Fish tank update

Got a few frags (small coral pieces) from one of the local aquarist (Reuben). He was also kind enough to throw in a few free ones! :) I had him delivered the frags to the University. The secretary of the department received the items, and she was so worried for the corals because there were "LIVE FISH - HANDLE WITH CARE" signs all over the box. She was asking if she can open it to take a look when I picked up the item. She was expecting "FISH" but I told her it was all corals. Next time, I will let her take a look when there are really fishes in the boxes :)

You eat what you teach

This week I was teaching the students on dissecting, and identifying different organs in the green-lipped mussels. Every few days, the technicians will go to the market and buy a huge bag of mussels for the labs. There are usually a lot of leftovers. Janet, one of the technicians told us to bring some mussels home for dinner... and we thought to ourselves - Why not? :)

Hannah made delicious mussels steamed in white wine and garlic. We had almost 50 mussels! It was a GOOD dinner!

A bucket full of fresh mussels

Steaming in white wine and garlic.... exciting!

Yummy!

Aftermath!... cholesterol comatose

New England Style Clam Chowder

I have not been posting since I got back from Taiwan because I am pretty busy with data analysis, following up on other projects and tutoring. Hannah and I took the opportunity of great weather last weekend and went to the beach to do some clamming (hunting for cockles)! Hannah wanted to make New England style clam chowder, so we thought it would be a great idea to do some harvesting on our own. Instead of using clams, we used cockles. We went down to the Blackpool beach during low tide, and started hunting for cockles in the muddy sandbed. It was relatively easy! We took about 20 mins and had half a bucket of cockles. It was getting really interesting and fun, but we had to stop. Otherwise, we would end up with WAY TOO MUCH cockles than we needed.

It was free fun, and the chowder tasted yummy!

Harvesting

Not bad for 20mins work

Weird grin pulling cockles from their shells!

Fresh meat!

End product :)