Monday, September 30, 2013

Jogging, take upteen point 1

Jogging has never been my thing. For one thing, I never learned how. That nice critical period between full-out kid running all afternoon and learning to adult jog in high school never happened for me. I wasn't able to walk unaided for about 50% of high school, so you can understand how jogging was out of the picture. I tried to pick it up a couple of times in college, but ice and subfreezing temperatures did little to encourage me. I tried again last year, knowing that I should get more aerobic exercise, and it would tire out my dog quicker, but a couple of weeks in my knee when 'pop' and wouldn't really bend for a week or two, so that was that.

On top of all this (which in my mind was plenty sufficient reason to never tie on jogging shoes again) is the fact that I hate athletic clothes. Or more specifically, pants. I do not look good in athletic pants, though I can pull off a rocking pair of jeans. I also just hate wearing pants. They are the only things (pace an over-laced corset top bridal gown) that are capable of making me feel claustrophobic. I have never liked them, and I suspect never will. I wear ankle to tea mid-calf length skirts and dresses all day, everyday unless I am gardening, which is just necessity.

I've been toying with the idea of trying, again. One, because I know I should do more aerobic exercise than just walking. Two, I need to wear my dog out. I was putting it off knowing I would need to get warm weather appropriate exercise clothes (no, I do not just have shorts lying around. Especially not ones that fit). When I discovered that Target sold running skirts, which there is essentially a miniskirt with running shorts underneath and a nice flowy top, I was willing to take it as a sign. I have also found that the internet* sells knee length running skirts, should I be able to keep this up. That will be my reward if I can learn to run 3 miles without slowing to a walk or stopping.

So this afternoon, a gloriously sunny warm but not hot afternoon, I started again. I put on my running clothes, tied on my shoes, and got Penny on the leash. I grabbed a house key on a carabiner, and tied a doggie bag to the leash, and we were off to the races.

There is a large block in our neighborhood that is just under a mile around. I walk it several times a day already with Penny, so I thought she wouldn't get too distracted by smells (a dead garden snake was the only real pit fall in that category). I admit, I started out slow. One, to let me build up to running a full loop, and to train Penny how to jog. So my plan was to jog  6 houses (about 150 yards), walk 6 houses, and repeat for two loops.

First realization: running for me is a rapid walk for Penny. The only time she really ran was when we chased a squirrel together (which required me sprinting all out). So she need to learn that "Penny, ready, jog" was not the same as "Penny, let's run!" She mostly had the hang of it by the end of the second jogging section.

Second realization: I should probably brace the knee that went 'pop'. It didn't pop this time, but it was definitely a weak point.

Third realization: Jogging can almost be enjoyable. Maybe. And its quite effective at tiring Penny out (she sleeps by my side as I type this).

My plan is to repeat this every other day, making the jogging sections a little longer every time, until I can consistently run a solid two loops. Then increase from there. The other days I will do my usual walking.

Here's hoping I can keep this up. I kinda want that knee length running skirt.

~PhysicsGal


*Please note, I am not endorsing this company in any way, they are just an example of the fact that I am not alone.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Easy Tortilla Pizza

Saturdays have long been pizza nights with us. In college, it was a nice break from dining hall food. In married life, it was a night I didn't have to wonder if I had the ingredients to make something inventive. Even in my early days of insulin resistance, a pepperoni pizza, extra pepperoni, was low glycemic index enough that I could enjoy it. Now if we order in, I just eat the toppings (thank you chain pizzas with unlimited topping deals).

Some weekends though, I go the extra step and make our own. Homemade pizza is insanely simple to begin with, especially if you have a stand mixer or a food processor for making normal pizza dough. Of course, I can't have the normal pizza dough, so until I find a good low carb flour that acts like flour, I've fallen back on something I learned in childhood--the tortilla pizza.

I think I first learned to do this from one of those 90s kid shows that focused on doing stuff, and not melting our brains with hyper symplified topics (Cyberchase anyone?). Instead of using pizza dough for the crust, you use a large size tortilla, and then build the rest of your pizza like you normally would. It creates a super thin, crisp crust that while not entirely pizza like, is a much better crust than anything with cauliflower (sorry fellow low carbers, but there is no member of the cabbage family that belongs anywhere near my pizza).

Fortunately, there is a brand of low carb tortillas sold at my local megamart (mostly oat fiber and stuff like that), and so I expect in most grocery store. From a base such as this, you can get as fancy or as easy as you please. Last night, I chose easy, because I could. Top with canned tomato sauce, add some spices to make it taste like pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella (I like the part-skim for this because there isn't as much crust to absorb the extra oil), and toppings to taste (I like pepperoni, mushrooms and banana peppers). I like putting a little of the cheese over the toppings to hold them on).
Pizza before I added toppings. Tin foil or parchment paper makes clean up easier.
 Then it goes into a 425 degree (F) oven for 15-20 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and brown. Let it sit a moment before cutting into wedges, and eating as normal. Enjoy!

~PhysicsGal

Beautiful Sunday Morning

Fall has miraculously come to the Carolinas before November this year. I'm told it has in the past, but for the two years I've been here cool mornings and falling leaves happened well after people were putting away their Halloween decorations.

For the last week or so, its been in the fifties at night, and the mid to high seventies during the day (about 13 C and 25 -ish C if you are a metric system person). Our air conditioner doesn't go on at night, you start wanting to actually get under the covers and you appreciate that dog at your feet. The air is beautifully brisk when I put the dog out in the morning, and still is when I walk her after breakfast. Most morning there is a fine mist, not thick enough to be fog and not humid enough to be haze that gives our neighborhood with all its tall, old trees the look of a fairytale forest when the sun shines through.

Of course, it also means that things are starting to look dead. Especially since after a very rainy summer we are going through a small dry spell. So our grass is rather brown and dead looking. Our persimmon tree in the back started to lose all its leaves, as is a tree of our neighbors  which overhangs our yard. So if the sun isn't shining brightly, from the functional part of my kitchen our backyard looks pretty dismal at the moment.

So imagine stepping outside after seeing this dismal sight while getting the coffee going, thinking it was completely cloudy out, and seeing this:


The first is there to show how depressing my yard is. The second is my attempt to capture the sky on a camera that is more than a decade out of date.

It's hard to believe the day will be anything but nice after something like this.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Diogenes of Sinope's Modern Quest Ended

Diogenes of Sinope was rather a character. You'd have to be to mess with Plato, insult Alexander the Great  in public, and be the grandfather of stoicism. Other than living in a large ceramic jar, he is probably most famous, at least outside of history and philosophy circles, for carrying a lantern in the day and declaring that he was looking for an honest man (my generation knows him from the show "Arthur" if nothing else). 

I have always joked that my modern day version of his quest (minus the lantern) was to find an honest car mechanic where I live. At least twice I know for certain that mechanics I have gone to have tried to get me to 'repair' my car for exorbitant sums when nothing was wrong (per a different, trust mechanic, who lives nowhere near me). I know next to nothing about cars, so I admit, I am a perfect target. I also naturally respect people in their area of expertise. But I dislike being taken for a milk cow. 

Low and behold, my quest has come to an end. A honest mechanic who is thorough, but also works in a way to save me money. Thereby purchasing my custom until one us moves or joins the choir invisible.   

