Beet salad seemed like a good idea at the time.
It is my experience that most scientists spend far more time in their labs than at their homes (or anywhere else, for that matter.) As a result, my colleagues spend a greater amount of time in the company of their labmates than they do with their friends and family. So when a birthday rolls around, it is ones pipet-wielding comrads who are the first to gather round to tunelessly but enthusiastically sing Happy Birthday while slicing into a store-bought sheet cake.
In the Galan Lab (a Salmonella lab down the hall from mine), they go to great lengths for each lab member's big day. There is always cake at 3 p.m., usually allowing for at least an hour of lounging about in the lunch room. In addition, there is often a field trip out for lunch attended by any and all who can spare a little extra time away from the bench. Bar-restaurants are popular for these excursions - pints are drunk... afternoon experiments are optimistically planned... and then realistically scrapped.
Looks good on paper, but the problem arises every April when the statistically unlikely cluster of five birthdays suddenly renders almost the entire month into a wasteland of mid-afternoon beer buzzes and blank lab notebooks. To economize by allowing for one really long afternoon of lounging about and overeating at the potluck buffet, the Galan Lab has taken to having a April Birthday Bash, which has grown to include spouses and friends with April birthdays as well.
As the caboose and the April birthday train, I looked forward to today's ho-down, carefully planning my weekend experiments so that nothing would interfere with my arrival at Olivia's by 3 o'clock.
In addition, I spent a good number of days pondering what dish I would bring to contribute to the potluck feast. A matter of days may seem a little obsessive when it comes to deciding on one smallish appetizer but I have my reasons for being so perplexed. The Galan Lab, like most labs at Yale, is a mini-United Nations. Swedes, Brazilians, Germans, Japanese, Italians, Belarussians, Chinese, Argentinians, Brits, Spanish... What will all these people eat??
Realizing that I couldn't please everybody, I decided to go with what look yummy at Stop and Shop. And what looked yummy were the big piles of beets. Epicurious.com came to the rescue and ta da! A salad of roasted beets, asian pear, and slivered almonds with a lemony-sugary vinaigrette was born. My intensely pink fingers marking me as the maker of the beets, I arrived at the party and placed my bowl amidst plates of homemade pork dumplings, onion torta.
Several hours later, wine bottles vanquished and birthday cake eaten, I rose to collect my salad bowl and spoon and head home. I tried not to make a sad-ish Eva face when I discovered my salad offering to be largely untouched (and surrounded by several emptied plates). I re-sealed my bowl with plastic wrap and contemplated several lunches of beets in my near future. Had I over-foodied? Was a slightly gourmet item from Epicurious not The Thing for a casual Sunday afternoon affair that also boasted its fair shair of seven layer dip? Maybe people felt like since it was a party, they didn't have to eat their vegetables... Though I tried not to take it personally, I must admit that I felt like a potluck failure, leaving with almost as much food as I'd brought.
As I headed for the door, Oliva - the hostess and a good friend of mine - came hurrying after me.
"Hey! Where are you goin' with those beets! They were gooood and I barely had any!"
"Oh, uh, I was taking them home. There were a lot left and I didn't want you to have to deal with so much leftovers."
"Unhand those beets, woman! That's my lunch tomorrow."
With that, Olivia snatched the bowl out of my hands and scooped its contents quickly into a tupperware, all the while chirping about how much she was looking forward to flaunting her tasty leftovers at the lunch table on Monday.
Having averted potluck embarrassment this time thanks to Olivia's love of beets, I left with my empty bowl, vowing to play it safe the next go round. Cheddar and Ritz all around!
In the Galan Lab (a Salmonella lab down the hall from mine), they go to great lengths for each lab member's big day. There is always cake at 3 p.m., usually allowing for at least an hour of lounging about in the lunch room. In addition, there is often a field trip out for lunch attended by any and all who can spare a little extra time away from the bench. Bar-restaurants are popular for these excursions - pints are drunk... afternoon experiments are optimistically planned... and then realistically scrapped.
Looks good on paper, but the problem arises every April when the statistically unlikely cluster of five birthdays suddenly renders almost the entire month into a wasteland of mid-afternoon beer buzzes and blank lab notebooks. To economize by allowing for one really long afternoon of lounging about and overeating at the potluck buffet, the Galan Lab has taken to having a April Birthday Bash, which has grown to include spouses and friends with April birthdays as well.
As the caboose and the April birthday train, I looked forward to today's ho-down, carefully planning my weekend experiments so that nothing would interfere with my arrival at Olivia's by 3 o'clock.
In addition, I spent a good number of days pondering what dish I would bring to contribute to the potluck feast. A matter of days may seem a little obsessive when it comes to deciding on one smallish appetizer but I have my reasons for being so perplexed. The Galan Lab, like most labs at Yale, is a mini-United Nations. Swedes, Brazilians, Germans, Japanese, Italians, Belarussians, Chinese, Argentinians, Brits, Spanish... What will all these people eat??
Realizing that I couldn't please everybody, I decided to go with what look yummy at Stop and Shop. And what looked yummy were the big piles of beets. Epicurious.com came to the rescue and ta da! A salad of roasted beets, asian pear, and slivered almonds with a lemony-sugary vinaigrette was born. My intensely pink fingers marking me as the maker of the beets, I arrived at the party and placed my bowl amidst plates of homemade pork dumplings, onion torta.
Several hours later, wine bottles vanquished and birthday cake eaten, I rose to collect my salad bowl and spoon and head home. I tried not to make a sad-ish Eva face when I discovered my salad offering to be largely untouched (and surrounded by several emptied plates). I re-sealed my bowl with plastic wrap and contemplated several lunches of beets in my near future. Had I over-foodied? Was a slightly gourmet item from Epicurious not The Thing for a casual Sunday afternoon affair that also boasted its fair shair of seven layer dip? Maybe people felt like since it was a party, they didn't have to eat their vegetables... Though I tried not to take it personally, I must admit that I felt like a potluck failure, leaving with almost as much food as I'd brought.
As I headed for the door, Oliva - the hostess and a good friend of mine - came hurrying after me.
"Hey! Where are you goin' with those beets! They were gooood and I barely had any!"
"Oh, uh, I was taking them home. There were a lot left and I didn't want you to have to deal with so much leftovers."
"Unhand those beets, woman! That's my lunch tomorrow."
With that, Olivia snatched the bowl out of my hands and scooped its contents quickly into a tupperware, all the while chirping about how much she was looking forward to flaunting her tasty leftovers at the lunch table on Monday.
Having averted potluck embarrassment this time thanks to Olivia's love of beets, I left with my empty bowl, vowing to play it safe the next go round. Cheddar and Ritz all around!
posted by Eva Marie at 10:42 PM
1 Comments:
i love your blog!
random blog-hopper
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