Carols, Chips, and Chanting!

Like the alliteration?  So do I.

I was rather productive today!  Unfortunately not in the realm of academics, but that's what Sundays are for!!

Earlier this afternoon, my acapella group sang Christmas carols in the Pittsburgh Strip at the Pittsburgh Public Market.  I caught an early bus, and since it was such a nice day (50 degrees and sunny!), I got off about a mile early and walked to the market.  The Strip is such a happening place on weekends, full of people and shops (and wonderful smells!) so I highly enjoyed that little walk.  Finally we all met up, warmed up, and sang our little set list to the market.  People loved it!

Afterwards, I walked around the market.  It's quite small, nothing like the Central Market at home, but there were lots of little vendors selling handmade jewelry, treats, produce, and other fun things.  I sampled some maple bacon coffee, and it was surprisingly good!  Mostly maple flavored with a hint of smokiness.  A bunch of us hovered around a vendor selling different types of jams, so I sampled some, and they were delicious!  Especially the ones made with wine and beer :)  I walked around and enjoyed the colors, "appreciated" (as Dr. Schumann would say) the tempting baked goods, and went on my way home.

Once home, I had a couple hours to kill before my next engagement, so I decided to try out a recipe I had been wanting to do for a while - baked potato chips!  I had a regular potato and a sweet potato, so I tried out both.  I don't normally eat potato chips, but these were so good that I don't think I'll ever eat commercially produced chips again!

Let's all just appreciate the thinness of these slices, shall we? :)

What you need:
Potatoes
Water
Olive Oil
Good knife skills or a mandoline
Optional: Salt/Pepper/whatever you want to season them with

Preheat oven to 400F.  Slice the potatoes to desired thickness.  The thinner you cut them, the crispier they get.  I don't own a mandoline, so I just tried cutting them the thinnest I could possibly manage, which ended up being about 1/8 inch.  If you're using regular potatoes, soak them in water for about 10 minutes to release some of the starch.  Sweet potatoes don't have to be soaked.  Put all the slices in a bowl, then drizzle with olive oil and use your hands to make sure each slice has some oil on it.  No need for a lot of oil! I probably used about 1/2 tbsp over 2 potatoes, just enough to make sure each slice had seen some oil.

Lay them out on a foil-lined baking sheet in a single layer, and sprinkle with whatever spices you want.  I used a bit of salt and freshly ground pepper.  Stick them in the oven and set a timer for 12-15 minutes, depending on the size of your slices.  The smaller and thinner pieces will obviously cook faster, so you don't want those burning while the bigger ones are still cooking.  Take the tray out and remove the chips that are done, then let the larger/thicker pieces cook for another 5-8 minutes.  My large pieces took about 20 minutes total, but yours may vary.  Remove them from the baking sheet, let cool, and enjoy! (Or you can enjoy them hot, they're really good that way too!)

I'll be taking the chips to school tomorrow so some of my friends (*cough*guineapigs*cough*) can taste them and see if they're still tasty a day later.  We'll be practicing doing physical exams on each other since we have to do our first full exam on a standardized patient this week.  At the very least, the chips will let us hear bowel sounds!  (Sorry, that might have been too much info for the general public...)

Today is December 1, and that means it's World AIDS Day, a day to bring awareness to HIV and AIDS.  (Pittsburgh)Red, the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, Pitt's graduate school association, and many more organizations came together tonight for a rally and march down Forbes Ave.  There was a rally at Carnegie Mellon with several speakers, including Pittsburgh's mayor, then everyone marched down Forbes Ave with candles to Pitt's campus, where there was free food, free HIV testing, and a bunch of organizations (PittMed LGBTPAM, Planned Parenthood, Rainbow Alliance, ONE, etc) tabling with information.  I had volunteered to help out on Pitt's side with food, so I was unable to take part in the march, but it was amazing seeing the 100+ participants walking down Forbes.  The music and food brought in a lot of people that were just passing by, so I thought it was really successful!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I've been up to a lot since my last post!  I should really write more often...

A couple weeks ago, I went bowling with my FAST group and another FAST group.  For those of you  not in the know, FAST stands for "Faculty and Students Together."  The name is cheesy, I admit!  Each group consists of a faculty advisor, two MS2's, and five MS1's.  I'm pretty sure I have the best group!  We ditched our genetics syllabus for a few hours and enjoyed pizza at the other group's advisor's house and then a couple rounds of bowling at a cute little alley in Squirrel Hill.  While I didn't do horribly, let's just say bowling is not my calling...I'll stick to med school!

I don't think we have enough bowling balls...

My acapella group had another performance, this time in the Heinz Chapel, a gorgeous Gothic-style chapel in which my mom SWEARS I'll be getting married sometime in the future... :P  The acoustics were amazing.  I don't even think we needed the microphones.  Even our warmups sounded great!

