The effect of time on my beloved LSC.

When I was a kid, I loved the Liberty Science Center.

My parents took my sister and me there several times, and every time, I was bowled over by the place - the exhibits were often the same, but the sheer mass of the place, coupled with it's location, always overwhelmed me. My personal favorite thing to see was the giant expanding globe that hung in the middle of the Center, expanding and collapsing. I used to dream about having one that size in my bedroom.

About four years ago, my mother, sister, niece and I visited the Center, but it was almost completely boarded up, due to massive renovations that were about to take place. Half the exhibits were boxed up, and I looked forward to seeing it in two years, when it was promised to be bigger and better than ever.

I didn't get there in two years, obviously, but I got there today. And I was so excited to see it again, like visiting an old friend.

The question is, what has changed more - the place, or me?

Let me step back a second and say that more than anything, I wanted to be a scientist when I was a kid. That dream was squelched by my complete inability to handle math, but science has remained an interest of mine, and I love museums. So I wasn't walking in with the mindset of "Man, this is a kid's museum," or "Pft. Science. We should have gone to the movies."

Tickets, for admission to the museum, and an IMAX film, were $24. That's not unreasonable, since tickets to (what are billed as, but really aren't) IMAX films at the movie theater are close to $15. The entrance and ticket area are now on the front of the building, rather than the right side, along with the new, much larger gift shop. It's very large, very open, and very sleek, and the museum seemed to invest a lot of money in IKEA furniture and fixtures.

That sleek metallic look runs throughout the whole place, giving it a whole different feel. I used to find the place quite homey, but today, I felt like I was almost in a transportation terminal at points. I also found that the building space was VERY poorly used, with a lot of open, unused areas and exhibits spread out, instead of leading into each other, as they previously had.

We visited exhibits about the Hudson bay, with live sea creatures, another exhibit with live animals called "Eat or be eaten", an exhibit about bacteria and viruses, an exhibit about energy, and an exhibit about food. There were also exhibits about skyscrapers and communication, and a very interactive room full of things to play with, but we skipped those three, and here's why:

Children.

The LSC has always been a popular spot for class trips and summer camps, and I imagine they give great group rates. But the day of our visit, there had to be 20 different camps there, all made up of very young children, running, screaming, banging on things, pushing things over, and making such a cacophony of noise, that my boyfriend and I had to yell in most rooms to make ourselves heard (all that sleek metal I talked about before didn't do much in the way of stifling noise, either.) The interactive room was mayhem, simply put. We didn't even go in.

We couldn't get near most of the exhibits, because there were crowds of kids around them, and the ones I did get near that were interactive, were broken, from too much button pushing. I got pushed out of the way about twice, and when you're an adult, you can't give attitude to an unsupervised six year old. Finally, the staff running these exhibits were dead eyed like I had never seen before. This is ultimately what kept me from complaining about paying $24 a person to look at a museum full of broken stuff.

But enough of the negativity - the IMAX theater, as old as it is, is still awesome.

We saw "Hubble", which was about 40 minutes long, and told the story of the last repair mission to the telescope in 2009, and showed a lot of incredible images captures by the telescope of nebulas in the far reaches of space. It was really beautiful.

The cafeteria food didn't suck, and wasn't too overpriced - $25 for a personal pan pizza, a large salad from the salad bar, with all sorts of interesting things on it, a pulled pork sandwich, and two sodas. We got astronaut ice cream from the gift shop, and put quarters into the viewfinders out on the museum balcony, and peered over the Hudson into NYC, like I do every visit.

We only stayed about 2 hours total. The way out, I really wondered if I had outgrown the place, and was so found of it because my initial impression from the POV of an 8-year-old has remained untouched. Or, if I wanted to love it, but it had changed into something different, and ultimately, tired, despite it's massive face lift.

I said to my boyfriend that this would probably be my last time there. But the more I thought about it, if in the future I had a child, I'd want them to see it too, because they might see what I saw when I was their age. And I wondered if when I was running all over the place as a kid, looking at everything, my parents were thinking "God, I can't wait to get out of here." Maybe it really isn't a place for adults. And, like my boyfriend suggested, how much of their admission comes from adults, like us, coming back, trying to relive their childhood?

Ultimately, the LSC will always have a warm piece of my heart. And despite a few crappy experiences there, I'll probably keep going back, because even with all the changes, it feels so familiar.

And maybe someday I'll have the means to build a room big enough to hold that globe.

Pizza party

Since we don't have a backyard here at the apartment, the possibility of BBQ-ing has tragically decreased, which is a shame, because I love a good cookout.

Instead of using the weird looking grills on the property, I just experiment with other recipes instead. Last night, to make something special for the July 4th weekend, I decided to make this: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/03/caramelized-onion-prosciutto-pizza/

Her version is the picture included above right.

