Made Me Think

Dr. Drew Pinsky (p. 28, NYTimes magazine, 3 Jan.) on what led him to specialize in addiction rehab: “I watched these people — these young people — go from dying to better than they ever knew they could be,” he said. “And I was like, ‘Whoa.’ In medicine you go from dying to chronically ill. You don’t go from dying to better than you ever knew you could be. That just doesn’t happen.”

I think that is hopeful.

Alison Gopnik, reviewing Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention, by Stanislas Dehaene: "We are born with a highly structured brain. But those brains are also transformed by our experiences, especially our early experiences. More than any other animal, we humans constantly reshape our environment. We also have an exceptionally long childhood and especially plastic young brains. Each new generation of children grows up in the new environment its parents have created, and each generation of brains becomes wired in a different way. The human mind can change radically in just a few generations." (NYTimes Book Review, 3 Jan.)

I think it's obvious that different stimuli shape our brains anew. I like the old stimuli too; I love the smell of ink, the feel of fabric.

Labels:

Perfect Sunday

Warm chocolate chip cookies with vanilla seeds scraped from pods, chopped chocolate instead of chips, and bigger than average size ...

Fire in fireplace

Christmas tree still up, other holiday decorations back in attic

New puppy in C's lap, helping him read the NYTimes.

Sunday: keeper recipes

$$ cookies

(from Saveur magazine. I first made them Jan. 7, 2004.)

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Mix 1 2/3 C. flour, 3/4 t. soda, 3/4 t. fine sea salt. (This recipe calls for expensive ingredients. Sometimes I use "ordinary" salt, chocolate, & vanilla, but today was over-the-top.)

3. Split 2 vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape seeds into mixer bowl. (I've been saving these beans for months!)

4. Add 1/2 C. unsalted butter. Mix.

5. Add 1/2 C. firmly packed dark brown sugar, 1/4 C. plus 2 T. white sugar, 1 egg. Mix until creamy.

6. Gradually add flour mixture. Mix until combined.

7. Add 4 oz. nuts & 8 oz. chocolate. Toast the nuts first & chop them. I used pecans because I had toasted ones in the freezer already. I used 2 Lindt Intense Dark 70% cocoa bars (3.5 oz. each) & cheated with a handful of Ghirardelli semisweet chips. Milk chocolate is also delicious.

8. Chill 10 min. in refrigerator. (Seems pointless, huh? But it does get cold.)

9. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment. Use a little less than 1/4 C. of dough for each cookie. Flatten them to 1/4" thick, I make them one at a time so I can space them at least 1 1/2" apart. I've made them bite-sized too, but that's not spectacular.

10. Bake, only one sheet at a time. Original recipe says 7-10 min., but 13 min. was perfect for me. I like cookies on the crunchy side.

11. Cool on sheet 1 min., then transfer to rack.

I forgot to count them, but it made more than 12 (which is what you get if you use 1/4 C. of dough for each) & fewer than 20.