Something was leaking water in my car. And when I say in, I mean in the passenger compartment. The front passenger seat carpet is wet like I left the window open in a typhoon. I'd listened to enough "Car Talk" to guess air conditioner wasn't draining properly. The whole system had been replaced in the spring, by mechanics I no longer trust, and who had always found something expensive and wrong with my car. I would not have put it past them to 'forget' something so they could fix it later for another payday. I took it to a highly rated mechanic who I sadly did not know about before. The whole repair will cost less than $80, parts and labor, including all the testing/time figuring out what was wrong. And he sat down to explain exactly what was wrong until I was satisfied. I have never had such a good (or inexpensive) experience with a mechanic.  

The honest mechanic does exist. Hallelujah. 

Low Carb Manicotti

Italian-American food has always been a favorite with me. How can you go wrong with cheese, tomatoes, garlic and bread/pasta? And of course, that last part is why I haven't enjoyed anything like italian food for well over a year. I tried making zucchini noodles (they taste like zucchini, fall apart like zucchini and sauces do not stick to them). I tried miracle noodles (texture: rubber band. translucent color--off putting when combined with tomato sauce). I had frankly resigned myself to longer having my favorite savory comfort food.

Earlier this week I had a moment of desperation/inspiration. I had read about people using tortillas for lasagna noodles, but always thought the texture would be oh so wrong. But earlier this week, I was desperate enough to try. Low and behold, it wasn't too bad. I over sauced it, but that was my fault.

Last night, I realized that there is another flat-sheet pasta/cheese/tomato sauce dish that requires less sauce, and a higher ratio of cheese to pasta: manicotti. We didn't eat it much when I was a kid, not when lasagna was so much easier than try to shove a cheese mixture into an oversized penne noodle. But the important thing was same ingredients, less sauce.

Doing it with flat sheets of pasta or tortillas is easy as pie. Mix up your favorite italian cheese combo (I like half and half ricotta and mozzarella, with black pepper, nutmeg and basil), making sure that there is a hefty portion of good melting cheese or a couple of eggs in there to hold the filling together. Cut your tortillas into roughly square pieces, however big you like. You can save the scraps for baked chips or just munch on. Evenly distribute a generous portion of the cheese mixture on one side, roll, and place seam side down in a baking dish with sauce on the bottom. Repeat until your dish is full or your ingredients are used up. Cover with another layer of sauce, top with grated mozzarella and parmesan, and cover the dish with either a heavy lid or tin foil. Bake in a 375 degree oven until it is bubbling throughout, then remove cover and allow cheese to brown slightly, another 10 minutes. Allow to sit outside the oven for 10-15 minutes before serving,

I forgot to take pictures before I started dishing out, and lets face it, manicotti once you start dishing out is not the prettiest thing, so I'll add pictures later. But it looks like manicotti. And it by and large tastes like manicotti. If you have ever eaten whole wheat pasta, you are already familiar with the taste and texture rendered by the tortillas. The nutmeg helps smooth the contrast between earthy whole-grain-y-ness of the tortilla and whatever the opposite of that is in the cheese and sauce. Overall, thoroughly edible, and even delicious.

I'll count that as a win.

~PhysicsGal

NB: this is not a super low carb dish thanks to the cheese and the fruit sugars in the sauce, and the few carbs in low carb tortillas. But its low enough for me for dinner, so I thought I'd share.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Lasers

Lasers are one of two technologies that led to a revolutionary advance in optics (the other being semiconductors, which I'll discuss in a later post). The word 'laser' was originally meant as an acronym for a curious piece of engineering, that gained such wide traction it has become a word. Technically, it stands for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". Radiation here is the generic term for electromagnetic waves, which encompasses visible light, UV, infrared, microwaves, gamma rays, x-rays and radio waves, among many other types. Since their invention, laser's have become staples of the modern world. They are what make cds, dvds and blurays possible. They are central to anything fiber optic, and have become so cheap and ubiquitous we use them instead of the tradition wooden pointer for presentations, and use them as levels. Their uses in science and engineering are bordering on innumerable, not to mention their use in medicine for precision surgery and low collateral damage treatments. They range from size and potency from smaller than a AAA battery and some temporary blindness if you look straight into it (e.g. laser mice) to the size of a small house and the ability to fuse atoms (lasers at the National Ignition Facility).
Via WikiCommons

Lasers come in several different basic types:dye, gas, solid state, LED/semiconductor, chemical, fiber,  free electron, and more recently 'exotic material' lasers. They each have their advantages and disadvantages.

  •  Dye lasers can give very tunable wavelengths, which is an issue with most lasers, but the materials used are also (more often than not) highly toxic and annoying to work with. They are dropping out of favor as other types of laser become more tunable without the toxicity issues. 
  • Gas lasers are bulky, but low cost, very narrow bandwidth  and very very common. Helium Neon (HeNe) lasers are used for a variety of research and education purposes. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) lasers are used for welding, cutting and telecom purposes (the latter at obviously much lower powers). Depending on the gas used they have a range of available wavelengths. Also, far less toxic than dye lasers. 
  • Solid state lasers use crystals or doped glass as the gain medium. The first laser used ruby. These are typically bulky, and are limited by thermal considerations, but they can output very high powered pulses. They typically have very narrow bandwidths, and are not tunable except by integer multiples of the frequency. 
  • Fiber lasers are a subtype of solid state lasers where the gain medium is many loops of  a fiber. They have  a distinct advantage over bulk crystal lasers in that, since the fiber is very thin, they can be efficiently cooled. However, they cannot operate as at high powers, since the intensity of the light passing through the fiber can cause distorting and non-linear effects. 
  • Semiconductor or LED lasers are lasers that use light emitting diodes to create laser light. Below a certain threshold, the LED acts as a normal LED. Above a certain amount of current, the material begins to lase. This type of laser can be very compact (they are used in laser pointers for example), and offers a broad range of available wavelengths, presently from near UV to  near IR. They are relatively inexpensive compared to other types of laser media. 
  • Free electron lasers are kind of an oddball laser, because it uses a relativistic beam of electrons as its lasing medium. They are huge (garage sized), incredible expensive, but also high powered and highly tunable. They are not as popular now that LEDs can offer much the same tunability. 
  • Chemical lasers are used for applications were very high powers are needed, such as military applications. Instead of pumping a lasing medium with light or electricity, a violent chemical reaction is used. 
  • Exotic material lasers use different types of radioactivity to pump a medium. These are more lab experiments at the moment (Although I'm sure someone would think of a use, I can't think of why I would want to use radioactivity and not light or electricity).
 With the exceptions of the free electron laser and chemical laser, lasers work in a weird but fairly simple manner. The gain medium is confined and two partially silvered, concave mirrors are put at either end (in the case of electrically stimulated lasing, only one mirror need be silvered). Because the mirrors are partially reflective, partially transmissive, pumping light can come in, and laser light can leave, but roughly half the light can be contained to continue the population inversion necessary for lasing. Curving the mirrors inward, even slightly, helps to avoid light lost at the edges and diffraction effects. Outside of the cavity, there will be a series of lens to produce a clean light beam, and make sure it is going in the right direction. In the case of a solid state laser, there is usually an optical diode to prevent light from coming back in and destroying the crystal. 
1) gain medium
2) pumping energy (electricity here)
3) Back mirror
4) Front mirror (and lens, it looks like)
5) Laser beam
(via WikiCommons)
Inside the crystal, the atoms are undergoing population inversion. This nifty little video gives a good visualization of the process. Every atom has discrete energy levels, and in jumping between a higher level and a lower level, can release a photon. In a laser, the idea is to put enough energy into the system that most of the atoms are in the higher energy state, and then releasing that energy in the form of light. Not every material is capable of lasing, because it must be capable of staying in that higher energy state for  some (atomically long) time period. Otherwise, it is impossible to achieve population inversion. 

