Mega-doofy. Times infinity!

Do you remember Arthur? It is actually still airing, and you can even watch old episodes on YouTube!

This was an amazing discovery for me, since most of the other PBS shows I used to watch (and love!) and learn English from have long since been retired.

My favorite, Wishbone, was culled ages ago, though I think some stations may still be airing reruns. (Which would be awesome if that were true.) I do believe Joe has the dubious honor of being my first-ever celebrity(?) crush. At the tender age of, what, nine? But you know what, not trying to pick fights or anything, but Joe was loads better than Troy or Edward. Just sayin'.

ANYWAY. I digress. A lot. (Why didn't you stop me?)



Professor Pacelli of the Williams Math/Stats Department, also known as Allie of Zucchero Dolce, is hosting Sugar High Friday for October. This month's theme: layer cakes.

Yes, the deadline is today, what of it. I had exams to study for, okay?

Note that this is my first attempt at a layer cake -- the mouse cake doesn't really count -- so, uh, please keep the mockery to a minimum?

Okay?

Promise?

Well, but you are allowed to laugh.

Because, how could you not?

I couldn't possibly begrudge you that.

It would be too mean.



Yeahhh.

Really, go on. Laugh. It's good for you.

I didn't realize just how much the cake was tilting until I started to frost it. Of course, I could have just leveled it with frosting, but my conscience wouldn't allow it.

Besides, I am still laughing.

"I want to eat this dish is a hard grunge"

Happy 추석, everybody!

추석 (the romanization is "Chuseok") is like Korean Thanksgiving, celebrated on August 15 of the lunar calendar. It's the second most important holiday in Korea, after the lunar New Year, and the whole extended family gathers to pay respects to the ancestors and eat great food and generally enjoy each other's company.



Well, I'm here in DC and my brother is in Massachusetts, not in Korea, tragically enough. So we spent about an hour conference-calling relatives in Korea last night.

It was really good to hear everyone's voices, especially when one of our baby cousins insisted on talking on the phone, too, and then couldn't think of anything to say. So cute! It was good fun, but it also made miss Korea a lot, not to mention Korean food. I especially miss 송편 ("songpyeon"), which is a special rice cake often eaten on 추석.



Mmmmmm. I looooove me some Korean rice cakes. The reminder prompted me to set my Facebook status this morning to: 추석이라 그런지 송편 먹고싶다~~ ^^

Now, before y'all go reaching for your Korean-English dictionaries, it means: Maybe it's because it's Thanksgiving, but I'm craving 송편.

When my former math prof copy-pasted it into Google translator, however, he got: I want to eat this dish is a hard grunge.

I... what?

Anyone ever play the Babelfish game, from back when Google didn't have a translator yet? You take a well-known quote (or song lyrics, or an idiom, etc.), translate it into another language with Babelfish. Translate the translation into another language, and so on, and eventually back to English, and then see if anyone can figure out what the original quote was. There are, of course, many variations on this.



ANYWAY, since I couldn't have 송편 but still wanted something a little out of the ordinary, I made a zebra cake. That's what I logged on to say in the first place, I just got a little distracted.

Becca is amazing

Just, you know, stating the obvious, because the world needs a reminder every so often.

Anyway. Both Becca and I baked a lot for our respective labs last week. The mouse cake was the pièce de résistance, so to speak, but chronologically it was actually the last thing in the queue of treats produced at Hatherly College during the week.

So in the next couple of posts I will simply be playing catch-up. For one thing, it's still a bit too hot to be baking, and anyway, I should be cleaning and packing and generally preparing for the impending move. Plus now that I'm unemployed, I need to be more conservative about spending all my meager savings on baking ingredients. Besides, to whom could I feed it all now?

Last Sunday Becca made a Grand Marnier Orange Cake and a plateful of truffles while we watched the World Cup final. I was too distracted by the game -- which, by the by, was one of the most frustrating soccer matches I have ever watched (Arguing with me? Yellow card! How dare you laugh! Yellow card! Celebrating the first and only goal of the game in double-overtime that will get your country its first-ever World Cup title? Yellow card!!) -- to remember to take a picture of the truffles, but the cake was quite pretty.



I couldn't sample the cake since Becca was bringing it in to work the next day, but I did taste the one that Becca's mother had sent for her birthday, and it was delicious. Becca's coworkers were convinced they could get drunk off the cake, there was that much Grand Marnier in the glaze.

At some point I may ask Becca for the recipe, but then I'd have to purchase a lifetime supply of Grand Marnier just for making this cake. I don't drink, so what else could I do with a whole bottle of orange liqueur besides bake with it? (Does one even drink orange liqueur? I wouldn't know.)

ETA: Becca sent me the recipe for the Grand Marnier cake! See below!

The incredible edible mouse

A couple of weeks ago I came across the Science Cookie Roundup #5, which featured, among other things, a mouse cake.

I wanted to bring something special to the lab on my last day, and had been eyeing the gel electrophoresis cookies as a potential candidate.

But guys. A mouse cake.

As the self-proclaimed Mouse Wench Extraordinaire, I felt that I could not possibly pass up such a challenge.



The mouse cake submitted by Jackie has a cupcake tumor, since she used to study cancer biology. While some of our mice also sport induced tumors, most of them receive heart or skin graft transplants, since my lab studies transplant rejection.

Unfortunately a heart graft is well nigh impossible to represent in cake form -- unless I were to render a surgery-in-progress, complete with all the organs, instruments, sutures, etc., which... well, there's an idea. Perhaps I'll attempt it one day, when I have more surgical and cake-decorating experience under my belt. For this particular mouse cake, however, I settled for a skin graft.