When you need chocolate

I’m not one to actually try recipes from other blogs most of the time.  I tend to quit reading the ingredient list halfway through, or start improvising madly upon discovering that I only have two out of the five ingredients I need for some particular concoction.  But this time, I had all the ingredients, I really didn’t improvise*, and I wasn’t disappointed.

So what are you waiting for?  Try this recipe.  Now.  You will thank me** later.

*I substituted vanilla sugar for the vanilla extract and sugar.  Vanilla sugar = sugar that has been sitting in a bowl with a vanilla bean or two for a week or longer, and if you’ve never made it, I suggest you go buy a vanilla bean and try it.  The vanilla bean can be reused for multiple batches of sugar, and the scent makes me deliriously happy every time I start baking something with it.  If you must, think of it as cheap therapy for the winter months.

** … err, Smitten Kitchen, actually.

New toys

I’m on shift again and figured I’d share my latest project with you all.  I forgot how much fun setting up a new experiment is.

Even if absolutely nothing works the way it should on the first try.

This, believe it or not, is film. As in, the stuff they use to show movies at theaters.  We use it to move radioactive nuclei from one place to another.

Time to get back to work.

On a lighter note

I figured I’d share a few favorite things I’ve discovered since I last posted on something other than current events.  In no particular order, here they are:

• If you are trying to decide between the 20 million charities that are currently asking for donations for Haiti right now, consider Partners In Health.  They have, thus far, been making the best use of funds donated for disaster relief in Haiti, have an established network in the country, and are a pretty fantastic organization all around.  If you want to know more, go check out their website, or read this book by Tracy Kidder, which is well written (as are all Tracy Kidder’s books, but that’s another story).  They are one of those organizations that actually has an effective, efficient, sensible plan for accomplishing their mission, which is one of the main things I look for when I’m choosing an organization to donate to, and they’ve been working in Haiti for decades.
• The White Mountains are amazing, especially in winter.  We just made our second trip up there, and managed to summit Mt. Lafayette.  It was worth every bit of muscle pain.  I only wish we had summit pictures to show you; we’re still waiting on those from friends, as our camera did not like the cold one bit.  The photo above is from the Falling Waters trail in Franconia Notch, which I highly recommend, but only if you have the gear.  If you go up Brindle Path and down Falling Waters during winter, you can slide down the mountain most of the way!
• Snow is actually pretty fantastic if you take full advantage of it.
• Radish kimchi goes with EVERYTHING (er… maybe not chocolate, but that’s another experiment). If you haven’t tried it, go! Now! You don’t know what you’re missing.  I had a breakfast burrito with kimchi, New Zealand cheddar, and fried eggs this morning, and have been known to put kimchi on nachos after a late night at the lab…
• If you’re stuck in a wine shop trying to decide between the cutesy lizard label and the adorable kangaroos, ask if they have a rioja.  Spanish wines are cheap for the quality, and I think they’re worth trying at least once.  Reservas are even better, if they are in your price range.  Barring that, try a Malbec.  These are Argentinian reds that are also generally pretty good for the price, though they aren’t quite as reliable as the riojas seem to be, in my experience.  Reservas are also a good bet for Malbecs.
• Steep and Cheap is worth checking out if you’re interested in mountaineering gear.
• The CSS upgrade on wordpress is worth it.  If you’ve noticed (aka still don’t read blogs in some sort of RSS feed), my site has gotten somewhat ugly since I got cheap on you and stopped paying the $15/year upgrade.  I may have to do something about that one of these night shifts.
• Two tv shows I really should stop watching on netflix but cannot: Spooks / MI-5, which is a BBC series, and Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. Clearly I’m about the last person on earth to start watching the second show, but having watched some horrible cooking shows and the shows he’s featured on places I’ve actually lived, I really think he actually tries to treat each place he visits with respect.  That’s hard to find on television these days.

And that’s all for now.  I have an experiment setup to supervise next week and a life to sort out, so we’ll see when I return…

What we have become

Well, I didn’t exactly plan such a long pause from this blog, but quite honestly, I’ve felt stuck in stressful limbo over the past couple of months. I still am, really, as I wait to find out where we have the option of going next year, what I might be doing, and what new opportunities moving somewhere new might bring.  All I know now is it’ll be something different, something where I may have a small opportunity to make a difference, if not now, then in the long run.  But that isn’t why I sat down to write this post.  Instead, I woke up this morning to read about the Supreme Court-approved takeover of our election process, the now uncertain fate of healthcare reform, and torture at Guantanamo Bay.  It all left me rather depressed about the state of this nation, and got me thinking about what got us in this mess.

Do I have an answer? No, not really. I don’t understand how money and fear have come to define this country’s political system.  We are still supposedly a land of promise, and yet, we would spit on the very people who need help the most, would take actions that would make even the most hardened among us shudder, and would do anything to make just a few more dollars. This is not a country to be proud of. Not today.

I think we’ve been hardened by fear and distrust.  The word community has disappeared from our lips, and we have forgotten what it’s like to be left with no options.  We have closed our eyes to all but the constant warning that, yes, we are under attack, and must remain vigilant.  This is what fear does. It makes us distrust our neighbor. It makes us do unthinkable acts.  It makes us fight amongst ourselves about who or what can protect us the most — from the economy, from a terrorist act, from the unknown or misunderstood.

And in the process, it robs us of our humanity.  Which is, quite honestly, the thing I fear the most.

Married.

(Guest book crayons!)

So here’s the real wedding post. The one where I skip all the details that took up so much of my thoughts before and tell you the important stuff.  The stuff that still makes me thrilled to this day when I stop a second in the midst of job searches and all the rest and think about that day, and every day since.

(Decor + delicious Turley from my Dad’s collection)

See, I don’t think our mostly self-catered, self-organized, casual setup would work for everyone.  About 10 minutes before our ceremony started, I was wondering whether it was even going to work for us.  I had planned to go back to the pavilion in my wedding dress and help set stuff up, because that’s what I do. I’m a control freak, and hate asking for help, so of course I was going to set the tables, right?  Well, people had other ideas. I was to have an “entrance”, which meant family and friends would be doing the setup.  And you know what? I showed up and everything was gorgeous, everyone was happy, and our families and friends had pulled together and made everything possible.

(Foliage!)

Was it exactly as I envisioned when I was agonizing over program details and centerpieces? No. Did I care? Not one bit.  Because that was the moment I felt like we were really a family, people were rooting for us, and we were incredibly lucky to have such awesome people in our lives. And bloody hell, if that’s not what weddings are all about, then who wants one?

(From the ceremony – my lovely MOH is behind me)

Anyway, this blog post is sort of a one-sided perspective on the whole thing (which honestly is not that uncommon — I think most wedding blogs are written by women, and most discussions of weddings are the same… A shame, really, though after physics, it’s sort of refreshing to actually be in the majority for once.)  But I think James and I felt the same way about this.  Both our families seemed to have a blast, which was the best part — the part we talked about for weeks.  We certainly had fun. And I haven’t even mentioned the thoughtful, funny speeches people put together, the song people wrote for us and sang, and all the words of love and support we got from everyone — some of which were literally sent from the other side of the globe.

For those of you who read this blog who attended the wedding, either in person or in spirit, thank you for being incredible.  We couldn’t have done it without you.

(All photos were taken by our photographer, Jerry of JW Photography. If you want contact details / info on an affordable photographer in Southern CT, just send me an e-mail or leave a comment and I’ll give you contact details.)