Travelogue: Stellenbosch

This will be a short entry, covering just my last weekend in South Africa, for completeness. In other news, I've gone back and added a few pictures to the previous travelogues.

After my week and a half in Cape Town (and surrounding area), I decided to spend my last weekend elsewhere: WINE COUNTRY. Stellenbosch is a bit more than an hour outside from Cape Town, and is one of the larger towns in South Africa's wine country. I am, of course, a big fan of wine. So last Saturday, I took a tour run by my hostel, which drove me (and some others) to four separate wineries, each of which gave us tastes of 5 or 6 wines. This would be a grand total of 20, but since I was with a group, we also traded some sips with each other - plus, at one winery, I was being indecisive and the woman who gave out samples was kind enough to give me an extra two (small) tastes. At one location, we also had a cheese tasting (ALWAYS fun). So over the course of the day, I bought one very tasty red (Shiraz, from Fairview winery), one excellent sauvignon blanc (from Boschendal - yes, one of the wineries was in fact the location of the conference dinner, but since I really liked the sauvignon blanc we had that night I was happy I could go back and purchase it.) And of course, I'd previously bought a dessert wine at Delheim (which we stopped at during the after-conference tour). So I brought home a total of one red, one white, and one dessert wine, all three of which are delicious!

Regarding the rest of my time in Stellenbosch, I spent most of Friday just wandering around the town (in and out of shops, a local botanical garden, and finished with a delicious dinner from a culinary arts school's restaurant). On Sunday, I rented a bike and biked 10 km (each way) to Jonkershoek Nature Reserve, a nice little park where I found a picnic table and had a nice little spread (previously purchased for this very purpose). Just some cheese, crackers, figs, juice, and zebra pate. Yes, you read that right, ZEBRA PATE. I found this at an AWESOME little store in Stellenbosch (which allowed no pictures inside, alas) called Oom Samie Se Winkel (Uncle Samie's Store), which had the most amazing things. Like ostrich and peacock feathers, all sorts of spices, wine and odd spirits, random and obscure food items (like zebra pate), old books, and a full miscellany of old fashioned trinkets and oddities. If you ever go to Stellenbosch, go to this shop, seriously. Anyways, the zebra pate was interesting, but didn't have a strong taste (I could kind of imagine it was a little horse-ish, from the one time I tried horse in Europe, but I might have been imagining it, because honestly, it wasn't very high quality pate). So know I can say I've eaten zebra! But I had a nice picnic in general, before biking back. On my bike trip TO the nature reserve, I was cursing my lack of fitness, because it felt like rather a struggle at times. It wasn't until I biked back, however, that I realized that the REASON I was having so much difficulty on the way there was that it had been almost entirely uphill - even the parts that seemed flat were gently sloping up. There were some exceptions, but it was only REALLY downhill close to the park itself, when I was already tired. So on the way back, the uphill parts were the first thing (when I was well rested) and the rest was generally down, and so the trip back was an absolute breeze and felt like it took no time whatsoever! I spent the rest of the afternoon by (and in) the pool at the hostel, enjoying the sun for a bit more before returning to chilly New York the next day.

Not much else, my flights back to the United States were uneventful, taking 24 hours including the 4 hour layover in Munich (NOT enough time to leave and come back again). Just read, slept, watched movies. I was again impressed that Lufthansa gives complementary wine and after-dinner drinks to folks during the in-flight dinner. Watched "Wreck-it-Ralph" (I'd seen it in theaters, and enjoyed it a lot, REALLY fun movie) and Pretty Woman, read and played some games on my iPad mini. Normal in-flight stuff. I'm still not quite on my normal sleep/eating schedule, even 3 days after getting back to NY, but a 7 hour time difference IS a bit to adjust to - and it just means I'm waking up early and going to bed a bit early, which, while unusual for ME, means I'm actually on many people normal Eastern Standard Time schedules, where as usually, I feel I'm somewhere on like Mountain Time. So, back to normal now, and back to work!

Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

Travelogue: Random Moments from Conference Week

Cheetah Encounter: Sunday afternoon, heading towards the harbor, I was walking with a few other people and we decided to take a bit of a shortcut, that they had taken earlier. It was early enough in the week that we didn't actually know the long way around, in fact - I was just following the crowd. But our way was blocked off, by, of all things, a Cheetah. Yes, there was a live cheetah blocking our path. Sitting on a table, on a leash, held by 2 handlers, looking quite bored, and possibly tranquilized somewhat. Apparently there was another conference going on, and they had a live cheetah as some sort of entertainment, and they were holding an event right in the hotel plaza where we wanted to cut. They eventually let us by, holding the cheetah back, but I got within about 2 meters of it. NOT what I expected to encounter in the Cape Town harbor...

Kicked out of the Aquarium: The conference reception was held Sunday evening at the aquarium in the harbor, and we had a great open view into the shark tank, and around the lobby. There was also a set of unlocked doors that led into the rest of the building. So I, and several other astronomers including my advisor, naturally wanted to explore the rest of the aquarium. And it was super cool - the lights were all dim, including in most of the tanks, and we could wander around the floor looking at giant crabs, jellyfish tanks, and so on. Until we were informed that no... we weren't actually supposed to be in there. Oops! Who knew a closed door meant "do not enter"?

Local Cuisine: There has been a surprising lack of distinct South African cuisine around here, though I've had a few things that are apparently local. The dried fish that I've mentioned, a couple desserts (a gingery pudding, brandy sticks), something called Bobotie, which is like a shepherd pie only with a egg custard top. Probably the most different thing I've tried, however, is a local meat that has popped up several places. It's generally not cooked in any particular style, but the meat itself is local: Springbok. I'd never HEARD of springbok, so naturally I ordered it at first opportunity. Its a (very cute) type of antelope, which are very common in the area. I haven't seen any live ones, but they're pretty tasty. The meat is a little tough, so they tend to be braised or roasted for long periods of time. Kind of like a tough venison, is the closest taste I can describe. Not bad, certainly worth a try. Hopefully I'll find some other local cuisine soon - there are some local curries, for example, which I've been wanting to try... but haven't found any place that serves them.

Robben Island

Robben Island: Of course, I had to go for a bit of the historical side of Cape Town and South Africa, definitely a region with a lot of it. Wednesday afternoon was given off to all of us, and we were given the option to take a tour of Robbin island, the prison island where Nelson Mandela (and other political prisoners) were incarcerated. This was a boat ride across the water to the island, followed by a bus tour around it: stopping at a scenic overlook where we had a great view of the city and Table Mountain, one of the prison yards, the quarry where people were doing their hard labor (as well as secretly teaching and talking with each other). And finally, one of the ex-prisoners there gave us a tour of the prison itself, pointing out Nelson Mandela's cell and the garden where he hid his writings, and telling us about details of prison life (for example, that your food rations depended on your skin color/ethnicity). Overall, a very interesting trip.

Countryside in the Winelands

Boschendal: For the conference dinner, we went out about an hour outside the city to the wine country, to the vineyard/restaurant Boschendal.  Beautiful countryside, lots of tasty food, and some VERY excellent sauvignon blanc  - I may have to buy some at some point before I leave, if I see it again. But most awesome of all - I hadn't actually thought much about what kind of sky I would see in the south as far as specifics go. I don't know the southern sky very well at all, in fact, so I just thought "oh, I'll learn some southern constellations" and didn't think much more about it. We'd been to tour the SAOO (South African Optical Observatory), but we had to leave before it got truly dark, and that was much closer to the city anyway. But when we went to Boschendal - that's over an hour outside Cape Town, so you could actually see some LOVELY night sky - the Milky Way, for one thing, which is a baseline for how good a sky you've got - if you can see that, it's got to be a pretty decent sky (at least, that is what I think, having lived in NYC and Baltimore). But I ALSO discovered how Large and Cloud-like the Large Magellanic Cloud actually IS. It hadn't crossed my mind, but of course, it IS in the southern sky, and it was known before there were actual telescopes, so it's quite visible by eye down here on a sufficiently dark night. It had to be pointed out to me, because it is very easily be mistaken for a cloud, but it was a little taller and at least 3 times as wide as the full moon would be (though happily it was a moonless night). It's undoubtedly even larger on a darker night, as it gets even more diffuse around the edges. Super cool. I also had some other constellations pointed out to me, most notably the southern cross. I commented it looked more like a small square than a cross (since I'm used to the northern one, which is quite a bit larger and has a central star which serves as a crossing point), but I can pick that one out now. The only constellation I could recognize myself was Orion, which was upside down to what I'm used to seeing! This weekend I'm going to be going on an after-conference tour to SALT (South African Large Telescope) in the Sutherlands, where I hope to see even more of the southern sky, maybe even the SMALL Magellanic Cloud. It will be a lot further from the city, so I have high hopes for a clear and dark night sky.

