While i was home, i made sure to enjoy local confections; my faves usually include either pecans or coconut. However, something local is chamoy, a topping consisting of fruit stewed with acid, salt and chilies, "Mexican chamoy is prepared by first packing the fruit in either dry salt or a brine. Occasionally, this brine is acidulated with vinegar. This draws out the natural moisture of the fruit by osmosis. When the fruit has been sufficiently dried, it is separated from the brine and is sold as a snack known as saladitos, literally 'little salty things.'
Meanwhile, the salted fruit brine created in this process is seasoned to taste with chile powder, becoming chamoy. This liquid may be further reduced, or thickened with pureed fruit, to achieve a variety of consistencies.", from the wikipedia article. It also comes as a powder, made with citric acid, and eaten either as a seasoning or straight up (licked from one's fingers or palm). Either version of chamoy are frequently served on a variety of things, including other fruit, on various frozen desserts, and in the street snack tostilocos, which consists of chips (tostitos, doritos, etc) covered with a variety of things (sort of like a even-more-terrible-for-you frito pie), including " cueritos, cucumber, jícama, lime juice, Valentina hot sauce, chamoy, tajín chile powder, salt, and "Japanese peanuts" " (reference here). All of those are snack foods in their own right. Cueritos are fried pork skins. Japanese peanuts are peanuts which have a crunchy, sweet and spicy covering made mainly of wheat or soy flour, and are pretty addicting.
The start of the school year reminded me how popular Lisa Frank items were in middle school, and it turns out, she is an actual person who runs her company out of Tuscon, Arizona.
Been doing a fair amount of corresponding with folks who are military lately, and noticed that their closing salutation is occasionally 'V/R,' followed by their name. Looking further into it, it seems that this stands for 'Very Respectfully', and apparently there is a whole chain of command thing built into this closing. The most comprehensive internet answer that i was able to track down reports that " the abbreviation V/r (and the "r" is generally lowercase although I've seen it both ways) is drawn from military usage. It is very common in Navy email communications. If the sender is junior to the receiver, the proper closing is V/r. If the sender is senior to the receiver, the proper closing is just /r. Also, military emails to civilians often use /r (but you might get a V/r if you're lucky!). "
In all my time in WI, i never did see the Northern Lights - usually the cloud cover was too bad on the nights where we were expected to have a strong chance of seeing them (side note, there is a site that will tell you the probability of seeing the aurora borealis in North America, forecast-style). Recently, the family T was taking in the stars, as they are wont to do, and caught the 'Lights. Kelly AT apparently found this Slate article describing a resort in Finland that features glass igloos wherein one can view the 'Lights while remaining unfrozen.
Recently (Oct. 24th), it was World Polio Day. The Gates Foundation is a strong supporter of the efforts to completely eradicate polio (so close!!), and as such, put up a marvelous post to his blog detailing efforts, etc. Even better, the xkcd webcomic artist Randall Munroe did a spot-on comic for the event, which i'm probably going to have to use for lab meeting in the near future.
Finally, because this is getting to be a really long post (i've been saving stuff up for, like, a month, but moving and lack-of-ample-home-internet have been hindrances), a recent conversation about the call for new US astronauts.
Bryan: i saw
it's tempting
me: gosh
advanced degree in biology and all that
Bryan: i don't have 20/20 sight
it is correctable to 20/20 though
me: lasik
yup
you're a triple threat, too: plants, yeast AND virology
Bryan: gs-11 though gs-14
gs-11 is $51,298, not too shabby
me: but, if you lived in space, think of how much you could save in rent?
Bryan: tons
and on food
and on beer
pretty minimal space expenses
me: you could develop space beer!
Bryan: i don't see why it wouldn't work
me: (nods enthusiastically)
2013, will have to search for the follow-up
me: why did an 11yo develop a beer assay?
Bryan: i don't know
No comments:
Post a Comment