Cake!

This picture is actually from a few weeks ago, at Ruti’s birthday celebration, but I was sharing the photos with her today and was so enamored of the cake all over again that I had to share it…

It is also one of the few non-blurry pictures I took at her party. Still working on the indoor action shots…

Oh academe…

As a graduate student, it’s sometimes hard to keep perspective. And by sometimes I mean often, really often. Graduate school is like the end all be all of delayed gratification, particularly if you combine graduate programs into a seemingly unending stint of education. As we slog through coursework, learn to teach, jump through administrative hurdles, we also try to imagine the lives we are hoping to lead. Too frequently these images are dominated by uncertain and overly competitive funding mechanisms, scary tenure clocks, and tragic job markets. Every once in a while, however, we get a glimpse of why people choose this life anyway. In chatting with my LSO stand partner (a tenured faculty member) before the concert, she revealed that she and her family have invitations to a variety of far off and exotic places as a result of their academic affiliations. They have relatively relaxing summers filled with productive time, and opportunities to travel all over the globe. This is the good stuff!

My summer is shaping up to be pretty exciting as well: a teaching assistant position for a week in New York City, the possibility of visiting Vienna for the International AIDS Conference, and a relatively commitment-free time to enjoy Ann Arbor and get a LOT of work done. Given how rough things have been around here lately, it’s nice to get a glimpse of the good stuff…

More signs of spring…

Last time I was at the farmers’ market (a little over a week ago) I nearly left a bit disappointed. While I love kale and chard, I’m tired of only seeing greens and frozen meats, along with the occasional potato and some sprouts. As I was walking back down the main aisle, however, I spied something that seemed miraculous that early in the spring: asparagus! The woman at the stand said that it was two weeks earlier than they’ve ever harvested asparagus, and pointed out that there wasn’t very much. But there was some, and there is almost nothing better than blanched asparagus, salt, pepper, a little Italian seasoning, a little parmesan, and pasta...

Life Sciences Orchestra Spring Concert

I’ve posted about the orchestra before – that it’s a nice mix of students, staff, and faculty, that it’s a wonderful break from the daily work of being a medical/graduate student, that it’s a daring group that enjoys challenging music, and that it’s a great opportunity to see attending physicians and full professors in a context where you can easily call them by their first names.  For me, it’s also been a place to connect with old friends and meet new ones.  My stand partners have become friends and mentors, and there has been a surprising overlap between cellists in my section and knitters I like to chat with about my other nerdy hobby.  In the past few years (and let this be a lesson to all of you – staying at one university for longer than the duration of two degrees is a dangerous choice), I’ve also reconnected with friends from undergrad who either also stayed here for graduate school, or who left, got jobs across the country, and then came back, wooed by our amazing graduate programs and stellar Life Sciences Orchestra. 

All this is to say that we are having a concert on Sunday, and it should be great.  Here are the details:

University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra
Hill Auditorium
2pm
Admission free

PROGRAM:
Voyage, for strings - Corigliano
Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" Mov. 1 - Beethoven
Symphony No. 5 - Tchaikovsky

Gratuitous Walter photos…

Dork Barrel Spending*

Thanks everyone!

*Comic from www.phdcomics.com, one of my favorite sites to peruse while procrastinating, written by a PhD in electrical engineering…

Last of the CSA

Last summer I purchased a share in the the Locavorious CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Most CSA shares are purchased in the winter, and produce from the farm is distributed throughout the summer and early fall. This one was different, and for that reason was particularly intriguing to me: the share was purchased in the summer, their staff then purchased and froze produce all summer, and it was distributed through the winter. It seemed like a lot of money up front (I think my share was $200), but I wanted to try it. I’d been working toward eating more local food for a few months, and it seemed like the next logical step. After all, if you plan to eat locally in Michigan, you’d better figure out how to save summer food for the winter. It proved to be a fabulous plan, and I enjoyed delicious produce all winter. Now that it’s March, I’ve finally used the last of my frozen produce, just in time for the farmers’ market to start getting good again. I’ll definitely be subscribing next year!

My final creation was soup for one of the last really cold and miserable days (fingers crossed!) we’re having this spring. I used the whole share of kale, which in retrospect may have been a little much, but it’s delicious. The recipe, heavily adapted from a friend's cookbook photocopy...