Actual Astronomy: Of course, I'm at this conference for a reason, not just to play tourist. It's the first all-novae conference in a decade - one of a series, this is the 4th such conference in ~40 years. I'm meeting scientists from around the world, all of whom work on the same type of object that I do. I'm introducing myself and my work to the community, meeting people who may become future collaborators, exchanging ideas, and absorbing all the science I can. And of course, it's my first international conference - I gave my first ever talk at a conference, on radio observations of the nova V1723 Aql, which seemed to go pretty well. I even got several compliments on it! Certainly an interesting topic (in my completely unbiased opinion!). This is an object which by all appearances, when it first went off in 2010, was a completely typical classical nova (at least in optical observations). In fact, the reason our group (see blog post "The Astronomer's Day On") started observing it was in the hopes of getting a good "baseline" for radio behavior. While the late time observations fit predictions pretty well, there was an early time 'bump' in the light curve (here this means the brightness of the nova over time, when observed in radio at various frequencies) which one can't explain at all with the simple model. So my talk described our speculation about the nature of the bump, in addition to the late time fitting to models which estimates the total ejecta mass and showing off our observations in general. Our radio group had quite a good showing at this meeting, and in fact I met people who I've been collaborating with but hadn't physically met before. In addition, I got to talk to many new people, from people whose papers I have read, to those working on topics I didn't know much about at all. About 90 people, from 22 countries, were in attendance; the various venues, activities, and schedules were all well organized; and the talks were by and large quite interesting - all in all, a very good conference!

Me, giving my talk (taken by Allen Shafter!)

Cooking for One

My junior and senior year of college, I was in a cooking rotation with two other people: Benson and his roommate, Abe. I'd sometimes eat with the other girls in my house, but my schedule was such that it was more similar to Benson and Abe's schedules (the other two science majors) then it was to the 4 other people residing in my house. So we'd in general grocery shop together and plan meals together, and every third day or so I'd cook. It cut costs, we almost never had leftovers or eat the same thing twice, we all had different recipe banks to go to so things changed up regularly, and on days you cooked, we had deal that you didn't have to do the dishes (Ah, dishes, my old nemesis - I dream of future days when I will have a dishwasher!). The three of us enjoyed each others cooking and meals, but when it came to basic snacks, we had very different tastes. As I've said in previous posts, I really like salt. I tend to salt my foods a little more than others I cook with might - I don't get complaints, in general, I'm just a little heavy handed. And when I want something to snack on, well, I want it to be salty! Popcorn, crackers, pretzels, or whatever. I attribute this to the fact that my parents had a "cracker jar" rather than a "cookie jar" to raid when I was hungry as a child. Abe, on the other hand, was sweet: he had a constant supply of Skittles, Starbursts, soda, and similar. And finally, there was Benson. As salt is to salty and sugar is to sweet, MSG is to umami (savory). Benson is Chinese-American, grew up in San Francisco, and the snacks of HIS choice were the wasabi-coated peas, the shrimp flavored crackers, and, for lack of better description, the crunchy MSG-coated string beans. We joked that we needed a bitter and a sour person to add to our group - but alas, never managed to complete the set. So in addition to the salt and sugar lying around, we also had a shaker of MSG to add to our soups and stir fries for added taste. I rather grew to appreciate it, and still have a shaker around my kitchen, and I certainly don't have a fear of MSG. Such fears, I think, are overhyped - it's really the rare person who reacts badly to it, and it's NOT that bad for you, any more then a bit of salt or a bit of sugar is. In excess, well, sure, but again, so are salt and sugar.

