Nutella & strawberry crepes

During my adventures abroad in 2008, I had a 4-day visit in Paris.  And of all the impressive sights in Paris, including Le Tour Eiffel, the one that I remember most clearly (even now) is of... le crepe.  To be more specific, I remember waiting in line in front of a small street vendor intoxicated by the smell of the crepe.  The vendor had a hot plates that he used to cook the crepes.  These plates were about the size of a large pizza, black and circular with no rims, and at least an inch thick.  As each order came in, he would pour a ladle-full of batter onto the plate.  He then used a thin stick to evenly spread the batter on the plate.  After a few minutes, he used another stick to get underneath the crepe and effortlessly lift it up and flip it over.  Then came a generous helping of Nutella, followed by whatever else toppings that the customer ordered.  The crepe was then folded in half, and half again, wrapped in parchment, and the customer would walk away crepe in hand, munching happily about town.  The whole routine probably lasted less than 2 minutes, from order in to order out.  But standing there that day, I was mesmerized at the effortlessness of it all. 

And then there was the moment when he handed me my Nutella crepe, mine.  "Bon appetit, mademoiselle" he said because I must have looked at the treat with some kind of incredible awe, kind of like a kid who's just seen the biggest cake in his life. 

I managed to indulge in a few more of these awesome treats during my short visit, but since I only had fond memories to satiate my cravings.  Somehow I thought that Nutella crepes were a French thing, that I could only get in France and no where else.  That was until I had a rare stroke of genius and decided to Google crepe recipes.  Imagine my surprise when none of the recipes called for anything French, like French air, or French water, or French eggs.  Imagine my astonishment at the realization that I could make this at home and actually satiate my cravings with this edible deliciousness.

The batter recipe was adapted The Yellow Table.  Original requirements (in parentheses) say for 20 crepes, which I thought was a lot for two people, so I halved everything thinking I would get 10 medium crepes.  I ended with only 6 crepes, which left us quite happy but wanting more.  Note to self: don't scale down next time.  Also, I had no milk or vanilla extract so I substituted with coconut milk.

1 egg (2 eggs)
1 tablespoon coconut milk (1 cup milk, 2 teaspoons vanilla)
1.5 cups water (1/4 cup water)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons sugar (2 TBS sugar)
1 tablespoons melted butter (2 TBS butter)

I mixed everything together and stuck the batter in the fridge while I cut the strawberries.  The batter should be more on the runny side, but not completely watery. Then I heated a medium non-stick pan.  I took the pan off the heat while I ladled in the batter and swirled it around to evenly coat the pan.  Put it back on the heat for a minute or two.  Once the edges looked brown and crispy, I flipped it over and let it cook for another half a minute.  The crepe slides off the pan effortlessly.  I then spread a thin layer of Nutella on the crepe and topped it with strawberries, and rolled it up. 

Had I known it was so simple to make, I would've had many more Nutella crepes since my Paris trip.  It was so simple that I didn't waste even waste an obligatory burnt or otherwise messed up first crepe.  And rest assured, it tastes just as delicious (if not, more glorious) as the ones in Paris... crispy at the edges; warm, gooey, sweet, slightly tart near the middle.  So delicious I can't stop thinking about this all day long.  So delicious that I will make it again tomorrow.  So delicious that the boyfriend requests double servings tomorrow.  Oh so delicious.

Crepes folded up like napkins

A new kind of diet

Everyone should know the song and dance routine quite well by now.  Thanksgiving and Christmas comes around and 'tis the season to be merry.  'Tis also the season to indulge.  And boy, do we indulge.  An extra slice of ham here, some more eggnog there.  After all, 'tis the season to be merry.  Then New Year's Eve comes and the ball drops, and suddenly Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers are trending again. 'Tis now the season to renew, refresh, and refit into that dress that used to fit before Thanksgiving and Christmas happened. 

For 2012, I thought I'd go on a diet too - a makeup diet.  While people were stuffing themselves with turkey and gravy, I was filling up on makeup.  I'm attracted to a beautiful blush like a fat man to ham.  While people drool over gorgeously decorated cakes and cookies, I salivate when I see a product packaged in pink and sparkles.  Little kids believe in Santa Clause, and I may as well too because I'm still gullible to those cosmetic advertisements that promise the radiance and beauty of an angel.

I must curb my gluttony for makeup like Jennifer Hudson curbed her carbs.  To begin with, I have a collection of items that first needs to be used up completely before any further additions can be even considered - my Project X Pan.  Essentially, it refers to the pan that peaks through the more a product gets used up.
 

