Breakfast Date: Carolyn's Cafe

When Boyfriend visits he often brings his own cereal. He's a bit of a cereal fiend. If we go out near a grocery store he'll buy some regular milk; otherwise he's willing to use my soymilk.

Unfortunately when he arrived to visit on Thursday night I was completely out of milk, and by this morning, we hadn't yet purchased any. Problem? No. Actually I love going on breakfast dates with him, they've just become much more infrequent since I became a vegan. Pancakes, waffles, french toast, omelettes, all things of standard out-to-eat breakfast past. 

However, turns out most places make great oatmeal with water, and breakfast dates are on the upswing again.

So this morning brought us to an out-of-the-way Redlands breakfast place: Carolyn's Cafe

It was cheery, great service. I loved the quilts on the walls. Very cozy diner feel - I'm not really that much of a fan of quilts as decor in my personal style, but here it fit. 

Coffee for both of us. John got the coffee cake, which came with glowing Yelp reviews, and a side of potatoes. The coffee cake was certainly decadent - swimming in butter. I didn't try it but John liked it pretty well.

For me, oatmeal with brown sugar which came in a combo with fruit and coffee for $6. Yes please. I took out all the strawberries and sliced them into the oatmeal with my spoon. 

I would definitely come back here. 

And finally, guess what I got recently with an extensive stash of old Borders gift cards? (They're going out of business - gotta use them now!)

I hope you're familiar with Sarah's blog - and this book is just more of the awesomeness. She's also from my hometown in Oregon. 

In an extension of my love for Veganomicon, Latin flavors from one of the co-authors. 

And knowing very little about raw food, I picked a user-friendly book I could learn from. 

So much cooking in my happy future.

Tachy Med Student: Gems from Surgery Attendings

Want more medicine? If you're one of my medically-interested readers, or just want to read more about life in medical school, I'm pleased to share that my medical school has just started a student blog. I'm a contributor - you'll find me under Kari. Some posts I may duplicate here, but you can get some other perspectives and hear from my colleagues and classmates in other years as well. 

Check it out at: http://llusm.wordpress.com/

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And now for some fun. Today was my final day on surgery (except tests). It snuck up on me a bit actually, but here we are.

It's hard to go through a rotation with little idea how I'm actually doing, but my evaluation was very positive, all summed up I actually had a great time, and so I leave you with a few highlights from my time on surgery:

Gems from the Surgery Attendings

From the young female surgeon working outrageous hours:
"Yes, please give me more Saturday morning clinic. Take advantage of me now while I'm husbandless and childless because pretty soon I'll be popping out kids with all kinds of abnormalities and spending all my time dropping them off at the short bus."


While I was suturing incorrectly in the operating room, in conjunction with getting smacked on the hand with the irrigator bulb:
"Stop that! When you see me, I see you. When you don't see me, I still see you. Remember that."


From the attending I spend most of my time with, after working a case with a different student:
"Oh hello. You know J? She was with me during this case. It was nice to have a student get some answers right for a change." 
*laughter*

Just the first of many questions in a very long case:
"You're in the desert, you've crashed your car, you've broken all your extremities, no one is coming to help. Would you rather have a complete or partial transection of your common femoral artery?"
I got distracted from the teaching point here, thinking, "Jiminy Christmas. Was it necessary to break all my limbs?"

From a surgeon who loves his job - at least the operating part:
"GAWD I hate clinic. God save all the internal medicine and primary care docs. I hope nothing bad ever happens to a single one of them."


From an attending after I successfully did something rather simple. Apply mild sarcasm:
"I'm so proud. Tears are welling in my eyes."


After completing my end-of-rotation evaluation:
"Be sure you stop by and leave a copy of the evaluation with the secretary. We like to be able to look back in case we see you in the news for malpractice." 
*Gulp* Does that happen often?

Tachy Med Student: Pimped Past Midnight

Have I talked about pimping yet?

Not the velvet purple-suited cane-wielding kind. 

I feel like I have mentioned it, but just in case, a little term definition:

Pimping: noun. The act of questioning your medical students and residents in order to make them sweat, cry, and cause all their sphincters to synchronously clamp down. If we can break through the nerves, we almost always learn something.

Getting pimped: Being the medical student forced to learn. And sweat. 

Last night was my last call on surgery. It was also the busiest. Things were actually pretty calm in terms of new patients, but I scrubbed in on a case that went from 10:00 pm - 3:00 am. In total, I slept from 4 - 5 am. 

That one hour though? It was awesome. 

Then I had patients to see before going to the operating room and getting pimped until I left around 1 pm. 28 hours total. 

It was actually a very positive experience. The surgeons I scrubbed with in the middle of the night weren't people I had worked with before and they discussed areas I hadn't reviewed in a while, so I did feel like I learned quite a bit. 

I found my eyes literally closed while holding the retractor in surgery this morning though. If I could sleep standing up without falling into the sterile field I guarantee I would have.

Another definition - Post-call: The situation of having been on pager all night and therefore having a plausible excuse for looking like a hot mess. 

Post-call I had a couple of appointments - including my first one the gynecologist. She was great, but it's the gynecologist you know?

What a couple days. 

But to wind down?

Friends + Bachelor Pad. 

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Don't judge. I'm post-call.

The Day I Ate Out 3 Times

...and also saw 5+ wedding venues.

I'm visiting John in Irvine this weekend and we've been trying our best to find a place to get married. I've lost count of the venues we've seen, but I know there were at least 5 yesterday. Of course, all the venue hunting requires some fuel.

I like visiting Irvine because it's so close to the coast and there's a lot to do out here, but there is an unfortunate drawback to John's apartment. He lives with roommates who are perfectly nice, but through some inexplicable force of chaos, somehow they leave his kitchen a constant, sticky, mess. John's one of the cleanest men I've ever met and any space he's in charge of is going to look awesome, so I know it's frustrating for him too.