That being said, you could make a laser, given the right resources, out of a surprising number of things, including but certainly not limited to, a glass of beer or a gin and tonic. The first thing to do would be to cap the container somehow. In either case, you could with a partially silvered mirror, a fully reflective mirror and an electrical supply use the carbon dioxide dissolved in the liquid to create a laser (albeit not a very good one). In the case of the gin and tonic, tonic water contains a small amount of quinine (the  drink is said to have been invented as a way to get British troops to take their malaria medicine, since quinine itself is very bitter), which will fluoresce under ultraviolet illumination. Fluorescence alone will not cause lasing unless you filter the reflected light for a specific wavelength and force all the atoms to the same energy level. This can be achieved using traditional filters, Bragg gratings or nano-fabricated mirrors, which can be tuned to reflect only narrow band light. 

That is an extremely brief look at lasers and how they work. But I need to move onto other topics, so this will have to do for now!

~PhysicsGal

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

The best anti-anxiety: a loving dog

I'm not a laid back person, if you couldn't tell yet. I have a lot on my plate right now. I'm stressed.

A lot of my old stress relief (chocolate, bread, chocolate in bread, among other things) are now no longer options. My favorite bar (with wine and warm chocolate) and best friend  are in completely different states.

What I have is a small, energetic dog (Penny) who wants nothing more, it seems, than to cuddle with me, lick my face and take walks around our quiet neighborhood (also, car rides, but those are less frequent). And she is weirdly in tune with my moods, and is marvelously forgiving when I am in a truly horrible mood.

This morning, I was in a horrible mood. I was in a murderous, panicky, run-away, I-will-strangle-the-next-person-who-talks-to-me mood. I took Penny for a walk, like I always do before I head to work.

She is the most exuberant little thing. She walks along beside you and then jumps after a cricket, and then comes back. She smells the wind, and then just grins at you. Two miles of this, I was, if not zen, calm enough to smile when my students walked into the classroom.

God bless little dogs.

Monday, September 23, 2013

A Plea: PCOS Awareness

I've mentioned before on this blog that I can't have very many carbs, without explicitly stating why. Now I will, because something has been bugging me about it.

I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which despite its name is a multi-system endocrine disorder, with the main problems exhibited in the metabolic and reproductive systems. At conservative estimates, it affects about 10% women of reproductive age, and doctors believe that this number is actually an underestimate because so many women go undiagnosed. Australian researchers put successful diagnosis rates at about 30%. It is the most common cause of infertility, obesity and insulin resistance among women. It leads to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers even among sufferers of normal BMI.  It's cause is unknown, and its even unsure which organ is the primary mover (present best guess is adrenal glands), or if it is a fundamental miscommunication between several endocrine centers.

Besides the physical problems that attend this syndrome, women who have PCOS are several times more likely to suffer from depression, eating disorders, and lower quality of life as measured by the PCOSQL survey. It is at this point unknown whether the hormone imbalances which are characteristic of PCOS lead to this, or the fact that the women have received an incurable diagnosis with very few treatment options and almost no social support is to blame.

While I can personally attest to the fact that a PCOS flair can lead to weird mood swings, I'm going to suggest that the higher incidence of depression etc can be blamed almost entirely on external forces.

I am what you could call a best case scenario. I was diagnosed just over a month after symptom onset, thanks to my mother instilling in me early on the need to keep track of things and an incredibly astute doctor. I gained 8 pounds before I knew that I had won the lottery and gotten insulin resistance along with my polycystic, lazy ovaries. Starting with a low glycemic index diet and moving at this point to a very low carb diet let me quickly shed that weight and then some. I'm lighter now than I have been my entire adult life, and I was never overweight to begin with.

But here's the thing. There is no approved treatment for PCOS. Oral contraceptive pills (OCP) reduce the risk of endometrial cancer by not allowing it to build up for months on end, but it comes with its own risks, including increasing insulin resistance in some women. Some doctors will prescribe metformin, a diabetes II drug, to improve insulin response, but its efficacy is in serious question, particularly since more recent studies, what few there are, show that the insulin resistance which accompanies PCOS is fundamentally different than that caused by obesity or other disorders. In fact, researchers are suggesting a name change from PCOS to "Female Metabolic Syndrome" or "Reproductive Metabolic Syndrome" to emphasize the fact that it is a different thing*. If you are overweight, they recommend you lose weight, as in severely obese women this can reverse some of the symptoms.

That's it. Sure, there are some fertility treatments, but those are only if you are actively trying to conceive. If you are just trying to live with it, that is the sum total of what medical science can offer you. Lose weight if you are overweight and exercise, which everyone is told anyway. OCP can reduce cancer risk. Metformin if you are trying to conceive, very overweight or already in diabetes II territory. Reduce carbs and eat lean protein. And...that's it. Go live with this for the rest of your life. This has been the same picture for, as far as I can tell, the past 30+ years.

Millions of dollars are spent every year to make us 'aware' of things like breast cancer (with little to no effect on the death rate, but plenty of effect on the overdiagnosis rate). The NFL, the most manly man sport American's have because we somehow forgot rugby existed and all our hockey players are Canadian, dyes itself bright pink for October and Breast Cancer Awareness month. PCOS has basically nothing. The PCOS association is one of the saddest websites I've seen lately. And its main supporter is a hucksterish faux medical 'lab' that sells 'natural' supplements to desperate people. Research grants go to things like finding out what happens if you give spiders pot, but very little research is done on PCOS. Admittedly, it's complicated, but so is every other medical problem. Not to pick on breast cancer, but PCOS affects more women and the fact that September is National PCOS Awareness month didn't even make it onto Wikipedia. National Fish Month and National Yoga month made it on there though.

So is it any surprise that women with PCOS turn in droves to alternative 'medicine'? That they will eschew what little science there is because it offers them next to nothing and is inadequately explained/offered even when it does (there was an article on the need for more accurate information going out to women with PCOS. File under 'no duh'). We are desperate for relief, for hope, for comfort. PCOS has a way of destroying everything that makes you feel feminine, including giving you a mustache and male pattern baldness, on top of the medical problems. So we will down gallons of herbal teas, pounds of saw palmetto, garlic, ginger, and cinnamon, try acupuncture,  fad diets and fake cures, all in the pursuit of feeling normal again. Even if you are trained in the scientific method and take a strong stance against quacks, it is hard to resist when they promise that you can have bread again, or even just live without watching everything you eat. To not have to spend a small fortune on Gillette/Nair/salons in order to not look like a gorilla. To feel normal again. It can feel like doing anything is better than waiting for your symptoms to just keep getting worse.

