Sent to you by David via Google Reader:
The pace of research has noticeably slowed today here in the US. Most industrial labs will be empty tomorrow, Friday, and through the weekend, and even the academic labs will have fewer grad students and post-docs hanging out in them. I'll be cleaning up some previously run reactions, setting up anything that can comfortably go for a few days, and otherwise getting ready for Monday myself. This is not a day to try any tricky chemistry.
I also have a manuscript that I'm working on, and it would be a good use of my time to try to finish up its experimental section. The paper will likely be of interest to the readership here, so I'll be sure to note when it makes it into print. It'll be good to hit the scientific literature again; everything that's gone onto my list for the last year or two has been residual stuff from the Wonder Drug Factory, and there's not much of that left, naturally.
And I'll be observing a blog holiday until Monday as well, unless of course, something big happens. (I rather doubt that anything will, and considering what "something big" usually means, I rather hope nothing does). I'd like to wish all the US readers a happy Thanksgiving, and if anyone in the rest of the readership wants to try cooking a turkey, well, it's not as hard as it's cracked up to be. If you soak it in some salt water beforehand, it's quite tasty (my wife and I usually buy a kosher turkey, since they've already been salted). Allow me to finish up by furnishing the details of last night's synthetic work, at home in the kitchen with my two children:
Melt 3 tablespoons (43 grams) of butter and two squares of unsweetened baking chocolate (I used a coffee cup set in a pan of boiling water). Beat 3 eggs in a good-sized bowl. Then, in a small saucepan, combine 1 cup (240 mL) of corn syrup and 1/2 cup table sugar (100 g), and bring the mixture to a boil for about two minutes. (It doesn't look at first as if the sugar will go into solution, but it will - you naturally don't want this to cool down, though, once it has). Add the butter/chocolate mixture to the sugar syrup (they're not all that miscible, but do what you can), and add this gemisch slowly to the beaten eggs, stirring vigorously. (As I explained to my kids, if you were to dump these together with no stirring, you'd end up with chocolate-covered scrambled eggs; I try to teach them some technique along the way). Stir in a teaspoon (5 mL) of vanilla extract, 1 1/4 cups of pecan pieces (about 130 grams, I think), and pour the resulting slurry into a pie crust, your own or the store's. Bake about 45 minutes at 375F (190C, gas mark 5 for you subjects of the Queen). Yield: one chocolate pecan pie.
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