Limited Curiosity

I thought I was reading this harmless little article about coral that makes it's own sunscreen. I chose it because all the news was so horrible--Jack the Ripper, natural disasters, war--I just wanted something interesting and mildly scientific.

Oh well.

Nerd Genius

Some of you may remember these, if you hung around with the right people this past June. Note the most background shoe:

Well, that pair of shoes has been transformed, and let me tell you, you're going to be very jealous that they don't belong to you. The very gifted artist is a good friend of Venom's...

Running Short on Ingredients

The task:

Make Banana Bread with just two bananas (why? You ask? Those two bananas were very very ripe, and the others were not ripe at all. Waiting for the unripe ones to ripen was impractical--basically, I have time to bake now, and not later, and I forgot to put one in Danjo's car to ripen while he's at work. Also, the ripe bananas won't wait another day. Their clear intention was to rot without being baked into something edible--I think they are not humble bananas, preferring decay over improvement by fiery furnace because bananas are dumb...wait...O.o).

...Anyway...

The problem: Two eggs and 1-1/4 cups of flour and 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp of salt are not easily reduced by 1/3 outside of a chemistry lab.

Baking soda: The 1 tsp baking soda doesn't SOUND so bad, but no measuring spoons have thirds marked on them. Also, they are shaped like spoons, so visualizing 2/3 full is difficult.

Salt? See baking soda.

Eggs:Big dilemma here, determining the quantity of egg required when you need 2/3 of two large eggs and all you have is 2 extra large eggs. In case you're wondering, failing the calculation, I tossed the egg yolks and just used the whites. Now the banana bread will be heart healthy (except for the 2/3 cube of butter--at least that was easy to eyeball--there's lines on the butter wrapper that correspond to the measurements I need).

Then there's the flour:

5/4c x 2/3 = 10/12c = 5/6c

Wonderful.

Just search your measuring cups for the line that says 5/6.

In short, this required more uncertainty than makes me happy, but the estimated 2/3 scale banana bread is in the oven, in a loaf pan that may or may not be 2/3 the size of a standard loaf pan. At least "stab with a toothpick to check for doneness" should still be operative in this 2/3 parallel baking universe. Sigh...

Next time I'll remember to leave the under-ripe bananas in Danjo's car

Untitled, With Subtitles

No Capes Necessary

Don't Blink

Still Life With Sunscreen and Pomegranate and Half an Onion, Among Other Things

Reflection on a Spoon

Something New and Unusual

Very Cool Website too...