Delicioso veggie bean burritos (The fifth recipe in a series for lazy people who don't actually enjoy cooking, but do very much enjoy eating.) |
Tuesday . April 30 . 2002 . 5:47pm |
cultural competence The surgical subculture is so strange. Clearly, I haven't done my General Surgery rotation yet, but I have done almost eight week of surgical subspecialties (Urology, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery, etcetera) and these are some key points that I have gleaned by living in their world. You have to have a nickname. Surgery, in some ways, is like a sports team or fraternity. Mostly guys, lots of ribbing and ass-slapping (largely, though not entirely figuratively), and in certain specialties, some posturing and machismo. And nicknames. Everyone has to have their cute little jock-type nickname. As such, I have decided that everyone in our group should come up with surgical nicknames so that we can fit in better when we rotate on Gen Surg. Mine will obviously be "Mau". Andy will be "A-Bomb". Sheryl is "Marksie". Chris is "The Moose". Guillem, though he doesn't know it yet, will be "G-Lo". We're going to have to work to get nicknames for the rest of the group, but we still have time. When all the names are in place, we'll use them exclusively to refer to each other. As in, "Moose is scrubbed into the discectomy, so why don't the rest of us go to the caf to get some ice cream." Which leads me to my second key point of surgery... Eating. Constantly eating. I suppose that when you have hours that suck as bad as those on some of the surgical services, you just have to eat and sleep whenever you have a moment. But somehow, this works out to mean that we're eating all the time. On Urology, for instance, we would have breakfast with the residents every morning at Remy's (a nearby greasy spoon diner) after morning rounds. They went there so often, they didn't even have to order--the waitress would just automatically bring over "the usual" whenever she saw them come in. Then there was lunch. And snacks. And coffee breaks. And ice cream after clinic. One time, when Kal and I were working on Ortho, we had frozen yogurt at 10:00am for a between-breakfast-and-lunch snack, because there was nothing going on until the afternoon, and we couldn't think of anything else to do. I'm surprised we didn't weigh 500 pounds after our Uro/Ortho block was over, actually. You don't need to buy nice clothes, because you'll never wear them. We're in scrubs pretty much constantly. At first I thought it was kind of cool--it's like wearing pajamas all day, so comfortable, and it feels sort of glamorous and doctor-y in the beginning. But when all you ever wear is scrubs, you sort of start to feel like a slob. I don't want to dress up every day or anything, but I do like to occasionally feel pretty and polished and made-up and professional. The scrubs 24/7 paradigm makes me feel like a mess 24/7. Not to mention the hair mashed flat by surgical caps and the yucky no-shower feeling that you get from having to wake up so early that you just shower the night before to minimize your prep time at 5:00am. Speaking of which... Why do they round so fucking early? I know I haven't suffered the worst of it yet, being that the earliest I've ever had to come in is 6:00am on Peds, but I see the sad, dead eyes of the students coming in to pre-round at four in the morning and I shudder at prospect of what has yet to come. xo Michelle |
Bikini Briefs |
Delicioso veggie bean burritos (The fifth recipe in a series for lazy people who don't actually enjoy cooking, but do very much enjoy eating.) |
What you will need: (Items marked with an (*) are optional, and can be left out if you don't feel like running to the supermarket. However, I recommend including them for the full experience, as opposed to the half-ass Taco Bell experience.) - One can refried beans - One green pepper (*) - One half onion (*) - One can of corn (*) - One zucchini (*) - One tomato (*) - One thing of sour cream (or plain yogurt, for the health nuts) - Some cheddar cheese, in block form or shredded - Lemon juice, about half a lemon's worth (*) - Tobasco sauce - Other assorted spices: cumin, chili powder, curry powder, salt and pepper. - Oh yeah, and burrito wraps What to do: See all those vegetables? Chop them up into bite-sized pieces. Well, not the corn, that's already good. I like the zucchini cut into coins, but cubes are OK too, I guess. Put the peppers and onions into a pot with a little oil. Turn on the fire. Cook it all up, adding cumin and chili powder to taste. Smells good, don't it? When that's all done, add the can of refried beans. Just dump it onto the same pot and stir in the vegetables. The bean block will be hard and unyielding at first, but will soften into warm liquid goo phase soon enough. When it's all stirrable, add the can of corn, making sure to drain the corn juice first. Then add more spices to taste. Especially important, I think, are the tobasco and the lemon juice, though more cumin is also crucial. This is the little extra part that you can do if you're feeling fancy, though the burritos will be just fine without it: zucchini on the side. Take your zucchini and put it in a frying pan with some oil. Grill it up. Add salt, pepper, and curry. It is tasty, no? Now you can assemble your burrito. Put the bean and veggie goo on the wrap, add zucchini, chopped up tomato, shredded cheese, a dollop of sour cream, more tobasco, or whatever the hell else you want in there. You can put rice in there too, if you like it like that. Careful, though, don't overfill your burrito, or it will expolode. That's punishment for the sin of gluttony. Makes: 6-8 burritos, depending on wrap size and filling ambition. |
