Post-Call Valentine’s Day Waffles

Growing up, Valentine’s Day was always one of my favorite holidays. I don’t remember how, or when, or why the tradition started, but every year from the time I was in elementary school up through my junior high years, I had a big sleepover with all my closest girlfriends. My parents sacrificed a night of sleep (my father still talks about the night he learned that there is actually no sleep at a sleepover) so that 20 of my closest friends could spend the night in sleeping bags, giggling so loudly from the downstairs living room that my parents could hear us all night long all the way upstairs in their bedroom. We would play Twister and watch movies and eat heart-shaped cupcakes baked by my mother, and even to this day, friends that I lost touch with ten years ago suddenly sent me messages on Facebook yesterday saying that they still associate Valentine’s Day with my annual sleepovers. Even in high school, my friends and I would always make cards and cookies to distribute around, or buy candy-grams for each other. My freshman year of college, Valentine’s Day meant spending the evening curled up under a blanket with my closest friend at that point, watching girly movies and sharing a big bowl of popcorn.

For me, Valentine’s Day has always meant far more about loving friends than romantic love. Maybe that’s why I never understood the whole miserable, bitter “Single’s Awareness Day” attitude – whether or not I was attached, I’ve always loved taking the time out to tell my friends how much I love them and spending time with them if possible.

I think this is why it didn’t bother me that Husband was on call all day yesterday, and I didn’t see him at all on Valentine’s Day. In fact, it upset everyone else far more than it upset me – people seemed to place such importance on what we would be doing for our first Valentine’s Day as newlyweds and were so disappointed to discover that we weren’t going to be together – and were downright upset when I said that I didn’t really mind. By this point, he’s been on call through my birthday, our 1 month anniversary, our 3 month anniversary, New Years Eve, will be on call on our 1 year anniversary, and will miss so much more once he moves away… so really, what’s Valentine’s Day in the grand scheme of things? I spent the majority of my day in lab, sneaking away for a few hours to catch Confessions of a Shoapholic with two friends, which really made it the ideal Valentine’s Day for me – time with two friends that I adore, and rarely get to see (the whole ten hours in lab with proteins that don’t cooperate was kind of less than ideal, though).

Even though I wouldn’t be seeing him, I still wanted to try to do something for my husband. With Husband’s $250,000 medical school debt, we don’t really do gifts for each other for birthdays or Hanukkah, so gifts for Valentine’s Day were certainly out of the question (making payments on his 8% loan serves as all our gifts to each other for these occasions… and to think, before I got married, I had zero debt whatsoever!). So, I put on my Crafty Cap and decided to get work. I’ve mentioned before that Husband is doing his intern year in medicine, but I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that afterward, he’ll be going into radiology. And thus, I decided to embroider him a little card to pack with his lunch… with a chest x-ray. What more could a future radiologist need? Apparently, it was quite the hit amongst all the residents in the ICU last night (Husband’s only complaint was why is he in normal clothes – shouldn’t he be in a white coat?) Of course, he said that now he can’t wait to see what I put together for next year, so I’m already accepting suggestions for radiology-themed Valentine’s gifts for 2010. FYI, embroidering a rib cage is slightly more complicated than one might think. I suggest not trying to do it freehanded.

(Erm, excuse the fact that the feet were cut off accidentally and taped back together. 4am paper cutter malfunction.)

This morning, I headed to the lab early to time the loading of my protein on the column with when he would be coming home from call, and made him chocolate waffles. I have a great Belgian waffle recipe that I will share in the future, but since Husband LOVES chocolate, I decided to spice things up and try making an all-chocolate version for a change. Apparently, they were a big hit (I passed on them, since I’m not a chocolate person myself).

Chocolate Fudge Waffles
Makes 2 Waffles

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1/6 cup butter
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup milk (I use fat-free)
• 1/4 cup sour cream (I use fat-free)

Directions:

1. Preheat waffle iron.
2. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter over low heat.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, granulated sugar, and cocoa powder.
4. In a large bowl, beat together egg, milk, sour cream, and vanilla by hand. Gradually stir in flour mixture and melted chocolate and butter. Stir until smooth.
5. Grease/oil/spray waffle iron per directions for individual iron. Pour enough batter to fill 2/3 of the waffle iron (half of batter). Push batter out to the edges with a spoon. Cook until crisp on edges and a dark rich brown (I have a Waring-Pro Belgian waffle maker with 6 heat settings; I cooked mine at setting 4).
6. My husband topped his with maple syrup, but if I had one, I would have opted for whipped cream. Or a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Or maybe some vanilla ice cream…

Title My Talk!

