Cookies

I am distraught. I have been waiting to get my Grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe. Finally, I was there over the weekend. I geared up to get a great recipe and was excited to come home and make them!

We browsed her recipes, and I wrote down a few I wanted. Then:

"All I need is your cookie recipe now."

::confused look:: "My chocolate chip cookies?"

Mom: "That's just the recipe from the Nestle bag."

::crickets::

Wow. What a downer.

Indubitably Awesome

Here is another cereal commercial I just think is hilarious: Crispy Critters. I remember this cereal being good, actually. I do not remember the whole "indubitably" thing. It also makes me think of "Arrested Development," when Maeby worked on the movie "Love, Indubitably."

Today I Noticed...

The petals on these mums have cute little fluted ends:

An Investigative Investigation of Things

(Previous Investigations: Part One, Part Two)

Cereal: Part Three

Do Crispix Stay Crispy in Milk? A Timed Experiment
You don't hear much about Crispix cereal anymore. After a big push in the 80s and 90s, they have all but disappeared from the airwaves. I guess they aren't considered a "kids" cereal, but they aren't really an "old people" cereal either. The best old commercial I could find was "Flip for the Crisp of Crispix," which has possibly the worst cereal-themed song I have ever heard:

What I really wanted was the commercial that insisted the cereal stays crispy in milk, as it was the inspiration for this investigation. Crispix is the unusually-shaped cereal that has "corn on one side, rice on the other," and a hollow center. I always liked popping them against the roof of my mouth as I ate. Anyone else do that? Anyone at all? Hm.

Figure 1. Crispix

Anyway, because I never let cereal sit long enough to get soggy, I had to use a timer with a bowl of Crispix for this investigation. I set myself up in a photographable manner, poured the bowl, and started timing, taking a bite to test about every minute. Here are the highlights:

Figure 2. Forty-five seconds. Good start. Nice crunch.

Figure 3. Two minutes. A little bit of softness is setting in, but I wouldn't call it mushy at all.

Figure 4. Four minutes. Definitly softening, but has a firmness when you bite down.

Figure 5. By the 8 minute mark, the cereal still had quite a bite to it, like aldente pasta. I wouldn't call it "crispy" though. But, who ever lets cereal sit for that long anyway?

To find out the answer, below is Figure 6, a graph showing how long five survey respondents take to eat a bowl of cereal:
As you can see, all respondents took much less than 8 minutes to eat a bowl, with one person taking only 60 seconds because "I hate soggy cereal." So really, the whole issue of soggy cereal might not be an issue after all. But for the purposes of this investigation, I call it a success, and proof that Crispix stays crispy in milk, at least for the time that it takes to eat it.

Figure 7. Top and side view.

FACT: Crispix are hexagonal, but only in one dimension.

Nudge

After reading The Guinea Pig Diaries, I read a book that helped inspire an essay from it: Nudge. In The Guinea Pig Diaries, there is a chapter on thinking rationally. Since it's hard to explain, please enjoy this description directly from A.J. Jacobs' website:

The Rationality Project:
I tried to retrain my brain to be something more than an ad hoc collection of half-assed solutions that have built up over millions of years of evolution. I attempted to eliminate every irrational bias using the insights of behavioral economics. And in doing so, I permanently changed the way I make every decision, from the simplest (what toothpaste to buy) to the biggest (how to raise the kids).

Basically, it comes down to making decisions based on absolute logic, without letting your pesky brain get in the way. Quick example: saying that a certain surgical procedure results in "1 out of 10 patients dying" sounds worse than "9 out of 10 patients survive," even though they mean exactly the same thing.

Nudge is a book which explores behavioral economics, and how to basically "nudge" people into making the right decisions by changing how options are presented to them. It's very psychological. The first half of the book demonstrates the theories, but the second half got kind of boring. They described long case studies, such as one about companies' 401k programs: many employees are apathetic about joining such programs, but by making it easier for them to join and have the plan grow with them ("nudging"), more people would participate.

I wanted to mention it because it was very interesting overall, and really makes you think about how you actually think. I give it 3 1/2 things.

New Roads

Theres construction everywhere. Here in New Jersey, it is due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which can be loosely translated as "Let's do lots of construction right now that we were planning to get around to eventually anyway." This also means painting white lines everywhere, such as six lane highways that were just repaved LAST WINTER. This does NOT include painting white lines on roads where the lines are so worn out they are barely visible. Everywhere you go, there are traffic cones and workmen slowing you down. It's really kind of a pain. And it's only going to get worse: Less than a block from me is a highway overpass, which they will be "rehabilitating." The initial demolition will have "a considerable amount of noise associated..." That's just great. But at least they sent us a letter, warning us so that we can "make alternate plans for those weekends."


I guess it IS good that people are getting put to work though. Even if it's not me.

I Has a Pomegranate

I made juice!

Now what? I'm not sure I like the crunchy seeds; that surprised me, I was prepared to enjoy the pomegranate unconditionally. Most recipes I've found use the seeds whole; baked goods have them mixed in, and pies and parfaits have them sprinkled on top. I actually tried some in a parfait of Crispix cereal (DO Crispix stay crispy in milk? Stay tuned to find out!) and Greek yogurt. The yogurt was honey-flavored, so mixed with the pomegranate it wasn't the best combination. The little bursts of flavor from the seeds popping was fun though.

Eventually I decided to just juice the whole thing. I did this by putting the seeds in a blender a couple handfuls at a time, then straining them into a cup. To get every last bit of flavor out, I put the strained mess back in the blender with some water and repeated the process. This actually worked pretty well. The juice is strong so adding water really helps it.