 Hello everyone, welcome back to Super Science Saturday brought to you by NCAR and UCAR. This is an annual event that we usually hold at our NCAR Mesa Lab in Boulder, Colorado that we're bringing to you virtually this year. Now we're getting really close to lunch here in the Colorado Front Range and I don't know about y'all but all this talk of science has certainly been working up my appetite. So we're about to head into the kitchen with Tim and Chef Nancy to make a little snack. Now we love all science questions here at NCAR so as Tim and Chef Nancy are cooking up the storm in the kitchen, definitely submit any questions you have for them using either Slido, which I'll put a link to in the chat or right in the Zoom Q&A. And with that let's get cooking with Tim and Chef Nancy. Oh my goodness Dan, thank you so much for transferring us, for bringing us in. It is, it's definitely getting time to cook and Super Science Saturday, like what would Super Science Saturday be without Super Food and our wonderful Chef Nancy. So I'm so excited to be here. I even know what's going to happen. I'm still really super excited to be here and hear from Nancy about cooking and science. I don't think you're ready for this. Everybody, here it comes. Nancy, are you there? I'm here. Hi everybody. Thanks Tim. Hi friends. Welcome to Cooking Up a Storm. I am Chef Nancy from the Mesa Lab Home Kitchen here today on the Super Science Saturday, while Tim and all of the other wizards are all at all the different labs around Helm to keep things fun. Okay, so let's talk today about the stuff that falls from the sky. You know, rain, snow, hail and slush, right? It's actually called precipitation and you and I are going to make some great homemade snacks while we learn about precipitation, how it develops and how it can change. So I want to start today with what I personally think is the coldest precipitation, snow, right? So did you know that snow is actually affected by dust? I didn't know this. The way that dust blows through the air and lands on everything. So let me show you this way. I have a bag here of oyster crackers. They are perfect in their own imperfect way. So we're going to use these today for our snow. I'm going to put it back in the bag here and I'm going to make a little bit of noise and a little bit of mess, but that's half the fun of the kitchen, right? So first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add a quarter of a cup of oil. I'm going to close my bag up tight and shake it up. What I'm doing is making my snow wet and crunchy, kind of like the color of the dust. Now I'm going to add some dust because who knew that dust affected snow, right? My combination is cumin, coriander, chili powder, garlic, and a little touch of oregano. I'm going to put it back in my bag and shake it up and shake it like crazy. Now I'm not sure if you can tell yet, but look at what's happening to my snowflakes. Let me show you. My snowflakes here are starting to change because the dust is starting to attach to them and grab on. I'm making a lot of noise, aren't I? So my snow is actually changing because of the dust. The dust is starting to grab on to the wetness and it's starting to attach to my snowflakes and it's changing it in a way that I actually can't undo. As a matter of fact, the dust is even changing the color of our snow. So here's the crazy thing that you need to remember. Real dust on real snow has a real impact on our water supply. And here's how. So when dust lands on snow, it's kind of like putting a sweater on top of the snow, right? And it causes the snow to melt way too quickly. And instead of the snow slowly melting and going into the ground and adding water to the rivers and streams, it melts faster than the soil can actually absorb it. Just like the dust on my snowflakes here. My snowflakes can't really absorb all of the dust that's hitting them. Let me tell you another way. So I took this glass of water earlier. I had some cornstarch in it and what I did was I poured my water slowly into my cornstarch. And I did that because it just took its time. The cornstarch was able to absorb the water. But when I poured the water quickly into the glass, the cornstarch could hardly absorb all of the water. And you can see there's none of the water on the bottom of my glass there. Well, get this though, here's how far dust actually travel. In Colorado, we often find dust on our snow that comes from New Mexico and Utah and even Arizona. The scientists can actually see the dust that comes from those states because it's so red and colorful and actually really pretty, I'm sure. But it's amazing how far dust can travel because in my example here, I coated my snow with a little bit of Mexican spices. And believe it or not, there is dust from Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert that has been found in the Colorado snow. A powerful wind from a ferocious storm blew it right up here, which I couldn't even believe. Can you believe that, Tim? How does that work? Oh yeah, great. It's crazy. It reminds me of this atmospheric river which is all this water in the atmosphere that last week blew a whole bunch of moisture into California and you might have heard about the really, really intense drought starting to get mitigated by all that moisture coming in as rain and in the higher elevation snow. And that's a river of moisture in the air. The dust that comes up off of the Chihuahuan Desert comes right in wind right off of Mexico. But there's also another river of moisture that can come right off the Gulf of Mexico, the Maya Express. So this is definitely something that happens in our atmosphere. Wow. Okay. That is unbelievable. I truly, I did not know that dust flew that far and had such an impact on our snow. Crazy. Okay. Here it is. But here's what my snack looks like. Now I baked this off for just a little bit, 250 degree oven. I put my oily snow in an oven, 250 degrees for 15 minutes and de-lish. I highly recommend it for a good popcorn movie snack. But I'm going to set this over here because the next thing we're going to talk about is how rain forms. Do you know what it starts with? Something really simple. It needs something like a particle of dust. Who knew? It's amazing how much dust affects things. Now once rain forms, it actually can change into a lot of other things. It can change into sleet and slush and snow and even grapple. There's a goofy word. Now we're going to start by cooking up a storm today making homemade marshmallows. You will definitely need some help from an adult to make these. But wow, they are so, so worth it. Now here's actually what you need to do to make your own marshmallows. You need to find a pan. It doesn't really matter what size. You spray it down really good with some pan spray and then you fill that pan with a layer of plastic wrap and you actually spray that plastic wrap one more time with your pan spray. Once you get that done, you make sure you start