One Semester Down!

By my count it's been 7 weeks since I last checked in on this blog.  In case anyone was keeping track, a few updates:

• That business with the first Anatomy test?  Back and upper limb - tough.  Second test? Lower limb - not as bad.  Third test? Cranial nerves - very tough.  Fourth test?  Thorax, abdomen, pelvis - not so bad.
• I survived Pathophysiology and its three tests.
• I did NOT fail out of school (yet :) )
• I have not baked since making brownies the week of our first Pathophysiology test (I knew that I would need something to cheer me up after the test)
• I finished my first semester, and in doing so am one semester closer to becoming a PA!

Lab group together once again after our last test of the term is over!

Every day of summer class we walked by a tree on the West Bank of the U of M campus full of shoes left by past students.  We aren't really sure why people started leaving their shoes there (and it sounds like no one really is), but we decided that at the end of the summer we would leave our lab shoes there.

Mine are the glistening white ones front and center.

I learned a lot this semester.  Obviously.  I mean, of course I learned (most of) all the things I was supposed to learn for my classes, learned a lot about myself in the process, blah blah blah.  I also learned a lot of other really amazing things.  I learned that my classmates are some incredible people who I will be honored to share a profession with.  I learned that our professor has had a wealth of experiences in his life and I was lucky enough to hear just a few of his many hilarious stories.

I learned that sometimes PA school sucks.  I hesitate to say that about this experience that I have been working towards for over 3 years to participate in a profession that I am passionate and excited about, but it does.  I knew there would be long hours of studying and there would be time spent apart from my wife and son, but there are times when it really sucks.  On days when I would get home from class and have to go study for a test instead of build towers that my son can knock over.  On nights when my tired and pregnant wife would do bath time with our son so I could get through a lecture.  

There were so many times I would sit at my desk thinking "What am I doing?  I should be out there helping/playing/being a part of my family."  I know in my head that I am spending these long nights working towards providing a future for my family, but sometimes rationalizing this was harder than I thought it would be.  This is what spending more hours of the day looking at a textbook than at your wife will do to you.

I'm now nearing the end of my first week of my three (three!) weeks of vacation before fall semester starts, and life is good.

It's been a little less of this:

A little more of this:

A little less of this:

A little more of this:

A little less of this:

I never took my front-and-center parking spot for granted

A little more of this:

You get the idea.  In summary, summer so far has been good :)

So long for now,

The Baking PA

Week 3 and Baked! Vol. 3: Lemon Blueberry Scones

When we last spoke I was gearing up for week 3 and our first Anatomy exam.  I survived!  It was great to reach the first milestone of having a test to be able to learn more about what they will be like and how I should be studying.  I am moving forward from here.

Summer term involves good news and bad news.  First, the good news: while Anatomy consists of 4 tests, Pathophysiology only has 3.  The bad news: while the exams will not be doubled up in a single week (until we get to the end of the term that is...) this means that we had an Anatomy exam this past week, a Pathophysiology exam this coming week, and then an Anatomy exam the week after that.  Vastly preferable to having exams for 2 classes in the same week, but it's going to be a little bit of a marathon for a while.

Having our Anatomy test first gave a fresh start as we move into the lower limb, as well as some good perspective.  Now that I'm studying for Pathophysiology I long for the concreteness of learning bones, nerves, vasculature, muscles, and their function.  Depending on how Thursday goes (as well as switching gears back to Anatomy after Thursday), maybe I'll change my mind.

Yesterday was Father's Day, and my special treatment was being able to study all day.  It was great, and set me up to be able to take the evening off.

On Saturday I made some scones to take to brunch with some friends.  They were appropriately summery - blueberries and lemon zest on the inside, lemon glaze on top.  The real stars were some amazing quiche prepared by our lovely hostess, though.

Baked! Vol. 3: Lemon Blueberry Scones

Adapted from Buttermilk Scones from Alexandra's Kitchen

The original recipe yields 12 rolled-and-cut scones, but my dough came out a bit sticky so I did dropped scones instead, yielding 17 scones that were each about 1/2 cup.  Use buttermilk if you have on hand, or soured milk as indicated below.  I used the zest of 1 smallish lemon, but I would happily use a larger lemon next time or just do 2 lemons.  The tarter the better, I say.

