my sister called me this morning from the cafe saying the electricity was out. of course it wasn't really out, but she has a habit of speaking in hyperboles or just leaving out key details. why she called me instead of my parents was because they weren't answering their phones. so i got dressed and headed down to the cafe. it was only a conduction stove and a toaster oven that weren't working. downstairs in the basement the circuit breakers were all fine. the culprit turned out to be a power strip that popped it's own internal circuit breaker due to a power surge. all i had to do was hit the button to reset the power strip and everything was back to normal.

the hot peppers we've gotten so far have been banana peppers, which aren't very hot at all. there are also some green cayennes that i'm waiting for them to turn red, and possibly either some serranos or jalapeños. the hot peppers are being swallowed up by the ever expanding tomatoes. makes me think next year i shouldn't plant them so close.

i believe some of the beets are ready, by the fact that the tubers are already poking out of the ground. they're small though, about the size of finger potatoes. this being our first season growing beet, the crop didn't turn out so well. i blame the soil, we'll try again next year. we also have carrots but i haven't checked on those yet.

i bought 2 containers of tzatziki on friday so i could do a taste test. the result: cedar's is much better than joseph's. cedar has a milder taste, while joseph tastes more like sour cream. you can also better taste the other ingredients in the cedar tzatziki, including cucumbers, dill, and garlic.

i went ahead and replaced the frayed front brake cable from the ross 3-speed. my father came home right when i was about to tighten up everything. everything was gone great until we tried to center the front caliper brake by tightening the rear bolt. a few inopportune turns of the socket wrench and i managed to shear the centering bolt in half. i swear, that ross 3-speed is cursed. every time we fix something, we end up breaking something else. trying to fix the shifter and we brake the bell crank on the 3-speed hub. replacing a brake cable and i snap a bolt in half. we're close though. i'm going to try and salvage the front brake from the rusty raleigh in my basement, but i'll also visit the bike shop to see if it wouldn't be better just to buy a set of replacement caliper brake, maybe one that centers better. they're not very expensive, less than $10.