Chapter 58 - PAIN & Ice Cream

In which our hero is in PAIN ....

Calm down. It's not actual painful pain. It's just the name of the Physics Club at UQ (The University of Queensland)(Which is in Brisbane, and not my uni). They named it that because they thought it would be funny. My friend Glen (the Friendly Giant) has been a member of PAIN for a couple years. Last year I went to a couple of events with him, I think. This year, on the first Friday of the school year, we went up for liquid nitrogen ice cream. It was only $2 to join, so I joined. And then there was liquid nitrogen ice cream.

The first interesting thing, and rather a difference, I think, between Canadian and Australian health & safety rules, is there were no grown-ups present. It was just the students. They'd been through a little safety induction and then were trusted with the thing of liquid nitrogen. Just that easy.

The thing of liquid nitrogen.

Now here's the next interesting thing, regarding health and safety. According to the rules, you had to be wearing either fully laced up secure shoes, or no shoes. I was wearing flip-flops. So ... yeah. No shoes for me. The idea was that if the liquid nitrogen spilled on your feet, it would just roll off laced up secure shoes, and there'd be no harm done. Same goes for bare feet: You could just shake it off and walk away, and it would evaporate fairly quickly. However, if you have flip-flops, or other sandals, and the liquid nitrogen spills on your feet, it'll pool in the bottom and burn the soles of your feet. That would be bad.

I never thought I'd say this, but for the sake of health and safety I was not allowed to wear shoes.

So the gang had organised all the ingredients we needed. There was milk, cream, three flavours of Nesquick -- chocolate, strawberry, and banana -- and styrofoam cups and paddle-pop sticks (that's popsicle sticks to those of you not in Oz) for stirring.

I had no idea Nesquick came in banana ...

Anyway, we mixed up our flavours, then one of the guys with a cup of liquid nitrogen poured some in and we stirred like crazy. It was a bit of a fiddly business because if you stirred too slowly the stuff would solidify, but if you went too much and too fast all the cold would evaporate and you'd be back to liquid. It turned out the trick was to have a few separate addings of liquid nitrogen, with vigorous stirring, and then you'd get a satisfactorily edible result.

Om nom strawberry ...

Of course, I tried every flavour. I think I mixed some as well -- choc banana, choc strawberry, strawberry banana -- the possibilities were endless. Well, there were three. Whatever. It was delicious.

Now here's some action shots:

Pouring the liquid nitrogen into a styrofoam box. No gloves or safety glasses or aprons. Perfectly normal.

Glen's ice cream. Smoking cold.

And pouring the fog out. It was really good fun.

And lastly, you'll never guess who we saw while we were up there:

Bush turkey! Like Mom said, that guy sure does get around!