Student Budgeting & Enzymatic Browning

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I’m pretty good with money.

Granted, that blanket statement requires at least some level of qualification.

I’m usually pretty good with money, granted that nobody points me in the direction of cheap lab equipment or bulk order chocolate fingers.

So what I’m trying to say is that there’s no underlying constant which would explain why, when I calculated my expenses for the last few months, my shopping bills always seemed to be a tad high. 

The revelation didn’t come in the form of a number highlighted on a spreadsheet but rather as a result of stretching my limbs one morning when stepping out of bed. This had the unfortunate result of knocking the precariously balanced books over which, in turn, knocked many more objects over in my hilariously tiny room.

It was this sudden rearrangement of my room that allowed me to truly perceive the number of half eaten apples, bananas and even a partially open lettuce from one night when I couldn’t stop making ham sandwiches. So each week, I’d get half way through eating some fruit, get distracted and leave it somewhere in my room. This process repeated and repeated until my fruit bills skyrocketed and my room resembled the discount corner of Tesco.

The fruits were all brown.

Why were they all brown? 

 

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Fear & A Review of Modernist Cuisine

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Fear is one of those emotions which I can understand, to a certain extent. It is an inward response based upon perceived threat, causing you to take a step back and analyse the situation in order to engineer the optimal outcome.

Being able to rationalise it in that way does not make fear any less potent as a force. Fear has made me do things, some foolish and some necessary. Things which I would rather forget and things which I already have.

It was fear which held me for so long before buying a copy of Modernist Cuisine. The apprehension of the purchase. Modernist Cuisine is by no means a small purchase and my mind conjured up arguments that the £350 could otherwise be spent on other things, things which have a 100% probability of not being disappointing, like industrial quantities of caffeine powder.

So I put it off for quite a while until I was perusing eBay and saw a set going for £200. The logical part of my mind saw how good of a deal it was and made to place the order, whilst the lizard brain screamed something about caffeine powder and blackjack. I had purchased a copy! It was on its way!

Oh, fuck.

My initial fear was then supplanted by an even bigger fear. That the book would be worth it. That it would live up to all the hype, answer all the mysteries of the kitchen and leave me with absolutely nothing to write about on this site. For two days straight, I pressed F5 on a laptop every hour on the hour, hoping to see that Royal Mail tracker status change from “In transit” to “Truck destroyed in motorway collision”. My heart leapt for joy when I caught a snippet of the nightly news reporting a crash on the M1.

“Yeah! No giant book rubbing its ginormous literary nutsack in my face!” I thought to myself as I did a little happy dance. In the time it took for me to rationalise the nutsack reference as being representative of “large amounts data resultant of funded research” and not a symptom of a rapidly deteriorating Freudian nightmare-psyche, the tracker showed me that it was still on its way.

The postman must have some strange theories regarding what was in the box he delivered to me that day. The combination of the weight of the box along with the look of simultaneous fear and joy when signing for it must have left him thinking that he had just delivered some kind of cross-country Schrodinger’s Cat experiment.

I unboxed it and dove straight into reading. Three paragraphs in, all my fears were allayed.

This set is glorious.

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The Hows and Whys of Reheated Food

imageNowadays, being a student is synonymous with late nights and bleary eyed early mornings that are fuelled by a wide range of  foods that have been processed to ensure that a minimal amount of effort is needed by the user in order to consume it.

I’m a relatively lazy person with most things but very rarely when it comes to food, so in my third article for Kitchen Geekery, I explore and explain why – when it comes to it- my reheated pizza tastes so much better than eating it cold from a oily cardboard box.

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Onions & The Mechanism of Crying

The onion is a conundrum.

It’s an abundant source of nutrients, including vitamins B, C and G, protein, starch as well as compounds which have been said to be effective agents against fungal and bacterial growth; protecting against various cancers. In addition to that,  it adds necessary flavours and textures to what would be otherwise bland meals but in order to obtain this prize, one must complete the difficult task of cutting the onion. Managing to do this without leaving oneself looking like an Essex schoolgirl after a night on the town is something that many people have sought to accomplish, with varying degrees of success.

Looking at the biochemistry of this plant, it becomes apparent that the crying which many people experience when cutting onions is the result of two defence mechanisms battling each other out.

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Update

Seeing as I’m going off to university in the near future, the chances of me updating this site with more gastronomical delights is pretty slim. That’s not to say that I won’t be updating.

What I’ll be doing is shifting my writing to talk about food science and will be answering any questions that I feel like investigating or any that you all feel like asking me. You’ll also see the site being updated aesthetically when I get round to it.

If I  don’t update the site for a very long time, assume one or more of these things has happened:

  • My computer has been stolen.
  • My workload has increased to the point where I actually have to work.
  • The act of maintaining the facade that I don’t regard every other student I see with the utmost contempt has finally become too much for me and I’ve committed teaspoon seppuku.
  • Mismanagement of my student finances has caused me to be left with no food and my muscles have slowly atrophied.
  • I haven’t got any decent questions to answer.

Make sure the last one doesn’t happen!

(If you’re feeling generous, make sure the fourth one doesn’t occur either)

Feel free to contact me with any and all feedback, messages and questions.

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Biochemistry of Tea

Though it is viewed by many to be an out-dated stereotype of an age gone by, tea still has a great importance in a society like the one that exists today in Britain. What really brought home the dependence that the public has on the nectar was the news coverage of the 2005 London tube attacks, as well as the more recent riots in the capital.

In each case, there was a point when the respective news reporter would say that the shopkeepers/volunteers were bringing out blankets and cups of tea for those clearing up the damage and it brought a smile to my face. Not from any warm fuzzy feelings that one gets when viewing altruism take place in a society that prides itself on segregating each person but rather from seeing the vehemently denied trope being played once again.

Really, that’s Britain for you: A nation wherein tea is the solution for everything.

You’re a bit cold?  Tea. 

Your boyfriend has just dumped you in a manner so painfully comical not even Jeremy Kyle would want you?  Tea.

You’ve just been told you’ve got prostate cancer and that amputation is the only option?  Tea.

Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt for the best part of a week?  Tea dammit! 

Youth start smashing up small businesses all over the capital, laying waste to buildings that have stood for longer than they’ve been alive? Bust out the fucking Tetley’s!

Of course, if the situation becomes extremely serious, then the appropriate British course of action would be to maybe think about bringing out the Earl Grey. Only in dire situations though. It’s reserved for when the the Americans have their alert raised to red and all their nukes pointed at Clapham Common. 

I can’t quite imagine what would be cause for anything but tea. Given the damage from the events mentioned and their complementary tea-based responses, one would hypothesise that it would take something on the scale of Armageddon to be cause for a coffee based response.

That or another Adele album.

All joking aside though, tea in Britain remains one of those things that divides the nation. If you were to ask 100 people the question of how they liked their tea prepared, you’d surely get 100 different answers. To prove that I’m not spouting nonsensical rubbish, here are a few from a Twitter survey when the question of tea preference was posed.

Still there is a very big question to be answered.

What makes tea so important?

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The Biochemistry of Bread

People often think of bread making as an art form and to some extent, I agree. It’s just that the extent to which I agree is >0.01% to a 99.9% agreement with the idea that bread making is a science.

Even though nothing more than simple grain, yeast and water combine to make bread, the chemical reactions that take place in the dough are numerous and complex. So in my second article for Kitchen Geekery, I look at the biochemical science behind the humble loaf and show how various factors can be manipulated for the optimum bread.

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