasty and there was soy-snow on the floor.
Maybe that stir-fry is still good..
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
In the middle of the night
(note: this post has been posted post-when-the-post-should-have-been-posted)
The lab is quiet. Machines murmur in the background, occasionally some pipe will make a sound. Green Day Radio on pandora.com comes out of the lab computer's pitiful speakers like headphones in a tin can. I glance at the time. 12:09 AM
Why am I here? Because if I don't get the gel results by tomorrow morning, we will be a day behind. And I'm a good guy; I don't want to hold anybody up. So I sit and wait for 30 minutes to go by so that I can take the gel out of the stain, dunk it in de-stain and go home for the night.
Being in the lab itself can be fun late at night. No one's around, so I can blast the music as loud as I want (when I bring my computer). More importantly, I'm completely on my own. Question? No one's there to answer it, so I have to think on my feet.
But the building and the walk to and from it are creepy, no question. The hallways are dark, and you have no idea who else is around. You walk quickly to wherever you need to go, and don't look back. When you're alone in there, the slightest noise will set you off.
So you can imagine how pleased I was by the fire alarm going off at around 12:20 AM. I've heard the horror stories. Steam pipes exploding. Chemicals burning. Etc. I rushed for the exit, but I knew that my gel was almost ready. So I didn't go too far. At one point I used the wrong stairwell (not that anyone was there to direct me otherwise), and eventually I met up with the night guard as well as two local Philly firemen.
They couldn't figure out what was wrong. But they didn't seem too concerned and moved along. That was enough for me. I sneaked back into my lab real quick, changed the stain and got out of there.
Moral of the story - don't play the night lab rat unless you are the kind of person who knows how to conduct himself in a crisis.
The lab is quiet. Machines murmur in the background, occasionally some pipe will make a sound. Green Day Radio on pandora.com comes out of the lab computer's pitiful speakers like headphones in a tin can. I glance at the time. 12:09 AM
Why am I here? Because if I don't get the gel results by tomorrow morning, we will be a day behind. And I'm a good guy; I don't want to hold anybody up. So I sit and wait for 30 minutes to go by so that I can take the gel out of the stain, dunk it in de-stain and go home for the night.
Being in the lab itself can be fun late at night. No one's around, so I can blast the music as loud as I want (when I bring my computer). More importantly, I'm completely on my own. Question? No one's there to answer it, so I have to think on my feet.
But the building and the walk to and from it are creepy, no question. The hallways are dark, and you have no idea who else is around. You walk quickly to wherever you need to go, and don't look back. When you're alone in there, the slightest noise will set you off.
So you can imagine how pleased I was by the fire alarm going off at around 12:20 AM. I've heard the horror stories. Steam pipes exploding. Chemicals burning. Etc. I rushed for the exit, but I knew that my gel was almost ready. So I didn't go too far. At one point I used the wrong stairwell (not that anyone was there to direct me otherwise), and eventually I met up with the night guard as well as two local Philly firemen.
They couldn't figure out what was wrong. But they didn't seem too concerned and moved along. That was enough for me. I sneaked back into my lab real quick, changed the stain and got out of there.
Moral of the story - don't play the night lab rat unless you are the kind of person who knows how to conduct himself in a crisis.
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