Turning a Scientific Mind to Sweet Ideas Do in the Lab Involves a Protocol of Some Kind,” Ambrose Says
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ABCDE C saturday, april 7, 2012 Style EZ SU THE TV COLUMN MUSIC SUNDAY ARTS Morning gabfests put up their dukes Item 1 in the Gift Janus Trio, Curiouser Lisa de Moraes weighs in on the past week’s sans jolt and curiouser ratings battle between ABC and NBC. Katie Giving Code: If it has The young players, The Washington Ballet Couric co-anchored “Good Morning America,” strings attached, then don’t part of New York’s prepares to premiere its and Ryan Seacrest visited “Today.” Visit new-music scene, “Alice (in Wonderland).” washingtonpost.com/tvcolumn. call it a gift.” Carolyn Hax, C4 fall flat at Atlas. C3 Coming Sunday Turning a scientific mind to sweet ideas do in the lab involves a protocol of some kind,” Ambrose says. “You Bakery owner is at home figure out how to plan an experi- in kitchen and lab ment in order to test the hypothe- sis. When you do an experiment, there are proportions — so this BY R.C. BARAJAS idea of following recipes to get a Special to The Washington Post desired result is very much innate to me. When it comes to the kitch- On a perfect day, Winnette en, it’s kind of a similar thing. It McIntosh Ambrose would be in was just a natural fit for me.” the kitchen of the Sweet Lobby, The fit proved so natural that in the pastry shop on Barracks Row February, just seven months after she owns with her brother, by opening its doors on Capitol Hill, 6 a.m., in her National Institutes the Sweet Lobby won Food Net- of Health lab by 10 a.m. and home work’s “Cupcake Wars.” Ambrose, by 8 p.m. incidentally, has never taken a But not every day is perfect. cooking class. On this day, Ambrose is in the Any cook knows that science throes of training a new baker, has its place in the kitchen — it which makes her a little late to thickens sauces, raises souffles Building 6 on the NIH campus, and enables other seemingly mag- where she dons a white lab coat ical transformations. But Ambro- and peers through a microscope se understands the marriage of at mouse retinal cells. The cells sugar and butter just as she un- are being cultured on a new biom- derstands the link between tissue aterial that Ambrose hopes will and substrate. provide them with a better living And there’s something more in environment than regular sub- the way this 36-year-old has dedi- strate. She would like to see, cated her energies and expertise someday,sections of this biomate- toward healing the most essential rial transplanted into degenerat- parts of the human body — the ing retinas to restore vision. eye, the heart and the insatiable Usually,her two lives — one as a sweet tooth inside each of us. She creator of fine pastries and the is a perfectionist — tempered with other as a biochemical engineer — a gift for madly creative improvi- dovetail in a strange kind of har- sation. The same commitment to mony. Ambrose has a simple ex- planation why. “A lot of what we baker continued on C3 D.C.’s ‘brony’ meet-ups corral ‘My Little Pony’s’ Mane surprising fans: Grown men assembled here — is the organizer. A first-year computer science major at the UniversityofMarylandatCollege Park, R.S. wears attraction glasses and has per- FANBOYS: Andrew BY MELODY WILSON the Martin Luther King Jr. Library fect posture — as Singley, top, has Trixie Special to The Washington Post auditorium to watch and discuss the though he actually on his shoulder. Below, latest episode of “My Little Pony: listened to his mother “bronies” Jason Meyers, The lights dim, and the crowd qui- Friendship Is Magic.” The event is a when she told him to left, and Fen Ingram ets. When a bright pink pony appears meet-up of D.C. area “bronies”: adult sit up straight while check out stuffed ponies on the projection screen, the eight men — and some women — who he was playing his at a recent meet-up in CARLA SIMS/SWEET LOBBY people onstage begin trotting along follow the animated TV show reli- computer games. He the District. FAMILY BUSINESS: Winnette McIntosh Ambrose started the with it. One man, wearing a shiny pink giously. Make no mistake: This is not a is quiet, but when he Sweet Lobby with her brother, Timothy McIntosh. Ambrose divides hat shaped like a pony’s mane, leads small number of fans. Similar meet- talks about ponies, enthusiasm creeps her time between the shop and the National Institutes of Health. the others in song: ups have taken place