we bought some pork but more importantly we found our thanksgiving turkey, a 21.5 lbs. frozen bird that we'll defrost and marinate next week. this year we only have a total of 7 people, as my sister's godmother returned to taiwan on monday, and we don't have any special guests. the meat department made a mistake with the ground pork so after we finished paying, i went to the car to load all the supplies while my father went back and got them to ground another batch this time at sausage consistency. my father dropped me off back at my place around 10am while he continued to the cafe.
i checked my CO2 tank: the pressure was up to 340 psi. i had to readjust the needle valve to get the bubble rate just right. i made two bagel egg ham cheese sandwich before leaving for the cafe around 11am.
it was pretty busy at the cafe. for the first two hours i worked non-stop, didn't even have time to take a break and eat my bagel sandwich. my sister brought over esmei who returned from another play date. she got a cut underneath her left eye yesterday, serious enough that my sister took her to the vet. vet just said she was lucky she didn't damage her actual eye. i made a new batch of tea eggs while my mother made some scallion bread.
in the afternoon my father was going to use up the fine ground pork we bought (the mistake pork). before he opened up the packages though, i told him to check the price. originally they were supposed to be $2.99/lbs., but after the pork got grounded, the price went up to $5.99/lbs., basically double what we were supposed to pay, for something they made a mistake on. so i got on my bicycle and went back to market basket with the ground pork to get a price adjustment. it took 20 minutes to get fixed. the guy at the service desk kept calling to get someone from the meat department to come by but they never did. we ended up going to the meat department ourselves, where the butcher there said they made a mistake, and repackaged the ground pork with the correct price. the service desk guy return $25 back to the original credit card.
i returned to the cafe by 3pm. by then my 2nd aunt had shown up as well.
around 4:30pm my father prepared the deep fryer to fry some chicken. but before that happened, we first fried a batch of french fries. i'd prepared them this morning, cutting up about a dozen small spuds into thin half-centimeter wide strips. the french fries were "cooked perfectly" according to my mother. we all had some, with my 2nd aunt saying they were really good.
my sister brought over esmei two more times, once in front of the store, another time in the parking lot. my sister said esmei is currently at 25 lbs. her maximum size potential is 40 lbs. so we're already more than halfway there.
my parents made chinese dumplings with the ground pork. i ended up with 15 pieces by the time i left at 6pm. saved me from having to eat ramen, which was what i was planning to do.
i checked the CO2 tank, it's still at 340 psi, so i think it's reached the maximum.
for dinner i reboiled the chinese dumplings, washed it down with some apple cider. i ate while watching the celtics-raptors game. toronto had a good first quarter, but the celtics started pulling away in the 2nd quarter. in the second half the raptors started heating up again, while the celtics suddenly couldn't make a basket. the scoring for the 3rd quarter was 19-32 in the raptors favor. but boston still had the lead, and even though the two teams scored the same in the 4th quarter - 24-24 - that was enough for boston to win 108-105. yes, at one point the raptors had the lead, but i never felt the game was slipping away. watching the celtics gave me the same feeling as watching the old patriots: even if they were down, you always knew they'd come back somehow and win it. it was more of a surprise when they actually lost for a change. on a side note, the pelicans beat the murray-less nuggets, thereby leaving the celtics as the team with the current best record in the NBA.