recipes by dr. mary

or 'cooking as therapy'.
i've been joking recently about how this blog has turned into 'things i cooked while in denial about my life.' whatever, i'm embracing it.
i think i had a peanut sauce breakthrough today. i was futzing around the other day attempting peanut sauce with a mixture of lime juice, peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. it was fine, but nothing spectacular. i tried to marinate tofu in it and cook it up with some chinese noodles, but i was kind of rushing and really cooking more because i was in a bad mood, and it turned out kind of meh.
so today, i decided to spice it up with some green onions and shredded carrots, and maybe more peanut sauce. i thought i would make some over the stove this time. well, i heated up some oil, then added peanut butter, and was kind of all melting it together when i squeezed in some lime juice and all sorts of sizzling took place! i don't know what happened (should have paid more attention in orgo, less time running out the side door 2/2 hangover) but i think i caused some sort of carmelization? it turned all clumpy but smelled really good. kind of like the stuff that sometimes comes on top of your noodles. aha! so then i mashed in some ground ginger and brown sugar with a fork, and sprinkled it on top of the noodles i am packing up for overnight call.

oh, yes, i have suprise overnight call tomorrow. you knew i was cooking to avoid something, didn't you?

anyway, this is what it turned out to be in the end. i think it looks not too bad. certainly better than before. the tofu is totally in need of more crisping, i know. but i think the peanut topping was a breakthrough. certainly tasty.

the list.

a concept totally foreign to anyone who's never been on overnight call, and far too familiar to anyone who has, is The List. you see, when the day team leaves, and the night team takes over, you get a list of all of the patients, with their name/problems/medications/allergies/pending labs etc. you clutch this like the lifeline it is. mrs. jones in room 123 needs something for pain? let me just check her allergies first. they're right here!
it looks something like this. except not so blurry in real life.



most people -at least here- then will fold the far edge of the list over (note the crease), making an elaborate system for tasks to be completed (usually with an empty box to be checked once done) as well as calls you've received overnight to be passed on to the day team when they come back. i prefer a three-part system for coding things, involving red pen and yellow highlighter. you might note the red pen notes scrawled in at signout. i like important checkboxes in red, 'fyi' sort of information in black, and yellow highlighting if things are blending together too much and i'm afraid i might miss them. this explains why every time i bend over, 6 different pens fly out of my pocket and down the hall, rolling along next to the nutragrain bars i've been stashing for 3 a.m., when i will become inexplicably frozen and ravenous-verging-on-hypoglycemic and the cafeteria is closed. and i take piles of blankets out of the warmer and huddle under them.

what was my point?
oh yes.
i decided last night that i need a check-box system for my life. the list never seems to fail. also, it's so satisfying! checked the 3 am hematocrit and it's looking good? check that box right off! cardiac ezymes trending down? check! so maybe i should be implementing this for myself. i'm envisioning check boxes like, "dry cleaning. dentist. eye doctor. cat to dentist." except i'm fairly sure that in real life, unlike the hospital, i would a) lose the list and b) probably never check anything off. plus, people would wonder why i was clutching a stapled packet of 8x11 paper at all times.
sigh.

LOOK AT THE COLOUR!!

one of the really nice things about family medicine is that people really want to all about you. i have played 1000 (ok, 5) different get-to-know-you games over the last few weeks. the unfortunate thing is that everyone brings up hobbies. what do you do for fun? what do i do for fun?

i've decided that i like to cook. i find all the chopping and stirring kind of meditative. (callie, meanwhile, becomes increasingly more infuriated that i'm standing SO FREAKING CLOSE to the cabinet with her snacks and not giving her any.) so anyway, the other day i was at the indian grocery with a friend from mumbai who's doing his residency here, and i found instant rava dosa mix. for those unacquainted, a rava dosa is something like this:

(courtesy of http://www.sailusfood.com/2008/04/09/rava-dosa-a-photo-tutorial/)

crepe-like in appearance, but savory and delicious. in india, i was especially drawn to these when my little american tummy just could not handle any more curried fiber. anyway, the "instant rava dosa mix" had me convinced that any monkey could pull this off, so i set to work this evening.

what a catastrophe! my dosas were getting fissures, they were turning into piles of glop, they wouldn't flip, they were not good. finally, i enlisted the help of this man on youtube. i'm putting the link up because i know you're bored and i think he's hilarious.

still, though, i was struggling. cursing. "i'm trying to make a bleeping dosa and it's not working!" i screamed at my poor friend on the phone, who clearly did not deserve to bear the brunt of my culinary failures. i switched oils. more. less. i let the batter sit longer. i mixed it more. i mixed it less. epic failure, as evidenced by this dosa graveyard:



i guess my mistake was that i was thinking it would be like making pancakes, when really it was totally different. i went smaller. and then, magically, i turned the heat up and it made a difference! check out this humble, hard-won success.


doesn't look like the one up top? shove off, i say! close enough. of course, by this point, i'd eaten so many corners of oil-soaked dough that i wasn't even hungry, but the next time, i'll be ready. which leads me to my point. maybe it was the mojito i was sipping all the while - the indian grocery also sells really cheap limes and mint - but i really kind of enjoyed that little adventure. now i just need an idli pan.

oh, and yes, i am seeing patients these days, and i really kind of love it! it's really hard, and i'm in a constant state of "where do i go? where are the lab slips? are you the nurse i'm working with? what the heck is going on here?" but once that subsides, i think it's going to be really great.