December 12

Mayim Hoya Bialik's Birthday

Mayim Bialik began career as a child actress in the late 1980s and early 1990s In 1989, Mayim won the Young Artist Award for "Best Young Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Fantasy" for her role in Beaches (1988). She was well known for her lead role as Blossom Russo in the NBC sitcom Blossom from 1991-1995. In the memorable Blossom pilot episode, actress Phylicia Rashad drew a map of the human ovaries on a sheet cake with a tube of icing in order to explain to 14-year-old Blossom Russo how her period worked.

At the end of Blossom, Mayim continued to do some TV including guest gigs on Fat Actress as Kirstie Alley's annoying neighbor. She also appeared in three episodes of the HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm as Jodi Funkhouser, the lesbian daughter of a friend of Larry David. She had a guest appearance as a Hasidic Jew in an episode of Saving Grace.

Mayim decided to pursue her studies while accepting the occasional acting gig. Although she also had been accepted to both Harvard and Yale, she chose to attend UCLA, where she earned a bachelor's degree in 2000 in neuroscience, Hebrew, and Jewish studies. "I basically walked off the television and onto the UCLA campus," she once remarked. Mayim went on to complete her PhD in neuroscience in 2008. Her PhD research at UCLA focused on obsessive compulsive disorder among people with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare complex genetic disorder that typically causes low muscle tone, short stature, incomplete sexual development, cognitive disabilities, problem behaviors, and a chronic feeling of hunger that can lead to excessive eating and life-threatening obesity.

She then landed the perfect role for someone with a PhD in neuroscience as the brainy Amy Farrah Fowler on CBS's The Big Bang Theory in which she is perfectly typecast as neurobiologist. On the episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture", Raj suggests recruiting the real-life Bialik to their Physics Bowl team, saying "You know who’s apparently very smart, is the girl who played TV’s Blossom. She got a PhD in neuroscience or something."

For Amy's birthday, we took the inspiration for an appropriator birthday treat from her role as Blossom with Fried Zucchini Blossoms since there were no recipies for fried nerdettes to commemorate her The Big Bang Theory role. We also suggest watching her blossom as an actress in Beaches.

Fried Zucchini Blossoms

Ingredients

16 zucchini blossoms
1 cup milk
1 cup beer
1 cup flour

1 egg, lightly beaten
Salt
2 cups olive oil for frying

Instructions

1. Trim the stems of the zucchini blossoms, remove the pistils, wash them gently and pat them dry gently.
2. Prepare the batter by combining the milk, beer, flour and egg.
3. Heat the oil .to 365º F on a candy thermometer.
4. Lightly salt the zucchini blossoms, dredge them in the batter.
5. Fry battered blossoms a few minutes until crisp and golden brown on both sides.
6. Drain fried blossoms on paper towels. Salt and serve hot