with three packs of gelatin. I use unflavored gelatin here and put three packs over half a cup of cold water. Let it sit for a few minutes because it needs to just start changing a little bit and make itself a different kind of dust. But at the same time, you're going to have a pan on the stove that you add some sugar, some white corn syrup, and extra cold water. Make sure you bring it up to temperature over medium heat. You're not going to do it too hot. Doesn't take too terribly long. It'll all melt together and maybe in about five minutes before you know it. That starts to boil. Once your marshmallow mix starts to boil, that's the point that I add vanilla and salt. You just want to make sure that you add that to give it a little flavor. Marshmallows got to have a little flavor. Remember, we started with unflavored gelatin, which now is looking kind of squishy. Not exactly what you would expect maybe. Now, what you can't see is I've taken my hot mixture, my sugar mixture from the stove and I'm pouring it into my gelatin on the side of my pan here. I'm going to let that go, whip around, gosh, for 12 minutes, you guys. It takes a few minutes to really form. But once you get it good and formed, you're going to end up with the best marshmallow rain ever. Let me show you what I've got going on here. Let me tell you a couple of crazy tricks. When you're dealing with anything candied, two really good ways to handle things. Spray your own hands. That keeps you greasy and goopy too. Sometimes you just got to do it. The other way that I like to do it is with butter and we're going to do butter later. This time my tools and my hands all have a little pan spray on them so that I am able to work with everything. Now, here's something you might not actually know. Rain needs a little particle of dust to form just like my marshmallows did here. Believe it or not, they need the speck of dust and they also need the temperature of the storm to be just right. Just like the temperature I needed to have for my syrup coming off the stove needed to be just right. When it stays just right, that rain stays wet and splashy when it hits the ground and hits you and I in the face. But until that happens, those small droplets that are in the cloud, they grow larger and larger and they get heavier and heavier until rain pours out of the sky. Kind of like our crazy marshmallows pouring out of our sky here. Now, I've used the gelatin here to make my dust, to make my marshmallows form and you'll be able to do that too. Now, woof, goopy, huh? Here's some other thing that I want you to know. Do you know that real raindrops are not actually tear-dropped? That's how I like to draw them. I think that real marshmallows are tear-drop shaped. Just to be clear, Chef Nancy, did I hear that real raindrops are not tear-drop shaped like we see in books all the time? You guys, now you're trying to pull my leg. You tell me all the time that real raindrops are not tear-drop shaped. Let's see what happens. You know what? They actually, okay, I don't know if this is like a real raindrop, but that almost looks like a hamburger bun shaped. And I'm guessing somehow that real raindrops are closer to hamburger bun shapes than they are tear-drop shapes. Is that right, Tim? Absolutely, yes. They start out like little spheres when they're tiny and when they grow and get bigger, then they kind of flatten out on the bottom like a hamburger shape. I think we've got some hamburger bun shaped droplets there. I think I'm getting close. If nothing else, I'm definitely sticky, which is, if nothing, the best way to have fun in the kitchen. So I need to spread out these marshmallows. While I'm doing that, does anybody have any questions? Is there anything that Tim can help us with? Is there anything that you need to know about marshmallow rain? Well, Chef Nancy, there's a question from Nicholas about how hard is this to make? Actually this is really easy to make and it's a little messy and I got to confess I'm having way too much fun. I'm not usually this messy, but it's fun. Really easy to make. Probably in total it'll take you about 20 minutes or less. And maybe five ingredients. You need to have some regular sugar. You need to have some cold water. You need to have some unflavored gelatin. You might need to go to the store to get that, but you heat everything up on the stove top. You pour it into your pan and your mixer, or you pour it from your pan into your mixer and then you let it set. So once this is done, I'm going to let this sit here and we're going to use it this afternoon to make more snacks. So that's how easy they are to make and that's how fast they are. And let me show you. Once you get them done here and you have them set, I pour them into powdered sugar. I cut them into squares. Definitely, definitely, definitely not a teardrape shine. But look, I can also squeeze it into my hamburger bun shape. Nicholas, these are really easy to make and they're fun to make and they're sticky to make. And when you're done, you will have the best marshmallow you have ever had in your life to go into your hot chocolate. And Violet's wondering as soon as you bit into that marshmallow, how really sticky is that? It's really sticky, but how really sticky is it? If you play with it too much like I'm doing right now, really sticky, but let me tell you a couple of tricks. When you're playing with something sticky, I always have a wet towel nearby. And this one I wish was a little wetter, but look at how fast I'm going to get this off my hands. So yes, it's sticky, but it's that easy to get undone. And here's my pan in my bowl. You can see I've got kind of a sticky mess here. If you keep it in the pan, no problem. Cleanup is a non-issue. If you get it all over your hands and your face like I'm doing, then you got a little bit of a mess to clean up, but it's fun, well worth it. And remember that is how some of the raindrops are formed. The raindrop needs the particle of dust. My marshmallows need a particle of gelatin. Wow, that looks so good. And if there aren't any other questions in the chat that I see, thanks a bunch, Chef Nancy, for showing us all this stuff. I know you'll be back this afternoon for some more snack ideas. So everybody better make sure they tune in for that because it sounds really good. I hope so. And you guys keep an eye on the storm because I'm expecting the storm in the kitchen here. I'm expecting it to pick up a little bit and I think that we might see our rain turn into something else like maybe some gropple and we might get some hailstones. Uh-oh. You know how unpredictable that Colorado weather is. Exactly. Great. Well, thanks again, everybody. Tiffany's going to pop a link to a Slido survey if you're interested in providing some feedback into the Zoom chat. We're going to take a quick 15-minute break and we're going to be back at the bottom of the hour at 11.30 mountain time for hide and science. So I hope to see you all there.