Packing

I know it's been a long time since my last post.  Forgive me.  I was finishing my Master's "thesis."  Then trying to find a job.  And recovering.  And moving back home (with my parents....yuck!).

Anyways, the Price is Right problem is being put on the back burner for now, because it's an involved problem and I don't feel emotionally ready to tackle the whole thing just yet.  So instead, I present a problem on packing.

Traditionally, packing spheres into a three dimensional space has proved to be 1) very inefficient and 2) difficult to solve.  I was having this exact problem today when I tried to pack some 2-dimensional spheres (ok ok, I'll call them rings...) onto a rectangular tray.  You see, this is very important, because I need to maximize the number of rings in order to obtain the maximum number of Utiles (ah, you didn't know I was going to throw economics jargon at you did you?) from this particular exercise.

You see, anybody who knows anything about something must know that onion rings are delicious (the proof is left to the reader).  And if you're going to go through the trouble of making onion rings at home, you know that you have to maximize the number of breaded goodness that comes out of your oven.  So here I was, making a delicious batch of onion rings for myself, and here's my original solution to my "ring packing problem."

NOT ENOUGH!!!

  At this point, however, I still had some rings of onion to place on the baking sheet.  And then the most obvious solution to the "sphere" packing problem dawned on me......

Nest Them!!!!

 You're welcome, math.




p.s.  The recipe I use makes delicious onion rings without having to go through the both of deep frying at home is Chef John's recipe (over at Food Wishes) with the following changes:

1) No Cayenne Pepper.  It doesn't go well with the cheese.
2) Reduce the cooking time by about 2 minutes.
3) Once the rings are "done" cooking, sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top (if you notice, I put down some foil on the pan...this makes it a lot easier since you don't have to worry about getting the melted cheese off later).
4) Place the rings under the broiler for about 2 minutes to allow the cheese to melt and the breading to completely brown.