5c water or stock

6c squash, peeled and cubed (I used much less, and it was frozen puree from my CSA, which was a little stringy, but mostly fine)

5 tablespoons butter/oil

1c diced onion (or however much you want...)

2 cups chopped broccoli (or other vegetable, like carrot)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon leaf thyme

1 teaspoon basil (Fresh is amazing!)

1 1/2 cups slide mushrooms (or a few rehydrated dry ones)

1 cup chopped kale or spinach (or however much you have, but beware that 2 1/2 cups of kale will result in "Kale with broth" rather than soup...)

1 tsp salt

pepper to taste

Boil the water or stock and add the squash. If you use puree, you obviously need to boil it for less time. If you aren't using puree, after it's soft you'll blend or food process most of it to make it soupy. Heat the butter or oil and saute the onions and broccoli (or carrots, or whatever other vegetables are looking iffy/unused in the fridge/freezer) with garlic, thyme, and basil (if it's not fresh. When the onions begin to brown, add the mushrooms and cook a few minutes more. Add the sauteed vegetables to the pureed squash/broth mixture, along with the kale/spinach, and simmer uncovered. I simmered until the block of kale thawed, which seemed to be a good metric. I chopped the basil and sprinkled it over my serving (and then added the rest to the pot. Enjoy!

I also made soda bread rolls (only a little late for St. Patrick’s Day), which were amazing…

After a little disaster with some beer basil bread last year (aka the beer basil doorstop), I was hesitant, but this was easy and delicious. Yay!

Soda bread (biscuits) - adapted from Bon Appetite

3 1/2c all purpose flour

1 tablespoon caraway (optional)

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2c buttermilk (or 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice plus milk to make 1 1/2 cups - mix and let stand for about 5 minutes before you use it)

Preheat oven to 425F. Lightly flour baking sheet. Mix flour, caraway seeds, baking soda, and salt in large bowl. Add enough buttermilk to form moist clumps that can be gathered into a ball. Turns out that trying to form a ball may be most of the kneading you really need to do. Once I "turned it out" onto a floured surface, I only kneaded once or twice. Split the dough into 10-12 rolls (or put it into a giant ball, but this seems risky to me - see doorstop note above) and cut a 3/4 inch deep X into the top of each one. Bake until golden on top and toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes (in my oven - the recipe said 35 min).

1200 miles

I bought my bike in July 2007, just as I was starting at the School of Public Health. I had lofty goals of riding my bike to school (~25 minutes each way) every day until at least early November, and pulling it back out as soon as the weather thawed in spring. That didn’t quite turn into a reality, but I have ridden a lot over the past few years. Riding the bus (and the concurrent reading or chatting it allowed) usurped some of the bike time, and I proved to be much less tough when it comes to riding in cold weather than I thought, but I hit 1200 miles last week anyway! (Apologies that the picture was not taken right on the mileage marker... I didn't have my camera on the bike with me.)

Highlights of biking around Ann Arbor and Michigan have included:

• realizing it was actually slightly faster to bike than to take the bus
• biking round trip between St. Clair Shores and Port Huron in one day
• Tour De Troit
• padded shorts

Desert Butterflies

Alicia and I were in Phoenix last week and had a truly wonderful time. Here is a brief summary of the things we did:

Tuesday: Spend all night on a plane. This was not the plan, but our flight was really delayed. We got to fly first class though! (We opted not to take photos so as not to reveal ourselves as “economy” travelers…)

Wednesday*: Desert Botanical Garden, Haji Baba (Middle Eastern Lunch Spot), Tempe Yarn and Fiber, South Mountain Park

Thursday*: Heard Museum, Fry Bread House (Native Lunch Spot), Chicano Museum

Friday*: Grand Canyon, Oak Creek Brewery (Sedona Dinner Spot), Sedona/Oak Creek Canyon

Saturday*: Cactus Bikes, mountain biking in the desert around South Mountain, driving through the Superstition Mountains, Canyon Lake and Tortilla Flats with Jack

Sunday*: brunch (yum!), Tucson (and Bookman’s, which I now love)

Monday: fly home… This was not the plan, but after Delta canceled our flight on Sunday night it was our only option. I left at 6:00am and flew through Salt Lake City, arriving in Detroit just before 3:30pm. Alicia left at 9:30am on a direct flight, and arrived in Detroit just before 4:30pm. It all worked out, but cost us both a working day. Boo…

*During all of this we were hosted by the incomparable Uncle Jack and Aunt Linda. They welcomed us into their lovely home and were the most gracious hosts we could have hoped for. We had a great time sharing dinners with them and availing ourselves of their tour-guiding capabilities. Also, Linda works seasonally at See’s Chocolates, which is another benefit to staying with them…

Thanks again Jack and Linda!

