What I Learned Today

In the process of making zucchini-raisin cookies for a book club meeting today (we’re discussing The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester), I encountered an instruction in the recipe about chilling the mixed-up dough for at least an hour before baking the cookies. I’ve run into this before, but it seems to appear inconsistently. So I wondered: why do some recipes call for chilling the dough and others do not? Since you’re going to bake the dough at 350+ degrees anyway, does it matter whether it starts out at room temperature or fridge temperature? Won’t it just take them longer to bake?

Apparently not. Googling suggests that there are two main reasons cited for chilling dough. One applies to cookies that will be rolled out and cut (like sugar cookies), especially if they use butter for their fat source. Butter at fridge temperature is much easier to work with than butter at room temperature, which is sticky. And of course, even if you start out with butter you pulled from the fridge, by the time you’ve beat it with eggs and sugar and other ingredients, it’s likely to have warmed up and been dashed into tiny pieces that are quite squishy and sticky. I was already familiar with this concept from my previous experiences making pie crusts, although I’ve never chilled that dough after mixing it either (maybe I should try that).

But the cookies I’m making aren’t rolled cookies. It turns out that there’s a more subtle reason for chilling drop-cookie dough. This applies to cookies with flour (which explains why recipes for other kinds of cookies may not recommend chilling). Chilling permits the gluten strands in the flour to relax, avoiding a “rubbery” consistency in the final product. (The same reasoning is behind the advice to let pancake dough sit after mixing and before dropping it on the griddle.) The elapsed time may also permit the flour to absorb more of the moisture in the dough, so the cookies don’t spread out so much when baking.

So how long should you chill the dough? My current recipe says “Cover dough and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight.” One hour or overnight? Isn’t that kind of a broad range? (Whoever could possibly mix up cookie dough and then wait until the following day to bake it?)

David Leite of the NY Times conducted the experiment I would have done (although he used chocolate chip cookies), saving me the trouble, and reported on his results in “Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret”. He mixed up dough and then baked batches that had been chilled for 12, 24, and 36 hours. He reports:

“At 12 hours, the dough had become drier and the baked cookies had a pleasant, if not slightly pale, complexion. The 24-hour mark is where things started getting interesting. The cookies browned more evenly and looked like handsomer, more tanned older brothers of the younger batch. The biggest difference, though, was flavor. The second batch was richer, with more bass notes of caramel and hints of toffee.

Going the full distance seemed to have the greatest impact. At 36 hours, the dough was significantly drier than the 12-hour batch; it crumbled a bit when poked but held together well when shaped. These cookies baked up the most evenly and were a deeper shade of brown than their predecessors. Surprisingly, they had an even richer, more sophisticated taste, with stronger toffee hints and a definite brown sugar presence. At an informal tasting, made up of a panel of self-described chipper fanatics, these mature cookies won, hands down.”

But how did they compare to going straight from the mixing bowl to the oven, with no chilling at all? No data. Also, I spot a methodology problem: although he ensured similar dough consistency by mixing all of the dough at the same time, the increasing chill durations meant that the baking happened at different times. While careful to control for the same cookie sheet, same oven, and same oven temperature, this has to mean that the 36-hour-chilled cookies would be fresher and have an obvious edge over the 12- and 24-hour-old previously baked cookies. To get all of the cookies to come out of the oven at the same time, you’d need to mix up separate batches (hopefully consistently!) at 36, 24, and 12 hours before the baking extravaganza.

No time for that today! My cookies won’t get 36 (or even 12) hours of chilling this time around. But I’ll have satisfied the minimum requirement. Maybe I can do the full experiment another time.

At a recent community event, I came across a booth put up by Champions for Change, a California organization devoted to improving health through the consumption of fruits and vegetables, exercise, and community activism. Their website is interesting to browse, containing not only a plethora of healthy recipes and tips for increasing your physical activity, but also strongly encouraging readers to agitate for change where change is needed. From How to Make Healthy Changes:

Examples of things you can advocate for in your community:

• Ask your local grocery store to sell quality fruits and vegetables at a low price.
• Ask for a local farmers’ market in your community.
• Ask about starting a community garden in your neighborhood.
• Work with local schools to get after-hours and weekend access to play yards, gyms, and/or parks.
• Ask the Department of Transportation to add bicycle lanes in your community.
• Partner with the Department of Parks and Recreation to clean up the walking paths in your local parks.

