Red Meat Allergy?

Found this article that talks about the association between tick bite reactions and red meat allergy in humans.

"Twenty-five patients living in a tick-endemic region of Sydney, New South Wales developed red meat allergy after experiencing large local reactions to tick bites. This represents a potentially novel cross-reaction between an arthropod and a food protein."

Left to right: larva; nymph during engorgement; and adult female during engorgment. Image courtesy of Dr Bernard Hudson

I got a tick bite once before.  It's no fun, but it would truly suck if I developed an allergy to red meat from that!! I am a total omnivore!

Tomato bisque w Vermont cheddar grilled cheese sandwich and pulled pork sandwich w/ rosemary truffle fries!!

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October, Baseball, and Breast Cancer Awareness!

Pink Baseball  Beer Cupcakes to celebrate this month's events!

Oops, September sure flew by!  Let's see, what October's got in store for us...

• October's namesake: Oktoberfest, one of the most famous and the world's largest fair to celebrate, none other than BEER, its consumption of, and all in merrymaking!, begins in late September and goes through this first week of October.  I might need an Oktoberfest dictionary in order to keep up!
• Sports, sports, sports!! <3, <3, <3!!
• MLB regular season wraps up and is gearing up for the post-season.  Congrats SF Giants for already clinching the NL West Title and the Oakland A's could very well be ONLY 1 game behind the Texas Rangers. (The score is 4-3, A's, top of the 9th, at home, as I type.)
• The NFL season is well on its way into the 4th week.  And one of my Fantasy League Teams has a whopping 146 points...but too bad it's my bye week! >=T
• If you are an NBA fan, as I've just received my Warriors Season tickets in hand with pre-season beginning soon, I *cross my fingers* for a good season for us.  Maybe they'll join the bay area sport team craze playoff contentions?  Highly wishful thinking, I know.
• NHL typically starts fairly soon, but we are in the 2012 edition of the lockout.    They seem to have a lockout almost every year, huh?  Just maybe, the SJ Sharks will get further into the playoffs this year, baby steps, baby steps.  Wait, forget baby steps, just bring the Stanley home!
• I can boast to have attend three, including my very first, MLS games this year, rooting for the hometown team, SJ Earthquakes.  So far, I'm 3-0 at our games!  Right now the Earthquakes are 3 points ahead for the Supporters' Shield and in first for the Western Conference for the MLS Cup in December!  We still have all of this month until the playoffs begin.  Since, the MLS season feels so long, doesn't it seem like a year round sport?  Also, the Quakes' new stadium construction breaks ground (largest ever ground breaking!) this month!!  Almost all of the bay area team home locations are getting a change during these few years!
• Oh, and there's lots of Bay Area festivities like this FREE Music Festival at Golden Gate Park: The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Concert, the Blue Angels make a visit to SF for an awesome airshow at Fleet Week, and the America's Cup World Series starts tomorrow!  That's just the tip of the month's events!
• But of course, this is a food blog so here's a teaser for Oktober:
• Off the Grid, "a roaming mobile food extravaganza that travels to different locations daily to serve delicious food, with a free side of amazing music, craft and soul," has a weekly residency at Fort Mason on Fridays, but check out their stops for all other days and times before the winter months roll in and they are on operation hiatus.
• For the South Bay-ers, we have SJ Eats, to cover the southern cities of the Bay Area.
• If Beer is your middle name, and as this month's celebration entails (yes we should be celebrating Oktoberfest all of October!), SF Beer Olympics occur every Friday at Impala!  Play your favorite Beer games like Beer Pong, Flip Cup and Relays to win prizes!  "Like" them on Facebook and RSVP for attendance to get your first beer for $1!
• Almost lastly, BART celebrates 40 years of service with a number of giveaways, including FREE ice cream on specific dates at select stations:
• September 29, 1 pm - 4 pm
• Rockridge & Powell Street
• October 13, 1 pm - 4 pm
• Castro Valley & Fremont
• October 27, 1 pm - 4 pm
• El Cerrito Plaza & Pittsburg/Bay Point
• All Hallow's Eve is on Wednesday, the 31st, of course.  There'll be lots of pumpkin patching, trick-or-treating, and with the month's namesake celebration and Halloween, lots of drinking!  Here's a tip to being safe and not driving under the influence on Halloween night: Call AAA Tipsy Tow at (800) 222-4357 (AAA-HELP) anytime from 6pm to 6am the next day.  Anyone may call, even if you do not have AAA service.
 Yikes! This list only scrapes the surface of October and I've only survived the first of the month!  Anyway, I'd like to leave you with a final mark of this month, the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Hence, all those pinks and pink ribbons you see.  Let us be aware of this disease, support those fighting it, help research, and remember to be aware for early detection.  Happy SpooOktober!

