September Update

It has been a busy time here in SeattleLand. We are settled in and life is beginning to accelerate.  Robert is job hunting and I am lab hunting.

I will work in three different labs this year and then choose one of those three to be my thesis lab, where I will work until I graduate. It is a slightly nerve wracking decision because I only get three chances to pick an awesome lab. I have been going to lots of presentations (imagine an auditorium full of people watching a power point presentation about new research) and poster sessions (think science fair for grad students). I have been riding my bike to most events; the weather has been great so far. At the end of all this, I have it narrowed down to two labs now and I will make my final decision on Wednesday - get excited.

At home, we have been cooking and baking a fair bit.We also watched a sailboat race on Lake Union and went on a hike to Bridal Veil Falls and Lake Serene. Here is a collection of pictures from the last month:

No one is quite sure why, but Robin showed up one night.

A second attempt at mozzarella yielded vastly superior results. Here is the recipe: Cheese Queen.

It looks beautiful, but it needed more salt.

The secret ingredient in the mozzarella was milk from Trader Joe's (instead of Grocery Outlet).

Robert made pizza again and improved the crust considerably - firm and chewy, not limp and soggy.

Magically beautiful, no-knead bread. This is the best recipe we have made so far and it is practically fool proof. If you are even remotely curious about making bread at home, try this recipe out: No-Knead Bread.

Here is the only secret you need to know about making the bread above - you need an oven proof container to bake it inside. We put our Dutch Oven inside the oven, but you could also use a Le Cruset or any such container that will withstand baking. A Dutch Oven is indestructible, so it gets my vote. (If you are motivated to bake bread without a container, you can also add ice or water to a tray inside your oven to steam the bread, allowing better oven-spring initially and a better crust finally.)

We also went to the final Duck Dodge of the summer season. Duck Dodge is a giant sailboat race on Lake Union. Ben, Robert and I were in a small power boat, helping tow small boats to the race.

We towed this laser, an International 14 and a catamaran.

The committee boat (left) signals the first start, which is for the largest boats. There are two additional starts for smaller boats, thereby roughly grouping boats by speed and encouraging a fair race.

We cared most about watching Ben's friends, Matt and Adrien, sail Matt's 49er. It is a serious racing machine that they are just learning to handle well. The night's theme was Hats N' Wigs, thus Adrien's cowboy attire.

Matt is skippering, using long bamboo tiller extensions to steer from his position off the starboard side.

The 49er is so much faster than the rest of the racers that it caught up to the boats from previous starts as they clumped at the first mark where the wind died. Here Adrien and Matt are leaning the boat carefully to just miss the mark and avoid a penalty.

As the light waned, pictures became increasingly difficult to take. For this one, our boat seems to have magically aligned with theirs. Matt is hiked out to balance the boat.

Here is the 49er on the downwind leg of the race. The large blue-green sail is their spinnaker (a large front sail that pushes the boat forward, as opposed to a typical wing-like sail).

In high winds, both Matt and Adrien might need to stand full out on the starboard gunwale.

Intrigued by a couple of new asian cookbooks, I found kombu seaweed at the asian market and have been playing around with making Japanese style broth (dashi) into noodle soups.

Robert's culinary adventures have been heavily weighted towards Indian cuisine, with a short foray into making his own enchilada sauce using his grandmother's recipe.

The resulting skillet enchiladas were amazing.

Most recently, Robert and I went hiking with three of my fellow grad students. We went on a very popular hike to Lake Serene and Bridal Veil Falls.

From Left to Rt: Shannon, Becky, Jackie and ME.

We coaxed Robert into the picture at Bridal Veil Falls.

The narcolepsy is getting pretty bad of late.

Braving the spray for a close up.

The sun was just beginning to crest the mountain ridge.

You might notice that the view is amazing - thanks to all of our stair climbing to get up this high!

We were rewarded with a beautiful lunch spot. (This picture was taken carefully to simulate isolation - the place was crawling with other hikers.)

The mountains were shaded, so I focused on the sky. This is all you get because I forgot to change the ISO back to a reasonable number and ruined the other pictures I took. That is snow on the far side of Lake Serene.

Here is a more illustrative picture of Lake Serene, clear blue green water that was apparently frigid - judging from the gasps of those who jumped in.

Caterpillar friend.

 Late breaking news: ROBERT IS EMPLOYED!