Millionaire Shortbread and the Intubation

So, I have 3 weeks left of surgery.  Three.  It's a lot and a little all at the same time.  I'm done with the peds service (sad face...), but general surgery (ie, "old" people with bad colons and all kinds of unappetizing problems) hasn't been too bad.  Hours are long, whatever, but I've gotten to do some cool stuff.  OK I got to do one cool thing this week....I totally intubated someone.  My med school friends out there just went, "holy crap that's awesome", but incase you don't grasp the magnitude of this experience, let me tell you what happens when we put you to "sleep"... we make you feel drunk (versed), then we sedate you (propofol...Michael Jackson's (classy) drug of choice), then we paralyze you (rocuronium).  After you're paralyzed, you stop breathing, and we have, oh, about max of 45 seconds to intubate you before your body gets mad at us.  To intubate, you use a tongue blade to get that big floppy thing out of the way, then, when and if you can see the vocal chords, advance a tube into the trachea and blow up a little balloon to make sure we have a nice airway.  Turn on the aerosolized anesthesia gas (desflurane) and breathe for the patient with the ventilator, and the surgeons can cut away (with a little morphine or your opioid of choice).

The anesthesiologist was AWESOME.  During our second case with him yesterday, I was at the head of the bed with gloves on when he was ready to go.  He asked me if I wanted to give intubation a shot and although I felt totally unready and unsure that I could drop a tube into someone's trachea, it is going to happen sometime, and better to be on a healthy big person than a tiny baby.  It took a minute (I think the anesthesiologist pumped a bunch of oxygen into him before I started to buy me time) but I did it.  I was so pumped.  I helped fly the anesthesia plane during the operation (what rotation am I on?), and then I extubated (pulled the tube out) after it was all over and we reversed all the crap we gave him.  Boom.  The field of anesthesia and I have been flirting on and off for years, and while I don't think I'm going to jump my baby doctor ship anytime soon, it was a fun experience :)

So you really came here to read about some bars?  These are my BEST baked goods...of all time.  Really.  When I make these for people, I tell them this is as good as it gets with me.  I'm a good baker, but these are addictive and unreal.  It's a little time intensive but nothing is really hard.  People will flip out for these, I promise.

Look closely...there's dark and light chocolate :)

I like to marble three kinds of chocolate on the top: semisweet, milk, and white chocolates, but you can use just one (boring...come on) or two.  I spread alternating lines of semisweet and milk chocolate, then dot with white chocolate.  Take a knife and swirl them together (don't mix, just swirl, or marble).

Here's to hoping you'll never need me to intubate you :)
Amy

Millionaire Shortbread

For the shortbread
3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks, cold)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

For the filling:
7 Tbsp butter, diced
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cans sweetened condensed milk

For the topping
1 cup each milk and semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a 9x13 pan.  In a food processor, combine flour and powdered sugar.  Pulse in butter until it looks like breadcrumbs or sand.  (Add 1 Tbsp water if it's not "together" enough...).  Tip the dough into your pan and smush it around to create an even crust.  Bake for 20 minutes or until set and very light brown.  Allow to cool

To make the filling, put the butter, brown sugar and sweetened condensed milk into a pan and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.  Stirring constantly (really...constantly), bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer the mixture for 7-9 minutes (STIR!!! STIR STIR STIR) until it is a dark caramel color.  Off the heat, stir in 1 Tbsp vanilla extract.  Pour into the crust and allow to set.

Melt each type of chocolate separately.  Make stripes of the semisweet and milk chocolate, then dot on white chocolate.  Swirl with a knife.  Allow the chocolate to set up at room temp or in the refrigerator.  Cut into small squares.  Try not to eat half a pan by yourself :)