It sounds reasonable enough... for a typical person.  However, for me, though as much as I love makeup and beauty products I can't seem to ever finish one thing... EVAR!  That is why I get so stupidly excited when I see the shiny pan of a powder compact when the girl next door would lament at the same sight.  I can easily foresee this project taking me a good three months to finish, if not more.  The close ups:

1. Some face washes & a lotion that just won't quit; a face mask that is still new.
2. Oh the agony of finishing a lip balm!!!  I don't know what's more of a challenge: finishing the darn thing, or not losing it.  And then there's the blush that gets used most frequently, yet the dent is miniscule compared to the product left over.
3.  A lotion that will not quit, along with some samples that just keeps giving and giving, despite their size.

4.  Face powders, 10g and 8g each but only takes me .000000000000005g per use... Oh the agony of waiting for the pan to shine through.  An eyelid primer that I can't seem to see through ever.  An eyeliner that keeps replenishing itself with each sharpening.  It's like magic, Santa!

5.  Mascaras: can't ever see through the tube to know if it's running out; will have to depend on the dryness of the bloody thing to know if it's time to RIP.  Four tubes to go, only 1 set of sparse eyelashes to comb them though.

So here it goes, my will power to stick to this plan vs. my desire to try out everything in Sephora.  Game on!

Half a year deep

Back in summer of 2010, before I embarked on moving and entering graduate school, I scoured the internet for Ph.D. blogs.  I wanted to excite myself with personal stories of grad students living the graduate life.  I imagined that there would be loads of stories about epiphanies made in labs, philosophical discussions with professors that alters a person's life direction, or at the very least, there had to be horror stories about how difficult and grueling graduate life must be.  Yet, I found scarce blogs about people's Ph.D. journeys.  Perhaps these are obscure blogs and Google isn't very good at hitting them; or perhaps my I need graduate school to teach me better Googling skills.  However, what I've come to realize after being in graduate school (for a mere semester) is this: the paucity of Ph.D. blogs is due to the fact that Ph.D. students don't have time to write blogs.

Here's how it went down:

September: shallow end of the pool.  I had to show up every other day for presentations by professors on what it is they do in their lab and decide whose lab I would be interested in for a rotation.  Then I had a "class" where we discussed the history of genetics through old seminary papers.  The real class started somewhere at the end of September.

October:  Wadding knee-deep in the pool.  Two classes occupied my mornings: Molecular Biology & Genetics, and Fundamentals of Genetics.  Lab work occupied my days.  Class problem sets (i.e. homework) occupied my nights and weekends.

November:  Up-to-my-nose-one-more-inch-and-I-will-drown level of the pool.  Now as I sit here eating my Nissin Cup Noodles (favorite food for when I can't sleep), I realize the almost drowning bit may be a slight exaggeration.  However, it truly felt that serious two months ago, and for good reason.  I spent a week of my time studying for the MBG test, which turned out to be a total curveball for which nobody could have prepared.  I spent another week riding the waves of depression from disappointment and the overwhelming fear that I had failed and would have to repeat this hell next year.  In this midst, problem sets were making me loose my sanity, and the graduate student I was working with in the lab was being a royal PITA.  I swore, one more inch of water and I go under.  The only saving grace was Thanksgiving (and that I managed to pass the MBG class with a B).

December:  Chest-deep; I-can-breathe-comfortably-but-the-pressure-is-ever-present level of the pool.  The debacle of the MBG surprisingly was a pressure reliever.  Perhaps it was because I realized that if I could do so poorly on a test and still leave with a B, then all hope is not lost; I can still redeem myself.  Although, had I not passed I might be making a different set of opinions.   Fundamentals of Genetics was drawing to a close, the outcome of the test which I took is still TBA.  Bioinformatics class puts me to sleep.  Lab meeting was painful.  And then Christmas came, wrapped in pretty papers and tied with a shiny bow.

I suppose if I really wanted to write, I would make the time to write.  It isn't a lack of ideas of which to flesh out into words; rather, it is my mind being so constipated with lectures and problem sets and lab presentation and data charts and journal articles that when I had any opportunity to unblock, I would indulge in mindless entertainment like YouTube makeup videos and dirty reality TV (Snooki and Deena charging into a bush was utterly entertaining).

I had expected myself to write more frequently about my journey in as a graduate student.  I had the image of being in a lab, waiting for a reaction to complete, and updating my blog about what type of reaction I was running and how cool/miserable I felt at that moment.  Yet the image that I've created so far is of a constipated grad student ears leaking of genetics tidbits sitting in front of a rerun of Jersey Shore eating instant Cup Noodles.  And strangely, I'm okay with that.

I hope the Situation runs into another wall soon, and I do mean a real, actual, literal wall.