So please, anyone who might read this. If you are in a position to give funding, help make this a funding priority. If you are the kind of person who is good at making huge charities, we seriously need help with this one. If you are a bioscience type who leans towards interdisciplinary research, let me encourage you to make PCOS your focus. If you are none of these things, but you know more than 10 women, the odds are good you know a woman with PCOS. She probably feels very alone. If she reaches out to you, let her know she's not alone, and help her resist the quackery and push for more serious research. We will all thank you.

*I would support a name change to either FMS or RMS (leaning towards the latter). For one thing, either sounds more like something you can mention in mixed company, emphasises the fact that its way more than just the ovaries that are affected, and eliminates the polycystic part of the name, which is no longer a necessary part of the diagnosis criteria. Also, it would move us away from saying "Pee-cos", which a) reminds me of Pecos Bill from Tom and Jerry b) just gets on my nerves.

An Arachnophobe Gardens in the Carolinas

I am a life-long arachnophobe. There has never been a time in my memory that I have not been afraid of those little monsters. I have done the recommended 'learn more about them, then you won't be so scared', the 'try to just get used to them' and the 'they are more scared of you'. Nope, because I learned exactly how poisonous some of them are, one tried to land on me, and they do not have the necessary brain structures to be afraid of me. Over the years I have gotten better. I do not immediately flip out over tiny spiders. I can even live with a house spider or two so long as they stay up in their ceiling corner. I don't scream anymore. But I still hate them and am still terrified of them. Keep this in mind.

If you have never been to the USA's southeastern parts, you can have no concept of just how many bugs and spiders we have down here. Colorful, huge ones and tiny little ones you can barely see. Neither size nor color is a good indicator of how much they can or can't hurt you. Fire ants are tiny, but their bite makes an awful, oozing welt that burns and itches. Ghost ants will just eat your food. Really big, iridescent green June bugs will ruin your lawn in their larval stage, but are otherwise harmless. I have learned how to deal with most bugs while I am trying to learn how to garden. I wear long pants to keep off the mosquitos, and I wear a pair of plaid Wellington boots to keep off the fire ants (the plaid probably doesn't dissuade them, but it looks cool). I use bug spray on my arms, my shirt and my hat, again mostly for mosquitos. I wear long dishwashing gloves so I don't have to touch anything with my hand. Yes, I am a little bug paranoid.

This was the manner in which I went to  do some weeding and cut back my gladiolas for the fall. They had grown to be 6 or 7 feet tall and were falling under their own weight, and just looked awful at this point. They are in a fairly swampy part of our yard (in heavy rain, our front yard hosts a little stream that feeds the brook in our neighbor's yard), so I was expecting bugs, slugs, and maybe some frogs.

It started out alright. Most bugs skitter away after all. I could see spider webs and avoid them or knock them down with a long stick. I wasn't being eaten alive. I took down the bronze leaf gladiolas and only came close to a few tiny spiders and has a tiny baby one land on me. I resisted the urge to scream and got it off me, and continued on to the the normal gladiolas. I cut a few down, then realized I needed a different attack angle. Just as I was reaching for a stalk to cut, I nearly touched this.

Please note that this spider's body is almost an inch in length. 

I decided that I wasn't going to be going near those gladiolas until this thing was gone. So I went to clean up the ones I had already cut down. Somewhere around breaking up the 10th gladiola stalk so it would fit into the garden waste bag, a large (body 3/4 of an inch), hairy brown spider crawled out and tried to get on my hand. I threw it down, tried to calm myself down enough to walk away, and decided that was it. I knew I had hit my breaking point. I walked back to the house, stripped off my gloves and boots and started the panicked checking for spiders on my clothes and in my hair. I went upstairs and walked into my husband's office, still not screaming, and asked in a very wavery voice, "I don't have any spiders on me, do I?" He glanced over me and said no and then asked what was wrong. I very very rapidly explained the two huge spiders and promptly burst into tears. 

So much for getting over my arachnophobia.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Good classes are exhausting

The classes I teach each have their own personality. It's been true every semester. Some of them are sullen, clearly not wanting to be learning physics and resentful that they are being forced to do so. Some of them are studious, just-the-facts-please-ma'am types. Some of them aren't particularly interested in learning physics, but are very pleasant classes nonetheless; they will engage with me, and ask questions that, though meant jokingly, further the class. Once in a while I'll get a class that both wants to learn and will engage, which is the best kind of class. Usually, my good/bad classes are fairly evenly distributed. A goodish class and a badish class each of the two days I teach.

This semester, I have the interesting experience of having two diametrically opposed class types on the two days I teach, Tuesday and Thursday. My first class of the week is dead silent. They stare at me with dull, blank eyes. Pretty much the entire point of my particular class is to give the students a chance to ask questions and engage with the material in a way that is not possible in the larger lecture sections. I have never had a class that did not warm up after the first couple of weeks. The strange thing is that the afternoon section is almost as bad, though at least they talk enough to ask what is on the board when my handwriting slips up.

My third and fourth classes on a different day are completely different. The students will begin asking questions before class begins. They seek me in my office hours. They ask prying questions and joking questions in class. I occasionally have to ask them to be quiet so I can hear what one of them is saying, but I don't mind, since mostly they seem to be discussing the problem, double checking my math, and the like. They sometimes give me great openings for side problems. For example, this week we are covering capacitors, which is usually a fairly simple and dull topic, since we don't do anything fun with RC or LC circuits until later. Then one of my students asked, "Well, what about a flux capacitor?" After a moment of delay (since an actual flux capacitor is something else entirely), I said sure, lets find out how much capacitance it would need to have. So, starting with the "1.21 gigawatts" I led my students through a process of reasonable estimates that go into a 'back of the envelope' calculation, which is so useful in physics and engineering, and is one of those things that every talks about but you rarely get shown how to do until you are in a lab. We found a rough estimate for how many farads that thing would have to be, and came to the conclusion that it could have fit into the train of the third movie, but not the Delorean.

That's the kind of thing that I love to do. It's kind of a silly example, but that kind of engagement is what makes teaching so rewarding to me.

And apparently, exhausting. I am never tired after my first two classes. Frustrated, annoyed, wishing I could get them to talk, yes. But tired? No. After my third and fourth class though I am exhausted. Completely energized while I'm doing it, but worn out afterwards. Is it because I feel more engaged? Because I actually have to think on my feet instead of just repeating the same thing for the umpteenth time? Or is there just something inherently tiring about satisfaction?

Theology: Discipline or Distraction?

If you hang around church circles long enough, at least the kind of church that adheres to a systematic theology, you're bound to hear someone say "I find theology gets in the way of my relationship with God".

I have always dismissed this statement out of hand. I have always considered theology vital to a life of faith. Maybe it was my upbringing. Maybe it's because I am a cerebral person. I understand things by trying to think them through logically. Systematic theology seemed natural. Of course you are going to sit down and try to make everything hang together. This desire fell in line naturally with being  of a scientific inclination. The creation runs along logical (if strange and incredibly complex) lines, why should this order not be a reflection of the creator?

