i made it to the cafe a bit after 10:30am. i gave my father the 9v battery, and found out the electricians returned yesterday morning to put in a few new outlets. i went down to the basement to check out the new circuit breaker panel. they even put in an outlet right next to the electric box as an added convenience, but my father told me they do now as code.
yesterday there was only a single online order; today we had 5, including one where the person wasn't going to pick it up until an hour later but showed up early regardless. my sister only had half a dozen clients for her catered meal this week (oil rice, grilled salmon), so it didn't get too crazy, but she was still cooking by the time customers started showing up to pick up their orders. the fish turned out well enough, my sister is thinking about doing some unagi (eel) next time.
the tour agency called my parents in the afternoon to let them know their flight from boston to greece had been cancelled by turkish airline. instead of finding a different flight (which apparently are all too expensive), the agency convinced my parents to switch their vacation schedule from april to october. they also told them there was another tour in may going to eastern europe. it's kind of a mess, but for now, their april vacation to greece is no longer happening. that's good and bad; bad because no vacation, but good because my 2nd aunt booked her vacation the same week as my parents, forcing my sister and i to man the cafe for a week. it wasn't anything too daunting, but the combination of my sister's poor organization and delegation skills with my anti-social tendency of just wanting to work in the back kitchen was a potential recipe for disaster and we've been toying with the idea of simply closing the cafe that week.
i've been thinking about building a small adjustable pantry shelf for the low wall that faces the basement stairs. we currently use the wall as kind of a long table to hold a few things, but if there was a shelvings it'd make the kitchen area that much more organized. i'll need to do a materials run to home depot at some point to see what's in stock and what prices. we may need to buy a router tool (cheapest ones online go for $30).
my aunt came to pick up her catered order in the afternoon. she told us she got a new cordless vacuum (she already used a vacuum robot) and checked out our levoit cordless vacuum.
i demonstrated to my father the augmented reality of the target page for the microwave i bought. he was surprised when i showed him sitting next to the microwave. i also managed to place a 3D model of the microwave right next to the 1.6 cu.ft. panasonic microwaves we have at the cafe.
i helped my father figure out a few outlets and which circuit breakers they corresponded to. he was using an circuit breaker finder, but needed somebody upstairs to confirm if an outlet was really off or on. i'd gotten a klein tools breaker tester 2 years ago, but my father couldn't find it. instead he used one from my sister, from sperry instruments. that one might be better, because it has a dial to adjust the sensitivity. there were breakers close to the 100A subpanel wires that would all trigger because of their close proximity to one another; adjusting the device's sensitivity fixed that problem.
my sister's godmother showed up in the late afternoon. my mother then took her to michael's to get some yarn. my mother drove the car which was a surprise, she almost never drives these days, maybe a handful of times in a year. she picked a bad time to go, close to rush hour, and it took them an hour before they came back. because my mother was gone, i couldn't leave my father to work alone at the cafe, so i had to stay. only when she came back close to 6:30pm was i finally able to go.
i didn't get back home until 6:50pm. i got a text from bruce, asking if i'd be interested in some salmon and potato stew. he saved me from having to get creative with my tonkatsu leftovers as i still don't have a new microwave yet (arriving tomorrow morning) and was thinking up ways to heat up the rice. i thought i had a steamer but i donated it to the cafe months ago. i just have a double boiler, which i think is only useful for melting chocolate for desserts. i was going to set up the tatung rice cooker to steam the rice before bruce contacted me. we ended up trading 1qt pyrex bowls: he gave me his with the soup, i gave him one of mine.
before i ate, i fixed my cooking thermometer. the old battery leaked, and there was corrosion inside the battery compartment. i used some cotton swabs and alcohol to clean as much as i could before putting in a new battery.
i heated up the soup a little bit over the stove. i kept an eye on it, didn't want the cream to curdle. i also finished the last of my mixed greens salad. the soup didn't look like there was a lot, but ended up being really filling, with big chunks of salmon and potatoes. i told bruce it tasted like a rustic seafood chowder (jack actually made the stew). i remembered i had some oyster crackles and sprinkled some into the soup for an even more delicious meal.
there was a celtics game, versus the cavaliers at home. celtics were solidly leading by 20 points for a good portion of the game and looked like it'd be an easy victory, but cleveland showed some grit in the final minutes and got the game to within 4 points, before time finally ran out.