Chocolate-covered bacon

Yesterday I finally accomplished my goal of making chocolate-covered bacon. Will it taste good? Will the chocolate coat the bacon properly? These were the questions I sought to answer. So, without further ado, here is how it all went down:

I started with a pack of unsmoked thin cut streaky rindless bacon rashers, also known in America as 'bacon.'

I carefully laid out the bacon in the pan so it would remain flat as it cooked.

As the bacon cooked to a very fine crisp, I put the chocolate on the stove to heat up. More on the chocolate later. You can see the bacon is getting very shriveled and crispy - I figured this would be the best state for it to be in to receive the melted chocolate.

Inquiring minds:

Finally the bacon was all done, although two of the pieces ended up not being totally crisp so I just ate them. The others I patted with a paper towel to remove excess grease, and let them sit for a few minutes to cool while the chocolate melted.

I used plain old Cadbury milk chocolate, and melted it in a glass cup sat in a pan of water. I had purchased four bars of it, but only ended up using one...

Once the chocolate was thoroughly melted, it was time for dipping! The chocolate was still quite thick, maybe it wasn't hot enough? I'm not sure. So after dipping each piece I had to wipe a bit of chocolate off on the side of the glass lest it be too chocolaty. Also I broke each piece of bacon in half before dipping, as the chocolate was not deep enough to cover much of a full-size piece.

Here are the freshly dipped bacon pieces, placed on a tray covered in kitchen foil, also known in America as aluminum foil:

After I dipped them all, I placed the tray in the fridge to cool. Here they are after cooling (and after a few pieces have been eaten, heh heh heh):

The chocolate cooled and stuck to the bacon perfectly. As for the eating experience, it was VERY GOOD. It tasted very much like one of those Take 5 candy bars, actually. Mmmmmmmm. Highly successful endeavor!

Good news from Oberlin

I was just killing time at work, so I checked out the Oberlin College website, as I sometimes do. The whole front page was epic! The first thing I noticed was that one of the people profiles they had up was someone who continued the crayfish studies that I started while I was there - just a picture and a short essay he wrote. I don't think I ever met him, but I suppose one could say he is a successor to the Oberlin Crayfish Duke-dom. Or something. Then I saw there was a video interview up with George and the Skritter crew. Way to go, guys! Most excellent. Then also there was a link to an article about Oberlin getting the top grade in sustainability among colleges and universities...in the entire country. Read about it here: http://new.oberlin.edu/home/news-media/press/detail.dot?id=1587518

And of course you can see all of this today on the Oberlin site: http://www.oberlin.edu/

I don't know how long any of this will be up, though. But it was up TODAY. When I was looking at it. It was enough to make me... update my alumni profile, tee hee.

Take-A-Gundam-To-Work Day

Brought to you by Agent Scully. And Agent Mulder...until he gets a little carried away in the lab.



Even Gundam knows not to open strange bottles of chemicals and smell them.


After some explainations and such in the lab, its time for a tea break, also known as 'second-breakfast.'



Remember, its important not to consume too much caffeine. Know your limits.


After calming down a bit, its time to get back to the lab!


And back to the P(olymerase) C(hain) R(eaction)!


HOURS later, when the reaction is done, its time to run the gel to see what the results will be. While it is running we can eat lunch quickly.


I said, EAT LUNCH, QUICKLY!


When lunch and the gel-running is completed, its upstairs to the office to check e-mails and work on the computer for a while.


And when it is finally time to go home, the last stop is the shower down on level five! That shower is the most amazing shower in all of Britain. It has....water pressure.