Lately, while I still love systematic theology, I can't help but wonder if there comes a point where systematic theology becomes too...systematic...and begins to obscure the transcendence of God by wrapping it so tightly in carefully woven and laid out arguments. After all, systematic theology is man's attempt to understand that which is ultimately beyond our understanding. All of creation is our plane, and I see no reason we cannot plumb its depths to its very foundation. But can we possibly think that we, who see through the glass but dimly, can wrap up any part of God or his thoughts in a nice little package?

Please don't misunderstand me. I think theology is critically important. And I enjoy the study of systematic theology. But I sometimes wonder if it isn't our tower of Babel, trying make God or at least God's plan of salvation try to fall under some logical progression and rubric? In almost every systematic theology I've studied, there is always some kind of hitch. Something that just doesn't seem to fit with God's character, but is necessary to hold the whole thing together.

On the other hand, I've seen what happens when you jettison theology whole sale. It becomes incredibly chaotic incredibly quickly. You can get something good if you are willing to sit down and do serious Bible study, several hours a day for years. But most people just start making stuff up. And then what you end up with is a mishmosh of Biblical themes or ideas with the person's own philosophical and political slant heavily mixed in. I've met people whose personal theology was so far removed from anyone else's I found it incredibly difficult to have a discussion with them. For every 1 hour discussion, we spent 3 just agreeing to the definition of terms. At the very least, if you study basic theology you can discuss with other people because you share a common language so to speak. And discussion with other people, either your contemporaries or sifting through the thoughts of the saints who have gone before, is a way to weed out your own prejudices.

I don't think theology gets in the way of a relationship with God, but it can sometimes get in the way of having a relationship with other Christians, and can get in the way of relationships with people who don't believe. It's so easy, so tempting to use theology not to understand God, but to intellectually batter an 'opponent'. And I've done this. Arguing into submission is a real problem for me, one that I am trying to fight as I get older. And if I can find a 'debate partner' to do this with where we both understand what we are doing, that's fine. I would even say that its important to discuss theological points, in a non aggressive way, with people of different theological stripes. But a lot of the time it seems we are forgetting Paul's admonition to the the church in Corinth to know nothing among them but Christ, and him crucified.

Jettisoning all our theological differences this side of the second coming is a pipe dream. The way they play out is just too varied and too unsettling if you are used to one and you have to deal with another directly. As a protestant, the Marian Catholic doctrines disturb me. I just can't swallow them, any more than as one of the 'frozen chosen' I can feel comfortable in a service where people are being slain in the spirit and shouting. I'm a  creature of extreme habit, so even slighter variations can make me feel ill at ease.

So what am I trying to say with all this? Theology is a useful tool, but it is just that, a tool, just as models in science are tools, and not reality. We need to be careful how we use this tool, making sure that we are using it to further our understanding of God and his plan for his children, and not as a weapon against our fellow pilgrims. The moment we start thinking that we know what God's thinking because our theology tells us so, and not because the Bible tells us so, it's time to take a step back. At that point, you are mistaking the model for the real thing.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

"Come, Thou Fount of Every blessing": A meditation


It's been a while since I posted on the wisdom of the saints who have gone before. We sang "Come, thou fount of every blessing", by Robert Robinson, as the closing hymn in church last Sunday, and as always it struck a chord with me. Here is the text, which  is near identical to the first three verses of the original.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,  
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above;
praise his name--I’m fixed upon it--
name of God's redeeming love.



Here I raise my Ebenezer,
hither by thy help I’ve come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
bought me with His precious blood.



O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
And yes, this was originally 5 verses. Hymnary, which is a great resource, and has as many versions as they can find hymn books (and they can find a lot), lists only one hymnal, from 1791 and presumably the original, which includes all five. The last two verses are a little...weird. And if the Regency and Victorian hymn book editors left it out, you know they have to be a little funky. To sum it up--the original hymn ends by asking God to tell the singer to "Get me up and die".
Ok, this is a geyser, not a fount, but it looks a lot nicer

This hymn sits proudly in the middle of praise songs, before that term was taken over by sappy Jesus-is-my-boyfriend pseudo pop nonsense. The theme, thesis, focus of the song is God and all that he has done for the one who believes in him. It opens with a supplication to God, the 'fount of every blessing', to change the singer's heart, and teach them how to properly praise God. What could be more pleasing to God than 'some melodious sonnet/sung by flaming tongues above"(other than the repentance of one sinner)? The earnestness of the writer/singer is immediately apparent. Its almost as if his entire being were straining towards this one goal of praising God. It sounds odd, but every time I sing this, I feel a deep sense of yearning, almost homesickness.

The second verse has lead to many a 'huh?' I'm sure, unless you had one of the hymnals which kindly gave the Biblical reference and a note of explanation for what an Ebenezer is. It is, of course, a stone monument raised to commemorate God's help and salvation (Dickens didn't name Scrooge that just because it sounded funny). In fact, the second line essentially explains the first. I love this verse, for all it encompasses. I always imagined that this song, with its declaration with our dependence on God and devotion to him, was a kind of modern day ebenezer (if I actually went around erecting stone monuments for all the times God has helped me, my yard would resemble nothing so much as a grave yard).

The author's description of Christ's salvific act, which brings to mind the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Good Shepherd, and emphasizes the personal quality of Christ's sacrifice.  I like the original wording, which replaces 'bought' with 'interposed', if only because it gives me this mental image of me being in the process of being dragged off to Hell, and Christ stepping between me and damnation to cover me in his blood and purity. Gory and graphic? Yes, but we are talking about eternal damnation here. It should be dramatic. I want to have a sense of the cost. I somehow imagine God as having infinite money, should it come to that. And yes, it says 'purchased with his blood', but purchase has already put money on my mind. Somehow interposing gets the point across better, but that's probably a personal preference, not a theology thing.

The last verse does a pretty little inversion of ideas. Grace is freely given, otherwise it is not grace, but here the singer considers himself permanently indebted to it. We usually think of being saved as being freed from the chains of sin and death, but the writer acknowledges that he is 'prone to wander' and asks that God's mercy be used to fetter (aka old school handcuff) himself to God, so he can't wander away anymore. This reminds us of the seeming contradictions of faith. By choosing faith, we have to give up, or at least try to give up, a lot of our selfish impulses, which to the outside world looks more constrained than ever. But in giving up our 'freedom' to do whatever we want, we gain a new, better freedom in Christ. We can live free from doubt, from  guilt and shame (though we often do a terrible job of showing this). We can live knowing, truly knowing, that whatever happens to us in this life, we have an eternity with God to look forward to. We no longer have to be afraid, not of sin, not of other people, not of anything the world can throw at us. Songs like this remind me of this reality in Christ, and urge me to walk more in the new life, and less in the old.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

I am almost jumping out of my skin, I'm so excited. After several miserable failures of attempts to make beloved comfort food recipes (pumpkin bread, cinnamon buns and brownies), I finally have one of them back. Confession, I had to resort to the deal with the devil that is Splenda, but it was worth it. I'll earn my culinary soul back later, I have cookies! They look like cookies and taste like cookies and even have the right texture (allowing for the fact that I forgot to half the baking powder when I halved the rest of the recipe. Oops).
When you double the baking powder, this happens. I smashed down the next batch, but it hid the chocolate.

