last night i saw my parents touch down in frankfurt. i was able to see my father's location via google map tracking, as well as my mother's location whenever she tethered onto his hot spot. this morning i saw them traveling throughout the frankfurt outskirts.
not sure when my sister arrived at the cafe (she was there before me), but she forgot one of the most important thing, which was to cook the rice. we made 5 cups today, didn't finish cooking until 10am. that turned out to be good timing because a customer came in a few minutes later ordering fried rice (we ended up using leftover rice, which is better for fried rice anyway). my 2nd aunt didn't arrive until after 11am.
my aunt brought me a bunch of souvenir fridge magnet she bought on her trip to europe. she said i could pick two. i put all of them on the cafe fridge. my favorite one wasn't a magnet but just a small paperweight shaped like an oversized hand holding several famous pisa architecture, including the leaning tower.
today comcast was doing repair work in the neighborhood, and told us weeks in advance to prepare for outages. everything seemed fine in the morning, and i thought maybe they finished their work early. never assume comcast will do the right thing however, so naturally our internet went down starting at noon, during the lunch time rush. my sister managed to talk a few customers into paying cash instead, and we got a few online orders, which were already paid, and that we found out able through the square app on our phones. i also rerouted the cafe internet phone number so any incoming calls would also ring my phone. luckily it wasn't as busy as it could've been. not sure the reason, thursdays seem to be our slow day now for several weeks. maybe the weather was to blame, which today was in the chilly 40's, we didn't even bother setting out chairs and tables on the parking lot deck.
the internet came back online around 1pm, though it did drop a few more times, though just briefly.
i called my parents at 2pm, 8pm german time, after seeing them inside the hotel for a while. they didn't answer at first, but my father called me back via line video chat. lufthansa gave them 2 meals on the 7 hour plane ride from the US to germany (though not sure if that made up for the seat selection fee and the baggage fee). my parents thought they could just use american dollars or exchange for eastern european money, forgetting that germany only takes euros. fortunately my 2nd aunt gave my mother 8 euros (in coins) and they were able to use it to buy a hat for my father, who forgot his at home. they wanted to buy some other stuff but couldn't because they had no money (and they didn't take credit cards). their tour guide promised them tomorrow morning to take them someplace to exchange for some euros. i noticed on the map that the hotel was right next to a chinese restaurant. apparently that wasn't a coincidence, and the chinese tour group purposely selected the hotel so they could have chinese dinner on their first night in europe. travel all the way to germany...just to eat chinese! i thought they'd already had dinner, but my parents were just about to go eat. sunset in frankfurt wasn't until 8:48pm.
my sister asked me to come to work on saturday, even though both my mother and 2nd aunt already told me i could have the day off. she invited her korean friend to help out, and my 2nd aunt was going to come anyway. that seemed to be enough cooks in the kitchen, but my sister's korean friend knows nothing about how to make any of our foods, and only came because my sister had asked her, wasn't like she was volunteering to help. essentially she's dead weight, something my sister realized. it almost seems like her friend is here just to keep her company. the cafe is a place of business, not a social club.
because my sister couldn't leave the cafe, i went to her place twice to check up on hailey. first tim i let her outside to use the bathroom, the second time she was sleeping on the couch and looked to be dreaming, so i didn't disturb her.
even though today felt like a slow day, we did get a steady drip of customers, enough so that we made nearly the same as on tuesday and wednesday. soon as the clock hit 6:30pm, i turned off the lights and locked the front door. i left by 6:50pm.
i was lucky to find a parking spot right in front of my house. i successfully parallel parked, though it took me a dozen mini turns to finally get the car inside the space so it wasn't partially out in the street.
i brought home some ground pork that my 2nd aunt was going to throw away because she said it smelled funny even though i thought it was fine. i decided to use the pork for a bone broth soup i would be making with a leftover smoked ham bone, and a daikon radish. into the broth i also added some crushed garlic, chopped scallions, and ginger slices, as well as a frozen leftover container of indian butter rice i made many months ago. plus a dash of chinese cooking wine for good measure. i used my largest pot but i was afraid it might spill over during simmering, so i switched to a different pot that i thought was larger but turned out to be the same size.
the soup was already tasty after a few minutes of boiling. i was afraid it wouldn't be salty but the smoked ham bone imparted just enough salty flavor. there was also a sweetness to the broth, and it brought back a flavor memory, of going to the bone broth restaurant in old changshou, where i had the most delicious soup of my life (so good was it that when i went back to chongqing a second time, i purposely went back to changshou just to eat at that restaurant again). i decided to let it simmer for at least an hour, at the very least wait until the daikon turned transparent.
in the meantime i took a quick trip to star market to grab some clementines on sale ($3 for a 2lbs. bag). there was just 2 bags left, hidden amongst the organic clementines (which were not on sale). i also stocked up on some chips and pringles.
i didn't stop simmering the soup until 1-1/2 hours later (i was chatting with alex, which added an additional 30 minutes). i thought maybe i should add some rice noodles to make it meal, but just scooped out a big bowl of soup instead. that by itself was very filling, the protein from the bone broth, the rendered ham (and accompanying fat), the ground pork, combined with the starch from the small amount of butter rice. scallions and garlic imparted more savoriness, and the daikon acted as a sponge to soak up the flavors. smoked ham bone is now my favorite new ingredients, i'll look for it the next time i'm at market basket.
only one basketball game tonight, game 2 between the lakers and warriors. golden state pounded los angeles into submission, with two quarters of lopsided 40-20 points, with a final score of 127-100.