Red velvet problems

I like red velvet cake. I hadn’t tried it before moving to my current home, but I’m fond of it now. I had a really good slice of cake at a friend’s house when I first arrived here. It was so moist – you could just press the fork to it, the tines parallel to the layer of icing. The silver nestled through the creamy white frosting and into the vivid red cake and the treat would ooze between the tines and stick until I pulled it off. Perfection.

My friend got this perfect specimen of red velvety goodness at a bakery near her house. She lives about 30 minutes from me though. I decided that was for the best. My metabolism wouldn’t tolerate constant enjoyment of the treat, so I'm lucky that it’s not readily available.

But I have craved it in the months that I’ve lived here. Once I taste something novel and fantastic, I think about it at odd moments. Have a bad day? I bet red velvet cake would help. Have a good day? Let’s have red velvet cake to celebrate! I go to the grocery store, and on the way to the carrot sticks, the red velvet cakes nestle temptingly in their refrigerated case.

I caved one weekend. I was homesick, overwhelmed with work and I had no plans at all. So I brought the cake home, and set it on my table while I put groceries away. I got the perishable items off the counter, but the pantry food was neglected in my desire for cake.

So I sat down, glass of ice water and dessert fork on the table, small plate and cake serving device in hand. I carefully carved myself a slice, and placed it exactly in the center of the plate.

Then I frowned.

The cake wasn’t bright enough. I don’t know how they make it so red. My best guess is that it’s Southern magic. Like voodoo for the Bible belt. If not, it must take like a vat of food coloring, because the good cake is red.

This cake wasn’t trying hard enough. It was reddish, but not red. I scraped my fork through the frosting, distrustful of the red velvet cake that wasn’t very red. The frosting was some cream cheese derivative. I do like cream cheese. So I tentatively separated a small bite from the slice, and lifted it from the plate. It fell from the fork, landing on the table, sad and dry and not red enough. I felt badly for the cake – it was clearly inferior. The frosting was good though.

Time passed and I talked to my friend on the phone. We laughed about my love for the red velvet cake she’d served and talked about other topics I now can’t remember. But I craved the cake again, just days after my failed attempt at having some. Traveling to her side of town seemed excessively weird though, so I thought I’d try another store. A bakery this time!

So I found a shop not too far from my house. The cake was gorgeous, and pretty reasonably priced. After asking if I could buy some portion of the cake (since I knew I wouldn’t finish the whole thing), I couldn’t leave without at least a slice. The baker was an all or nothing type of gal, which I can respect, so I came home with a lovely cake that I had been assured was bright red inside.

After I cut through mountains of white icing, I validated her claim. The cake was a deep red, and a push from my finger revealed its moist texture. But when I said mountains of icing, I meant it. If I scraped the icing off of every cake I’ve ever had in my life and put it in a pile, I could have created an equal size mound from this single dessert.

Perhaps it’s for decoration, I decided. And it was pretty, I admitted, poking at the mound of fluff with my fork. Deciding that the red moistness of the cake was worth a little effort, I scraped most of the icing off. Settling with another glass of water and another silver fork, I tested the stick-to-the-fork-iness of the cake. Perfection.

Upon tasting it, the cake was quite good. But my enjoyment of the experience was marred by this frosting. It kind of coated my mouth in this sheen of intense sweetness. I don’t mind rich food – honestly. But this was too much. So I swished the water around to try to ease the sugar concentration that was starting to hurt my teeth.

This cake was tricky! Pretty, bright red, very moist, but deadly sweet! And it resisted the water's attempt at cleaning my mouth. As I brushed my teeth, finishing off with some mouthwash, I returned to consider the cake. So pretty, even with most of the icing removed. I ended up frowning at this cake too. Then I walked it to the garbage can and threw it out.

I bring this up not because I’m obsessed with red velvet cake – I don’t even want it right now. My point is that there always seems to be something missing. The perfect cake is too far away and likely expensive. The difficulty of obtaining it outweighs the joy of consuming it. The cake located closest to me has excellent frosting, but the cake is dry and dull. Then I found good cake, but it was destroyed by overwhelmingly sweet, sticky icing. It’s always something.

I do a specific type of research that can contribute to multiple clinical areas. But there are a few that we work with a lot – our pet clinicians, if you will. So when I interviewed, I was examining a few departments closely. I was especially interested in the group with whom I struggled in grad school. Their lack of interest, support and communication caused a couple of major problems, one leading to a fatal flaw, in my thesis work.

I found the perfect chair in that specific department. He’s great – excited about me, eager to get started, loves to introduce me to other MDs, can give me exactly what I was missing from grad school. This would be the excellent icing part of work.

In grad school though, there was another department – one more closely associated with what I actually research. There were several men I learned tremendous amounts from. I continue to be profoundly grateful for their knowledge, patience and interest in helping me develop as a scientist. What I know about the clinical environment – what’s important, how to communicate, what sorts of problems they have – I learned from them.

I didn’t expect to find cake like that anywhere else. I thought I knew quite a bit – had learned what I needed to know and was ready to be independent. Once I found good icing, I was fine. I was the cake.

Except…I’m not. I do research, but I don’t understand all the intricacies of using the information in the clinical environment. So making certain decisions and interpreting vital pieces of the data is beyond me – as it should be. I don’t have an MD for a reason. I need cake! It doesn’t even have to be fantastic, moist, or deep red. I’ll take something dry and dull, as long as I can get its attention occasionally.

But this department isn’t very research oriented at my new institution. I’m not criticizing – their focus should be clinical, and having staff dedicated to research purposes requires extensive funding and interest. It’s extra work for them, and while it can be important, I’ve been involved with a number of research projects that have gone nowhere. So their lack of participation is understandable.

It’s also a bit frustrating. I need to know the answers to some questions and nobody can tell me how to get them. I also have a complex about being a bother to people, so knowing they have a strong clinical focus and a lack of interest in research applications makes it hard, terrifically difficult in fact, for me to approach them. Especially since I think parts of my research should be implemented clinically on a large scale. This creates work for them even without being directly involved in my study.

So…yuck. I can control my decisions. I should have been more grateful for the cake in grad school, though I did appreciate them very much. And I love the icing I have now – it’s wonderful, honestly. My guess is that research in many areas has at least some element of working with what you have, while missing what you don't. Maybe you don’t have the best equipment, perhaps you work with people you don’t love, maybe your boss has moods that are difficult to decipher.

I appreciate, so much, hearing about problems. It makes me feel like I’m part of a talented group of scientists with bad luck sometimes, rather than a solitary figure in a sea of crap. I also love hearing when things go well. It reminds me of my own triumphs, gives me hope that there’s so much more great stuff out there.

I smile over this world. It’s hard sometimes – frustrating and time-consuming and impossible to understand. But then there are rewards. I laughed with 2 other post-docs for 20 minutes after a group meeting today. Giggled over lack of funding, problems getting started, inability to find a structured direction. Commiserated over lame social lives – time away from their fiancés and children (I didn’t mention that I just have the dog – no boy or babies here). Discussed upcoming talks we were required to give, shared nervous glances, laughed over past performances. We talked about how evil our thesis advisors were, then fondly recalled happier memories of our mentors, eager to impart that while there were drawbacks, we had great affection for those people who had guided our careers so far.

Good stuff. But I’m still looking for that cake.