I was really impressed by how, rather than expecting you to passively receive and implement someone else’s tips for healthy living, this organization emphasizes your active role in identifying ways your community can be improved and then making those changes happen. And that can apply much more broadly than just to physical health issues, of course!

Locally, Champions for Change goes into our elementary schools and shows kids what healthy meals look like. Ideally, we’ll get away from the specter of children unable to identify a tomato! At the booth, they were making and giving out samples of Banana Tortilla Snacks: spread some peanut butter on a wheat tortilla (only in a single stripe, not coating the whole thing), sprinkle some raisins on, then peel a banana and put it on top, then roll the tortilla up. You have an instant, easy snack that can be consumed by the maker or sliced up to provide multiple tasty treats for others. This is considered healthy due to its inclusion of fruits and protein without going overboard on carbs and fat. It’s so tasty that I feel a little skeptical about just how “healthy” it is, but I’m not complaining. :) I could probably do with a larger dose of fruit, vegetables, protein, and exercise in my own life… and maybe even some community-oriented activism!

As a nice complement to my French pronunciation class, today I stumbled across this guide to pronouncing (romanized) Chinese names (thanks, Jerry!). Far from being merely a piece of curious trivia, I found this page to be both fascinating and useful, as many of the papers I read and reference are authored by researchers with Chinese names. Owning a somewhat unusual name myself, it’s always been important to me to learn how others prefer their name to be pronounced.

I was already familiar with the pronunciation of “q” as “ch” (from the character Qiwi Lisolet in A Deepness in the Sky) and “x” as “sh” (from a colleague named Xiaoli). The surprises for me were that “c” is pronounced “ts”, “z” is “ds”, and “zh” is “dr” (!?). There are some other important subtleties, but I think for now if I work on getting those right, then I’ll be on the right track!

In the meantime, you can practice your pronunciation by getting your own Chinese name. Just call me Wang Kang Rui (surname first):

Update: Jerry (a native Chinese speaker) has pointed out that Wang Kang Rui sounds rather masculine, and recommends instead Wan Qi Li, which transliterates to “ten-thousand elegant beauty”. Niiiice!

Edinburgh is where James Hutton delivered his landmark lectures claiming not only that the Earth was older than the then-accepted 6,000 years, but that it was “immeasurably old” given the tools available in that time (1785). (How he would have loved to have lived to the invention of radiometric dating!) Hutton was a great observer, taking careful note of the impact of regular daily erosional processes, and what they could do if extended out over aeons. He also traveled around much of Scotland and England examining interesting rock formations.

His careful observations inspired him to suggest the radical idea that molten rock from deep underground could force its way up through overlying, older sedimentary layers. (At the time, sedimentary rock was held to be the youngest rock type, as all existent rocks were believed to have precipitated out of a global ocean.) One of the formations that supported his claim is “Hutton’s Section”, lying at the base of Arthur’s Seat, just outside of Edinburgh. Naturally this was one of the highest priorities on my sights-to-see list!

Arthur’s Seat is the remnant of a volcano that erupted about 340 million years ago (see Arthur’s Seat’s formation history in sketch format). Edinburgh Castle is built on another volcanic remnant nearby. It’s a good climb up to the top of Arthur’s Seat (823 feet high), which affords an excellent view of the surrounding country. (It was gaspingly windy, although sunny, the day I climbed it, and people and dogs were stumbling around at the top, buffeted by the wind.) But one doesn’t see much geology from up on top of anything!

I found Hutton’s Section near the dip between Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags. The Crags are a volcanic sill, composed of lava that pushed its way out from the volcano’s main chamber to spread horizontally through the sedimentary layers. At Hutton’s Section, you can see a blob of volcanic rock intruding right into a sedimentary layer—from above. (See also the University of Edinburgh’s photo and description of the Section). I felt a moment of quiet, powerful awe as I stood in the same spot where Hutton had stood, seeing almost with his very eyes. (But would I have been able to interpret this evidence as ably as he did?) Later in the day, as I walked around to the north side of the Crags, I could see that there were several places where this same phenomenon occurs, not just at his Section. Repeatability lends credence!