Yield: 12 monster scones (or 17 moderately-sized scones)

4-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup white sugar

1-1/4 teaspoon salt

zest of 1 lemon

1 cup + 1 Tablespoon butter, cold cubed

1-1/2 scant cups milk

1 heaping Tablespoon lemon juice

1 pint fresh blueberres

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

juice of 1 lemon, to desired consistency

1. Preheat oven to 400º and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.  You may only need 1, but better to be safe.  Combine milk and lemon juice.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, and lemon zest.
3. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients using a pastry blender, a fork, your hands (as I did, though I maybe didn't end up with pieces as big as I should have), or a food processor (which I would use if I did it again).
4. Add enough soured milk and stir to get the desired consistency - if you want to do dropped scones it can be a wetter dough, so use all the milk; if you want to do rolled-and-cut scones you should start with a little less than all the milk and see if you need more to get a texture that is not too wet and sticky.
5. If rolling: separate the dough into two equal parts and roll each out on a floured surface into a 1/2"-thick circle.  Cut each round into 6 equal pieces and arrange on lined baking sheets.  If scooping: scoop dough out to desired size (I got 17 scones that were each about 1/2 cup of dough) onto lined baking sheets.
6. Bake for 25-35 minutes, though mine were looking nicely browned at close to 20 minutes so I took them out.
7. Combine powdered sugar with enough lemon juice to get the desired consistency.  I wanted a glaze that was light and fairly runny, so this meant most of the juice of a small lemon.  Glaze scones when they are cool.

Week 2 and Baked! Vol. 2: Rhubarb-Berry Crisp Bars

Is it the end of week 2 already?  Is the the end of the weekend after week 2 already?  Our summer professor, who teaches both pathophysiology and anatomy, assured us at the end of week one that in our second week we were really going to pick up speed.

This was kind of a surprise to all of us, since we hadn't realized that the pace of our first week qualified as "taking it easy."  Week two took us from the cell into tissues, systems, and an extremely comprehensive lecture on cancer in pathophysiology; in anatomy we moved on from the back to the upper limb and pectoral region.

If that sounds straightforward - think again!  The upper limb is a fascinating and complex world of the shoulder, arm, forearm, and hand.  There are more bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels than you can shake a stick at, all of which work together in intricate coordination to perform the actions we take for granted.  

Have you ever considered the complexity involved in being able to use a pen?  In a healthy body you can hold a pen, know that it is in your hand, not hold it so tightly that you send it flying across the room, maintain enough pressure to write without tearing through a sheet of paper, and coordinate all of this while making a series of detailed, meaningful marks on a page with a speed that is really quite surprising, no matter how slow you write.  

You have fingers with multiple articulations, hand, wrist, arm, elbow, and shoulder all working together.  This is all thanks to our friend the brachial plexus, the network of nerves of the upper limb that hangs out in your armpit.  Here is a video that helped me study it, given by a guy who is basically Tom Haverford from Parks and Rec with a PhD (disclaimer - this is probably not worth watching unless you are actually studying anatomy):

So yes, week two has been a crazy week, made all the crazier by gearing up for our first test this coming Wednesday.  I am quickly making 2 realizations: First, studying is my life now.  My wife and son are my life, but studying is my second, kind of more time-consuming life now.  I am at school during the day, and aside from dinner and helping out with bedtime (and the occasional blogging), I need to be studying.  Second, I really need to step up my studying game.  There just isn't any time to be wasted.  I am spending all my time studying for an anatomy test this week, kind of neglecting patho, but then we have our patho test the following week, so I'll need to totally switch gears, only to again being preparing for another anatomy test after that.

The second years (sidebar: every time I say that I feel like I should follow it with "from Ravenclaw house") have all been super cool and encouraging, and told us that while the fall will be more intense, spring semester is a slight reprieve, and summer second year it's actually possible to take a weekend off now and again.

In the meantime my wife has been making our family survive.  She is taking care of our son, taking care of me, keeping our house presentable, teaching her own lessons, being super pregnant, and doing it all with grace and poise.

Yeah, I'm a lucky guy.

