Mince pie induced musings

The graduate student is the butt of many jokes. And, on the face of it, we appear to be prime butt-of-joke candidates. Impoverished, over worked, undernourished...

Hold on. Undernourished? Us? The most educated citizens of the (supposedly) most advanced countries in the world? If you believe PhD comics (normally a depressingly accurate portrayal of graduate life), then most PhD candidates subsist on ramen noodles and free pizza.

While we cannot deny exploiting many a buffet of free pizza, the ramen noodle accusation is less accurate. Neither author of this blog has touched ramen noodles during our time as graduate students, and do not intend to start (at least not until we have to finish our dissertations). Good healthy food is less absent from our diets than popular culture might suggest.


But just who are we?

We are two graduate students, both paleontologists (people who study fossils). Unfortunately we live in separate cities but close enough to only spend weekends together.

The other day, Moropus's kid brother took his first foray into cooking and his Jerk Tofu (surprisingly good) inspired a conversation on where to find recipes online. A Google search churns up numerous sites with vast lists of recipes. Unfortunately they are invariably rubbish, and the occasional gem is buried beneath the chaff.

We came to the conclusion that the best online recipes are found on foodblogs. Not only do the bloggers stake their reputation on their dishes but they generally post mouthwatering pictures to boot. No contest.

To preserve the good (‽) reputation of graduate students and show that a healthy(er) diet on a shoestring budget is at least theoretically possible, we have created this blog. Each weekend we will embark on a culinary project which we will bring to you, our imagined reader. We have three goals

1. Cheapness
2. Simplicity
3. Tastiness

To start the New Year off with a bang, we will be making mince pies, a seasonal British recipe. Unfortunately good mincemeat is somewhat scarce in the US so we chose to make our own earlier today. In our next post we'll return with some scrumptious piccies, but for now, here is a taster of what is to come:

TTFN,
Moropus and Minmi