I've spent the last month with my parents in upstate NY. It's surprisingly hot and humid here, with quite a number of thunderstorms -- perhaps this summer is an anomaly, since I'm pretty sure summers here are supposed to be relatively not-hot and low in humidity.
The majority of the last month was spent watching the World Cup and Wimbledon while looking for a job and a place to live, with some exercise, watching Korean TV shows (not K-dramas though; the variety/funny kinds only), and cooking/baking. My mom and I've been trying to master the art of asian pastry and cake making, and while we've more-or-less mastered the art of dough that uses yeast, we're still working on mastering the techniques involved in cake making. We first started by making cake rolls, then tried to make a genoise cake. Everything has tasted really great, but they're definitely not rising as much as we want them to, so I've been studying the meringue folding techniques (These cakes use whipped eggs to rise instead of the chemical alternatives like baking soda/powder). Hopefully the one we're going to make today will rise a bit more, now that I've seen how Julia Child folds her meringue.... (does that sound odd to anyone else? welp.)
I'm moving back to Boston on Sunday to start working in a lab in the Longwood area, where I'll be working on proteins/enzymes involved in the synthesis of amyloid beta peptides. Oligomers of amyloid beta peptides form plaques in brain tissues, and these are commonly found in brain tissues of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's (the observation of plaques is used to diagnose the disease, apparently). There are three enzymes (alpha, beta, and gamma secretase) that are involved in the production of amyloid beta from the precursor protein, and I'm going to work on one of them. I don't know much about the brain, so hopefully I'll learn a lot during the next couple years. This also means I get to live in Boston longer, which is nice -- there are still a lot of food places in Brookline and Allston I have yet to visit :P
Lastly, I went to the Niagara falls with my family for the weekend of 7/4. We got to see the fourth of July fireworks over the falls, but the Boston fireworks are much, much better in my opinion. Regardless, the falls were beautiful, so here are some pictures!
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| American falls and fireworks, viewed from a bridge that is truncated in the middle (the Canada-US border is in the middle of the water) |
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| Horseshoe falls, viewed from Canada |
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| American falls viewed from Canada |
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| Both falls because panorama option |
It's great that you'll be in Boston for awhile more. :-) Did the new cake baking technique work?
ReplyDeleteIt kind of worked but deflated a bit after I took it out of the oven :/
ReplyDelete