Thai Pecan Pie (recipe)

I really love dark pecan pies, but they can tend to be a bit too sugary. This recipe takes inspiration from Thai cooking and adds tamarind and lime to counter the sweetness.

Let your butter soften at room temperature. Preheat oven to 375 ℉. Make a fresh, or thaw a frozen:

• Unfilled 9 inch pie crust

Partially bake it for about 10 minutes or until it starts to fluff up. Allow it to cool. Cream:

• 1/8 cup (2 oz) butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt

Beat in:

• 3 eggs

Stir in:

• 3/4 cup (6 oz) dark molasses
• 1 oz Tamicon tamarind concentrate
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 1 1/2 cups broken pecan pieces

Fill the pie crust. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Switzerland day 41: Paul Scherrer Institut

Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of invisible game.

Rumi

September 29th: We drove 45 minutes down to the Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen Switzerland. I picked up my previously-requested badge and dosimeter, and got a tour of where I might be performing my experiment next year.

The proton beam is accelerated to 560 MeV in a cyclotron under the surface in the foreground (which has a photo of what’s underneath it on top of it). It then goes out the right side of the picture, gets bent around through the upper right, and smashes into various targets in the rectangular gray enclosure in the upper left. Some of those targets produce pions, which decay into muons, which is what I need.

The mouth of the muon beam. I had originally thought that the beam was movable, but no, those magnets weigh like a ton each. The beam comes out at 1.5 m above the floor and I need to get my target there.

Aldo Antognini (my host) talking to students currently setting up an experiment in that bay.

Things were simpler in the 1950s, when Jeff Morrow could build a portable device to generate “mu mesons” to defeat The Giant Claw.

The particles were first called mesotrons (1936), then yukons after the particle predicted by Hideki Yukawa, then mu mesons after pi mesons were discovered, then muons after it was realized that they weren’t mesons at all but rather leptons, and that the real yukons were the pi mesons, which are mesons but still got shortened to pions. They were the first subatomic particles discovered that were not a component of atoms and thus seemed totally unnecessary, leading Isadore Rabi to quip “Who ordered that?”.

Anyway, I learned a lot about what I need to get done in the next couple of months before submitting the experimental proposal by January 10th. On the positive side, both Aldo (who gave me the tour) and Frank (who joined us for lunch) seemed positive about the experiment. Maybe they are getting a glimpse of how exciting it would be if this were correct.

On the negative side, there are lots of new issues to deal with, like getting insurance coverage, finding a second person to work with me, figuring out how to ship everything to Europe (and deal with customs etc.), running on Swiss 220V, dealing with beam impurities (including at least 10% electrons), and converting everything from wifi to hardwired ethernet (including optical ethernet links to get out of the sphere).

My biggest asset is that I am totally committed to making this happen. Whatever it takes, I will do.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

William H. Murray

But of course, we eventually had to leave for Bern. Our hostel was near the Thai embassy, so, after checking in, we had dinner at a Thai restaurant. Our theory was that the embassy wouldn’t allow it to be mediocre.

the Thai embassy in Bern

the Thai dinner, I think a Pad Kee Mao and a Pad Thai.

Hostel 77 was easily the most expensive lodging of our trip, but was quite basic (e.g. shared bathrooms). It did come with a decent free breakfast though. Still, Switzerland is far too pricey to be a good place to retire on a fixed income.