We purchased a ball of dough from Panico's in New Brunswick, after my personal favorite pizza place in the area, Frank's, in East Brunswick, refused to sell us one. Panico's changed $5 for a large, which was expensive, as I've bought dough from a pizza joint in Metuchen for $2.50 a ball. However, we didn't get to Panicos until about 4 p.m., and had perishable groceries in the back of the car, so we just took the dough and ran.

Additionally, you'll need 1 red onion, some brown sugar, shredded parmesan cheese, a ball of fresh mozzarella (I used Shoprite brand. Not my first choice, but it worked well enough) 8 ounces of sliced prociutto, and plenty of olive oil.

The most labor intensive part of the whole thing was carmelizing the onion, after chopping it thin. Throw it in a skillet with two tablespoons of oil and a quarter cup of brown sugar, and cook it down until it gets soft and brown and sweet smelling.

After that you roll the dough out flat on a pan (or pizza stone. I have decided to get a pizza stone, to avoid burned crusts), drizzle on olive oil and sprinkle salt and the parmesan. I added the onions first and spread them all over the dough, then put the sliced ball of cheese on top and added the prociutto, ripped up in pieces, all over the top. The recipe called for 8 ounces, like I previously said, but I inadvertenly only bought three, and felt that was too much for the pizza. So use discretion.

As a result of baking it at 500 degree for 17 minutes, as recommended, a lot of the water from the cheese ran off the pie onto the baking pan and burned. The botton of the dough also burned a bit and became tough. (See, I told you. I need a pizza stone!), so if you have a gas stove, like us, perhaps you'd consider cooking for a shorter time, or a lower temperature. This is what it ended up looking like.

Kinda like Ree's, right? Except the burned residue on the side. But I assure you, once we cut into it, the ham was crisp, like it was supposed to be, and the cheese melted perfectly, and the onions made almost like an onion jam, in lieu of red sauce.

I totally plan on making this again. Next time, I will make my own whole wheat dough, to make it even tastier.

Baby Bunneh

This little guy was running around the parking lot at work last night.
The Press parking lot contains animal cuteness on a petting zoo scale, as we also have a family of Canadian Geese and their goselings living there too.










He (or she) are the cutest thing that will ever grace that lot, though.

Bread!

My boyfriend is on a bread baking kick.

It is awesome.

His first loaf was a flax/wheat concoction, made with whole seeds, left to rise for a few hours and baked a hair too long. The loaf ended up being a bit tough, and it didn't rise enough, but it was full of fiber, and filling. Spread enough butter on anything and it tastes amazing.

Undeterred, and faced with the rotting bananas in our kitchen, he made a simple banana bread a day later, and at the last moment, put an egg wash and sweetened flake coconut on top. The results were delicious. Three bananas made it more like a cake then a bread.

You're jealous.


Moving forward, we're thinking of attempting a semolina bread, and a sourdough. I like zucchini bread, but that's simple enough, and can be made alongside something more difficult. I wish we could have made something using the four now rotten avocados I bought last week and didn't use in time, but avocado bread sounds...yuck.

He mentioned that a good goal would be to make some bread every weekend, providing us with fresh bread throughout the week. I like this idea a lot, as processed wheat and whole grain bread is usually too spongy and bland for me. I still buy it though, because there should always be some bread in the house.

Hopefully we'll keep this up. Personally, I really want to make breakfast breads like popovers and muffins on a regular basis. I'd be a hit at work, for sure.

Monday morning

Just a short post for now.

From the Superbowl commercials earlier this year, quite possibly my favorite commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9beQh1yH5uU

Brooklyn's On Fire

In April, a car caught fire on the Williamsburg Bridge.

I was in a car below on the BQE, and was able to lean out the window and get some shots, as the holdup caused thick traffic. In an attempt to get away from it, cars were driving all over the place, even going the wrong way on exit ramps, causing even more of a tangle. It was insane.

By the time we were heading back, maybe two or three hours later, traffic has rectified itself and vanished, completely, with no signs of the previous mess. Gridlock, to me, is such a fascinating thing. It stops as quickly as it starts, getting knotty in some areas strictly because one car slowed down, then another, and another...

Anyway, summer is approaching, which means more traffic is definitely on the way. I am currently logging 40 miles each way to work, which works out to be about 45 minutes in the morning, and 60 minutes in the evening. Unfortunately, I am going to have to compete with beach traffic soon, made all the all the more depressing when you're hot and sweaty and burning gas to keep the AC on, and the drivers around you are driving with the windows down because they're nice and cool in their swimsuits, swigging iced coffee. D'oh.

I'm hoping to get at least one week down the shore this summer, and would really like to get a rental in Beach Haven or Ship Bottom, out on LBI. I haven't had a vacation in a long time, and would just like to sit around, being lazy and BBQ'ing for a few days. Because that's what summer is all about. Smelling like salt water, sun and charcoal.

Ba dah dah daaaaah!

I'm back. Expect more frequent updates from now on.

For now, all I'd like to say is that I finally started watching Flight of the Conchords and it's fantastic. If, like me, you are late to this phenomenon, get into it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0863046/