How to prepare a pineapple

Pineapples are really cheap at the moment ^_^!!

First, take your pineapple and slice the top off.
If your knife gets stuck halfway through the cut, wipe it, sharpen it, and try again.

Slice off the 'tail' at the other end, making sure you remove any off-coloured parts. Sit the pineapple up on the cut tail end, and cut the skin off in strips from top to bottom. Like so -

Keep going until you've gone round the whole thing. Go back and make sure the green parts and most of the brown 'indents' in the skin have been removed. Don't be stingy! The green-white parts are a bit drier and generally not very sweet anyway.

If you find your tongue or lips are a bit sensitive to the enzymes in the pineapple, you can soak the pieces in mildly salty water for a couple of hours in the fridge. This inactivates some of the enzymes. Just rinse before you eat. I like to eat mine chilled, but allowing the pieces to warm up slightly makes the pineapple taste sweeter.

And this is how a pineapple grows from its parent plant (if you don't live in tropical climes, there's one growing in Cambridge Botanic Gardens (UK)

Rothamsted Research open days

It's the Rothamsted Research open weekend coming up, and there's been a distinct holiday mood permeating the centre this week. There's been days of cleaning labs and making sure dangerous chemicals and glassware are out of the public's reach (our lab is being used for exhibits so it's open). A lot of yesterday was spent setting up displays and posters, and some fantastic interactive displays have been put up, especially by Bioimaging.

I've been drafted in to help out both days on the weekend, just generally manning stands and explaining (or trying to) the science to the public. Luckily, I've been mostly let off today, which is when there are groups of school 'children' (14-15 year olds, oh dear) being shown around. I'll spend the afternoon going round and looking at the exhibits whilst I have the chance. So stay tuned for more photos and more details!

'still life of rotting fruit'

People still trying to work

女人要的.....

......其實就這麼簡單而已

Going about London III - churches

The best known church in London city is probably St Paul's Cathedral, but some of the other churches are notable, if only because they have such great names.
This is one of my favourites (above). Other churches in London that have particularly memorable names include;
St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate
St Dunstan-in-the-East
St Dunstan-in-the-West
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate

and of course
Our Lady of Perpetual Help

the joys of spring

Who says my hayfever is strangely early this year? It's obvious I'm not the only one suffering.

Unfortunately, the next comic in the series isn't quite so apt. If only my contained work area wasn't full of plants....