In our program, every year each Ph.D. student must present their data in an hour-long talk to the entire department. I always kind of figured this was standard practice in graduate school, though in talking to students in other programs at this university and those at other universities altogether, it seems like the majority never give a talk to the entire department until their thesis defense. Personally, I like the way we do things here – it’s a great way to practice giving talks in front of an audience, keeps everyone abreast of your research, and often results in great suggestions from PIs outside your thesis committee which you may otherwise have never received.

I may, however, feel this way because I have zero problems with standing in front of a room and talking, unlike the standard stereotypical scientist. Plus, even though I generally don’t have much data to share (who wants to look through 500 coomassies that show my inability to purify a particular protein?) the techniques I use are completely different from others in my program, so by default, my talk is always new and interesting, which forces people to pay attention. My program is in cancer biology, rather than biochemistry or pharmacology or structural biology, so we are tied together by the fact that we study cancer, not by the way in which we study cancer. 98% of the program studies cell signaling and knockdown genes in cells and in animals, and while they produce some hot science and generate some pretty cool results, the techniques they use are all same old, same old in so much as we see the same thing every week.

Then I come along, and my results come from surface plasmon resonance and circular dichroism and fluorescence polarization, and I talk about things like molecular modeling with structures from co-crystallization. While nobody would ever stop and explain how to “read” a Western or a Kaplan-Meyer plot, I can’t exactly put up a CD spectra and make a statement about the structure of the protein without taking the time to explain a little about CD, or throw up a graph with polarization that shows that my small molecule displaces a peptide without a few cartoons showing how FP works. That’s what I love about my project – even though it’s taking me a long time to generate worthwhile data, my presentations are always interesting, because I am the black sheep of the program doing something COMPLETELY different than everyone else (all biochemistry/biophysics), and people are interested to learn about what it is that I am doing.

That said, tomorrow I give my once yearly talk, and happen to also be going for the double-whammy and also having a thesis committee meeting (it is not, however, standard to have committee meetings every three months at this university… the program asks for every 6 months, most people aim for once a year, and I obviously pick up their slack by squeezing in extra meetings in the middle). So, as I sit here looking over my slides for tomorrow’s presentations, I find myself unsure what to title my talk.

Should I opt for:
(a) 1001 Ways Not To Purify Protein X
(b) 50 Unsuitable Buffers for Circular Dichroism of Protein Y
(c) Protein X and Protein Y Interact But You Probably Don’t Care, and I Really Don’t Either
or
(d) Protein Y Isn’t Improperly Folded, It’s Simply Structurally Ambivalent

Other suggestions welcome.

Also, since Protein X is a helicase, I think I need to fit this somewhere in my talk:

My Superbowl Food Brings All the Boys to the Party

For both undergrad and graduate school, I chose a national, private university.  As a result, the friends I made came from across the country and stretched to all corners of the globe.  This, in my mind, was one of the huge perks of attending a national university rather than a state or regional school, but because all my friends are from all over the country, I do not have any Steelers friends here in D.C.  Instead, my friends (comprised of 2 Eagles fans, 2 Patriots fans,  1 Redskins fan, 1 Giants fan, 1 Packers fan, and 5 individuals who think a quarterback pocket is where he stuffs a playbook in between passes) came for one reason and one reason only: to eat.  I don’t think they were disappointed.

Unfortunately, because I only have one oven, I wasn’t able to take pictures of what I made.  I prepped everything beforehand during the day, but once the party started, it was just a constant stream of putting something in the oven, taking it out, serving it, putting the next thing in, etc.  The following night I literally had an amazing fantasy dream in which I was picking out a second convection oven for my kitchen.  Some women have hot, steamy dreams of men with 6-packs… I have steamy dreams about second convection ovens.  Analyze away.

If you attended MY Superbowl party, you would have been served:

• buffalo wings served with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks
• buffalo  chicken dip
• bean dip
• spinach and artichoke dip
• macaroni and cheese
• brie and crackers
• beef “pigs” in a blanket
• pizza bites
• PhizzleDizzle’s bacon wrapped heart attack
• Steelers decorated chocolate cupcakes
• Nilla wafer banana pudding
• chocolate mousse
• and… the ultimate, edible snack stadium

The Ultimate, Edible Snack Stadium.  Field: guacamole with sour cream yard markers.  Steelers endzone: queso dip.  Cardinals endzone: salsa.  Players: beef lil’smokies sausages (at one point during the evening, they were all wearing Tostitos Scoops helmets).  Goal posts: slim-jims.  Stadium seats: mozzarella sticks. Fans: Tostitos and cheetos. Stadium walls: rice krispie treats.

