Graham, L. et al
You’ve truly outdone yourself! You’ve turned weeks of writing applications into exactly zero grants! While you catch up on your neglected experiments, just remember that a complete lack of funding shouldn’t stop you from enjoying basic luxuries like eating.
So If your stipend makes ramen noodles seem expensive, here are seven free recipes that will only cost your remaining dignity.
Appetizers
Air Salad
Mix 78L of nitrogen gas, 21L oxygen gas and a dash of argon, carbon dioxide and neon in a large room. Inhale.
Sad Soup
Heat 2 cups of your own tears using a Bunsen burner. Salt to taste.
Mains
Leftover department pizza
Befriend the office secretary to obtain the date and location of every catered department meeting. Feast on the pizza crusts of someone else’s successful thesis defence.
Spicy DNA noodles
Extract some chromatids from one of your cells, scold them for not getting that grant, then lightly denature them with 5% acetic acid. Serve on an agar plate.
Deserts & Drinks
Gel-o shooters
Mix warm agarose and ethanol in a beaker and pour mixture into a tray of cell culture plates. Wait 1-2 hours until they set then serve.
Lab Alcohol
If you need something to take the edge off, mouth pipette some ethanol into an Erlenmeyer flask and enjoy at room temperature. If you prefer your drinks sparkling over still, add some carbonic acid.
Office Coffee
Since your stipend definitely won’t cover fruit this year, stave off the inevitable scurvy adding some ascorbic acid to a pot of office coffee.