Dr. Mom

Mom’s dissertation is now available online!*

(You can look at a preview there, but if you want to read at the whole beautiful document, leave a comment and arrangements can be made…)

Congratulations mom!!!! So proud to have a doctor in the family…

*Just realized that you need a UM login to see the abstract. If you are at an institution with access to ProQuest you can search Mary Ann Lyon and find her on your own.

Passover and cookies

Apologies for the slight delay in posting, but I’ve been… on vacation! More about that later. For now, cookies!!! A friend hosted a number of us for the first seder of Passover (last Monday). It was lovely, as always, and her matzo ball soup was incredible. Apparently matzo ball lovers fall into two camps: dense or fluffy. I have never met a matzo ball I didn’t like, but our host’s (of the dense variety) are amazing. I volunteered to make dessert. This is can be a rather risky undertaking, as Passover requires that you not use flour – or rather that if your recipe calls for flour that you use matzo (cake) meal. I was initially inspired by another Smitten Kitchen recipe, this one for hazelnut chocolate thumbprint cookies. After I had decided to make them, I saw that my page-a-day calendar featured chocolate macaroons as their recipe for the weekend (likely recognizing the need for flourless desserts…). I realized that with only a few more ingredients, I could make both! The results were delicious, though the group was split on which were better.

The chocolate centers on the thumbprint cookies didn't come out as beautifully as those that inspired me (perhaps because I didn't have quite enough chocolate chips so they look a bit more like nipples than I'd really intended), and they didn't melt quite the same way, but they were delicious. Sort of crumbly like shortbread and very hazelnutty...

I think I overcooked the macaroons a bit, but anything with that much chocolate is delicious, and the bulk food store provides an excellent source of quite good chocolate chips for this sort of thing. They were a little tougher than I would have liked, but were so chocolate-y and coconutty that it didn't matter.

Boston!

I’m posting from Boston, having just attended the Point Foundation Regional Leadership Forum. Last fall I attended the RLF in Chicago, as I’m a solidly Midwestern scholar, and it was great to hang out with the other Michigan scholars, Chicago kids, and the other folks from nearby. After that event, however, I was assigned my awesome Point mentor: Fintan! He is based on Boston, so I flew here this weekend to get the chance to meet him in person. It was really a wonderful experience, as was meeting other Point scholars from New England.

It was, however, an exhausting day… Fingers crossed I’ll post some pictures of the beautiful harbor view from my hotel tomorrow!*

*Success - pictures have been added!

Back in the saddle… gradually…

I met up with another MSTP today to practice physical exam skills. This is something I haven’t done in a while, and it was a good refresher. I wish I’d done it earlier, but that’s life… In any case, I’m doing it now, and I’m doing as part of !!!MSTP 201!!!

What is MSTP 201 you might ask… The MSTP doesn’t actually offer any courses, but they have created options for clinical preceptorships for those of us who are in the PhD phase of our training. These are varying levels of intensity but all with the goal of easing yourself back into the clinical skills you learned as an M2 and forgot during your research years. Knowing what I do about myself, I realized that it would be better to freak out briefly about having to do a standardized patient earlier this month and then get over the anxiety than to wait until I actually had to see real patients and freak out then. The gradual approach has worked well.

I’m paired with an internal medicine doctor who is incredibly kind and patient with me, and we met up to do a history and physical exam on a standardized patient (read: an actor) for my first experience. I only go through it without tears because I knew that it didn’t really matter and than I could stop and ask for help at various points. After writing up my findings (and recognizing the gaps in my history-taking skills), we agreed to meet again in May to see a real patient together. It doesn’t seem nearly as scary now. It seems even less scary now that I’ve reviewed the cranial nerves and found a triceps reflex on a friend. The first lesson here: know yourself, and always give yourself plenty of time. The second: find someone(s) patient when you have forgotten to do the first.

