Baked Pasta Casserole

When one is on the edge of finishing a major project at work, everything else seems to fall to the side.  Drying your hair before you go to work?  Nah, I'll save twenty minutes if I just rock a ponytail.  Plus, my hair dryer is broken.  Go to the gym after getting home from the lab?  At nine o'clock at night, nah, I'd rather have some dinner and go to sleep.  Make and eat dinner?  That too sounds like a lot of work, I'll have cereal.

In the weeks leading up to Tuesdays post, I was insanely busy.  I would spend most of my waking hours in the lab, trying to finish my molecule.  After a week of eating cereal for dinner I decided that had to stop.  First, my pants were starting to fall off from lack of food.  Second, you wake up ravenous in the middle of the night when you only eat cereal!

I actually made this dish one saturday morning while I got ready to go to the lab.  It was quick and easy and made a ton of food.  Plus, it was kinda healthy.  Or at least it was, until I added in all that cheese.  Feel free to cut down on the mozzarella cheese, I was being a little crazy.

Chocolate cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream

I am and oxymoron.  My job title is "synthetic organic chemist."  When I tell people this I get many, many looks of confusion.  As an explanation I tell them that I make chemicals synthetically that are naturally found in nature.  Are you confused yet?  Most people just walk away.

You can also call me a natural products chemist.  Is this any less of an oxymoron?  I'm not really sure.  As a graduate student and postdoctoral associate I have been making natural products for the past eight years.  Here is a step-by-step explanation of why a synthetic organic chemist does what they do...

1. Sea sponge (or plant or animal or dirt) is collected by isolation chemists

2. Sea sponge is extracted and lots of neat-o chemicals are found inside of the sea sponge

3. Neat-o chemicals are tested against many, many cell screens.  The biologists look for activity against human disease

4. Neat-o, disease-killing chemical is published and given a fancy name like Neatoside F

5. Synthetic organic chemists (like me!) decide it's a worthwhile target and try to make neatoside F

6. On Friday, June 17th, they succeed in making neatoside F and celebrate with cupcakes!

That's right, after months of hard work, I finished my target.  It's a big day in the life of a synthetic organic chemistry, the day you bring your molecule into the world.  You've watched it grow, seen it make bad choices and even seen it fall apart in the face of tough conditions.  The SOC continues to nurture their target until finally it comes shining into existence.  There is no prouder day in the life of a SOC, until that work finds it's way into a major publication, of course.  It's like a birth announcement.  Welcome to the world neatoside F!

Buffalo Cheesey Bread

Things have been so crazy here in Connecticut!  I'm so sad that I won't be able to head home to Buffalo at all this summer.  Major changes are happening (stay tuned) and I'm going to be busy here on the coast for the next few months.  This is good and sad at the same time.

The best time of the year to go to Buffalo is the summertime!  Fall always comes to town with rain and cloudy skies.  Winter barges in with layer upon layer of snow that doesn't completely disappear until March.  Spring slowly melts away and you find yourself in June.  The sun finally welcomes you in the morning and the nights are warm and starry.

Summertime also brings with it some of my favorite Western New York events.  You must head out to the Taste of Buffalo, but be aware, don't go with a large group.  There are so many people at the TOB that it's hard to make your way from one end of Main street to the other.  The food makes the trip totally worth it! 

I'm also a huge fan of Canalfest.  Held in the Tonawandas, it celebrates the Erie canal!  Or, what's left of it, I guess.  Whatever it celebrates, I try to plan my trips home around this event.  It all starts with a huge craft fair weekend, where you can buy everything from coasters to sheds.  There's a Miss Canalfest competition (which I totally wanted to be in when I was little, too bad I wasn't a resident...) and there is food galore!  Ribbon fries with vinegar, funnel cakes with powdered sugar and sausage with peppers and onions.  I always weigh a good five pounds more by the end of the day.

I also am missing my family this summer.  Boat rides on the Niagara river with my parents.  Long walks by the creek with Zoe, my happy, fluffy, red, golden retriever puppy.  Discussing fruit trees and computers with my brother (granted, that computer talk is usually one sided, not my side).  Soon I'll have the time to come home, just not in the next few months.

To cheer myself up and remind myself of home, I made some bread.  It's packed to the top with Buffalo flavor, the only thing that would have made it even more amazing was if I had some blue cheese in the house.  Next time!