I don't feel I can really take credit for the recipe, since all I did was replace the sugar in THE recipe (you know what I'm talking about) with an equal amount of Splenda + 1 1/2 tablespoons of molasses per cup of 'sugar', doubled the eggs and entirely substituted almond flour for normal flour. I used bittersweet chips instead of semisweet, which brings in each cookie at around 4 net carbs, which works alright for me right now. If ever needed, I know of a decent sugar-free chocolate bar that can replace the chips and bring it down to a little over 1 net carb per chipwich sized cookie.

Is it sad that I miss cookies so much? Maybe. But I don't care, because I have chocolate. In cookie form. 

~PhysicsGal





Interferometers

Finally,  a physics post! is what exactly none of you are thinking.

When studying with a friend, it was brought to my attention that I cannot for the life of me remember the different types of interferometers and what you do with them. I can name them, I just can't remember what differentiates them. This is kind of a critical topic for my qualifying exam, so I thought I would write a post on it to try and help me to remember it. 

Interferometers are 'old tech' in the world of optics. The main types of optical interferometer were invented back in the 19th century, or very early 20th century. At this point in time, the number of subtypes of interferometers is vast. But except for a few exotic types, the principles of their operation fall into two camps: wave front splitting or amplitude splitting. The wave splitting interferometer splits a beam arbitrarily, either by use of two pinholes/slits, very thin prisms, or cleverly aligned mirrors, which essentially takes chunks of same beam. Amplitude splitting interferometers make use of a beam splitter, which divides the light into reflected and transmitted light, which divides the amplitude evenly.  Each has its uses, because they operate on different optical principles.

Wave-Splitting Interferometers

The wave splitting interferometer is possibly the simplest to explain, and if you've ever heard of or seen a Young's Double Slit Experiment, you know of the oldest, and easiest to replicate, of the wave splitting interferometers. Its success or failure depends on the spatial coherence of light. In other words, how similar is this part of the beam to any other part of  the beam? The way physicists usually quantify this property is in the coherence area. If a source is oddly shaped, and relatively close, it will be spatially incoherent, particularly if it is giving off 'broad band' or white light. You have a large group of random oscillators each creating its own wave, and the waves have nothing to do with each other. You will have a miniscule coherence area. However, oddly enough, if you can get far enough away from the source, the coherence area will increase! Why? Let's go to the ducks!

If you look at the water, and not the adorable ducks, you'll notice that near the ducks, the water waves are chaotic. Each duck is acting as an independent oscillator, going his own rate in his own location. But as the waves get farther and farther from the ducks, they look more and more like perfect spherical waves you would get from tossing in a pebble (a point oscillator). The incoherent bits cancel each other out at a great distance, and only the coherent bits survive, creating a spatially coherent wave. The same thing happens with light. The other way to think about it is the farther you get from something, the more it looks like a point sources. Starlight is highly coherent (that's why they seem to twinkle), but they are just as incoherent as our sun at the source. The only difference is distance. They are so far away, all that reaches us is the coherent waves. You can observe the same effect with a car headlight, if you live somewhere with low light pollution and enough space to walk a couple hundred yards or so away from the car. 

So lets say you've got yourself a spatially coherent source. These days, say a laser pointer will do if you can get your hands on sufficient small double slits. Otherwise, you can do as Young did, which was cut a small hole in the shutter he used to make his room totally dark, cover it with thick paper he had poked a pin hole in, and use the tiny amount of sunlight that filtered in as his source. 

By passing the light through two pinholes or slit, you are creating two identical beams of light, each producing uniform waves of light. If you then place a screen far enough away, you can view the interference pattern of the light, the spacing of which will depend on the separation of your slits and the wavelength of the light. How visible the pattern is is determined by the spatial coherence of the light. 
Dr. Young's original drawing of his experiment
The main use of this type of interferometer is to determine the coherence of a source. You could use it to determine the wavelength of a coherent source, but there are much easier ways to do that that don't require coherence. 

Amplitude Splitting Interferometers

The most basic kind of amplitude splitting interferometer is the Michelson Interferometer. Its many offspring are now more widely used than the original because they are more stable, easier to set up and generally less finicky, but the original is easier to explain I think.

This interferometer depends on a different type of coherence, namely temporal coherence, or how well the beam maintains similarity over time. This makes this type of interferometer very very sensitive to the coherence length of the beam (if a beam is not temporally coherent, a point in the beam that was produced a couple nanoseconds ago, and now a meter away, might not look at all like the beam that is just now being produced.)

The basic set up for this can be seen above.  Your light source is aimed at a beam splitter or a half-silvered mirror which divides your beam into transmitted and reflected portions equally. The split beams travel some distance, then reflect off perfectly aligned mirrors, travel back through the beam splitter and interfere on a screen or a detector. If the difference in the distance the beams traveled is smaller than the coherence length, an interference pattern will form. If the coherence length is short, or not of interest, a compensating plate can be used to eliminate the difference in travel time.

So, what can you do with this thing? You can use it to experimentally find the coherence length of a source by moving one mirror relative to the other until the interference pattern disappears.  You can use it to do metrology (measurements) and test the quality of your optical instruments.  You can use a variation of this in wind tunnels to study air flow patterns, or studying fluid mechanics. A really big version of this can be used in astronomy. Its probably easier to list the scientific fields that don't use some sort of amplitude splitting interferometer than the ones that do. A fiber optics based version of this, the Sagnac interferometer, is used in gyroscopes, but really deserves its own post. 

Interferometers were historically important for a whole host of reasons, including disproving aether, proving the wave nature of light and wave-particle duality of electrons. Today they have a million different uses in research and industry and continue to yield new insights into the universe. Its a shame they don't teach them in every basic science class.

~PhysicsGal

Friday, September 13, 2013

Fruit Pie, Take 1 and 2

There is nothing quite like apple pie once apple season starts. Apples are available all year round of course, but there is something about the start of school and the arrival of fall decorations that demands apple pie.

Pie requires a crust. In the old days, I would use good old all-purpose flour. These days, that's not an option, which means experimentation with oat and/or almond flour. I had previously (and very very recently) perfected the whole wheat crust, and having learned from my recent semi-failure with oat/almond crusts, I thought I had learned from my mistakes in the non-wheat pie crust department. Use less butter, more water, let it rest a good long while, work it a little more than you would normal pastry dough. Roll it out on wax paper.

This incarnation was definitely more pie-crust like than the last one. It rolled out alright, though it was still far more fragile than I wanted it to be. During baking it browned nicely, and got fairly flakey in places. Too flakey actually. Sadly, it still had the structural integrity of a crumb crust. The top crust collapsed as the apples underneath it cooked down, and extracting a slice is impossible. It resembles more an apple crisp than a pie when you dish it out.



The flavor for the crust was also somewhat lacking (the filling was perfect however-a little tart and a little sweet). I don't usually think of crusts having a flavor, but my husband complained it tasted a bit like cardboard and it was definitely lacking something. Butteriness for sure, what with the significantly lower butter content, something else was missing that I can't quite put my finger on. I suspect the 'cardboard' flavor comes from the oats, so I think the next incarnation will need some extra flavorings to mute that aspect. A little vanilla and cinnamon maybe.

