market research is unfair

I wish there were magical fairies who wrote thesis chapters whilst I procrastinated watching crappy TV and writing this rant about how unfair market research is.


Tonight's TV show that I'm ranting about is "Recipe to Riches" where I'm watching these people get opinions from random people on the street about their ideas for marketing their food.

Source

I am annoyed about a few points about their selection processes:

1) Whilst they are appearing to get "randoms" to answer their opinions, there is selection bias because there is a) free food - not everyone likes to take free food due to allergies, preferences etc, and b) a TV crew - younger people might be more willing to participate because they can get on the tv etc.

2) There doesn't appear to be written consent taken to answer their questions. Sure, it's just asking some harmless questions about what they think of this new potato bake. But do you know how many hoops we researchers have to jump through to get ethics in order to ask people a few simple, harmless questions about health related issues?

3) There is no end of money being thrown at the idea of making new supermarket items, whilst innovating medical research is struggling to get off the ground and up-and-coming researchers are seriously reconsidering their careers because of the lack of job and income security.

These are three points why I think market research is unfair. And now I shall go back to writing my thesis.

If only I could tell you

This week has been awful - I'm sure I'm being overly dramatic but I seriously was doubting my abilities as a scientist. The reasons being that it was thought I may have contaminated my samples (the jury is still out on this decision) and that my thesis would then be written about how I stuffed up my project. Rather than be a Master of Infectious Diseases, I would be a Master of Stuffing Up.

I think what made this week worse was that I didn't have someone there who has been through this whole process, who understands how much this means to me and how hard (and how many hours) I've been working to get everything done before today (as I am in Canberra for two weeks). I miss having that person who has been through it from the start, who can encourage me or tell me I'm being silly. Someone who cares.

Sure, my Mum and Kara and Nette and lots of people care and have been amazing to me, and I am not underestimating how much I love all my friends (except maybe those who shove me into bushes). But it's not the same,

I wish I could tell this person how much I miss them. How hearing them laugh stabs me in the heart. How whenever something happens that I want to text them and know that they will have read it, even if they don't reply.

I know that one day this will subside, and maybe I might even find a new best friend, someone who gets my awful humour and doesn't mind me talking about infectious diseases all the time and might even be interested in moving to a foreign country to help those less fortunate. But until then, I sit and say nothing and pray that they're not as heart broken as me. 

Dear Amy

Last night my friend Amy and I cooked up a storm - was probably some of the tastiest food that has come from my kitchen. It might have been that we actually cooked it ourselves rather than eating out, or that we'd started drinking the left-over wine from the wine and cheese party I had the other night, but despite these potential confounding factors, there is no denying the food was tasty.

So I thought I would share what we ate and how we made it, not only for posterity, but to make you drool and wish you could have me cook you dinner.

Baked Stuffed Chicken
Take your chicken breast and cut a pocket into the thickest part of the breast. Stuff with cheese - we used wensleydale with cranberry cheese (note: you could stuff with other things, like sundried tomatoes or pesto, just make sure it's something that has a decent moisture content). Place the chicken into an oven dish slit side down and drizzle with some oil (we crusted our chicken with mixed nuts also), cover the dish with foil and bake in oven for at least 25 mins until there is no pink bits in the chicken.

Baked Nut-Crusted Brie
Take a wheel of brie, dunk it in a whisked egg and then cover with crushed nuts (we used a mix of hazelnuts, brazil nuts, macadamias and cashews along with some craisins), pressing in hard. Place into ramekin and bake in oven for 15-20 mins (although next time I'm thinking of placing it in foil rather than a ramekin).

Roasted Baby Romas
Take a packet of baby romas (can use cherry tomatoes also), place in oven dish with salt, pepper, oil, crushed garlic and rosemary and bake for 15 mins.

Apple and Strawberry Crumble with Nutty Dark Choc Topping
Wash and chop your apples and strawberries into small chunks, place into baking dish and sprinkle some brown sugar on top. In a bowl add crushed nuts (we used the same mix as before), some plain flour, dessicated coconut, smashed dark choc bits, a dash of salt and some brown sugar. Melt some butter and pour into the dry ingredients, mixing into a crumbly consistency. Place mixture ontop of fruit. Cover dish with foil and place into oven until fruit is soft, then take off foil and bake for a further 10 minutes to get a nice crunchy top.

So Amy (and everyone else), I can't wait to hear about your kitchen adventures. The tip is to not be afraid to fail, because a lot of times you will.

Disclaimers: the temperature of the oven was 180C for all the food. Measuring was not performed at any stage. We used free-range chicken and drank white wine which matched well with everything. 

blisters

"Just a friendly reminder that your laboratory work should be finished by this Friday/weekend"...

My MInfec Dis deadline is supposed to be today and this email was just the what I needed to read yesterday whilst I re-blistered my blisters opening 300 tubes with my left hand whilst obtaining RSI pippetting with my right.

The problem with that email is that five minutes before it I received an email confirming my final environmental testing session, which is going to happen next Tuesday. Which means another 7-10 days of lab work after that, plus some final molecular work when I get back from Canberra...

Apparently the purpose of a lab work deadline is to give us sufficient time to focus on the writing of our dissertation. Haha, yeah right, making me stop doing lab work is not going to stop my procrastinating from writing. This blog post is a perfect example of my procrastination from writing.

But that's okay, in the end I will get sufficient results to prove that there are bugs in the environment that cause diarrhoea, and I shall have written and submitted my dissertation. Then I shall be a Master of Infectious Diseases. Mwah ha ha. 

beautiful biscuits

I love to bake. Biscuits, bread, cupcakes, cakes, slices... there are so many options! I also love to give away all my baking and know that people enjoy my food - it's so satisfying.

It started with baking from my Mum's cookbooks to now me owning 15 books for all different themes and countries. My latest purchase was the Australian Womens Weekly The Big Book Beautiful Biscuits. My mum had this one in her stash, and she had made comments on all the recipes, and I want to do the same. 

So, in the same vein of one of my favourite movies Julie and Julia, I plan to bake my way through The Big Book Beautiful Biscuits. There are 126 recipes, and I shall try to bake at least one recipe a week, which will take me a while but that's okay, I'm not going anywhere. I will review the recipes and take pics so you can see what my attempts look like, and if you follow me on twitter (@catanita) then I'll be using the hashtag #thebigbiscuitbakeoff and if you follow me on Pinterest then I will have a board with all my pics. I might even do giveaways for those of my readers in Australia! 

Stick with me and get hungry people!