As I've stated before, now that I'm in grad school I generally just cook for myself when I'm in my apartment. When I have a roommate (and I'm currently in between roommates) I will offer food if they're around, but for the most part, food is made just for me. This tends to cut certain dishes out of my repetoire - one's that are just too massive and that I'd have to eat for a week, or foods that would leave me with a lot of leftover fresh vegetables which would spoil before I could eat it all (I almost never buy lettuce, lest I be forced to have salad EVERY DAY until it's gone). One such dish was a regular in college - Chicken with 30 Cloves of Garlic. I'm a huge fan of garlic in general, and a whole chicken is great for when you have a group of people. Usually some people like white meat, and some like dark, so you can generally get the part of the bird you are most fond of (DARK MEAT!). And when you were through, you'd have a chicken carcass and some bones and scraps, which were easy to toss in a bag in the freezer to save for making stock later. In fact, my bone bag was rather a running joke in my college house; it was clearly labeled "Jen's Bones" and the idea was that not only did I make chicken (and turkey, and duck) soup, but  that I was keeping other sorts of bones as well. Our apartment mate Kaila lived in constant terror that we were all trying to fatten her up for "Kaila Soup" (which as you can see that we've still not made, as evidenced by her recent visit!).

Anyway, I've not made Chicken with 30 Cloves of Garlic in several years at this point. But a few weeks ago, I ran into a sale on cornish game hens at the grocery store. Now, these are small birds, not even 2 lbs, so it occurred to me that it was about the right size for me to make for myself, with a few leftovers. And that a cornish hen could probably be cooked in anyway that a full sized bird could be cooked, just by changing the cooking time a bit. So I bought two. One is currently in my freezer, but for the other I used a recipe I found online which is practically identical to my recipe, but using a game hen instead of a chicken, here.



 Chicken with 30 Cloves of Garlic
1 cornish game hen (or more usually, a whole chicken!)
30+ cloves of garlic (roughly 1.5 heads)
3 tbs olive oil
1/3 cup chicken stock (or 1 cup for a whole chicken)
1/3 cup white wine (1 cup for a whole chicken)
1 lemon, quartered
salt, pepper, rosemary (preferably, but not necessarily, fresh)



The recipe itself is simple. Rub the bird with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt, pepper, and rosemary. You can also mince a clove or two of garlic and rub the bird with that as well. Put a quarter of a lemon and some seasoning into the cavity of the bird (along with the organs, if it came with them... delicious liver, neck, heart, and giblets! I actually quite enjoy these parts, though some people do not.). Then put the bird in a roasting pan, and toss the garlic all around it.

While I peeled the garlic, you don't actually need to - I've made it before without doing so, and if you cut off the bottom before cooking the garlic, you can just squeeze it once it's cooked and it pops out the end. But I actually find it kind of relaxing to peel garlic once in a while, so I went for it anyway - it's easier to eat that way! It doesn't make a huge difference either way. And if I'm being honest, I didn't use 30 cloves of garlic - I only had 27 available, alas! But I think that's close enough, don't you?

Next, baked your game hen at 425F for 25 minutes. Mix the wine and chicken stock, and after those 25 minutes, turn down the heat to 350F, pour the liquid over the bird, and cook for another 35, basting every 10 minutes or so. For a full chicken, well, it depends on the weight, but I'd do a similar temperature changing so you can get the crisp skin. But it will then be much longer baking in the second part, because... size. Once your bird is cooked (judging by a meat thermometer, and when the juices run clear when you cut it), you can remove it from the oven and carve it up to serve. For the game hen, this meant that I cut it in half lengthwise with my kitchen shears and ate half of it, saving the rest for the next days' lunch. Half a game hen was just about the right amount for one, especially with veggies for a side. For a chicken, obviously, carve it like you would any other chicken.

You can just use the juices as a sauce, at this point, but I wanted something a little thicker and saucier, so I strained out the garlic and other particulates and cooked it down a bit in a sauce pan. I thought it needed a little more flavor, so I added a little bit of salt, msg, lemon juice (a few drops) and apple cider vinegar to brighten it up a bit! I've read numerous places that adding a bit of acidity can really improve a dish, and it turned out very nicely here, especially considering I improvised the additions! So overall, I would call this a very successful adaptation, and I would happily get game hen as a replacement for whole chicken again in the future. Since cooking for one can be a bit aggravating at times, it's always nice to find a good way to moderate my serving sizes and open up my repertoire a bit!