Research project: Asparagus stink-o-meter

Just had a fine late-evening snack because Pam and I had some hors d'oeuvres a few hours ago at the museum's 75th anniversary kickoff event, but no real dinner. So we were hungry. For a snack, I prepared two small plates of sliced pepper-jack cheese, about eight spears of cold salted asparagus, a pile of walnuts and a banana. It hit the spot.

Which leads to the experiment. It came up at dinner the other night that it would be nice to know what factors might affect the distinctive odor that is a byproduct of asparagus consumption (let's call it asparagus "water"). How long does it take to become evident? If you are drinking a lot of water, does that dilute the perfume? What if you're a bit dehydrated; does that mean that if you don't need to urinate for six or 10 hours, you'll still get the A-E (asparagus effect)? How quickly can the effect present itself? I seem to remember that Michael once identified very rapid release of the perfume. What conditions were present for that to happen?

Here's my own initial data, from yesterday. Four hours after consumption, a pretty impressive odor. Two hours after that, definitely still there. The following morning, nothing I noticed.

I'll have more data later, what with the snack and all.

Dog kibble again

Its been a long boring day at the Barry house, from the moment the humans woke up, ate and left to the moment Grace got home and petted me. I've been a little downhearted lately, mostly because every single day, every single week, every single month, every single year I've been with the Barry's I've had to eat kibble. I'm not so computer savvy, so i couldn't put a picture on, plus i don't have opposable thumbs so i cant exactly work the camera. I'd like to say I'm sick of this, this kibble! who says dogs have to eat "healthy, delicious food" ? I'd say that food tastes like grease and dirt and elephant poop. ( not that I've ever ate elephant poop. I'm a sensible dog, okay?) i demand some delicious, juicy steak, some melt in your mouth ice cream, crackly brown bread. and yogurt. yoghurt's really good. Now who will rise with me and strike against the tyranny of greasy kibble? who shall? you sir? come Tesla cat, we shall unite and strike, to forever change the history of canines and felines forever!

Autonomous Mobility Chefs

We've been having long nights (and days) in the lab lately and those hours just aren't sustainable without eating well. Last night when hungry and cranky Steven said "Tomorrow let's make soup". On his way to school today he stopped at the Chinese grocery store and picked up some ingredients. I grabbed a box of vegetable broth from my cupboard.



Steven showed up with a wonderful array of ingredients. Spongy tofu, firm tofu, Napa Cabbage, Bokchoy, Enoki mushrooms. He even found some Chinese barbeque sauce that was 素食 [sù shí], which like 素菜 [sù cài], means vegetarian.

Finally the collection of Indian spices from Keyur and Krunel helped add a bit of spice to an already flavorful soup. Our only regret is not doing this sooner.

Now I think I'll take after my father and rest my head on the bench for a bit before working on Stochastic Processes some more.

Dream Catchers, pie, and decapitated hares

seeing as its April 14Th and the last post was on April second, i thought it a good idea to "freshen up the blog" i haven't got any food pictures, no, but i do have something for your oddities folder. yesterday mom and i went to Micheal's to get a mini hare to replace the one i had accidentally decapitated. (yes, lots of blood. maybe you can do some research on this mini stuffed hare blood. and yes, HARE H-A-R-E hare, NOT bunny.) this i a wonderful picture of my gruesome murder. i had trouble with lighting.

gruesome, isn't it? feel afraid? apprehensive? we'll too bad. while we were there, we got a macrame kit. i other words, a pile of stings and metal hoops. one of the projects was a dream catcher and that's what i did. it took a lot of work, mostly because the instruction booklet didn't show you how to do half of the knots and referred to an unseen diagram. but, with a little (okay, a lot) of help from my dad, we managed to knot it off at the end. i have no idea if we did the dream catcher right, but it looked fancy and it took a lot of time, so we decided to keep it that way. notice the real duck feathers used at the bottom, instead of those stupid plastic feathers they give you.

and on my last note, i have composed a plan to make a pie each month. first we made apple pie. then we got the pies from jewel. oh well.

grace

Sandwich Wars: the side dishes

Okay the grilled eggplant sandwich with arugula, avocado and smoked caciocavalo cheese could have been made in December, but the side is truly Spring.

First I steamed the fresh fava beans, baby artichokes and new potatoes. Then I tossed them together in a sauté of onions and garlic in a lemon zest sauce.

What sides are you creating?