Nightmare #13
Last night, I took quite a long time to get to sleep, and when I finally did I kept flickering in and out of consciousness, struggling with my blanket, which was tangled around my feet instead of covering them.
Between that, the vivid dreams I had, and the persistent blinking of the little red light in the corner of the room, I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.
I think I dream a lot. But what makes last night unique is that I remembered the dream, almost fully. I remember experiencing strong emotions quite clearly. I don’t think I realised that I had been dreaming till morning. Which isn’t the same as saying “till I woke up” since I didn’t sleep at all. In a sense. Which is exactly what made it feel so real, and consequently, so scary.
I was walking with my family, up to a large building on a hill. I was walking in front, vaguely aware that they were there because of me. It somewhat felt like the first time I walked down the jetty to Pulau Tekong. It was morning, and we walked along unhurriedly.
We entered the building, which had but one huge room with a staircase spiralling around the room’s perimeter. We joined a long queue of people as they made their way up to a higher floor.
As we climbed and climbed I peeked out and upwards. The queue was long, snaking its way up 3 floors worth of staircase.
The middle of the room was a library with wooden bookshelves and wooden furniture. Ah, this is Reed College, I thought to myself.
Turning back to the queue I suddenly realised (as you tend to do in dreams) that this was the queue for new students’ registration. I became aware of the fact that there were limited vacancies, and that with the queue snaking upwards ahead of me I was not in a good position.
The moments of anxiety before we reached the top were not as harrowing as the despair of sitting in a classroom with about 10 other prospective students, listening to placatory consolations offered by a frumpy old Dean.
The Dean would not say if Admission was based on first-come-first-serve or on merit.
The worst thing for me: not knowing if I would have “qualified”, had I come earlier. I looked at my watch, it was only 8am. we must have arrived at 7, I thought to myself.
I remember saying, frustrated, to my family, “the worst thing is that I don’t even know!” as they sat there watching me, silent and mute, as people in dreams tend to be; there, but not there.
When I finally did come to consciousness the despair lingered on and it took me a while to realise that I did actually have a guaranteed place on hold for Admission in Fall 2014. It’s 11am as I write this and I still feel a little unsettled, because of how real it felt, how vivid it was, and the fact that I have not been thinking about College at all in these past few days.
I feel like the faith that I have that Things Will Work Out is shaky to the point that I’m not even sure if it’s there at all.
- Josh: Alright just gimme a moment and we're gonna get you all set up.
- Denise: Ok. So just to clarify, the incoming calls are free?
- Josh: As long as you are in Edmonton, yes. Someone from outside Edmonton can call you, and it would be free for you. Doesn't even have to be within Canada. You could get a call from space, it'll still be free.
- Denise: Wow, that's great!
- Me: Yep, I'll be sure to tell all my astronaut friends that!
TIME AND SMALL SPACE
by Emily Yoshida
In an interview with The Village Voice shortly after his debut feature film Primer premiered at Sundance in 2004, writer/director/actor/autodidact Shane Carruth explains his primary gripe with time travel in…
“Meticulous, yes. Methodical, educated; they were these things. Nothing extreme. Like anyone, they varied. There were days of mistakes and laziness and in-fighting, and there were days, good days, when by anyone’s judgment they would have to be considered clever. No one would say that what they were doing was complicated. It wouldn’t even be considered new, except for maybe in the geological sense. They took from their surroundings what was needed and made of it something more.”
Just watched this. Thoroughly amazed.
At the Vancouver Greyhound terminal. So pumped to be riding a Greyhound!
"Work from Rest, not Rest from Work."
— Danny Han
A perfect soft-boiled egg is a thing of beauty: a yolk with the texture of sweet condensed milk surrounded by a white that is tender but not runny. But for generations, great cooks have differed on how to achieve this state of perfection reliably.
Some authorities say you should drop a whole egg into boiling water for about three minutes—a bit longer if the egg is extra-large—and then gently peel away the shell. That can leave the yolk too runny, however. And when the egg is peeled, it’s all too easy to tear the tender white into a mess.
The legendary Julia Child advocated a six-minute boil (for large eggs starting at room temperature, or a minute longer if chilled), followed by a rinse with cold water before and also during peeling. That certainly works for the white, but often overcooks the center.
The French food scientist Hervé This argued some years ago that temperature, not time, is all that matters to the egg—cook it to 65 °C / 149 °F, and the result will be heavenly no matter how long it sits in the water. Or so it was thought. For a while, the “65°C egg” was all the rage at high-end restaurants.
But more recent research by the food chemist Cesar Vega , an editor and co‑author of the 2012 book The Kitchen as Laboratory, conclusively showed that both time and temperature matter. Moreover, the white and the yolk contain different blends of proteins, so the white gels at a higher temperature and a different rate than the yolk does. Vega’s rigorous experiments have armed scientifically inclined chefs with the information they need to cook eggs to whatever texture they like.
When the chefs in our research kitchen make soft-boiled eggs, they use a four‑step process that involves a blowtorch or liquid nitrogen. Here is a simpler version better suited to the home kitchen. You’ll need a pot of boiling water, a bowl of ice water, a temperature-controlled water bath, and, if you plan on peeling the eggs, a toaster oven.
The first step is to set the egg whites quickly by submerging them completely in a pot of rapidly boiling water for three minutes and 30 seconds—15–30 seconds less if you like the whites quite loose, as our research chefs do, or 15–30 seconds longer if you prefer the whites fully set. When the time is up, plunge the eggs into the ice water to cool them completely.
Next, cook the yolks to a syrup-like thickness by submerging the eggs in a 64 °C / 147 °F water bath for 35 minutes; it’s important that the water temperature doesn’t change more than a degree or two during cooking. Dry the eggs thoroughly with paper towels. They are now ready to place in egg holders, top, and eat with a spoon. (If you have a Dremel or similar handheld rotary tool, use a thin grinder bit to top the eggs like a pro.)
Alternatively, you can make the eggs easier to peel by drying the shells in a toaster oven. Use a medium-dark toaster setting, and let the eggs heat for two to three minutes to make the shell hot and brittle. It will then readily flake away to reveal a flawless white beneath. Remember to remove the thin skin around the white if it doesn’t come off with the shell.
You can make these eggs in advance and later reheat them in a 60 °C / 140 °F bath for 30 minutes.
By adjusting the temperature of the cooking bath or the time the eggs are in it, you can achieve all kinds of delicious results—and reproduce them flawlessly time after time. Prefer a yolk that is more like honey? Let the egg sit in a 65 °C bath for 45 minutes. For a runnier center, try our recipe for Liquid Center Eggs.
Or try cooking them in a 72 °C / 162 °F bath for 35 minutes (you can skip the boiling step). The yolk will then set just firmly enough that you can peel away the white to obtain a perfect yellow sphere, which makes a striking garnish or dumpling-like addition to a soup.
It’s remarkable how advances in science and precision cooking have given new life to this versatile food.
From Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, a six-volume, 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that ranges from the otherworldly to the sublime.
Sometimes You Gotta Loosen Up
but sometimes I feel like maybe I should be wearing an emotional straightjacket so I don’t hurt anyone except me.