This week I did my first baking for school.  Since it is summer in Minnesota, rhubarb is all over.  I made Smitten Kitchen's Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp Bars.  I did a 9x13 pan and a slightly larger bar pan, so I quadrupled the recipe.  I had no idea what to expect - were the PA students going to be shy Minnesotans and not even try them, leaving me with a ridiculous amount on hand?

I had intended to make them all-rhubarb (meaning eight cups of rhubarb after quadrupling, instead of half rhubarb/half strawberries as the recipe indicates), but after going outside twice to chop down more stalks and getting down to the thinner, scrawny ones, I did the last cup with a berry blend we had in the freezer.  They were a hit and I didn't take a one home.

Baked! Vol. 2: Rhubarb-Berry Crisp Bars, from Smitten Kitchen

I had quadrupled it to make two large bar pans, but the recipe below is for a single 8"x8" pan, like the original.  Since I was splitting it between two pans, I also diverged from the original recipe's layering of berries, sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice, and just mixed this all together in a bowl before splitting it up between the two pans since this seemed easier.  Also, since my fruit ratio was heavier on the rhubarb, I also slightly increased the amount of sugar and lessened the amount of lemon juice.  My 9"x13" pan ended up with a slightly thicker crust, which I think was right-on - for this, double the recipe.  If making this for a bar pan also double the recipe, but be prepared for a slightly thinner crust (which was still awesome!)

1 cup Rolled Oats

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

Heaping 1/4 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (I used salted)

1 teaspoon Cornstarch

Scant 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

Heaping 1 Tablespoon Granulated Sugar

1-3/4 cups small-sliced Rhubarb

1/4 cup Mixed Berries (chopped if any are big)

1. Preheat oven to 375°.  Lightly grease a 8"x8" baking dish; fold a piece of parchment paper to the width of the bottom of the dish and place it inside as a sling for the bars.
2. In a bowl whisk together oats, flour, brown sugar, and salt.  Pour melted butter over the mixture and stir until clumpy.  Add 2 Tablespoons more flour at this point if your mixture looks overly damp, although I didn't have to.  I was a little worried that my mixture looked too dry and wouldn't hold together, but it came out great.
3. Set aside 1/2 cup of the crust mixture and pour the rest into the 8"x8" pan, flattening it out evenly in the bottom out to the sides.
4. In a bowl combine rhubarb, berries, cornstarch, lemon juice, and sugar.  Stir to combine and then spread over crust.
5. Crumble reserved 1/2 cup crust over fruit.
6. Bake for 30-40 minutes, "until fruit is bubbly and crisp portion is golden and smells toasty and amazing."

Alex, PA-S

We are called Auggies!

This was the week.  I took a jump, made the plunge, attended orientation, and started PA school.

The whole experience was a little surreal.  The whole time I was taking my prereqs I would see Augsburg off the highway and think maybe, just maybe, I would end up there some day.  After I was accepted 6 months ago, every time I've driven by the exit I've thought "some day soon I'll be getting off here for my first day of school."  And this past Monday, it happened.

Day 1 was orientation.  They had the day filled with introductions, information sessions, tours, ID pictures, a potluck lunch provided by the staff and second years, and a small smattering of goofy team-building games.  I got to meet my assigned mentor in the second-year class, the professors and staff upon whom so much of my future will depend, and the 27 other dewy-eyed new PA students I will be sharing more time with than with my family for the next 16 months (once we start clinicals I'll have new people to see more than I see my family).

We only have class Monday-Thursday, so after Monday's orientation it was a 3-day week for class.  Anatomy will be everyday, and Pathophysiology will meet Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  The instructor who teaches these classes heads the MBA program for 10 months out of the year using his years of experience in the business world, and oh yeah, just happens to have a doctorate in anatomy and cellular biology and used to teach medical students at Harvard, so this is how he relaxes over the summer.  He is staggeringly knowledgeable.

Week one of Anatomy has consisted of learning the bones, muscles, nerves, and other tissues of the back, along with all of their unique structures and functions.  Now that we've got the back down, we just have the whole rest of the body to go.

I asked him how this class compares to what a med school student would be taught.  He said we are getting the same level of detail.  It's going to be a busy summer.

So far Pathophysiology has been a review of everything you ever learned about cell structure and function, times infinity.  We are picking up speed quickly and will spend the summer learning about how disease works in the body.