The structure is a little tricker, but my theory was that I would have better luck making it less like a basic pie crust and more like a laminated pastry. The proteins in oats are not nearly as long and stretch or easily formed as the gluten in wheat. They need more coaxing to come out, as well as more time in liquid. An overnight rest for a very wet, low butter dough, then rolling out, buttering, and booking the dough like you would for puff pastry. I thought that the longer absorbing time, combined with the repeated rolling and folding will give me the protein structure I needed, while folding in the butter will give me the flakiness and buttery taste.

 So for my second try, I made up a very wet, low fat oat and almond meal dough, and pulsed it in the food processor a lot longer than I would normal pastry. It looked kind of like chocolate chip cookie dough made with really warm butter. Then I stuck it in the fridge until it firmed up.

Then I had to wait for it to soften before I could  do anything with it. Isn't that always the way? Eventually, I was able to roll it out into a rectangle, spread softened butter over the middle square, and book it, just like I've seen my mom do a hundred times with puff pastry dough for angel wings.



I did this three times, using two tablespoons of softened butter for each booking, which brought me up to a total of 1/2 cup of butter for about 3 cups of oat/almond flour. With each booking, the texture got smoother, and less crumbly.
First booking.
After 2 bookings.

At the end of it, when I cut it in half for top crust/bottom crust, you could kind of see the layers in the cross section.
My greatest hope for flakey pastry dough.
And then, back into the fridge to let the butter harden up.

The next day, I rolled out the dough. It was a little stiff, but it behaved almost like a normal dough. You could pick it up and move it without it falling apart, which was a huge step forward. I made it a little thick, but that's my preference.


You can see in the next picture, it actually holds up pretty well. You can see the edges are holding up their own weight against gravity and not crumbling.


My one error with this pie happened here. I used completely frozen fruit, and I didn't use enough of it. Live and learn. I was impatient.


The top crust also went on without incident, and stayed intact. I added an egg wash to aid browning, though that turned out to be unnecessary.


In cooking, the crust did sink down over the fruit.


But, this crust didn't crumble. It eats like a normal crust. Its a little flakey, and tender. It still has an oatiness my husband dislikes, but I think that's the nature of the beast, and is will be less noticeable if there is enough filling and the filling's spices are included in the crust. Overall, I think I have hit upon a good, if somewhat labor intensive technique for getting a good oat pie crust.

~PhysicsGal

Oat/Almond Pie Crust (makes 2 thick crusts)
2 1/2 cups oat flour
1/2 cup almond flour
Water
1/2 cup butter
honey/sweetner to taste
Spices to taste.

In a food processor, pulse together the flours and 2 tablespoons of butter, along with any honey and spices. With the  processor running, drizzle in enough water to make a wet, sticky dough like a cookie dough. Wrap, and refrigerate over night or longer.

Take dough out and allow to soften (how long will depend on the ambient temperature in your kitchen). Roll out into a rectangle on wax or parchment paper. Spread 2 tablespoons of softened butter over the central square. Fold in each side, and then fold the whole thing in half. Wrap, and let rest at room temp for 30 minutes. Repeat two  more times, then divide, and refrigerate for at least several hours. Roll out and use as you would normal pastry dough. If good browning is desired, use an egg wash. 

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Midweek Thoughts

I have two food related posts and one physics post (yes, an actual physics post for my physics blog, shockingly) waiting in the wings, but I am too tired and preoccupied to do them justice until the weekend when I have more time to think them out properly.

Still, it felt odd not to write. When I was a kid, I wrote almost every day. Not diary type stuff, stories. But still, it felt right to write. Now that I am kind of back in the habit, when I don't write something I miss it. If it weren't for the wealth of science bloggers out there, I would feel very alone. With one exception, no one I know in my department finds writing to be easy, let alone enjoyable. Almost every core class made us write some sort of paper because "science majors don't usually have much experience with writing", and the spoken assumption is we don't read for fun and we certainly don't write.

Apparently there is a lot of thing science majors don't do, particularly female ones, though each department has so few the sample size is too small to really get statistics out of it. I have a life, for one, and am happily married. I am a person of faith. I cook and am decently versed in most needle crafts, to the point I make most of my clothes. And then there are the things I don't do. As an optics person, I must love cameras. I don't. I find them useful tools, and wish I could upgrade my rather dismal one, but I just cannot get excited about F/#s. As a hard science chick, I must love computer games. Again, not so much. And above all, I should not know anything about grammar, literature, or philosophy. Any paper I write should only be semi-intelligible and be almost entirely underlined in green when viewed as a Word doc.

Oh well. Let them have their games and their ramen. I'll enjoy a nice stew and write something. Writing on this blog seems to have rekindled whatever creative spark I had that college tried to kill, because stories have started floating back through my mind. Not fully formed, the way they used to, more half stories. The idea of an idea that might one day present itself as a story to be told. Until then, I'll keep writing about theology and cooking and the occasional physics post. If nothing else, it serves as a way to wind down when I feel like I am being pulled in multiple directions at once between my teaching, research, studying for my qualifier and the dozen daily chores of life.


Friday, September 6, 2013

Pumpkin Bread Failure

My mom's pumpkin bread has achieved as near to legendary status as is possible for non immortal baked goods. It was a staple growing up for breakfasts, snacks, lunch boxes, everything. It arrived on a regular basis in my college care packages, sustaining me through many papers, problem sets and exams.

Sadly, my mom's pumpkin bread is something I can no longer eat. So I wanted to reverse engineer one I could. It shouldn't be too hard right? I got muffins down on basically my first try, surely I could make pumpkin bread.

It started off well enough. Using my mom's recipe as a guide, I tried to make substitutions and adjustments based off of what I knew from making muffins. More liquid and leavening. Long rest to allow the flour to soak up the liquid. Extra eggs for stability.  It smelled right. It was the right color, and after resting in the fridge for a couple of hours it was the right consistency. It even looked ok while it was baking. I pulled it out when a skewer came out clean.

But it was a failure. It fell apart when I took it out of the pan. As it cooled, it wasn't cakey. It was mushy. Almost slimey. it was as though I had created some horrible hybrid of cake and pudding and unlike plum pudding or bread pudding, it was disgusting (it didn't help that I scaled back the sweetening a little too aggressively).

The sweetness thing is easy enough to correct. But I'm not sure what to do with this slime. The cake was done. It was as set as could be, but it was slimey. I think I may have to start from scratch, and keep only my mom's spice ratios.

Sometimes, experimental baking is very disappointing.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Return of the Liturgical Year

The title of this post is slightly misleading. Technically, the church's liturgical calendar never went on hiatus. But the summer months are filled with those interminable sundays labeled "N-th Sunday After Pentecost". These Sundays admittedly drag into the fall a bit, but its less noticable because regular church operations resume. Sunday School starts back up, Bible studies resume, the pastorate plunges into a new sermon series, choirs start practicing. We put away the lackadaisical-ness of summer, with those light airy anthems, and, if the church lack air conditioning, begin contemplating wearing cassocks and cottas again.

Some nice anglican priest who posts pictures to WikiCommons
Don't get me wrong. I love a good summer anthem, and the summer sermon series can be well done. But have you ever heard a truly riveting 18th Sunday after Pentecost anthem? Is there such a thing? Has anyone gotten really excited to go to church because it's the N-th Sunday after Pentecost?