Match Day!

Congratulations to all those graduating medical students who found out today where you’ll be spending the next few years of your lives!

For me, match day was much easier this year. Last year I struggled with the fact that my medical school class was moving on without me. They’d moved on before (like when I left for PhD-land), but not in such a concrete and substantial way. This year, I’m just happy to see friends who took a year off moving on and matching! It’s also exciting to see MSTP students (other MD/PhD kids, for those you not in the know) that I actually know matching and moving on, living proof that it can happen, really, in just 8 short years.

I’m still a little jealous of the exciting places everyone is going, though I know that my time will come. I can’t wait!

Batch #3: Granola… bars?

I made another variation on the granola bar recipe last week, without quite as much success. They were delicious (and I would definitely include coconut in the mix as often as possible, as well as pepitas), but they did not hold together (as evidenced in the above photo). The recipe calls for:

1/4 c corn syrup, honey, or maple syrup

and then later calls for another 2 Tbs corn syrup. I’ve been keeping the 2 Tbs of corn syrup constant as I work with this recipe (apparently this is part of making “sticky bun sugar”), and varying the other parts. In the first batch I used all corn syrup. As I’ve mentioned to many of you, this was a mistake. Not because they weren’t the most delicious bars you’ve ever eaten, no, no, because nothing, I’m convinced, makes granola bars as delicious and chewy as corn syrup. This is why our country is obese – it’s like a drug. In order to avoid obesity myself, the second batch used honey instead of corn syrup. This was not nearly as amazing texturally, but was tasty and is probably a good compromise. This time, I decided to use maple syrup (still keeping the 2 Tbs of corn syrup). Enter the granola… bars?

These tasted delicious, but only the edges of the pan maintained their shape long enough to be considered bars, and even those fell apart as soon as they were moved. Maybe I need a different grade of maple syrup? My next plan: mixture of honey and molasses to see if I can achieve something chewier…

An aside: In the first batch I used the lower end of the recommended added sugar (above and beyond the corn syrup… I know…) and they were really, really sweet. In the second batch I cut out most of the sugar, and they were still really sweet. Apparently honey is pretty sweet… In this last batch I cut out the sugar completely and they were still delicious. I know I shouldn’t have varied several things at once, as I’ll never be sure that it wasn’t the added sugar that made them so chewy and amazing, but I don’t think so.

AMSA Convention!

This will be a short post, because I’m about to go present the collective opinion of the Executive Committee of the Action Committees and Teams about the various House of Delegates resolutions to the Reference Committee… Suffice it to say I’m at the AMSA National Convention, and it’s pretty great. We’re at Disneyland (mixed feelings there), but overall the speakers have been good, and I’m really enjoying seeing my AMSA buddies.

Also, if you’re interested, I hear they’re “tweeting” the convention at #amsa60. (It’s our 60th annual convention.) I’m not even sure I know what that means, but there you have it.

Life in the passed lane

Another round of med school friends are getting ready to match and graduate. Another round of M2s (second years, for those of you not in the know) just got their M3 schedules. Happily topping it off, another pair of friends got married last weekend! Between graduating from medical school and starting residency, getting married, and having babies, I would say that some incalculably huge fraction of my friends have experienced a life-changing event over the past year and a half. When I hold these up against my life, it’s hard not to feel a bit like I’m falling behind somehow. I don’t have a job, at least not really, and no, I’m not a doctor yet. I’m not married in the legal sense (though I don’t really want to be, the subject of a hypothetical future post), and it just seems imprudent to have babies when my health insurance depends on my ability to write grant and fellowship applications. When I hold up my biggest achievements (passing prelims and defending my prospectus), they seem awfully removed from the things that most people understand.

