once i returned home, i then walked a mile to the cafe. i opted to walk because we were leaving for my aunt's place after work to celebrate my aunt's and father's shared birthday, and chances are i'd get a ride back home later tonight.
my parents waited for me to show up so they could start making the century egg pork bone congee. we doubled the portions from this past weekend: 2 cups of rice, 20 cups of water. added to that 2 packages of bone-in country-style spare ribs that'd previously been boiled for a few minutes, the 8qt instant pot was just barely large enough to fit everything. we left it to cook, took over 1-1/2 hours. the final rice porridge was bland to the point of tasteless but my sister told us not to add any additional salt because her customers prefer sodium-free. fortunately the included side dish of zhacai was salty, but if i was making this congee for myself, i'd definitely add more salt.
today i saw the newly-repaired induction cooker back in action. my father didn't actually test it until last night, maybe to wait for the silicone to properly cure for 24 hours. it works like new now, you'd never know the glass surface was detached at one point. i used that induction cooker plus another to make a new batch of 30 tea eggs.
i also got to see the new tablet stand in action. my father told me so far neither the tablet nor the wifi thermal printer have lost their connection from microwave interference. that's a good sign, maybe we finally found the sweet spot where our wifi devices can coexist with the microwave. i used the tablet on a stand today to punch in a few online orders, printed out tickets for the kitchen.
in the early evening when my sister went to drop off a few of her catered orders to nearby customers, she asked me to go to her place and check on hailey. she was barking, i gave her a treat to quiet her up before returning to the cafe.
we closed today promptly at 6:30pm. instead of driving to arlington via fresh pond (where there seemed to be a traffic jam getting onto route 2), we got there via belmont, where there was no congestion.
my aunt ordered a bunch of food from cafe vanak. afterwards we made a chestnut cake she'd made. i brought a singing dancing candle. it opened up to dance but we hardly heard any singing until afterwards. i had to take apart the candle to make it stop playing "happy birthday". we didn't leave until 9:25pm, my sister giving me a ride back to cambridge.