So far making and dedicating myself to studying has been a bit of a challenge.  I am not someone who can sit down and read a book for hours, committing everything to memory.  If you are one of those people:

One week in and I'm hanging on.  It's going to be a busy summer.  

Gulp.

Off to school on my first day.

Baked! Vol. 1: 5-Minute French Bread

Rather than being a reprieve from the rigors of the PA school curriculum, my first baking project was born of necessity.  After 13 years at a bakery you get pretty used to having bread around, but after 6 days of not working at a bakery we were out of bread and needed something for dinner.

I decided to start with the much lauded "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois - specifically this version posted on food.com, with a few minor adjustments.

The recipe starts with combining water, yeast, flour, and salt in a bowl.  The recipe called for 6.5 cups of flour, but (it's not like I decided to start a blog about baking or anything and) I found myself with only 3 cups of flour in the house.  Adding in a little whole wheat flour, I halved the recipe.

Whoops, didn't I say I was making a half recipe?  

*scoops out as much extra salt as possible*

*spends a second thinking about what twice the amount of yeast will do to a recipe*

*remembers there isn't any extra flour to start over with and decides to roll with it*

(Spoiler alert: it turned out just fine.)

The magic of "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" is that the bread does not require kneading.  The recipe makes a wetter-than-normal dough that you simply stir together and leave to rise.

Combine the ingredients using a spoon, or if necessary, get in there with your hands (I found it was).

At this point you leave the dough to rise.  It was sunny yesterday but still cool inside our house, so I turned the oven on for a minute, turned it off, and set my bowl inside.

The recipe says the dough should rise for between 2 and 5 hours, but on account of yeast overload I checked it after a little over an hour.

Jackpot!  Dinner time was coming up quickly so this was perfect.

Next, separate the dough into 2 (in my case, grossly uneven) pieces.

You'll want to dust the dough with enough flour that it won't stick to your hands and then shape it into a ball - stretching the edges, gathering them underneath, rotating a bit, and repeating.

The recipe calls for a 40-minute final rise before the bread goes in the oven.  In the face of my aggressively leavened dough and a rapidly advancing dinner time I reduced it to 20 minutes, during which I preheated my baking stone and an empty broiler pan at 450°.

For the ease of transferring the loaves onto a baking stone, it's easiest to do the second rise on a moistened towel on top of a thin baking sheet.  Fold half of the towel over the rising dough to prevent it from drying out.

When the second rise is completed, score the dough before popping it in the oven.

To actually transfer the loaves onto the baking stone in the oven, I held the sheet they were rising on in one hand while pulling the towel over the edge and along the bottom of the sheet with another hand, sliding the dough balls off the edge of the sheet.  It took a minute to get my coordination right and to get over the fear of flinging my bread onto the bottom of the oven, but I was able to slide the breads off the edge of the baking pan and onto the preheated baking stone with zero casualties.  I set a timer for 30 minutes.

I'll take a second here to introduce my BA (baking assistant) Johnny.  Any time the oven is going he has his oven mitts ready so he was a natural for the job.

While we were waiting Johnny also discovered his pockets.

At about 26 minutes the loaves were golden-brown on the outside and fully cooked on the inside (verified by a 200° reading on a meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the loaf - thank you Cooks Illustrated).

One of the loaves was lovely.  The other one... was very tasty.

Final verdict: this bread was very easy, super quick, and pretty tasty!  The super-short rising time didn't give the bread time to develop a lot of flavor (butter: problem solved), and the original recipe notes that it tastes even better if allowed to sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours after the first rising.  I would try this again, and (try to) follow the original recipe a little more closely.

5-MINUTE FRENCH BREAD

This recipe is adapted from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois as presented in a post on food.com.  Any deviations in my recipe are noted.

The dough can be made and refrigerated after the first rise is complete for up to 14 days.  

