Germy

We've been living in a rental house for nearly a year now. This comes after living in a house we owned (well, along with the bank, of course) for nearly 4 years. During those years I managed to put together a vegetable garden, of varying degrees, every year. Denver, where our house is (we are currently absentee landlords, as it is being rented) is a relatively difficult place to grow a vegetable garden -- especially compared to northern, coastal California. In Denver, most plants are only safe after Memorial Day, as this is the historic place marker for frosts and freezing temperatures. Of course, rain never comes in gentle showers on the front range, and often, during the summer, if a torrential downpour isn't passing overhead, precipitation comes in the form of  hail storms , which can not only destroy tomato plants (as I witnessed a few years ago) but reek havoc in general. Hopefully, Old Man Winter waits around until the end of September before visiting the Mile H...

Even though the Supreme Court ruling on the PPACA (erroneously referred to as ObamaCare, even though it is a re-hash of what the Republican Party  offered as an alternative to what Hillary Clinton put together and proposed for health care reform in the 1990's, and furthermore the "individual mandate" was an idea trumpeted by Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation as a way to kill medicaid) wasn't released yesterday, I wanted to share my latest feelings on the subject.  My personal (albeit a pipe-dream) hope is that the PPACA is struck down, and in the aftermath, congress would rally and pass an intelligent, well thought out modified single payer system -- one that would be in place by the time I am practicing medicine.* Here is my reasoning behind that hope.  Right now, those of us with private health insurance are already at the mercy of "death panels." That's right! I spent years in the emergency department watching this scenario play out. If ...

I love grilled pineapple. This week I thought about how I wanted to incorporate pineapple into a meal that was a little more than the canned pineapple ring thrown on a barbie. I looked around the internet. In fact, even my  favorite food related site  had nothing to offer in the way of the level of grilled pineapple that I was seeking. I found many recipes that featured meat stuffed with pineapple, but nothing with pineapple stuffed with meat! Last week I stuffed pork with bacon and cheese. This week, I'm gonna stuff pineapple with chicken and onions and wrap it in bacon.  This recipe is perfect for four people. Here is the ingredients list.  -2 large pineapples -1.5 large yellow onions -0.5 cup brocoli -21 Asparagus spears -3 Chicken breasts -9 slices thick sliced bacon - .75 cup balsamic vinegar -3 sprigs rosemary -2 tblspns honey -1.5 cup couscous -0.5 tblspn chicken bouillon -2 tblspn olive oil -18 toothpicks (not for eat...

Many of my fellow students are living on student loans alone, which is tough. Thankfully, my wife is gainfully employed (with great benefits to boot) which means that, while some aspects of our life resemble that of a broke graduate student's, we are afforded some luxuries. And, what does luxury mean to us? Costco: the western hemisphere's shining temple of bulk savings, with the modern gilding of naked cantilevered I-beams and glossy concrete floors, where wild fork-lifts roam and the worshipers wait patiently for the sample lady and then for the validating highlighter mark before returning to the harsh world. Today, during our bi-monthly trek to pay our respects we came home with a pork sirloin tip roast, which is what tonight's meal will feature. In general, I prefer to cook cuts of meat on the grill, but certainly a pork sirloin tip roast does not demand a grill (perhaps, like a beef sirloin steak might) but since the temperature today was in the mid-nineties, gri...

I've been away for a long time. Away from writing on this blog. Numerous reasons are at fault, struggles with school not being the least of them. However, summer is here and, even though I am still focused and excited to write about all things medicine, I want to take a few months to explore a passion of mine that has been semi-dormant for too long. Cooking. I love food, perhaps more importantly, I love eating food. A current BMI of >30 (but dropping) can attest to this, unfortunately. In the year prior to beginning medical school I ran in two half-marathons, worked full time as a coffee roaster and was, in general, very good shape. Six months of school, well, to be fair, the manner in which I dealt with the first six months of school left me in significant worse health. I was eating poorly. I took to drinking soda pop, which I hadn't done on a regular basis since I was a teenager. That, coupled with being more sedentary than I have ever been in my entire life ...