Goat Cheese, Prosciutto & Roasted Garlic on Cauliflower Crust
Ever since a farmer's market appeared at my workplace I've decided to start cooking more fresh stuff. It's healthier, less expensive than constant GrubHubbing and a good way to keep myself occupied. Of course this means I've been overdosing on veggies -- kale, chard, beets, brussel sprouts -- you name it, I've smothered it in bacon. Best Food Pyramid Ever.
Anyhow, of all my food adventures the most exciting so far has been the Cauliflower. Right? Whodathunk?
Fun Fact: Orange Cauliflower has 25x more Vitamin A. Suck it, whitey.
Just pretend for a moment you've never tasted it boiled. That trauma is enough to scare someone away from our little caulifriend forever. Turns out, there are a million other ways to cook it and THEY'RE ALL DELICIOUS. It's super adaptable in recipes, makes a great low-carb/high-fiber/potassium-packed replacement for starchy deliciousness of Mashed Potatoes, Tater Tots and even Pizza Crust! I'll post the other recipes later because I'm lazy and I don't feel like writing anymore. Plus I made that pizza for dinner today so it's still fresh in the ol' memory core:
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED: for Crust:
1 medium sized cauliflower
1 large egg
1 cup of finely shredded cheese (I used Muenster, but I've seen recipes with Chedder, Mozzarella, or Chevre) 1 tsp of oregano 1/2 tsp of minced garlic smidge o salt for Toppings:
Whatever pleases you, man. I spread on a few tablespoons of tomato basil marinara, sprinkled on some shredded wine-soaked goat cheese (THE BEST), chopped up a few slices of prosciutto and squished on some roasted garlic cloves. Next I'm thinking some kind of barbecued hawaiian? Or a spinach mushroom pesto? The permutations are literally endless.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:
Start preheating the oven to 400 degrees.
Use a cheese grater to shred the cauliflower (You can also use a food processor, but I didn't feel like cleaning mine. soooo many parts.)You should have about two cups of shavings when you're done. Be wary of fingers.
Shreddin' FRACTALS
When you've finished, stick it in the microwave for about 8 minutes. Let it sit for a bit after so it can cool off and air out. Then mix in the rest of the crust ingredients. Oil up a pan and spread out the pastey mixture into a circle (about 9-12 inches) Bake for 20ish minutes or until it turns a more golden brown.
Then, take it out of the oven, sprinkle on your toppings and pop it back in. 5-10 minutes if you bake it, 3-5 if you broil it.
That's all folks! Mine came out a teeny bit soggy, but I only left it in for 15 because I WAS HUNGRY. Maybe next time I'll use a pan that's more open or cut it in half and shove it in the toaster oven. After all this is an experiment I plan on reproducing forever and ever, we've got plenty of time to come back and tweak it.
As if you need any more convincing that CauliPower needs to be a part of your diet: check out the Wikipage. Talk about high nutritional density, bro. Plus fractals. Come on.
First off, thank you all for your kind words. Seriously, your support has meant a lot and I really appreciate it :)
"Caffeine" 10x14in
That said... Guess what time is? Time for me to beg you to fund my funemployment in exchange for paint splatters! wheeee! So if you want a painting, email me: cristina dot tortarolo at gmail and we can talk specs.
[For people who requested something last summer that I wasn't able to get to: I'm really really sorry- ended up getting a job and running out of time. If you're still interested let me know, I just don't want to make any assumptions.]
"Get In" 16x20in
While I started out mostly doing characters from movies I think I'm finally ready to move away from that. But whatever, who am I kidding, I'll do pretty much anything :3 Lately I've been illustrating quotes and that's been really fun. (You can check out past stuff here) Also anything from graffiti is fair game.
"Auguries of Innocence" graffiti
If you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what you'll want we can chat and figure something out. I'm just. that. desperate. :)
"Sound and Fury" graffiti
Rough estimate-wise, I'm thinking a $10 base + $5/hour. So depending on size and the complexity of the image it'll probably fall somewhere in these ranges:
~50in^2 $20-30
~100in^2 $40-50
~200in^2 $100-120
This is definitely something we can talk about more in depth via email per individual case. Just throwing around some general numbers.
"Doors of Perception" 8x16in
Lastly, I've decided to set up shop on Etsy, so that's where I'll be posting anything random that doesn't get sold. Heads up.
I officially fail at social media. Told myself I was going to liveblog the bejesus out of this year's Society for Neuroscience conference but of course I chose the road more easy to travel by: a path paved with 140 characters and mobile connectivity. In my defense I was pretty busy during the daytime wandering around the convention center, stalking awesome professors and refueling on Starbucks grande chai lattes. But anyway, so that the nerdtastic excitement and general awesomeness of everything don't wither away in my terrible-excuse-for-LTM storage, I've decided to extrapolate my memories from posts to the twitterverse and hope this compiles a somewhat coherent narration of experiences.
