it'd ben 5 days since i was last in the community garden. because of all that rain we got over this past weekend, i didn't need to be in the garden until now. all the grow bags and potted plants were well saturated, with the exception of the ground cherry plant. the chive flowers look faded, i'll need to deadhead them at some point.
my nigellas are doing well, and i decided to remove the chicken wire fencing so people can see them better, even though they now run the risk of getting eaten by rabbits. some of the nigellas even blossomed, white flowers so far, i can't remember if they change their colors as they mature, though several other flower buds look like they might be blue flowers. that these flowers all self-sown is my proudest accomplishment. mixed among them are striped mallows; once they mature they'll put on a flower show of their own.
my row of long beans are doing well despite having no protection. i only lost one seedling, more like slug/snail damage than rabbits. for the most part i've been pretty lucky that i haven't had any rabbit issues this season, unlike neighboring gardeners (jen, lynn).
i made it to the cafe by 10:50am. this morning we had another uber eats order before i even arrived. the uber eats restaurant app is pretty terrible, function starved, and can only display in landscape mode. my sister has it set up with 2-factor authentication so it always sends her a text message/e-mail whenever anyone tries to log in, and so far i've been unsuccessful getting into the online admin webpage.
my sister told me about some jars a neighbor had thrown out and i went to pick them up. it was a pair of german-made weck 975 340ml (11.5oz) glass canning jars. they work similar to our american mason jars, except the rubber sealed glass lids are head in place with a pair of stainless steel clips. they're cool looking, and interesting to see convergent technology. they are a little small and narrow though, not sure if i'd use them to store anything fermented or jellified (like i do with my mason jars), maybe just use them as decorative items, storing dried spices.
my parents made meat buns today, some to sell with my sister's catered meals, the remaining for personal consumption. my 2nd uncle briefly stopped by the cafe today to drop off some prescription medicine for my 2nd aunt still in new york city. for some reason she didn't bring enough and now she's out and she asked me to commit a federal felony by mailing her the drugs.
we made 3x more than last wednesday, but business was actually slow today. my sister didn't offer her catered meals last week, hence the dropoff. if there wasn't any catered meals today, i think we would've made the same as last wednesday.
with business slowly down, i left the cafe by 5pm. lauryn wasn't home yet, but based on when she came back yesterday, i figured she'd be home soon. around 5:40pm i started prepping my chicken breasts for caesar salad grilling later. i was pounding them with a meat tenderizer when lauryn surprised me by coming home. trying to make some chitchat, i asked her if she didn't anything fun at the office today. she told me she attended a seminar, with a side perk that once again they offered everyone free pizza. she ate so much that she didn't need dinner, only grabbed a yogurt from the fridge.
as for the chicken breasts, after tenderizing them, i washed them with some olive oil and coated both sides with salt and fresh ground pepper. i left them on the kitchen countertop to marinate.
i didn't start grilling the two breasts until 8pm, using my foreman smokeless grill. i had the window fan on and another fan blowing any smoke towards the window. i only grilled the chicken for a few minutes at 524°F, but that was enough to cook them thoroughly, despite being rather thick cuts of breasts. i sliced one into cubes while saving the other one for tomorrow. for the salad, i chopped up a romaine heart and some red onions. after adding the chicken, i poured out some caesar salad dressing before adding the croutons.
game 3 between the nuggets and heat was tonight in miami. the heat played well enough, but the nuggets were so much more dominant. miami had a good first quarter, but even then denver had already tied them 24-24. all subsequent quarters the nuggets would have the lead. i'm really hoping the heat can win game 4, otherwise i'm afraid the series is lost and it's only a matter of time before the nuggets win it all.