Stories

ImageA few lines in a recent “Quick Takes” column at Inside Higher Ed were enough to make me put down the faux-croissant I’d just purchased at my school’s café and seek out the full story in The Boston Globe: the most popular class at Harvard right now is “Science of the Physical Universe 27.”

It has another name as well—“Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science”—and it “uses the culinary arts as a way to explore phases of matter, electrostatics, and other scientific concepts” (Devra First, “Harvard Uses Top Chefs to Spice Up Science,” Nov. 2, 2010). One interesting fact about this course is that it isn’t your mother’s or your home ec class: it has a guest list of top chefs. Another interesting fact is that 700 students tried to sign up for the fall semester’s offering.

Seven hundred! That’s the total enrollment at some small formerly-known-as-liberal-arts-colleges. I began to think about the potential here: Why stop at physics? Why not use food to teach film and literature? Perhaps this is just what the flailing liberal arts need.

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science_fair_projects.gifAs far as I’m concerned, two things of note happened in 1994.  First, I won the science fair.  And second, after spending weeks recreating a miniature, but insanely scrupulous papier-mâché Mt. Rushmore, I lost the fifth grade “state fair” by handing out fist-sized bags of pure, unadorned flour as a snack during my oral presentation.  And yet, neither the triumph nor the failure were really mine alone: I had what’s known a yes-man on both counts.  (You know who you are.  Mom.)

My science fair experiment, adapted from a handy “ideas for science fair experiments” book that my mother had bought me, involved gauging a volunteer’s stress level, showing them a bit of a scary movie, and then checking to see how the clip had affected their heart rate.  I can remember that the book recommended Psycho as an anxiety-provoking choice, and that it specified that the experiment be performed on adults not currently taking any medication.  As we didn’t own Psycho – nor possess many reliably non-medicated family friends - I came up with a few minor variables of my own.  

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Radar, a statesman with a discerning palate, whose first known name was Scabby due to cigar burns sustained as a puppy on the rough and tumble streets of Brooklyn, made the transition back to puppyhood on February 7, 2009 at home in Venice, CA in the arms of his loving family.

Radar was found in 1993 just a few months old and in very bad shape in a garbage can near Brooklyn Heights by an employee of the Humane Society. He became the house dog of the Humane Society on East 59th street in Manhattan for over two years as he healed up, grew up and kept getting passed over. He happily ate the house dog food but somehow developed an innate curiosity of exotic cuisine. When he was discovered by producer Sam Sokolow in 1995, his luck and menu started changing.

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willie-nelsons-greatest-hits.jpgLet’s be real, here. People who grow up like I did are not often country music fans. Aside from my mother’s odd taste for the sounds of the Grand Old Opry (acquired during her years at Wellesley, no doubt) I knew no country music unless it was from one of those “Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits” ads that ran constantly on our local CBS station. Well, sometimes I caught a little bit of “Hee Haw” if no one changed the channel in time. Suffice it to say that “another somebody done somebody wrong song” was never my music of choice.

I like irony, subtly, and a literary lyric. Like my tea, I tend to like my music un-sweet, unless the sweetness is only one of many layers and has no cloying quality. There was a kind of song that made me queasy from the time I was very small:  ”Baby, I’m a want you,” and “Cherish” come to mind. Well, and that other kind; the kind where a dog dies and is carried out to sea, or someone (or something) named “Wildfire” is apparently lost. There was a kind of broad, needy, whiny quality about those songs, and that Ick Factor seemed to exist in every country song I heard. “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain?” Seriously?!

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Image1. Check the college’s weather hotline and confirm that classes have been cancelled.

2. E-mail students with directions for the next class meeting. Reassure them that spring will come (this isn’t the first cancellation of the semester), and wish them a joyous day.

3. Survey the landscape and begin shoveling.

4. Take a break to visit with your neighbor, after wading to the middle of the street. Compliment each other’s regalia: she’s wearing a jaunty beret with a pompom; you’re wearing – for which you fervently thank your son – those ear warmers with the band that fits around the back of your head (no hat hair for you, even the morning after a blizzard). When ice crystals have completely lined the inside of the scarf you’ve pulled up over your face, it’s time to stop talking and go back to shoveling.

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