across the coun- into his voice. Many have tried to “Come on, every pony, smile, smile, try and the world since the show first explain the show’s allure, he says, but smile! Fill my heart up with sunshine, aired in October 2010. they can’t quite put their finger on its sunshine! All I really need’s a smile, Standing in the semidarkness to wild popularity. The characters are smile, smile! From these happy one side of the stage is a tall, slim “cute,” he says, and they seem like BOOK WORLD friends of mine!” figure with wavy light-brown hair that About 50 people have gathered in descends past his shoulders. Eigh- bronies continued on C3 teen-year-old Andrew Rodgers-Schatz In ‘Calico Joe,’ Grisham — known as “R.S.” to family and friends and as “Xiagu” to the bronies knocks it out of the park BY STEVEN V. ROBERTS Castle, a 21-year-old rookie first Special to The Washington Post baseman for the Chicago Cubs. Calico Joe (the nickname comes ohn Grisham’s legal thrillers from his home town of Calico are dense and hefty, full of Rock, Ark.) bashes home runs in J twists and turns and tension. his first three at-bats in the His latest novel, “Calico Joe,” major leagues and is hitting is not like that at all. It’s a sweet, above .500 six weeks later when simple story, a fable the Cubs play the Mets really. And like all fa- at Shea Stadium in bles, it has a moral: Queens. Good can come out of Wearing the black evil; it’s never too late hat is Warren Tracey, a to confess your sins 34-year-old journey- and seek forgiveness. man pitcher for the Writers who deal Mets with a reputation with baseball seem for hitting batters — drawn to its mythic and the bottle — with dimensions. Whether equal determination. they produce a novel His first time up, Calico (“The Natural”), a Calico Joe Joe whacks a homer off movie (“Field of By John Grisham Tracey. When he comes Dreams”), a play Doubleday. to bat again, an 11-year- (“Damn Yankees”) or a 198 pp. $24.95 old boy in the stands, song (“Mrs. Robin- Tracey’s son, Paul, has a son”), they often focus very sick feeling. on outsize heroes, their feats and He’s obsessed with Joe, keep- their flaws. Maybe it’s the grass ing a scrapbook that records all or the lights or the uniforms. of his dazzling deeds. And he Maybe it’s the strict geometry of knows his father is about to the playing field that turns play- throw at Joe’s head. Paul knows ers into archetypes, characters in this because Tracey has called his a morality play: stars and bums, son a “coward” for not challeng- goodguysandbadguys.Andsoit ing batters with inside pitches in is with “Calico Joe,” a story about Little League. Years later, as he two men whose lives are fused narrates this story, Paul recalls together by one terrible instant the game at Shea: “I wanted to on Aug. 24, 1973. PHOTOS BY LINDA DAVIDSON/THE WASHINGTON POST Wearing the white hat is Joe book world continued on C4 KLMNO SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 2012 EZ SU C3 oped, after all, by toy giant Has- document the brony movement, bro to boost sales of its signature is the meet-up’s crafts organizer. Adult fans ride a ‘My Little Pony’ high toy line. In fact, “My Little Pony: She considers herself a mother Friendship Is Magic” first caught figure of sorts, because she is bronies from C1 on when a Cartoon Brew article older than many of the bronies criticized it as the end of “the and because she is a natural lead- “actual people.” He continues, creator-driven era of TV anima- er. “The writing is witty — it’s a smart tion.” It quickly became an Inter- But wait — girl bronies? Is that show.” net phenomenon among those allowed? Today’s episode centers on who read the article, watched the “ ‘Brony’ is unisex,” she says. three young ponies that join their show and got hooked. Isn’t there something a little school’s newspaper. A new editor From “My Little Pony’s” con- weird about grown men playing comes in with guns blazing: “No sumerist roots has sprung a cre- with rainbow-hued ponies? Pam- more namby-pamby like last ative revolution. Equestria Daily ela Rutledge, director of the Me- year’s editor,” she proclaims. “But serves as a centralized news dia Psychology Research Center, Namby Pamby was a great edi- source, and other sites and net- doesn’t think so. She says, tor!” the ponies protest. The bro- works have sprung up. YouTube is “They’re just a fan base revisiting nies in the auditorium hoot with awash with remixes of pony childhood and some of the things laughter.