i left the house by 8:05am, google maps said it'd take me 20 minutes to ride to my destination, it ended up taking me just 18 minutes. the route was pretty straight forward, but i had to circle through harvard square to get to allston. i arrived early, so waited outside a few minutes to pass the time before finally going inside.
the last time i was there was november 2018, to secure a loose crown on my dental implant. even back then i was afraid doctor huang had retired, so imagine how much more of a surprise it was this time to see he's still around. there was nobody in the office when i showed up, so i just sat in the waiting room, until a woman showed up at the reception desk. i didn't recognize her, but i told her i was here to see doctor huang. a minute later doctor huang's wife peeked out from the back to say hello, before doctor huang finally came out. both of them looked the same, doctor huang with a bit more white hair.
we caught up briefly, shared how we spent the pandemic. they just got back from an asia trip, visiting taiwan, as well as singapore, where doctor huang's wife's 84-year old mother currently lives.
doctor huang then proceded to take a look at my dental implant, starting with a few x-rays. i remember he upgraded his equipment so now the x-rays appear immediately as digital photos on a computer. i confessed that i'd been to another dentist during the pandemic, but they wanted me to get 5 crowns done. doctor huang thought that was nonsense, but did say my upper right molar next to the dental implant may need a crown based on how much filling it has. i also asked him if it's normal to do a crown without a root canal. he said it can be done, but there's a risk that the crown root could get infected in the future, and then a root canal would have to be performed. in the world of dentistry, nothing is absolute it seems, there's always a solution to a problem.
doctor huang said i also needed a teeth cleaning, and i asked if they accept my insurance. while his wife went to photocopy my insurance card, doctor huang started patching the crown. it only took a few minutes, finishing up my flashing the enamel with UV light to harden it. then he gave me a quick dental cleaning. when he was finished, i asked him how much, and he said it'd be covered by the insurance, but also added that even if it wasn't, it's not a big deal, this was a freebie visit.
with that i left, but not before chatting with his wife a little more. she told me to come back more often, especially if my insurance will cover biannual cleanings. i could've chatted longer but they had a patient come in, so that was my cue to leave.
it was 9:30am when i left allston, and took me exactly 18 minutes to get back home. it was too early to call my parents so i waited until i saw my mother in the living room from the webcam before i contacted her. i wanted to know if my father needed to go to market basket to get supplies, and if so maybe i could get a ride. my father said he needed to go to restaurant depot to get cake flour. he said he'd be here at 11am.
we got to restaurant depot around 11:30am. besides cake flour, we also picked up another case of eggs (15 dozen). even though egg prices at the super markets are still high, bulk prices on eggs (for commercial use) continue to drop. 15 dozen was selling for $43.21 today.
next we to the chelsea market basket. because of the impending snowstorm due to arrive this evening (though the snow wouldn't be falling along the coast until 12-1pm tomorrow), market basket was packed with panic shoppers. luckily we found a parking spot right away, and i grabbed a shopping cart from the handful that were available from the cart return stand outside. my father got a bunch of pork for making charsiu. i grabbed a bag of frozen wings for my future korean double-fried wings recipe. i also picked up a small package of fried asian pears. i tried them later, they taste like those prawn crackers you sometimes get at chinese restaurants that look like foam wafers. or like freeze-dried ice cream. the dehydrated asian pears melted immediately in my mouth. they were very sweet and definitely tasted like asian pears. however given the choice, i rather eat the real thing than the freeze-dried version.
we left market basket at 12:30pm. heading home, we stopped off at harvard vanguard in cambridge to pick up a prescription for my mother. we got to the cafe at 1:15pm to drop off supplies, before finally going to belmont by 1:30pm.
first thing i noticed when i got to my parents' house was the fragrant smell of corned beef. instead of cooking it for just 3 hours, my parents cooked the 2nd corned beef for 5 hours and left it in the slow cooker overnight.
my mother made noodles for a late lunch. after we finished eating, my father and i went outside into the backyard to grill some frozen buffalo wings, to get ahead of the rain that would be arriving around 4-5pm. ever since we discovered frozen uncooked buffalo wings, we can never go back to drumsticks. wings are just tastier.
after we finished eating the wings, i went outside to put the cover on top of the barbecue. it wasn't 4pm yet but it was already starting to rain a little bit outside. luckily i went out because my father had left his phone outside. also earlier i refilled the bird feeder, so they'll have fresh sunflower seeds to eat after the snowstorm. i even washed it just to make sure no diseases get transmitted.
while eating some raisins, i felt something hard suddenly inside my mouth. at first i thought it was a stray raisin stem, but having it happen before made me realize immediately what it was: my crown filling fell out again! the same one i got done just this morning! what bad luck. luckily i can still eat with that tooth even without the filling. i just need to recontact doctor huang and schedule another appointment.
around 4pm i went down to the grow room to water the plants. most of the plants i could've probably waited another week to water, but many of the pileas were bone dry with their tiny pots. it's pretty evident that pileas growing in bigger pots are healthier, while the small potted ones are all drooping. i examined the gardenia, and i'm certain that the newly emerged leaf buds are in fact future flower buds. seems like every terminal bud is forming into a flower bud. we may just get some flowers this season.
after i finished with the grow room, i went upstairs to the sunroom to admire my hydroponic plants one last time.
at 5pm i reheated the corned beef in the slow cooker, so it'd be ready to eat by 6pm. when 6pm rolled around, everyone was very excited for the encore serving of corned beef. my father took out the beef slab and started cutting it. "this doesn't look cooked," he said. the corned beef slices had a grey outer exterior and a dull pink interior. maybe because they left it overnight in the brine broth, it affected the color. i took a slice to try. rubbery. it was raw!
my father had unplugged the slow cooker yesterday when we took out the first corned beef. when i put in the second beef, i didn't realize it was unplugged, because the slow cooker was still hot to the touch. so all that slow cooking we thought was happening last night? it wasn't cooking at all. my father even remembered when he went to turn off the slow cooker that he noticed it was already cold.
not sure what it is this year, but seems like the hand of fate does not want us to enjoy delicious corned beef this st.patrick's day. our first beef was rotten, the second one was good, and this third one we ended up not cooking by accident.
it was too late to continue slow cooking the corned beef. instead we transferred the brine and the beef into a pot and heated it on high on the stove. we then simmered it for 1-1/2 hours, finally eating it at 7:30pm. instead of pan-toasting we toasted the buttered bread in the oven. i wanted to try a mustard variation of the reuben but my parents didn't have any mustard in the house (unlike me, where i have at least 3 different kinds of mustard at home - honey, yellow, dijon).
in the end, the stovetop-cooked corned beef turned out just as tender and flavorful as the slow-cooked version. next time i'm going to try cooking it in the instant pot, to see how it does in a pressure cooker.
my father gave me a ride back to cambridge around 8pm. we stopped off at the cafe to drop off the rotten corned beef into the compost bin. left out overnight, the beef now smelled like a chinese public bathroom, that really pungent stench of urine and excrement. just to think, we almost ate that! would've spent last night in the hospital getting our stomaches pumped.
i continue to research adjustable wrenches and pliers wrenches. tonight i was leaning towards just getting a wide-jaw adjustable wrench. the cheapest one is 3x less than a knipex pliers wrench ($50). but a part of me is still in love with the knipex, and if i don't want to spend that much, i can get a 10" harbor freight knockoff for $40 (though currently none are in stock at the medford store). maybe i just wanted to get something, so i ended up ordering a milwaukee 6-in-1 tool from home depot ($20), scheduled to be delivered on wednesday. it gave me a chance to finally use up my home depot gift card.