It's literally not safe to walk barefoot through it. I don't even want to think about cooking. We'll sometimes prepare breakfast (with dishes he keeps safe in his cupboard, separate from everything else) but we pretty much eat out when I'm here.

So that brings us to yesterday. It can be a challenge to eat out vegan, but I would say we made some good discoveries:

Breakfast: Oatmeal at Sidestreet Cafe in Costa Mesa. It's a casual atmosphere, lots of signage on the walls and different types of people. The three women next to us were chatting away about one night stands like an episode of Sex and the City. Apparently her best intimate experiences were not with either of her long-term relationships. I'm not sure that's something I wanted to hear, at least before coffee. Service was good even though it was really busy, and I really appreciated that my coffee mug was very attentively refilled. The oatmeal is made with water (vegan-safe) and comes with banana, brown sugar, raisins and milk (though I told them I didn't need the milk). I ordered a side of berries instead of toast. And coffee. Always coffee.

French toast for John.

Post-Breakfast our venue hunting led us on a tour of California beach cities. We drove through Long Beach Port, and a ways up the coast, stopping a couple places until we met up with some college friends for lunch.

The port. 

I love bridges. Not as much as John though. Every time we see a good one he makes sure I take a proper look.

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Redondo Beach Historic Library

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Long Beach Museum of Art

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Wayfarer's Chapel (Beautiful, but won't work for us. Too small/not a reception site as well.)

Lunch: Eduardo's Border Grill. Grilled vegetable salad. I wasn't so sure about the ingredients in the dressing so I kept it on the side and just used salsa. 

It was great to catch up with some friends, and post-lunch we went to see a few more sites.

Did we find our wedding venue? Hard to say at this point. 

This house has a tennis court - on a cliff. What?

Somehow on the way back we ended up on a driving tour of LA's tourist spots. Sunset, Rodeo Dr. etc. When we got passed by a red Ferrari, I wasn't fazed, but I did wish I had at least washed my car. 

Dinner: Somehow with the amount of traffic we hit, it was past 8 pm before we made it somewhere for dinner. We ended up at Diamond Jamboree, which was craaazy crowded and contains almost entirely Asian restaurants, all of which had lines out the door. We picked Tokyo Table, a Japanese restaurant with a substantial sushi menu, but also many other options. The waitress was pretty knowledgeable about what could be made vegan. 

Genmai tea, edamame to start, and stir-fried udon noodles with homemade tofu in the vegetarian ginger sauce with extra vegetables. Beef yakisoba for John. We both saved half of these enormous plates for later. 

The homemade tofu was amazing. We agreed it was the best tofu we'd ever tasted. 

This table was so cool. We got to sit next to each other instead of across even though it was just a little booth.

I'm happy with the food we found, but it was honestly a relief to just make some breakfast on our own this morning. Especially given my dietary preferences, eating out at every meal starts to feel like too much.

And now we're trying to get some studying in at a Starbucks. I have my surgery exams starting in just a week, and I certainly have lots to learn. It's a little overwhelming, but I'd best go study something today.


Have a southern California wedding venue suggestion for me? I'd love your input. 


How do you feel about eating every meal out?

Grilled Vegan Pizza

I know I'm only averaging a couple posts a week, and I miss being able to write more often, but I'm just keeping very busy.

The hospital's good I guess.

2 weeks + a test week left of surgery rotation, and while I'm feeling very overwhelmed with the amount of material that will be on our end-of-rotation exams, overall I guess I'm all right. I was on call again on Friday night and we had a good time with some interesting consults.

Exercise has been a little slack lately and I think I'm suffering some endorphin withdrawal - I've been a bit sad lately, but I have a plan for that coming up in a later post.

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Post-call on Friday, John came to visit and for dinner? Grilled Pizza with roomies and friends.

Katie's a grill master:

To Make Grilled Pizza

1. Take your dough (we used Trader Joe's) and shape it. 

2. Grill a few minutes over high heat to get it a little crispy.

3. Add toppings.

   - Mine were olives, broccoli, bell pepper, tomato sauce, onions, and tomatoes. 

    (No cheese substitutes - I'm not such a fan of vegan cheese.)

4. Return to the grill and cover to cook both top and bottom. 

5. Eat and love those crispy grill marks. 

Pizza dough breadsticks - spread with oil/garlic/cheese if you want and bake in a 400 degree oven. 

Yes, I ate the whole thing.

Grilled? Pizza stone? Brick oven? Papa John's? What's your favorite way to make/get your pizza?

Tachy Med Student: Surgery 7 Weeks In.

It's week number 7 of surgery rotation.

Can I say I'm ready for it to be over? It's not that I don't like the rotation. Everyone's great and I'm learning all the time. The people I've been working with at Kaiser have shown me that surgeons don't have to be rude - though I maintain that plenty are.

I definitely don't have complaints, I've actually had a really great rotation, especially compared to some of my classmates. My hours have been a little shorter, I don't think I've gone in on as many weekends.

I just don't want to be a surgeon, and I'm ready to not have to say, "Oh great!" when they tell me I can come back after class on Friday afternoon because there's a big interesting case. Only a few hours long. "Great!"

So. great.

I'm kind of over these styling caps. Also these suffocating masks and their associated pimples:

It's also over 100 degrees every day and never really gets cool at night, so I haven't been sleeping well at all. 

I have 3 more calls on this rotation and two and a half weeks in the hospital. Then we have a week to take tests - a written exam and a series of standardized patient encounters where we get evaluated.

I'm sure it'll be over before I know it, but I'm just tired and it feels like Fall, a new rotation and cooler temperatures are ages away.