Monthly Archives: March 2014

SP Officer Profile: Environment Chair

Sidney-Pacific Environment Chair Cherry Gao.

Sidney-Pacific Environment Chair Cherry Gao.

This month, the SPeaker interviewed the environment chair Cherry Gao about herself and the work she’s done as an officer.

Cherry is a first year PhD in Biological Engineering (Course 20) from Vancouver, Canada.  From her time in Canada and 10 years in Japan, Cherry knows how to speak English, French,  and Japanese!  When she is not in the lab or volunteering at SP, Cherry enjoys singing in choirs, working on her garden, and being outdoors.

Cherry has lived in SP since September 2013 and became an officer soon after arriving.  When asked why she decided to become the environment chair, Cherry replied “Sid Pac is your home, and my home.  I want our home to be an Earth-friendly space.”  Her favorite parts of being an officer are the friendships and stimulating conversations with other officers and residents.

On the topic of her accomplishments as an officer, Cherry said “Sid Pac is one of the leaders on campus in composting and I am excited to keep working on this initiative!”  So far, Cherry has worked hard to make composting more accessible to residents by introducing a new collection system and collaborating with the housekeeping staff.

Finally, Cherry offered some advice to residents on how to make SP a greener place to live:

1. Use reusable bags instead of plastic bags when you go shopping.

Plastic bags often end up in the ocean and threaten marine life. Say no to plastic bags and bring a reusable bag to carry your groceries instead.

2. Use a drying rack instead of the dryer.

Dryers suck up energy and ruin our clothes. Sid Pac has drying racks for rent – why not be gentle to our planet and to your clothes?

3. Separate your compost, recyclables, and garbage into appropriate bins.

We can significantly reduce garbage destined for the landfill by composting and recycling. But don’t contaminate! Putting the wrong stuff in the compost or the recycling bin can deem the whole batch to be  uncompostable or unrecyclable.

4. Turn off the lights when you leave your apartment or a common space.

Why waste the energy when you don’t need to?

5. Bring your plates, utensils, and cups to brunches and coffee hours.

It’s so easy: use real stuff! (Sid Pac uses compostable plates and utensils, but they still take up resources like corn to be manufactured, not to mention that they take a long time to degrade in the compost.)

3rd Floor Library

By Helena Zhang, 3rd Floor South Hall Councillor,

New bookshelves in the 3rd floor lounge.

New bookshelves in the 3rd floor lounge.

If you have been on the third floor of Sidney-Pacific lately, you may have noticed a new addition. As part of the new beautification initiative, we have set up bookcases in the large area outside the lounge for a leisure reading library. The goal of the library, along with the library in the Owu Room, is to be a nice resource for residents seeking reading material to enjoy. Also, it would be great if that large common space, which is also connected to the 4th floor, became more lively. But in order to do that, we need your help! If you have any books that you no longer need but might be appreciated by other residents, please leave them on the shelves–any type or genre is welcome. Also feel free to come by any time and borrow a book or two, and bring some friends while you’re at it! Currently, there is a small-but-growing selection of bestsellers, sci-fi/fantasy, highbrow fare, thrillers, magazines, and more from authors such as John Grisham and Amy Tan, and hopefully the collection will multiply in the near future. If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or ideas for books you would like to see on the shelves, feel free to drop me an email at sp-3south-hc@mit.edu.

Cooking Made Easy

By Jenny Wang, SP Brunch Chair,

Easy Oatmeal

Oats make a great breakfast or snack food: it’s nutritious, filling, and can be prepared a variety of ways.  One popular dish is a hot porridge, but to make it properly, the oats need to be simmered for at least several minutes.  For me, that’s a bit too much work and time in the mornings.  Instant oatmeal is a possibility, but they are much more expensive than plain rolled oats and often contain lots of sugars, artificial flavors, and preservatives.  However, with a little experimenting, I found another way to prepare oatmeal.  It’s not quite as instant, but the prep is minimal and can be done in advance.  This is a pretty regular breakfast item for me, so I toast the oats in large batches (about 6 cups at a time for 10 to 15 minutes) and store in a glass jar.  Then, the night before, I mix up the oats with a spoonful of chia seeds and kefir (a yogurt-type drink) in a small jar.  In the morning, I eat it straight out of the jar with a spoonful of honey or take the jar with me to lab.  Either way, it’s a quick and healthy breakfast.

Easy oatmeal

Easy oatmeal

As with most of my recipes, this is highly customizable so feel free to play around with it until you find something you really like.

