my mother called this morning, told me because it was raining outside, i didn't need to go to market basket as my parents were going to swing by the fresh pond whole foods and get a few supplies there. the forecast i saw last night said it'd be dry today but the rain from yesterday continued into friday morning. i told my mother the rain would let up eventually and that i'd still go to market basket, but i might get to the cafe a little late.

so i waited but the doppler radar showed rain for the rest of the morning. instead i got back into my rain gear and rode to market basket around 9:15am. i wore a more sizable rain jacket, one that didn't make me look like a child wearing an adult's jacket. unfortunately it has a poorly designed hood that wasn't meant for biking, so whenever i accelerated in the slightest, the hood would just blow off. eventually i just gave up, resigned to the fact that my head was getting soaked while the rest of my body stayed dry.

i picked up a few things at market basket then headed to the cafe. the rain jacket was so miserable, i didn't think i could make it, so i stopped by the house and changed into the larger rain jacket from yesterday. i also discovered that the smaller rain jacket wasn't actually waterproof, more like water resistant, as my shirt underneath was slightly damp.

i made it to the cafe by 9:50am, the latest i'v come to work in over a month and a half. my parents were in the middle of stewing a new batch of beef noodle soup broth, cooking some beef chunks and later slow simmering them in a beef broth. i went down to the basement to take off my rain gear. to my surprise, there was a wet spot on my pants from where the rain must've gotten in from one of the pockets. it made me reevaluate the quality of these rain pants and maybe i want to return them.

my parents both tested again this morning: mother positive, father negative. my aunt showed up in the late morning wearing a mask. my mother gave her a container of meigancai she brought back from taiwan and stewed yesterday (i had some for dinner on wednesday, a little bland). she left us with two jujube-filled pastry balls she bought from the 99 ranch asian supermarket in quincy.

besides making beef noodle soup, we also grilled a fresh box of chinese sausage. later in the afternoon we deep fried a new batch of chicken. my father defrosted a container of zhajiang sauce.

kathy showed up with her grandsons around 3pm. her youngest grandson tested positive for gluten allergy while he was in taiwan (funny his parents never suspected anything even though he makes frequent bathroom trips every time he eats anything), so everything he eats now has to be gluten-free. my mother said he could have some fried chicken, but kathy didn't want him to eat anything fried as well, so he ended up having some low carb shirataki noodles while his older brother had some salmon. kathy herself said she was a in the mood for instant noodles but we didn't have any.

after they left, i went ahead and started making preparations for deep frying some korean chicken wings. i forgot i took notes from last time, so i went back online to find a suitable recipe. i came up with this wet batter recipe:

this one used more potato starch than flour. we also used a technique where we dusted the wings in the dry ingredients first, before adding the water (by eye, until it had a runny consistency), then dipping the dusted wings in the wet batter before immediately dropping them into the deep fryer basket. i also made two sauces ahead of time, a spicy gochujang-based sauce and a soy garlic sauce. both sauces were improvised, dashes of sweet vinegar, sugar syrup, rice wine, soy sauce, garlic. they were practically the same, except one had two tablespoons of gochujang, while the other had 1/4 cup of soy sauce.

like before, the battered wings had a tendency to stick to the fry basket. my father discovered if you shake the basket when the wings first enter the hot oil, it prevents them from sticking. once they develop a crispy shell, they will no longer stick. we also made use of the deep fryer cover to prevent the oil from splattering everywhere. my father tossed half the wings with the soy garlic sauce. the sauce was too watery, so it didn't really penetrate the wings. the gochujang sauce was thicker, and coated the wings better.

my parents and i tasted the latest batch of homemade korean fried chicken. the wings themselves were cooked to perfect, with the crispiest skin, and chicken meat inside cooked to doneness and juicy. unfortunately the wings were too salty. i actually marinated the raw wings for an hour with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. then the batter itself had salt in it. finally there was salt in the sauce. i didn't it but i agree it was definitely salty. there also wasn't enough sweetness with the gochujang sauce, just spicy, salty with a slight vinegary taste. two things make for a successful korean friend chicken: crispy chicken and the sauce. we got the chicken cooking part down to perfection, but getting the right sauce still needs more work. the wings were so good, my mother came back for thirds despite them being a bit salty.

my mother tested again in the late afternoon. unlike this morning when she said see saw a definitive positive line, this around the line was very faint, which could mean the coronavirus is disappearing.

after we portioned out the beef noodle soup, it was time to close the cafe. i left before my parents, my mother waiting for my father to finish using the bathroom. the weather was dry though still a little cold (windy). i put my rain pants away in my bag.

i still had seeds to plant and a house to clean. i ended up doing neither of those things. when i got back home, all i wanted to do was basically nothing. nothing but surf the web and watch tv. i couldn't even he bothered with dinner, which i didn't have until almost 9pm. i heated up some canned soup (gumbo) and watched the NCAA women's basketball game between NC state and stanford. to be honest, i basically watched it for cameraon brink. this is her senior year so her final go in the sweet 16. unfortunately they faltered in the second half, and NC state managed to beat them 77-67.

i did do a little cleaning, but not enough to erase the clutter. the coffee table is cleaner now, and whenever i can put stuff things away. i did clean the guest bedroom to livable conditions, that's probably the most important thing. i still don't know when this mystery roommate will arrive in town tomorrow (weichen said tomorrow night), but i'm hoping it's later than sooner so i can do some more cleaning tomorrow when i get out from work at 4pm.

the one constructive thing i did was make some fermented hot sauce, at least the first step. in the past i'd mash up all the hot sauce ingredients and leave the sauce outside to ferment (like my habanero hot sauce). but i saw a few videos online, and it seemed they ferment the mostly whole ingredients first (a week or more), then they blend the fermented peppers into a sauce. i've never tried that before, so that's what i'm doing. i ended up chopping a pound's worth of red anaheim peppers ($3). i licked one to see how hot it was, pretty darn hot! although surprisingly they're not as hot as jalapenos on the scoville level. i chopped up the peppers into smaller pieces and threw everything into a 4L fido jar. the jar was a little big but i didn't have anything smaller that would fit all the peppers. i also crushed a few garlic cloves and threw them in as well. i added enough water to cover, then weighed out how much ingredients plus peppers i had. to that i figured what was 2% of that weight and added 2% salt and 2% sugar. sugar feeds the fermentation bacteria, salt keeps the peppers and garlics from spoiling.

i added the insta360 care for my X3 camera, which i've decided to keep. i can only get the care within 15 days of activating the camera, and my 15 days grace period was about to be over by this weekend, and i didn't want to wait until the last minute, so i decided to get the insurance. it's $45, but it offers me a peace of mind in case the camera gets damaged and i can get it replaced for free (one time only).