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.

Gift from afar

A few weeks ago, I arrived home from work and checked my mailbox (the one where you have to physically open) and to my surprise, tucked in there was a pink package sent to me from Korea.  Finding this was like the sliver of sunshine that comes through the clouds after a storm... I had had a tough week preparing for the miserable final.

I was so giddy with excitement that my friend from halfway around the world kept me in mind enough to send me a package.  So you'd think I'd ripped open the thing as soon as I got inside my home.  No such thing.  I left it sitting on the table for a solid week, willing myself to wait until after the test to open it, so I could really savor the enjoyment of the present.

That was the plan anyway... however, as it turned out, after the test I felt so miserable and self-loathing that I felt I deserved no present from afar.  A person who just failed a final exam doesn't deserve to open any presents.  It took another day of the gift staring me down and also thinking that my friend's thoughts would be for naught if I kept it unopened before me to actually open it.

 The contents:  A lovely note intricately folded, cellphone charms, & BB cream samples (because I'm vain).

The cellphone charms were supposed to signify my SO and me.  Because the package was jiggled around a lot in transit, and also because I wanted to guess what was in it, the charms were slightly askew.  When my SO finally opened it, I took the girl charm and inspected it.  It had a magnet on one side of the charm. The conversation that ensued went something like this:

Me: "What's the magnet for?"
Him: "Refrigerator?"
Me: sticking it on the fridge for show.... "No.... It doesn't look right.  I wonder what it's for..."
Him: "Koreans.... I don't know how it works, dear."

We left it at that, and it wasn't until a full 10 minutes later when I got to cleaning up the packaging that I actually held the two charms together.  Of course the magnets on each charm stuck to each other that I had my brilliant epiphany...

Me: "Ohhhhhhhh... DURH  they're supposed to stick to each other, just like you're supposed to stick to me!"
Him: ROFL

Then....

Me: "But why are they scratching their heads?"
Him: "..."

Another 10 minutes....

Me: "Ohhhhhhhhhhh.... they make the heart shape with their hands!  DURRHH!!!!!"
Him: ROFL

The girl's dress has rhinestones on it - so adorable!

My SO and I, we are special people, special indeed.  Thanks to my friend for the love and the laughs.

Bitched-slapped

Have you ever been slapped by a random stranger, who immediately ran away after the assault, leaving you with a painful searing sting not only on your physical being, but also in your inner-core being?  You're left feeling like: "WTF?!  Who would do that to me?  What did I do to deserve such uncouth malice?"  This was the general feeling that invaded my soul as I left the lecture hall after turning in my first real exam of my graduate school career, like I was just slapped in the face by this test.

The lead professor began by saying that the test was unusually long, there were no "trick" questions, and there was a 3-hour limit.  Fine.  Deep breath.  I'll be okay.  I studied hard all week long.  I drew diagrams and know the processes/mechanisms.  I made sure to to study mutations that can perturb the normalcy of the system, because I predicted that since the course is Molecular Biology and Genomics, the cell and its perturbations will come up at some point.  I practiced with previous years' exams.  I was prepared.  Even before going into the exam, I was trying to calm a fellow classmate.  "You'll be fine," I told her.  "We can't know everything, but we know enough."  I had no intention of lying to her (or to myself), but in the end, I did tell lies, because when the 3-hour limit was up, not only did I not know "enough," I was not "fine."

My calm and collected self wilted into a heap of shakiness and nausea.  The exam was 18 pages long, all short answers, all required multiple steps of thinking to arrive at the answer.  That is, if you understood the question to begin with.  On my first pass, I could answered maybe three questions at most.  I kept cycling through the exam, each time hoping that some new information would surface into my brain and help me arrive at an answer - ANY answer.  No such luck.  At the 2-hour mark, panic set in.  No longer did I care if the answer I put down was the right one, I just wrote words.  And yet, for some questions, even that criteria was too high - I had no idea what words can be put down.  I have never not finished a test before, until today.