Ingredients

  1. 1/3 cup rolled oats
  2. 2/3 cup plain kefir
  3. 1 teaspoon honey
  4. dried fruits, nuts, seeds as desired

 

Directions

  1.  (optional) Lightly toast the oats at 350 degrees F (about 3 minutes for 1/3 cup).
  2. Mix in the desired dried fruits, nuts, or seeds.
  3. Place the resulting mixture in a small bowl, tupperware, or jar.
  4. Add the kefir and stir until well-mixed.
  5. Let sit, covered, for at least 30 minutes in the fridge (this step can be several days if you want to prepare it in advance).  The oats will soak up the liquid and become porridge-like.
  6. Before eating, top with honey and/or fresh fruit.

* Although the only “cooking” used here is lightly toasting the oats, you won’t be eating raw oats.  Oat grains are heated and steamed during the rolling process, so rolled oats are cooked before you even do anything with them.  Toasting adds a nuttier flavor.

Hot variation

If you prefer hot oatmeal, use 1/4 cup of milk (or a milk-substitute of your choice) instead of the kefir and a microwave-safe container for step 3.  Then, when you’re ready to eat it, just heat it up in the microwave for a few minutes before topping with honey or fruit.

Additional variations and comments

You can substitute any flavor of yogurt or kefir into this recipe, which may also replace the honey.  However, I have found that Greek yogurt doesn’t contain enough liquid to properly hydrate the oats.  Australian yogurt (a bit thinner than standard yogurt), works well.

Baked Kale Chips

Baked Kale Chips.

Baked Kale Chips.

If you’ve ever purchased kale chips, you know how over priced this snack food is. Fortunately, fresh kale is reasonably priced and it’s quite easy to turn them into airy, crunchy chips yourself. The flavored version makes a great healthier substitute for potato chips.

Basic Version

Ingredients:

kale (available as a bunch or pre-washed and cut in bags)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
  2. If you purchased full kale leaves (it’s a lot cheaper than the pre-washed and cut version), wash and dry the kale with a paper towel or salad spinner. You want to have as little water as possible on the leaf surface.
  3. Remove the central stem and tear the kale into chip-sized pieces. The leaves will shrink as they cook so don’t make the pieces too small.
  4. Spread the leaf pieces on cookie trays in a single layer.
  5. Bake until the leaves are crispy and slightly brown at the edges. This should take 10 to 15 minutes, but keep a very close eye on them because they burn easily. I recommend starting with 8 minutes then checking them and adding 1 minute intervals as needed the first few times you try this recipe.

Optional: You can bake the stems as well. They won’t turn crispy, but often become slightly sweet. However, I recommend baking the stems separately from the leaves because the extra moisture in the stems can prevent the leaves from crisping.

Trouble shooting

If your chips come out like steamed greens instead of chips, you can try cooking for longer. This occurs when too much water is on the leaves when they go into the oven. Dry the leaves better next time. You can also try leaving a crack when closing the oven door to let steam escape.

If your chips burn before they become crispy, try turning the oven temperature down and extend the cooking time if necessary.

If some kale pieces are crisp but others are still soft, remove the crisp ones before baking the soft ones longer. Otherwise, the pieces that are already crisp will burn.

Flavored Version

Ingredients

  • kale
  • salt
  • olive oil
  • grated parmesan cheese (or whatever seasoning you would like)

Directions:

Follow steps 1 to 4 of the basic version. Before baking, drizzle the olive oil onto the kale, then sprinkle with salt and grated parmesan cheese. Bake as in step 5 of the basic version.

Camera Workshop Series by the SP Photofile Chairs

By Chi Feng and Tamas Kolos-Lakatos, SP Photofile Chairs,

Based on strong interest and on the success of the first camera intro workshop, the SP Photofile Chairs decided to host a series of photography related events in the spring semester.

The first workshop on March 15th (Saturday) will cover basic camera functionalities and it will give an insight into what makes a photograph successful and pleasing. We will look at a variety of pictures taken by SP residents and will discuss their strengths and weaknesses. This intro workshop will give a brief overview of how to tell a story with images. SP residents interested in submitting their work for the photo critique are encouraged to email submissions to sp-photofile-chair@mit.edu before March 15th.

Based on the lessons learned from the first workshop, the second part of the series will go on a little urban adventure in Boston on April 5th (Saturday). We will spend the afternoon around Quincy Market and the North End exploring city life, culture, architecture, and anything else inspiring to take photos of. The plan is to create a short photo essay of the outing that tells a story in many different ways. The photo mission will come to a well-deserved break and a subsidized dinner afterwards.

The camera workshop series will conclude with a slideshow of the Boston outing photo mission on April 13th (Sunday). We will exhibit the photographers’ images, discuss their stories, and give suggestions for improvements.

Hope you can join us for any if not all of the events!

CameraWorkshop_Poster