Note:  For best results, before reading this page you should be familiar with "To Make a Mouse", Jon Franklin's News & Observer series written about Andrew, a grad student in the lab across the hall.
Pulitzer prize winner Jon Franklin science writing.  Science, technical, and explanitory writing.  Creative nonfiction.  John Franklin.  UNC Genetics Terry Van Dyke Lineberger

 To Make a Meal

        It is 7:15 and Andrew Xiao wants his dinner.  He picks up his remote tv controller, a shallow black rectangle covered with buttons that fits comfortably into the palm of his hand, and without so much as a glance downward, he guides his practiced thumb to the large red button labeled "power" and gently depresses it.  Nanoseconds later a beam of infrared radiation will spring forth from the tv controller and signal Xiao's television to turn off.  Xiao cannot see this infrared radiation, but he understands that it is there.   Like his Chinese ancestors, his faith in the unseen is strong.   The tv controller does its work, its infrared choreographer shouting "cut" to the electrons that are dancing their colorful dance across the inside of Xiao's TV screen.  Now the screen appears grey and lifeless, but if one looks closely enough, he can see the reflection of Xiao sitting on his couch.   Xiao is comfortable, but he is also hungry.  He wants his dinner.  A clever and determined man, Xiao understands that if he is to have his dinner, he will have to get up from the couch.
         In the kitchen, Xiao carefully rips open a box containing frozen nuggets of breaded meat known as "fish sticks".  He adeptly arranges the sticks into two rows of five on a lightly greased baking sheet.  There have been times when Xiao would have also added frozen sticks of potato to the baking sheet, but not tonight.   Potato sticks would only complicate things, and Xiao wants his dinner as soon as possible.  Tonight he is focused on his sticks of fish.  He places the sheet of frozen meat nuggets into a metal box underneath his countertop where they will be bombarded with thermal energy.  If all goes well, the thermal energy will massage the morsels of aquatic flesh to maximum tastiness and Xiao will have his dinner.  But it is better not to think of such things just yet.  Xiao makes technical adjustments to the control knobs on his thermal cooking box, pauses for a moment, then, satisfied that all is as it should be, he returns to his couch.
         He does not use his remote tv controller to turn the television back on, but instead lays back on his couch, hands interlocked behind his head, and thinks about the sticks of fish.  How many more minutes until he will have his dinner?  His brow knit pensively, Xiao does a few rough calculations in his head.  The earliest he will have his dinner is fifteen minutes from now, twenty five if he wants his sticks of fish to be extra crispy.  After a time, aromatic molecules of meat and batter begin to escape from the thermal cooking device, soaring into the living room and penetrating his nostrils.  Like tiny exotic dancers, the fish molecules spin round and round on his nasal cilia, teasing his olfactory glands.  The faintest hint of a smile appears on Xiao's face.
         Xiao's satisfaction is short-lived as he soon remembers that he is out of tartar sauce.  In order to have sticks of fish for dinner, he must also have tartar sauce.  There is no tartar sauce in his kitchen, but Xiao hasn't lived through twenty seven years of bachelorhood on two continents without picking up a trick or two.  He knows that tartar sauce is essentially nothing more than mayonnaise and pickle relish: he also knows that he just so happens to have both of those items in his refrigerator.  If he can combine these two ingredients in such a way that the final amalgam tastes like the tartar sauce from the grocery store, it will be one of the greatest technological achievements of our time and, perhaps more importantly, Xiao will have his dinner.

Tomorrow:   Chapter 2  "The Alchemy of Mayonnaise"
Tuesday:      Chapter 3  "Of Fish and Flames"
Wednesday:  Chapter 4  "To Replace a Countertop"
 

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