i went and picked up a prescription for my father at harvard vanguard this morning before arriving at the cafe around 11am. they'd already fried a batch of breaded chicken, but the deep fryer was still out, and could be turned on later to fry more foods.

my mother was already using the batch of tea eggs i made on wednesday, meaning the batch that i made just yesterday wouldn't be enough, so i ended up making yet another batch. that carton of eggs we bought at restaurant depot on monday is now only down to 1-1/2 trays, and there's a good chance i need to make another batch tomorrow for next week. basically the pace we're selling tea eggs is way too fast, from including them in bento boxes, to customers who buy them separately. instead of making 30 at a time, maybe i could make 60, saving myself some time so i'm not making them every day.

i cut up all the russet potatoes and turned them into french fries. after they were cut into sticks, i boiled them with some salt for several minutes. i probably went overboard with the boiling because the potatoes were very soft, almost crumbling. i then spread them onto cookie sheets and put them in the freezer. once they were frozen, i bagged the frozen boiled french fries.

my sister went to aldi's to get a few things for the cafe. she took her dog with her but took her hours to return because she also went to go visit her friend and took esmei out for a walk. i told her to get me a "7-8 oz. cream cheese" but she ended up getting 7x 8 oz. cream cheese which i just needed one. does she not know what a dashed line between numbers mean?

the organizer of the harvard taiwanese club called the cafe today to confirm their order for tomorrow. instead of 35 bentos, they now wanted 40 bentos, and we could pick what varieties we wanted to give them. my mother asked for a deposit since this was such a large order, but they wouldn't be able to collect all their money until the day of, so my mother decided to trust them. they need the bentos delivered to harvard at 6:30pm tomorrow.

my father told me he managed to get the xiaoxiang app to work with the new aolithium battery. no wonder, the xiaoxiang app is JBD's v2.0 BMS app (aolithium uses a JBD BMS). the interface is nearly identical to the aolithium app interface, except xiaoxiang is blue while aolithium uses orange. the one thing the xiaoxiang app has is the ability to see charge status for the individual battery cells.

in the afternoon my father fried my french fries, along with some taro. we double fried the fries. first fry they were soggy but cooked (they were probably already cooked before that from the boiling), second fry they became crispy. the potato interior was so soft it basically melted in your mouth, which i didn't like. the fries seemed too airy, too fluffy. i like the way i made the fries last time, where i simply soaked them in cold water for an hour or two after cutting them up before frying them. these boiled fries reminded me of hash browns in that they were almost falling apart.

both my aunt and 2nd aunt came to the cafe today. my 2nd aunt bought some homemade meat buns from chinatown, my aunt had two of them, and asked my 2nd aunt to get more the next time she's in boston. my 2nd aunt also joined up with some chinese senior group in medford that provided weekly shuttle trips to chinatown to get groceries.

i went home around 5pm. i was planning on having ramen for dinner, but i still had a large piece of fried chicken breast, and that was enough. i also made a fruit smoothie.

before that though, i had to use up the hot peppers my sister's godmother got us more than a month ago. they've been sitting in the fridge for so long, more than half have already rotted. i was tempted to throw away the whole batch. these were crazy hot red habanero peppers, and i don't like using them for making hot pepper sauce because they're just too hot to be edible. to make matters worse, i think some of them were ghost peppers or trinidad scorpions because they didn't look like habaneros. but not wanting them to go to waste, i saved what i could, cutting them into into smaller pieces (i wore disposable gloves), and added a whole clove of garlic along with some salt, chinese baijiu, and some white vinegar. i then chopped everything up in my mini food processor. the resulting hot sauce was so hot, just one taste made my lips tingle the rest of the night. despite multiple washings, all the equipment i used to make the hot sauce have been tainted with lingering chili oil. i basically created a small jar of biohazardous poison in my kitchen. it's so hot, no human can actually eat it, or just any food pleasure out of it. it's just a red paste of persistent pain.

knicks were in town tonight to face the celtics. this game marked the return of porzingis after sitting out for the past 4 games due to a calf strain. new york was no match for our full lineup, and celtics ended up winning 133-123. at one point boston was up 20 points in the third quarter, the quarter where they traditionally have the most problem scoring. jaylen brown got tossed out in the 4th quarter after the referee gave him a second technical even though he was already on the bench and the ref was on the other side of the court. it didn't matter though, al horford took over his starting spot in the final minutes, and with the talent we have, a win was inevitable. it's already our 3rd matchup against the knicks this season and we've won all three games. we also preserve our undefeated home record streak.

that 8-piece anchor hocking 6oz ramekins ($18) i accidentally ordered off of walmart before realizing i could buy them locally (star market) for much cheaper? well, they arrived today. so naturally i wanted to return them for a refund. i visited their website and went through the online return process. i thought i'd have to go to an actual walmart store to return it (which is a hassle, the nearest one is all the way in revere), but turns out they have a partnership with fedex and i can just drop off the items at the nearest fedex store for a free return. so that's what i decided to do.

but guess what? walmart not only issued me the refund, but told me i didn't have to return the ramekins. i don't understand the logic, but sometimes for a big company, it costs them more to process a free return then it is to simply jettison the order. i've had this happen to me a few times with amazon for inexpensive items (like a $7 temperature/humidity gauge). big companies also do this because it creates good will with customers, who are then more likely to order from them again. so the only thing i ended up paying for was the $5.50 i spent to get that 4-piece anchor hocking ramekins. now magically i have a dozen.