I apologize for the poor quality of the picture, it was taken on my phone!

So after all that fun stuff, we took our genetics final.  But the second that thing was over, I was on my way home for Thanksgiving!!! I was very much looking forward to seeing my family, meeting my brand new nephew, snuggling with my puppy, and, of course, eating some delicious food!!

Here is my "puppy" (aka a lovable 6 y/o 100lb black lab/MOOSE) impatiently waiting for his chance to lick my empty yogurt cup clean.  He is so cute!!!

Are you done yet? Are you done yet?  Huh? huh? Are you done now?  My turn?  *drools*

Thanksgiving was great!  I had no academic obligations (well I did, I just chose to ignore them) so it was nice to take a break for a few days and just relax with family.  My brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew came up from Alabama for the holiday, and of course my sister, brother-in-law and 2 nephews in the north came down for dinner as well.  It was a full house!!  Next year will be crazy with 4 kiddos running around!  This year I was very excited because I finally got to cook something!  I made the stuffing, and I also made two appetizers - a healthy spinach artichoke dip and honey lime shrimp (funny story behind that...).  I'll make a separate post about those!

Not much has happened after break.  We started a new course, "Cellular and Pathological Basis of Disease," aka Cell Bio, and it's pretty interesting so far.  I have to do some major practicing for our physical exam class, as we're expected to be able to do a full physical exam in just a couple weeks!  Eek!  Where does time go???

Tonight I volunteered at a soup kitchen in the basement of a gorgeous church in East Liberty.  Every night, a different group of people comes in to cook a meal for about 40 men who eat and then sleep there overnight.  I went with a group of students from the med school, who go once a month, but this was my first time.  We try to serve a healthy, well-balanced meal to encourage healthy eating.  The meal tonight was chicken and baked potatoes with cooked broccoli, mushrooms, and onions.  I helped to butterfly the chicken breasts into two thin pieces and then helped to season them.  Everything smelled so good!  After dinner, we got to chat with some of the men and practiced taking their blood pressure.  It was my first time taking a BP on someone who was not a classmate or family member, and I did pretty well!  It was very fulfilling to step away from school for a night and help to provide fresh, healthy food to people in a nearby community.  I can't wait to go again!

That's some well-seasoned chicken!

It smelled amazing!!!

Stay tuned for some cooking posts!

A Very Parisian Birthday!

My parents came to town this weekend to celebrate my 23rd birthday, albeit a few weeks late, but my actual birthday fell on an exam week and then my nephew was born the following week!  Needless to say, October was a very eventful month - we finished anatomy with a 3-hour final that was worth 50% of our grade (eek!), we took a full biochemistry course in 2 weeks and had a final in THAT (double eek!!), I turned 23, my adorable nephew was born, and we had some amazing fall weather (as well as a hurricane...)

Their visit just happened to coincide with my acapella group's concert, so I was really happy that they were able to come and see us perform!  The group is made up of students in graduate school and health professional schools; it's mostly medical students, but we do have some other professions represented as well.  I thought we sounded AMAZING, and it was really fun.  A lot of my friends from my class came to support us and enjoy the show, so I was really excited to show them what we've been working on since school started!

After the concert, we had reservations at Paris 66, a cute French bistro in East Liberty.  I am a HUGE FAN!  I went to Paris while on a trip to Europe back in high school and fell in love with the city and everything French.  I have Eiffel Towers all over my room, and I really like French design.  We enjoyed a pound of mussels (moules) and french fries (frites) for appetizers, and then I had the Crevettes Provencales: shrimp, vegetables, and linguini in a white wine sauce.  Yum!!!  For dessert, it was an apple tart with homemade caramel sauce, and a sea salt caramel macaron (on the house, because it was my b-day!).  I had never had a macaron before, but I am a big fan!!

1 pound of mussels (cooked in white wine, butter, garlic, onions) and pommes frites

Cheesy goodness!!!!

Birthday macarons!  Mine was the sea salt caramel on the bottom, my dad had the raspberry and pistachio

Massive, delicious apple tart with homemade salty caramel sauce! Delicious!!

I am a huge fan of this place!!

 For brunch this morning, we decided to continue with the French theme and went to Crepes Parisiennes, a creperie in Oakland.  I got my usual nutella and banana crepe, and we shared a chocolate croissant.  So much decadence!!

Nutella-y goodness!

I had a really fun weekend, but unfortunately now I have to get back to studying :(  Only a few more weeks until Thanksgiving, where I get to cuddle with my puppy and see my 3 nephews and niece!  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

I have a recipe I want to try out during a study break today, so I'll post pictures of that later. :)