It really was though. Airports are usually such depersonalized spaces: you're surrounded by thousands of people shuffling brusquely along in their own worlds, too worried about their own travel plans and schedule to waste time interacting with others. Understandable. Still, it was nice to look around and be able to connect with these complete strangers without saying a word: I knew why they were here and where they were going. It felt like we were all part of some secret club except instead of a complicated handshake, membership is demonstrated with long, awkwardly shaped luggage (even though technically I didn't have one. Boo. Joined my lab too late to be included in the abstract submission. But hey, I could still appreciate the unspoken bond.)
Touched down on Golden ground and had our spirits instantly lifted. How can you not smile at such a gorgeous state? We took shuttles provided by the conference to our hotel and were welcomed by this view. Immediately made a pact with my roommate to miss our returning flight and become bums on some, any, street corner of this beautiful city. But enough about our plans for umbrella tent shelters- IT'S TIME FOR #CONFERENCEBANTER.
View from our hotel room. Rockstar.
I really wish I could have taken pictures to capture the enormity of this convention. It was just... mindblowing. Humbling, even. Here are 30,000ish people that have come together to learn and share and explore research in a fantastically broad field. I was surrounded by molecular biologists, geneticists, computer scientists, engineers; people who work with worms, rats, clinical populations, controls; studies that utilize psychopharmacology, neuroimaging, behavioral psych measures... the list goes on. Yet we're all here on the same mission: to understand the brain (or waste our lives away trying). Gets me all warm and tingly. Poster of the day: "An fMRI Study of Two Brain Interaction Using a Novel Dual-Head MRI Coil System" That's right, you heard (/read) correctly- a dual head coil. The ability to scan two people's brains simultaneously opens up a new dimension of social neuroscience research. Assuming you have two verrrry small people that are comfortable hanging out in an enclosed space for the duration of the study and you're not particularly interested in the visual cortex- the possibilities are endless!
How about instead of asking me what I'm supposed to do with a handful of eppendorf tubes you ask yourself what CAN'T you do? eh? Poster of the Day: "Atypical Thalamocortical Connectivity in ADHD Youth" Theoretically, when we're not actively engaged in a particular task, our brain runs on a functionally connected network of brain regions, nominally, the default mode network. Looking at differences in activation between ADHD youth and control youth can help us understand what is going on when people's minds wander. Which, if the way I write is any indication, is something I'm INTENSELY interested in.
Eeeeeeeeee!
No offense to Science, Cell, Interdisciplinary Reviews in Cognitive Science, Nature, Nature Reviews Neuroscience or NIDA brochures. Just saying, you'd be a lot cooler if you were color-in-able.
That is all.
So this reminds me of a good point about social media: not everyone uses this platform to have narcissistic conversations with total strangers about the everyday minutiae of their lives: sometimes Twitter is actually useful. Case in point, if @BrainCatalog hadn't started following my account, the chances of me seeing their booth in the sea of vendors would have slim to none. And that would have been tragic. In a nutshell, they're creating a GoogleEarth-esque application that allows you to browse through mouse brain terrain. The exciting potential of this technology is tangible- can't wait to see where it takes us in the next few years. You can read more in the NYTimes or watch their intro video:
Poster of the day: Uhm, that one. "A Remarkable Increase of Visual and Mental imagery Following Ayahuasca Ingestion: An fMRI study" While I'm still very curious how they're explaining away the fact that an MRI machine overwhelms even the most sober of participants with booming, unsettling sounds and overloading the senses of someone on psychedelics is INFINITELY different than using the same environment with a control subject... this still wins the My Favorite Poster Ever Award (prestigious, I know). They interpreted their results to mean that more activation in areas typically associated with memory, vision and intention shows that using hallucinogenics affects our perception and separation of real life and our internal mental environment. A small step toward exploring reality perception and consciousness but a friggin' LEAP toward making psychedelic research a respected branch of neuroscience.
And it's about time.
(Randall Munroe, you're not helping. Even if we were all thinking it.)
Some parting thoughts: In the end, I'm very grateful for having the opportunity to attend this year's conference. It was a learning experience on many different levels and definitely makes me appreciate academia just that much more. Thanks to everyone who came to present their research and share their positive energy with the rest of us. Also, a special 'thank you' goes out to SFNPosterFace.com for access to the abstracts and entertaining us with their super creative Lady GABA- Posterface parody.
"When it's cor-ti-cal / If it isn't rough it isn't fun" ...Truth.
Posts