It is true that afterwards, my classmates reconvened and it seemed that my reaction was shared amongst everyone else, i.e. we all felt like the exam was on crack hooked on morphine. A lot of people also admitted to not finishing the test.  Everyone felt it was way too extensive to be finished in three hours.  Practice tests were moot, as our test bore no resemblance to any previous tests.  Perhaps they (the group of professors for this course) thought that since we had done so much better than previous years on Problem Sets (i.e. homework) that the test would need to be scaled up in difficulty to match our abilities?  Or more cynically, they all went on a manic rampage with an evil desire to feel our pain of being bitched-slapped? 

Whatever the cause may be, I can't erase this feeling of inadequacy.  It is one story to tell if you didn't study and failed, and it is entirely a different novel when you studied (hard) and failed.  For the former, you failed because you didn't study.  In the latter, you studied and still failed... so where does that leave me?  The test won't be handed back for at least another week, and it will be graded on a curve... so I have a whole week to ponder the misery of retaking this course again next year.

What a way to end the first real course with a bang. Bang.

"Peas, can I have some more?"

This morning at work, a friend opened up Google to search for something, and the Google icon was made of peas.  I said in passing: "Peas? Is it Mendel's birthday or something?"  Indeed, it is the anniversary birth date of Mendel, aka the Father of Genetics.

It is an apt day for me to take notice, as in the future I will probably most likely be getting to know Mendel, his work and legacy quite extensively.  This fall will be the start of my forays into the world of genetics, officially as a PhD student in Human Genetics.  Sound fancy, eh?  Fancy schmancy... what it really means is that I will dive headfirst into a 4-6 year program (if not longer) that will consist of classwork and a massive amount of lab work.  I will need pick a topic that no one has yet to explore, form testable hypotheses, do extensive experimental research to test such hypotheses, produce conclusions that somehow make my results interesting to the whole of science, and then write up the entire process in boring esoteric language that only other nerds in the field can decipher.  If I am successful at performing all those steps, I will earn three letters at the end of my name.

I must be a glutton for punishment, yeah?  That thought has crossed my mind many times.  Even as I am writing this I think I'm absolutely mental.  But then the nerd inside reminds me of how long I've wanted to be in this position, to be able to study genetics in depth, to play with DNA, to have the opportunity to discover something new... and I get excited all over again.

Oh Baby!

Delinquincy

My name is Xuan, and I am a delinquent "blogger."  Yes, it seems that the more things I have/want to write about, the less time I have to write.  To compound the issue, as the frequency of posts decrease day by day, the energy that I must summon to write a new post increases exponentially.  All blames aside, I have been just too lazy to articulate my thoughts into meaningful words.  It is sufficient to conclude, then, that my new year's resolution list has been thrown out like yesterday's news?  ....Or has it?

My resolution list as of January 3, 2011:

1.  Write more often, at least 1 post per week.

2.  Spend less!!! no more spontaneous shopping sprees, no more impulsive buys.

3.  Keep organized: no more hoarding of junk, give away more stuff, thin out closet

4.  Use up more products

5.  Keep up with friends

6.  Drink more water

7.  Procrastinate less

8.  Pictures: take more, learn PS skillz, make prints

9.  More tree-hugging.

10. More nerd.

Safe to say that #1 (Kate who?), #2 (while the spontaneity factor is somewhat under control, my money has been dissipating faster than dry ice on a hot day) , #4 (negated by # 2), #6 (popcorn with water just ain't right), #7 (who am I kidding?!), and #8 (dust has collected on my camera) have been circling the drain, if not flushed away, for a while now.

But, I've not completely fallen off the treadmill... at least not yet anyways:

#3 More organization, less hoarding: I've managed to declutter my life quite a bit, showing no mercy to useless junk that I've held on since middle school; the shredder became a good friend and the guy that works at the receiving dock at Good Will knows me by name.  I've bought nifty carts and containers in an attempt to stay organized ... it's mildly better than before, but the jury's still out on my organization skills.

#5 Keep up the friendships:  Phone calls count, right?  Right.

#9 Tree hugging: Reduce, reuse, recycle... I remember it most of the time.  I've stopped to smell the roses a few times, literally. 

#10 More nerd:  This is the one thing that I can say with an absolute, 100%, positive, unequivocal YES, I DID!  It may or may not have been entirely deliberate since January, but it's the only thing that I've kept to and the only thing that's keeping me from flying off my treadmill of a resolution list.  

I'll admit, 40% is pretty miserable, but with a little more than four months left, there is still hope for us all.