And, almost the entire stadium was consumed by the end of the night.  Have I mentioned that many of my friends are large, hungry men?

When I told PhizzleDizzle that I was going to make her self-proclaimed “Best Snack Ever” for the party, she told me I had to take a picture.  I’ve already told her the story behind the magic bacon log, but literally immediately after I pulled it out of the oven, all rolled and full of melty cheese and set it down on the table, Harrison caught the interception and ran for a 100-yard defensive touchdown.  While I was jumping up and down like a maniac, the menfolk behind me were devouring the bacon log.  By the time I turned around to grab a picture, this was all that was left.  Needless to say, it was quite the hit.

If anyone is interested in any recipes for anything I made, let me know, and I’d be happy to pass them along!

So, who’s coming to my house the next time the Steelers are in the Superbowl?

I get by with a little help from my friends

Last night, I made a grave, unfortunate, absent-minded error.  A lapse of judgment which I hoped I could continue to avoid forever.  Unfortunately, no such luck.

I locked myself out.

You see, last night was an extremely rare event indeed, because I was going out.  As in, would be located somewhere other than my condo or the lab.  As in, would be seeing people other than my labmates, eating food I didn’t cook for myself, and drinking way too many margaritas at our favorite local Mexican restaurant in celebration of Good Friend’s paper acceptance.

I left the lab later than anticipated (just like every other day of my life), and didn’t actually have time to shower, but felt the need to scrub the lab germs off anyway.  In fifteen minutes, I managed to half-dry my hair (I have a lot of hair and it takes quite a long time to actually dry), throw on clothes, and was on the way out the door on the phone with said Friend, planning to meet her outside her apartment building.  But in my I’m-running-late-and-I’m-actually-going-out excitement, I stuffed my wallet in my purse, had my phone in the hand, and left.  The second the door shut, I realized my keys were still sitting inside in my little catch-all dish on the table.

Damn.

Okay, fine.  I can solve this.  I keep a spare key in the lab!  So, I walked the mile back to the lab, and waited around outside for someone to let me into the building, as my building ID swipey-card thingie was also locked in my condo.  Once inside, I located our extra lab key in Extra Secret Hidden Location on the floor, let myself in, and secured my spare house key.  Returning back to my building, I had to wait another 15 minutes for someone to exit the building (my key fob was also locked inside, naturally), excitedly ran to my door, put the key in the lock, and… it didn’t turn.

My spare key failed me.  @*$#!!!!!

Of course, this all happened on a night when Husband was on overnight call and would not be returning until noonish the following afternoon… and of course, this month he is rotating out at Hospital in Virginia, to which I cannot get by foot or Metro, my two modes of transportation.  Damn again.

Luckily for me, I have great friends.  Great friends who happen to be accountants and never have exciting plans on a Friday (at least, according to those of us who do not consider doing taxes on a Friday to be exciting) and happens to live 5 minutes away from Hospital in Virginia.  Several phone calls later (from phones borrowed from random people I didn’t know walking in and out of my condo, because OF COURSE at that point in time my phone chose to just up and die, despite having a full battery charge), and Friend successfully met Husband outside the ER, picked up his set of keys, drove them over to me.  He is, officially, my hero.  (He also commented how strange it was seeing Husband in full-on doctor garb, with his scrubs and his long white coat, looking like he actually could save lives or something.  The fact that people trust their lives with my husband also completely blows my mind, as I only see the side of him that cannot do laundry without shrinking everything and absolutely cannot make a grilled cheese sandwich without burning down the house.)

We were still able to make it out to the margarita celebration, have way too many pitchers, and he crashed on my couch for the night.  Which was an extra bonus for me, because then he drove me to lab first thing this morning!

The moral of the story: thank goodness I have a friend who is even nerdier than I am.  And, on that note, I’m going to go to the hardware store across the street right now while I am still thinking of it, and see if I can actually get a functional copy of my key made.  And if it works, I am going to make 10 more, and distribute them to everyone I know, so that I am prepared once Husband moves away, because I’m pretty sure I don’t have any friends willing to drive 3+ hours each way just to get a key for me.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Superbowl XLIII Champions!!!

PITTSBURGH WINS THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Is my celebratory evening a valid excuse for taking the day off from lab tomorrow?

 
 
           

Stay tuned tomorrow for why you should have been at MY Superbowl party!

Last Minute Inspiration

In case you need a little last minute inspiration to remind you who to cheer for in tonight’s game, I offer you this.  I know it’s a little confusing when the fight song changes on a regular basis, so here is the 2008-2009 version to help get you in the spirit.

HERE WE GO, STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!!!!!!!