Grad School Eating in Style: Cake Balls!

First off, Sci would like to extend a pleased and blushing THANK YOU!! to all the people who voted for her in the Three Quarks Daily Contest.

We’re in the top 20!!! I’m so thrilled by all the love. And by the fact that hyena mating is CLEARLY some sweet stuff. Well, of course it is. Sci would also like to give shout-outs to the other well-deserved semi-finalists, including Ed of Not Exactly Rocket Science (Ed always dominates, and I LOVE that gut bacteria post), Eric of Primate Diaries, Jason of The Thoughtful Animal, and Christie of Observations of a Nerd! We all rock so hard.. Fistbump!

(The proper way to express scientific awesome)
And now, on to today’s post, which involves cake and chocolate and therefore can challenge 3 Quarks Daily anyday.
Sci may no longer be a grad student (at least, they tell her she’s making post-doc stipend), but living in Huge New City isn’t exactly cheap. So while technically Sci’s a PhD, her standard of living has remained roughly the same.
And so, Sci brings you another in her (so far) two part series on eating like a grad student. She may have another one on the bean hodge podge her friend made up, which is nutritious, filling, and makes enough to last you a week (lunch AND dinner) for around $7.
But for now, let’s talk about pot lucks.
You know pot lucks, those things where people ask you to bring your own results of culinary genius to share with others. They are supposed to save money (you only have to make one dish), and supposed to make everyone happy, but for people like Sci…they are tough. Sci often ends up being the one who brings the soda or chips. This is because, unlike all the hardcore foodies sitting around on ScienceBlogs…Sci can’t cook. Well, ok. She’s up to a grilled chicken breast, steamed veggies, or an omelet, does a lot of rice and pasta, and she makes a mean curry. But other than that…well.

(No matter how many years of PhD or tenure or emer-itis, nothing will diminish my love of PhD comics. I LOVE YOU, JORGE! OVER HERE!!!! WRITE ABOUT SCI!!!!)
And so potlucks were embarrassing. No matter what I tried to make, it always came out looking icky and not well done, and though people ate it, I’m not sure they enjoyed themselves. This was made even harder by the fact that all of Sci’s friends and co-workers LOVE to be gourmands and make seriously crazy, seriously expensive food which involves things like star anise and polenta, and who loved to cater to the vegetarian, organic, and health conscious. I felt like I could never measure up and was the one continuously bringing crappy food.
And then I discovered CAKE BALLS.