December 2009
December 16, 2009 at 9:45 am
Image by simulacrum used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Here’s an article that I’ve filed under, “Well, that would have been good to know two years ago.”
15,000 will die from CT scans done in 1 year: Scans have higher levels of radiation than thought, researchers say
I’ve had a sinus CT and a head CT within the past year, so if I ever get a cancerous tumor above my neck (or superhuman powers), I’m blaming the CT machine. Most frustratingly, before having the second CT scan, I asked a friend of mine who is a radiologist if it would put me at significant risk for cancer. She drew on the knowledge she had at the time, and reassured me that having two CT scans wouldn’t put me at that much risk. Whoops!
Mostly I just sigh at news like this, and reflect once again on the fact that what we don’t know about the universe greatly outweighs what we do know. I can look back on the 60′s and be shocked that women smoked while they were pregnant and [...]
December 14, 2009 at 9:11 am
Thank you for all your cookie suggestions. I was tempted to try all of them, but eventually settled on making Boot Tracks because I got to use my waffle iron. I love kitchen gadgets, and the waffle iron is rarely used for anything other than waffles, so I thought I’d give it some quality time.
The Boot Tracks came out well, but I wouldn’t call them cookies. They were essentially brownies cooked in a waffle iron. I felt like I got snookered. However, if in the future you are ever making brownies and simply cannot wait 20 minutes for them to bake in the oven, let it be known that you can pull out your waffle iron or George Foreman grill and cook them in two minutes or less. If any of you think of trying this recipe, please, please, please remember to grease the waffle iron before cooking. Otherwise you’ll be scraping boot tracks off your waffle iron like mud off of a boot.
There were lots of lovely cookies at the exchange. One of the [...]
December 11, 2009 at 9:12 am
Photo by Libär used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
I’m going to a Cookie Exchange Christmas party tomorrow, and I’m concerned. I’m working on losing the 40 pounds I gained during the worst of my headache, and cookies do not seem like the best way to do that. (And if anyone mentions “The Cookie Diet” I will stab your eyes out with my ballpoint pen. The PR company for that product is run by assholes and morons who aren’t competent enough to remove me from their email ist.) But, I want to see my friends, and they are throwing a cookie party, so I’m going. Everyone is supposed to bring a batch of cookies and then we exchange them so everyone gets a plate full of different treats.
Does anyone have a recipe for healthy cookies? Or is that term an oxymoron? If I can’t find a healthy cookie recipe, I figure I should find a recipe for cookies I hate. That way when I’m baking them I will not be tempted to lick the beaters and shove [...]
December 10, 2009 at 9:22 am
It was so windy yesterday, I thought I might see Dorothy and Toto flying around outside my window on their way to Oz. One of the nice things about freelancing is that the most dangerous part of the commute between my bedroom and my office are two cats who try to trip me. Alas, I was out of cat food for one of those cats, so I had to go out into the cold and 30mph winds anyway.
I also had to drive downtown to the public radio station to tape a short interview for this week’s Definitely Not the Opera, a weekly show on Canadian Public Radio. I do not live in Canada, so I hadn’t heard of DNtO before, but I downloaded the podcast beforehand to get a sense of the program and I think I’m going to stay subscribed. Each week they take on a theme and collect stories and interviews with people related to that theme. This week the show is called “Peep Show,” and no, I’m not going to reveal some [...]
December 8, 2009 at 11:18 am
“Did something in the refrigerator explode?” my roommate asked me as she stood in front of the open fridge door.
“Oh, no, that’s just my yogurt experiment,” I told her.
About a month ago MelPo left this comment on my Voskos yogurt entry:
Did you know you can make any yogurt thick–like the so-called greek yogurts that are so popular now? It’s just strained yogurt.
I do it by putting a couple of coffee filters in a colander over a bowl–dump the contents of a big yogurt (my fave is seven stars, but any kind, any flavor will work) into the filters. Then fold the tops of the filters over the top of the yogurt and put the whole bowl into the fridge overnight. The next day, take it out and dump the watery stuff from the bowl and open up the coffee filters and enjoy your thick yummy yogurt.
If you want it even thicker you can weight the top with something fairly light–like a can of soup or something and the resulting yogurt will be a cream-cheese consistency. [...]
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