ZINE Michaelmas Issue 2009 "Amy and Jamie"

My first ever ZINE article :) They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach so I consider this piece as invaluable preparation and practice for when I eventually get to meet Jamie.

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Take 3

So I see that 5 months ago I made an announcement to return to blogging but as you can see that came to ZILCH. 

Well it's 6:10 am and I have been up since 3 am fighting a losing battle against jetlag and under-eye bags, but my frustration with the tired-but-can't-fall-asleep limbo has been mediated somewhat by the decision to inject some life back into Amy & Jamie! 

I also decided that I will do some single molecule FRET experiments, but I don't imagine you want to hear about that...

I feel that if I publicly share what I intend to do then perhaps there is a better chance of me actually doing it, so here is my TO DO list:

• Upload my ZINE articles.
• Give an update on the status of ZINE.
• Initiate mission "Meet Jamie".

So, third time lucky? Let's hope so...

Why this blog? Part 3: Jamie's America

Initially, I was only going to write the ZINE article in the style of a blog, mostly because I am lazy and didn't want the stress of producing 500 words of cleverness and comprehension (almost all writing attempts are meet with mental blocks completely disproportionate to the gravity of the task). 

But whilst I was running my column* in the lab, my mind became flooded with ideas and by the end of the task I had secured this blogspot web address. Let's just say that the column took twice as long as normal and my final product was not as pure as previous attempts. Oops.

So here is the plan. Jamie's America is both a cookbook and a TV show running on Channel 4. In this series, he visits five different places in the US of A (Los Angeles, New York, Louisianna, Wyoming, Georgia and Arizona), and tries to get to the heart of what fuels the food and flavours of that area. Interesting choices, me thinks. 

Source

I will try a recipe from each location and document it here. Then viola! I can just edit it for ZINE. So you can think of this as my notepad.

I also want to make this useful for you, so I'll give my two pence on what it's like to shop for ingredients in Cambridge (grrr...) and cook and eat well while being a busy student. So please check in every now and then if these interest you.

There's not really much left to say except that I hope you enjoy it! 

First stop...LA!

*A "column" is a synthetic chemist's** way of saying that they are using the technique of column chromatography to separate components of a reaction mixture. 

Basically, when we put on a reaction to change A to the product B, we usually also get a number of other products as well, such as C and D. These usually arise from competing side reactions and/or decomposition. 

If a reaction gives few of these other products, we say it is a "clean reaction" (although the opposite is never described as "dirty"!). 

But if not, we can put the whole mixture down a long vertical glass tube that is packed with a material (usually silica) that makes B, C and D come out the bottom at different times. 

It all depends on how much the silica likes B, C and D. The more they like each other, the longer it stays in the column, so pure B can be separated from C and D. Clever, huh?

**A "synthetic chemist" makes molecules! (yes, there are other types of chemists...)

Why this blog? Part 2: In the footsteps of Julie

The bright little thing (blt from now on...oh dear. I have a thing for acronyms) had only been in Cambridge for four days before she secured funding from her College for this project, so super kudos to her! 

I'm not surprised really, because her older sister attacks tasks with an identical vigour. My involvement with ZINE actually stems from my connection with sister blt, who is also a PhD student in my research group in the Department of Chemistry (she is more of a biologist, but I am *definitely* a chemist). 

Seeing the pair of them in action is like watching the world in mirror images, in everything from their animated Geordie-accented story telling down to the way they apply their mascara, and I have a feeling that mummy blt completes the trio. But I digress...

So sister blt asked me if I wanted to do some writing, and I was like, "Oh I have so much work at the moment...". I've set a deadline for myself in the lab, and with Freshers Week coming up I'll be busy running around college looking after the new grads. 

But in addition to her perfected organisational skills, sister blt is also very good at convincing people to do things so I said, "Well, I suppose I could write a review on Jamie's new cookbook!". Another digression ahead.

I LOVE Jamie (we are on a first name basis).

Having recently seen the film Julie & Julia, sister blt joked that I could call the article "Jamie & Amy". 

You see, Julie & Julia follows the story of two women in different times - Julia Child, a bored middle aged wife-of-a-diplomat (I also like to over-use hyphens) who ends up with her own TV cooking show after she decides to go to cooking school while her husband is based in post-WWII France; and Julie, a modern day "lowly cubical worker" who decides to cook 524 of Julia's recipes in 365 days and blogs about it. A true story.

So in Amy & Jamie, I am Julie and Jamie is Julia. 

The fact that Jamie's and my name rhyme indicates to me that this is meant to happen aha! And to top it off, Julie-the-blogger's character is played by Amy Adams, what are the odds?! (Aaaaand, my sister's name is Julie, but even I have to admit that this particular link is a bit dodgy...!). 

I did consider changing the spelling of my name to "Amie" for the purposes of this project, but deemed it unnecessary (oh boy, but then I could make a connection between Julia Child's French experience and the French spelling of my name. Ok, someone slap me.). 

I'll probably engineer even more parallels once I've seen the film!