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Don't Worry, Be Angry!

Angry Birds Cake!

I've been busy out tasting, more like simply eating, various foods and frostings and haven't quite updated you all on my adventures. This is what I've been up to: Since presentation is half the part (right?), so I'm working on improving that department! I have been in the artsy-fartsy mode. A few cupcakes, two cakes, lots of time!, and lots of frosting-covered fingers later, tada!, an Angry Birds designed raspberry-filled vanilla cake with buttercream icing! I guess all that 384-well plate pipetting in the science lab paid off!
Science note: Pipetting is a method to measure and transfer a volume of liquid.  Molecular biology techniques require pipetting micro(small)volumes of 0.1-1000uL which is equivalent to 1/1,000,000 of a liter or less into 384 holes of a 128 x 88mm plate.  In layman terms, lots of pipetting tiny amounts into tiny little holes!

Well, the cake was such a hit-in terms of looks-that no one wanted to cut it. :( I joked that I should make an ugly cake so everyone wouldn't mind destroying the masterpiece to dive in and devour the dish! Anyway, we got creative and so far just ate wedges around the bird, keeping the center for later maybe?  Angry Birds is quite popular and addicting to some people!

Savoring the bird....

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The Basics...

Happy Birthday!

Although the heart of my blog may be to share the the Ah-ha!-you-gotta-try-this finds, my own petridish aka platter of good eats or Erleynmeyer flask aka glass of tasty drinks,  discoveries of great protocols aka recipes, and my own experiments with them, you may find other topics of interest to me (It is MY blog of rants and ramblings, you know--neener neener neener!)

Firstly, in the Food Lab department and since we do need to eat in order to live (while some live to eat), I believe that we should not only eat well but also healthily.  Thus, I take aim in searching for healthy, wholesome dishes so I will do my best to note it (ie, Gluten-free, Organic, etc).  As they say, "You are what you eat!"  Do NOT expect workout routines or avoidance of certain ingredients due to allergies or for strict dieticians because I EAT EVERYTHING, well almost ;-D, and I do not have adipose enlargement in my stomach, abdomen, hips, gluteus or any other body part you can name.  Wish you have my genes, don't ya?

As for the Other Interesting topics department, I am a Noobie to the blogging and Twitter world, so I also want to maintain the right understanding and proper uses of these critical functions in social media.  (HTML design for blogs is for the fancy pants, and not only am I not there yet, so far it doesn't seem like a necessity.) If you are a Social Media guru yourself, please bear with me and don't hesitate to share your thoughts.  Otherwise, the rest of us can attempt to figure out this "social media" thing, together :)

So, this leads to the first social media lesson for me:
Nathan Bransford gave me the lowdown on how to use the Twitter "@Reply" and he's got some publishing essentials where I may take away with a thing or two for my blog writing.  Since I am also an avid reader, thanks to e-books and my let's-read-a-book-so-we-can-get-together-to-eat-and-watch-the-movie book club (we had a shorten version of the name somewhere) with 3 of my girlfriends, I find interest in some of Nathan's posts about e-books.

And for you:

<3 Thyself Chocolat Truffles (homemade): who doesn't like chocolate?  Go love yourself and love some chocolate because these are GF (Gluten-Free) AND can be high in anti-oxidiants, you know, flavenoids and polyphenols!  Hayy-ya!  Take that, free radicals!

Organic and sustainable chocolate can be found at NEWTREE Chocolate & Café.  They have a cafe located in San Francisco.  And with this Bloomspot deal you can get $12 for $24 of lunch and chocolate at the cafe and $20 for $40 of gourmet chocolate!

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Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

First post ever and what better way than to celebrate with a gluten-filled birthday cake?? Luckily, the birth of this blog coincides with celebrating not just the 3rd birth year for my niece, SL, but also her baby brother's one month! I must add that it was also the very first birthday of my other niece, EV, 2 days ago! Lots of births and celebrations!

Well, don't birthday cakes always make you happy? They do for many people as there's even a b-day cake flavored ice cream!

Here, my nieces were having at it with the cake frosting, after their favorite auntie, yours truly, showed them how good frosting is when it's on your face! SL decided licking it from her nose was better than eating cake-half strawberry & half pineapple filling- from her plate. Her cousin, LL then decided that the bday girl can't have her cake and eat it alone, so she joined in. Within a few minutes, the girls had frosting on their faces, fingers, hands, and mouths, of course! In the end, it was a birthday party that was way too much fun! Happy thirdday, SL!

Hope you'll wish the Chef's Lab a happy birthday too!

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