Another stunning geological sight at Arthur’s Seat is Samson’s Ribs, a sprawling cliff on the Seat’s southwest side composed of huge basaltic columns. Such geometric (hexagonal) construction always arrests the eye, since it seems so artificially precise and angular. Yet the crystal formation processes that lead to these structures are quite natural, and the size of the columns provides clues as to the rate at which the magma cooled and formed them.

If you ever get a chance, do stop and see these beautiful structures! And pick up some geocaches while you’re there: Weir’s Way: An Edinburgh Volcano, Arthur’s Seat Earthcache, Let’s Get Radical, and Samson’s Ribs Earthcache. For more information on James Hutton and his contributions to founding geology as a science, I recommend The Man Who Found Time, a book that served as a delightful in-country guide and provided all sorts of fascinating background on Hutton and his insights.

If you thought Scott’s final expedition was gripping, consider Ernest Shackleton‘s 1914-1916 voyage on the Endurance. Shackleton was a colleague of Scott’s and had accompanied him in his first trip to Antarctica. Shackleton himself had mounted a 1908-1909 expedition to the South Pole, but was forced to turn back just 97 miles shy. After Amundsen and Scott reached the South Pole in 1912, Shackleton seems to have grown antsy with the desire to find some other “first” to accomplish. He decided that he would attempt an overland crossing of the entire Antarctic continent, by way of the South Pole. It would constitute a distance of 1800 miles. When he announced the expedition, he received 5,000 applications for ~50 positions! The ad read:

MEN WANTED for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.

The Endurance sailed south, aiming to land at Weddell Bay. But before they could reach the shore, the ship was trapped in pack ice. As winter, and darkness, descended on the crew, they realized they would be stuck in the ice for months, until summer could break up the ice and set them free. So they sat there, wedged in the ice, huddled against the tremendous cold and perpetual darkness. To relieve boredom, they played hockey and football out on the ice. The ship lasted a phenomenal 10 months in this state until finally it succumbed to the pressure of the ice on either side and was crushed. This image, by Shackleton’s photographer, Frank Hurley, shows the end, with the sled dogs in the foreground as though at a funeral. The crew was left stranded on the ice. The Heart of the Great Alone includes many of Hurley’s dramatic and beautiful photographs, well worth browsing.

The ship, however, had not been stationary despite being stuck. Instead, it had drifted with the ice, traveling over 1100 miles north and west, away from Shackleton’s original goal, but closer to the possibility of rescue. Shackleton knew of a hut with food and stores in it, on Paulet Island, 346 miles away. They had three lifeboats, but they couldn’t sail to the island, because there was no open water. Two months later, the ice was weakening beneath them, so he and his 27 men set off across the ice, dragging their lifeboats and stores with them. They ended up camped on an ice floe. Four months later, they finally were able to launch the lifeboats into open water. They landed on a different island, Elephant Island, which had no stores for them to reach. Shackleton decided to set off with 5 men in one of the lifeboats, aiming for South Georgia, in hopes of persuading a whaling boat to return and pick up the rest of his men.

South Georgia was 800 miles (!) away, across one of the stormiest seas in the world at that time of year. Shackleton and his men managed to cross it in an open lifeboat, over 16 days of storms, cold, and thirst. Unfortunately, when they finally landed on South Georgia, they were on the wrong side of the island. So Shackleton and two of his men climbed over the island’s mountains and glaciers (a feat no one had yet achieved), with no sleeping bags or tent, through a day, a night, and the following day. On May 16, they reached the whaling station and, the next day, headed back in a whaling ship. They picked up the other three men on the far side of the island and headed south, but were turned back by pack ice. Two more failed attempts were made until finally, on August 30, 1916, Shackleton was reunited with his men on Elephant Island.

This story is just incredible. And the most incredible thing is that, in all that time, and through all that hardship, not one man was lost. (Frostbitten toes were, however.)

Check out this map of Shackleton’s voyage (beginning and ending in South Georgia), and marvel at this amazing accomplishment:

When Shackleton finally returned to England, any celebration of his achievement was muted by the fact that England was embroiled in World War I, and thousands of men were dying by the day. The great yawning brutal abyss of Antarctica, and its shivery challenges, and the heroic battles Shackleton and his men waged to stay alive, all were dwarfed by the horrors that humans back home managed to inflict upon each other.