I love getting back into the fall because I have so much to look forward to. Two of my favorite anthems (excluding Christmas and Easter) always came into the rotation in October and early November. "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners", by the late great Lee Hoiby with a text from John Donne's sonnets was my favorite even before I really understood what it was talking about. The music is just so wonderfully perfect, ranging from bombastic and triumphant to somber and grim to quiet and contemplative, perfectly fitting the text to music, and its hard to beat Donne for religious poetry outside of the psalms. The other answer is based on Psalm 107 by : "They that Go Down to the Sea in Ships" by Hurbert Sumions*. The first reason is purely silly. Midway through the anthem, there is the line "They reel to and fro/And stagger like a drunken man", to music that brilliantly illustrates this idea, and growing up I swear our choir swayed slightly while singing it.  The second is it is simply a beautifully written anthem that captures the motion of ocean waves, the terror of sailors caught in a storm, and the relief at being brought home safely. Growing up, I waited all year long for these anthems. When I was big enough to turn pages but not old enough to sing I liked to turn pages for "At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners". It was fun sitting on the organ bench for the loud bits with all the pedal work. Almost as fun as Widor's "Toccata" at Easter. 

We also start getting Sundays where the church wears colors other than her "workaday green", as Dorothy L. Sayers so nicely put it. Christ the King, with white drapings and triumphant hymns. Advent with its purple and candles and hymns of hope and expectation. The wonders of Christmas white, plus candles and greenery. Even without special clothes, we get the special Sundays of World Communion and Reformation Sunday. And it continues like this all winter long, and into spring, until we hit Pentecost and the interminable Sundays that come after it. 

Although a lot of people, my husband included, don't see the point of the liturgical calendar, I enjoy it. I like that it gives a rhythm to my year. I also like the fact that it walks us through every aspect of the story of Salvation. The liturgical year begins with Advent, our hopeful anticipation of the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us. Christmas marks his arrival in the world. Christ's baptism by John. Lent, when we are supposed to contemplate all the ways we have failed God, renew our devotion to him, and think on how lost we would be without Christ's redemptive act. Holy week, going from the emotional high of Palm Sunday to the despair on Good Friday, to the joy of Easter morning  when we proclaim "He is risen! Alleluia!" The happiness of post Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, when red banners fly to symbolize the tongues of fire. And then, work a day green. After all the excitement of Christ's years on earth, we are left with work to do. Get down to evangelizing, caring for the poor, doing the work we are called to do until Christ comes again. The church year ends on Christ the King Sunday, when we celebrate Christ's triumphant return in Glory, a reminder of what we are working for. And then the cycle starts over again, spiritual renewal through the winter so we can go about our work again the next year.

This spring and summer have been emotionally, spiritually and physically draining for me. I'm glad to get back into the renewal part of the church year, because I feel the need of it.

I think this post is a little less coherent than I meant it to be, but hopefully you can forgive me that.

* Corrected from Henry Purcell. Who also wrote a version, but not the one I'm talking about. 

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Pancakes!

Pancakes used to be a Saturday morning tradition on our household. Freshly made from scratch, I had perfected my art. If I was feeling really fancy, I'd serve it with the maple syrup warmed  up in a little pitcher like my mom used to do (when we were really little, she gave it to us in this little itty pitcher that held maybe a tablespoon; it let us feel decadent and grown up, without wasting anything. Brilliant woman).

Recent events kind of put the kibosh on this tradition. I'd make them just for my husband sometimes, but it wasn't the same. I wanted to salvage it, with a pancake I could eat and one my husband would eat.

I should say a little something about my husband I feel. He is very much a meat-and-potatoes man. A red-blooded American man circa 1940. He likes meat. He likes white bread and pasta. He does not like vegetables. He does not like whole grains. He could probably live on pizza, hamburgers, pretzels and the occasional pie. That being said, he has been a real trooper through this whole experience. He has gamely tried to help me eat some of my more horrific experiments (the unsweetened carrot spice cake, the rye lemon cookies), has cheered me when something comes out tasting 'normal' and has meekly submitted to an increase in beans and vegetables on his dinner table. He doesn't complain hardly at all about the 'hippie' food, but when he actually says "That was good", I know I've hit on something.

These pancakes are one of those 'somethings'. They have the right texture, and the oatiness is way in the background. They are slightly more delicate to flip than normal pancakes, but otherwise act like pancakes should, and taste darn close.

Start with about 3/4 cup of fine oat flour, 1/4 cup almond flour, and 1 tablespoon baking powder. Mix well or sift together.



 Beat together 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons of vanilla (or half that amount of  your flavoring of choice), a tablespoon of honey or maple syrup and enough milk to bring it to a full cup (just how much will depend on the size of your eggs).

Pour this into your dry ingredients, and beat. Unlike wheat flour, which contains gluten, oats contain no gluten (unless contaminated at the mill), and the proteins it does contain take a lot more coaxing to hold things together. Once it is smooth (at least a minute or two of beating), it should have the consistency of a crepe or swedish pancake batter.



 Now, let this sit. In 10 minutes its a good consistency for my kind of pancake, wait more like 20 minutes for cake-ier pancakes. Go make your coffee. Drink your first cup of coffee. If you are using a cast iron pan, put it on the burner to get hot. Then the batter should be perfect.

Melt some butter or oil in your pan of choice (mine is a small non-stick). And yes, that is butter. Yes, it really is that yellow, thanks to beta-carotene in the milk of grass-fed cows. Now I know what color Mrs. Blandings wanted her dining room.

Pour in your desired amount of batter. A quarter cup gave me  a four inch diameter pancake, which was about perfect.


Cook until it starts to bubble in the middle. This batter cooks a lot faster than normal pancakes, which makes up for early wait time, but it means you can't walk away while its cooking.

Flip, carefully since its slightly more fragile, and cook until the second side is brown, about 30 seconds.

Interestingly, these pancakes tended to get a deeper brown, without burning. This was the point that I eventually settled on as my favorite.


The flavor is not very different from normal pancakes. A very, very faint oatiness if you know its there, and an aftertaste of vanilla (I like my pancakes vanilla-y, but that's a personal preference). My husband declared them 'good', which is roughly equivalent to a 4 star review for him, and as I said before, he does not like 'healthy' tasting food. 

The quantities listed above yielded 7-8 pancakes, which was enough for 2 breakfasters plus one left over for a mid morning snack. You can always double the quantities as needed. Serve however you like your pancakes. Enjoy!

~PhysicsGal

Oatmeal Pancakes
(Serves 2-3)

3/4 cup fine oat flour
1/4 cup fine almond flour
1 Tbsp baking powder

2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp honey or maple syrup
Milk to bring total wet ingredients to 1 cup

Mix dry ingredients to thoroughly combine. Beat together wet ingredients, then pour into dry. Beat until smooth and slightly thickened, 1-2 minutes. Let sit 10-20 minutes, depending on desired consistency. Cook with a little butter or oil in a cast iron or non-stick frying pan on medium high heat, turning when bubbles form in the  middle. Serve with butter, maple syrup, sliced fruit, or just plain plain.