Despite this, and I apologize for the down-turn of this post into morose and whiny, which is not where I intended it to go when I sat down to write, I still don’t regret choosing to do the combined degree program. As I’ve been meeting prospective students for my doctoral program I’ve been explaining (for the 1,000,000th time) what my program entails, and lately, I’ve been feeling pretty good. It’s exciting (even as it’s terrifying) to state aloud that I’m planning to defend my thesis in about a year. It’s terrifying (even as it’s exciting) to talk about going back to medical school for the best of times and the worst of times: third year and clinical rotations. The best part of feeling like the end is near: I can really enjoy other people moving on, knowing that really, truly, someday… I will too.

Which is what this post was initially supposed to be about: Dorothy and Justin’s wedding! It was so exciting!!! I’ve known Dorothy and Justin since M1 year, though they weren’t dating then (!), and it was wonderful to see them get married on Sunday. The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was at a stunning venue, the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. I must say that my favorite part of the whole thing, apart from seeing the two of them blissfully happy throughout, was the photo booth. That’s right, you read correctly, the photo booth. Each set of photos was printed twice so that one copy could go into the guest book. It was brilliant, and in addition to photos Alicia and I took together, we joined several large group photos, fitting at least 14 people into the booth at once for an amazing group photo experience.

To Dorothy and Justin: Congratulations, and thanks for a wonderful day!

Knitting into springtime…

This year has been a productive knitting year so far. I have only one class, but it’s a 4 hour/week seminar in which I can knit throughout! (In all fairness, I do take periodic notes, sometimes more furiously than others, but the knitting is fabulous.) I was able to finally finish the thrummed mittens (pictured above) that had been languishing for nearly a year in my knitting bag, and even craft a hooded scarf to go with them.

They have been keeping me warm since I finished them, but now I’m looking for something less bulky, perhaps with a little less wool content. Enter socks! I am in love with this yarn, brilliantly named "Tofooties," which is made of soy silk, wool, cotton, and chitin, a unique fiber made from the shells of shrimps and other crustaceans. Apparently it’s antibacterial, and I’ve noticed it has a really unique smell (not bad, just unique). Socks also allow me to indulge myself in terms of my love of technical knitting. Having realized long ago that I’m not a designer of beautiful knitwear, but rather a modifier of really excellent patterns, I’ve also discovered that I love learning new techniques, puzzling out better ways to do things, and watching something a little crazy develop into something cool. Lace knitting comes to mind (pictured below) – it looks like something out of Spiderman meets Sheepman, and then when you block it it’s beautiful.

Socks allow for an incredible amount of flexibility, so these have provided me with a new way to fake a 1x1 crossed cable (in the cuffs) and to recombine several patters to try a new heel that matches the toe. Welcome springtime!

Batch #2

The quest for the perfect granola bar(s) continues. This batch used honey rather than corn syrup (except for the 2 tablespoons called for separately), 1/4 cup brown sugar instead of 1/2 cup white sugar, more cinnamon, and a new mixture of fruits and nuts:

1/4 cup pepitas
1/3 cup cashews 1/3 cup almonds
2/3 cup dried apples
1/2 cup golden raisins

Even as I spread them in the pan I was already thinking about dried mangos, cardamom, cinnamon, and chunky chaat masala…

The results: The honey isn’t as chewy and sticky as the corn syrup, but they are still delicious and really sweet. The cinnamon is wonderful, though I think experimenting with other nut butters would be exciting. I’ve put some away in the freezer, anticipating a side-by-side comparison in the future.

Amazing granola bars

You may have noticed the blog taking a bit of a turn toward food. I’ve been getting more and more into exciting and local foods over the past few years, and have clearly been influenced by some of the other blogs I read, many of which beautifully document the beautiful food they prepare. While I would never call myself a foodie, and don’t pretend to really know what I’m doing in the kitchen, I hope you enjoy this occasional foray into deliciousness… Now back to your regularly scheduled programming:

I can’t figure out how I got to this blog, but it’s amazing. One of the first few posts I read was one about making delicious granola bars. I was wooed not only by the photography, but by the promise of chewy crunchy deliciousness. I’ve been a bit put off recently by most of the store bought bars, and really should be paying $3-5 for the nice one. (I’ve bought a complete lunch for less!) The simplicity and flexibility of the recipe inspired me to give it a shot, and I think these gems will be regulars in the oven and the freezer around here. I used a store bought trail mix for my “dry fruit and nuts” mixture, but am looking forward to a trip to the bulk food store to mix up my own.