Thursday, October 11, 2012

Eating our fruit tart pondering how to prove someone is in Maine

This was a day when we could have used some good technology like you see in the CSI programs.  You know the one's where the person calls on the cell phone and the pursuers instantly know where the person is.  None of this has anything to do with today's cake however.  It was a fruit tart made at the Whole Foods Bakery and is a good standard cake hour selection.
Another Whole Foods Treat

Good Pile of Fruit - makes us feel healthy!

Check out that slice of pineapple!

The fruit arrangement must be creative!

It's is a classic floury crust on the bottom, layered with vanilla pastry cream, with ample fruit on top. The fruit is bound together with a glaze usually containing a little gelatin to keep the fruit from falling all over the place. Part of the enjoyment when having one of these is finding out what fruit is on the top.  This had a nice selection of berries - including some monster blackberries - and some big chunks of pineapple which is not always seen. How the fruit is laid and displayed on the top is always interesting and part of the creative process of making this thing.   The other added benefit to this is you feel like you are eating something just a titch healthier than a cheesecake.  A fruit tart also will frequently attract a few more takers of people who are otherwise watching their waistlines.  That was the case today. It was a good, popular, tasty treat that everyone enjoyed.
Looking good!
Pasty cream below the abundance of fruit!
The missing Portland, Maine colleague had a presentation and poster at the annual research celebration. Our colleague was even in the running for a young investigator award for work on obesity and intellectual development in children - paraphrased perhaps inappropriately as "fat kids are dumber".  This isn't entirely new!

http://www.steadyhealth.com/Obesity_lowers_intelligence_t85271.html

She didn't win the award but a certificate of participation was presented.  All of a sudden she turned up in Maine calling one of our willingly helpful people asking if they could take down the poster and get the certificate as being in Maine prevented being able to do it in person. Our colleague was happy to help, took down the poster and got the certificate showing it to us at cake hour.

Hey everybody, look where I am! It's a poster - get it!

It was then that someone impishly suggested that the researcher had actually not left for Maine yet but was still in RI but not willing to do the things herself. That kind of got people wondering.  Our helpful friend then called the researcher to let it be known that the stuff had been collected and confirmed that she was indeed in Maine. This is where we could have used some kind of CSI tracker. All different ideas were floated...call again and ask how the weather is and then check it on weather.com for instance.  That was kind of a silly one. But if we could have told where the cell phone pinged like they do on the TV shows we could have confirmed the whereabouts if for nothing else than to satisfy our own curiosity and to help our helpful friend not feel like she might have been had.  Was she or wasn't she at long last in Maine?

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