i went to market basket in the early afternoon to buy some ingredients for making el salvadorian curtido, my next fermenting project.

curtido is made very much in sauerkraut, with the additional ingredients of chopped onions, garlic, hot peppers and shredded carrots. authentic curtido calls for jalapeño peppers but i substituted with thai chili peppers which i had a lot frozen in my freezer. i'm curious how the carrots will affect the fermentation and flavor, as carrots have a lot of sugar. curtido also calls for oregano, a spice i hardly use even though i have it in my kitchen, simply because a lot of italian recipes use it. oregano gave the curtido a distinctive flavor, we'll see how it tastes once it finishes fermenting. in fact, curtido can be eaten without fermentation, and what little i tried tasted pretty good, but it'll be even better after a proper ferment.

making curtido gave me a chance to break in the new 2 quart mason jar i got yesterday. i figured i'd have a lot of empty space, but even after tightly packing in everything, there was only about 2 inches of head space.

i packed the curtido at 4pm, and by 9pm the airlock was already filled with carbon dioxide. the airlock on the sauerkraut jar, not so much, although i have seen it rise it fall in the past few days. there is still fermentation going on inside the sauerkraut jar (it's only day 10, i'm only halfway through my 3 week ferment for this 3rd jar).

it's day 3 of my kimchi ferment, and like clockwork, they're ready to go in the refrigerator. the whole time i was making curtido in my kitchen, i'd occasionally hear these soft hissing sounds coming from the kimchi jars. i burped them slowly, revealing a densely packed container of bubbling kimchi. they were so full i had to remove a little bit from each jar and put it in a smaller pint jar just to keep them from leaking anymore.

next i moved on to my trek utility bike repair. my original plan was to replace all the cables, but only the rear brake cable needs replacing, so i decided to only do that one. the cable cutter makes cutting the brake cables so easy. supposedly they can also cut the housing, but it has a tendency to totally mash the cut every time, so i don't think they're any good for that purpose. what i need is a dremel tool to smooth off the ends of the cable housing, but i will have to make do for the time being with rough cuts.

january of 2016 i had my snowy bike accident, which damaged the right brake lever, the one that controls the rear brake. i thought it was just superficial scratches, but apparently the crash also bent the adjustment screw and actually damaged the screw in such a way that i couldn't use it anymore and the cable couldn't be removed without cutting. fortunately i didn't throw away the old brake levers, and the adjustment screws on that are compatible with the brake lever.

around 4:30pm i got a call from my father asking me what i was doing. he said he was at market basket, and forgot his wallet. so i got on my fuji bike and raced down there to assist with my credit card. this happens a few times a year. one time he even managed to leave his wallet at the checkout counter, fortunately the cashier spotted it and left it with lost and found.

i finished up the bike when i returned home. i didn't tighten the brake cable just yet, because i want to replace the brake pads and do it outside because it can get a little dirty. but everything is in place, i just need to wheel the bike back outside and do it within the next few days.

for lunch i had some homemade sauerkraut with chicken sausage and scrambled eggs. for dinner, i heated up a frozen brick of stouffer's lasagna. i watched the 3rd episode of emerald city, it's starting to grow on me.