Poppy Seed Bagels

Some things you just wouldn’t think of making yourself. Take these bagels for instance. Why make your own bagels? You can buy prepackaged bagels from the grocery store in an unbelievable number of flavors. You can buy them fresh, frozen or even recently baked from the store bakery. They come in white, wheat, high fiber, low fat, mega-size, mini-size and even skinny-size!

Maybe you’re not a fan of the grocery store bagels. There are local options on every corner for getting yourself a bagel. You can go chain and head to Panera, Brueggers or Einsteins. Or you can go local and support the small business owner in your town. The options for bagel purchasing are endless, which begs the question again, why make your own?

The answer is simple, because they are delicious. I was very suspect of this recipe when I first read it over. It seemed so long and complicated, like a lot of work for something that I could buy for three dollars. Even up until the morning that I began making these bagels I was dreading it. I set my alarm for 6am to get the sponge together, then I promptly went back to sleep for two hours. It was Saturday after all!

At 8am I rolled out of bed and into my kitchen (literally, I live in a studio apartment) and began getting the dough together. As I continued through the recipe I realized that it wasn’t going to take that long at all to make these bagels. Plus, they required an overnight sit in the fridge, meaning I wouldn’t have bagels until Sunday morning. I was done with the bagel prep by 9am and headed off to the lab for another rousing day of chemistry.


Fill me with more delicious!

After only twenty minutes of work on Sunday morning, I was the proud mama of six golden, chewy, crunchy bagels.  Fresh out of the oven, quickly toasted and slathered in butter, these bagels were perfect.  I stored the extras in a zip-top bag and tossed them in the fridge.  I've been enjoying my homemade bagels all week.  Will I give up storebought bagels?  Probably not.  Will I be making another batch of these?  Definitely.

Buffalo Sponge Candy

Sometimes, being a chemist comes in very handy in the kitchen. In my previous candy experiments you might have noticed the massive amount of molten sugar I’ve been working with. From the marshmallows to the taffy and the butterfinger bars, I’ve been going through pounds and pounds of sugar and my kitchen is getting pretty sticky. (I found some rogue purple sugar this morning while toasting a bagel!) This danger of the sugar is not what makes my PhD an asset, it is my familiarity with failure.

Failure Number 1

As a synthetic organic chemist, one gets pretty used to failure. You begin with a plan on paper and you set upon this path. A new project is exciting, you order your reagents and get everything in order.  At first things go well and your chemistry works!  Then you hit a wall. Perhaps a reaction that you expected to work one way does nothing at all, or worse, something unexpected. The reaction could even destroy all of the forward progress that you have already made, sending you months back.


Failure Number 2

Your original plan gets torn apart after a series of failures and you re-write your scheme. No matter how many failures you have there is still that end goal in sight, the completed molecule. You’ve got to finish the project! So, no matter how many failures you have and how many walls you hit you eventually find a way. Success comes to the persistent and persistence pays off (with candy).


At Last!  Sweet Success

This candy was a little tricky to make, only because I didn’t have the right recipe. Many people have sponge candy recipes, but they weren’t coming out like my sponge candy. So many recipes called for vinegar and baking soda, which turns out to be totally unnecessary for the desired reaction. This recipe was the first failure. The second failure involved a recipe that called for heating honey to 300, this causes honey to burn.

After a little research into how Buffalo sponge candy is made, I had worked out a recipe and right the method of how to put it together.  This final batch came out exactly like I remember it from Watsons and I’m sharing my recipe with you. Don’t worry, I’ve worked out all the kinks for you. These failures lead to candy gold.


Eat me

Ham & Cheese Risotto

All you have is ham? Go back two spaces. Get away scott free after breaking the gym lights. Go ahead three spaces. Dramatically break your ribs on the first day of your honeymoon. Go back one space. How many board games do you know of that contain these particular cards? How many games can only be played in the presence of one person?  Have you ever played a game that it doesn’t matter how well you do, you might never win?

These playing cards all tell stories; they are glimpses into my friends life. This past weekend was a walk down memory lane and it was one hilarious walk. Boyfriend and I journeyed to Buffalo, NY this weekend for a surprise birthday party. It was a long trip, six and a half hours in the car, and we spent barely more time in town than we did in the car. Thankfully, the party was all worth it.

We were there to celebrate the 30th birthday of a longtime friend, T-. Many of us had come from far away, travelling in from New Jersey, Ohio and Washington, DC. We had all gone to high school and college together and this is the year that we all turn 30. So, in a sense, it was a celebration for all of us! (Happy birthday class of 1999!)

The night was topped off with a present, the present to end all presents! A board game. This was not just any board game, it was the Game of T-! To celebrate T-'s birthday, several friends got together and created a board game of his life. Since we’ve all been friends for the past fifteen years, there are many, many stories we share. This game brought all the memories back and I have to give major props to the friends that brought this game to life. We were up into the late hours of the evening playing this game, laughing and reminiscing. Stories were retold for the benefit of those who came into our lives at later points and oh yes, did I mention the laughing?

To continue the celebration, I decided to make some ham and cheese risotto. An homage to D-, who was disappointed by what T-‘s fridge had to offer one late night. Perusing the fridge, D- professed “All you have is ham?” Then he decided to open a can of tuna.