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups lukewarm water (my recipe: 1.5 cups of warm-to-the-touch water)
• 1.5 tablespoons yeast (my recipe: full amount)
• 6.5 cups all-purpose flour (my recipe: 3 cups unbleached flour + 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour)
• 1.5 tablespoons coarse salt (my recipe: full amount with approximately half scooped out)

1. Pour water into a large mixing bowl.  The hottest it should be is warm-to-the-touch.  If it is too hot you risk killing the yeast; if it is too cold it will take longer to rise but will not damage the recipe.
2. Sprinkle the yeast over the water.  No need to stir.
3. Add the flour and salt and stir to combine.  You want a consistent mixture with minimal lumps, but there is no need to knead the dough.  If it is too hard to stir it together, use wet hands to combine the dough.
4. Cover the bowl with a moistened towel or saran wrap and leave it to rise in a warm place until flattened on top - about 2-5 hours.  If your water was warm it will be on the shorter end; if it was cold it will be on the longer end.  My warm place was the oven after turning it on for a minute and then turning it off.  Since I accidentally used twice the amount of yeast I should have my dough was ready after an hour; while this is a valid shortcut the flavor will likely be better with correct proportions and rising time.
5. When the bread has flattened on top, loaves can be formed or the dough can be refrigerated for up to 14 days (the original recipe notes that refrigerated dough is easier to work with).
6. To form loaves: remove a 1-lb piece (described in the original recipe as "grapefruit-sized") and dust with enough flour that it won't stick to your hands.  Stretch to form a smooth exterior by grabbing the edges, stretching them down and gathering them under the loaf.  Rotate the loaf a bit and repeat, going around the whole ball of dough until a smooth exterior is formed.
7. Leave the dough to rise an additional 40 minutes before baking on a rimless sheet covered with a moistened towel.  Cover the dough with part of the towel to prevent it drying out.  Before the last 20 minutes of rising, place a baking stone in the oven and a broiler pan on a lower shelf.  Turn the oven on to 450°.
8. When the dough is ready, dust the top with extra flour if needed and score the dough.  To place the dough in the oven, find a way to get the dough onto the baking stone, OR, do what I did: pull an edge of the towel over the edge of the sheet and pull it underneath so that as you continue to pull it the dough would be pulled off the edge of the sheet.  Set the edge of the sheet against the baking stone and pull the towel, sliding the dough onto the baking stone.  Add 1 cup of water to the broiler pan and close the oven quickly to trap the steam.
9. Bake for approximately 30 minutes until the color looks good.  It is done when a meat thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf (through the bottom so the loaf stays pretty) reads 200°. Cool and serve - the loaf will be firm when taken out of the oven, will soften initially as it cools, and get firm again once cool.

The Baking PA

Welcome to The Baking PA!

Since high school I have worked for the same company - a local bakery with 3 locations.  This started as a cashier job that I applied for the summer before my senior year of high school because I had a friend who worked there.  While at this company I met my wife, got married, bought a house, and had a child.  It ended this past Friday when I left my position as operations manager after being with the company for 13 years.  This is an amazing company filled with wonderful people and even though I knew it would be sad, leaving was more difficult than I had imagined.

Being unemployed was, however, in the plan.  On June 1st I will be starting a physician assistant program that I have spent the past 3 years gathering experience for, taking classes for, and applying for.  The journey so far has been a little crazy at times - planning my full-time work schedule around prerequisite classes, at times missing classes when covering shifts for my employees, and commuting to class from the hospital following the birth of my son and throughout the 4 surgeries he needed during his first year after birth.

The application process in itself warrants a series of posts (forthcoming!), but receiving the phone call that I was accepted was one of the most surreal and amazing experiences of my life.  That all happened this past fall, and with the completion of my last prerequisite at Christmas, I've had the spring to dedicate myself to my job, not be in school for the first time in 2.5 years, and prepare for the large changes ahead.

Here I am today - I've worked my last day at my job and I have two weeks of vacation before starting school full-time.  The last of my paperwork is submitted to my school, my textbooks are ordered, and I have a list of house projects to complete before I'm up to my armpits in cadaver dissection this summer.

My wife Anna, who keeps her own blog over at The Heart's Overflow, encouraged me to start a blog to share my experience to being a PA.  Since I love baking (and my endless source of amazing baked goods has now... ended) I thought this blog would also be a good place to share the baking projects that I'll be attempting in all my free time.  Hopefully someone will find it interesting, educational, or at least slightly helpful.

Thanks for reading!

Alex