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it's day 2 of my tea egg taste test. i was doing some research last night and discovered that using older eggs is better, because it makes the eggs easier to peel (something about egg shrinkage and increased air pockets). that might explain why the fresh brown egg shells seemed tougher to crack and why the brown ones were also harder to peel. some of the brown eggs also expanded, which might have something to due with the lack of air pockets.

i took 2 eggs - a brown and a white - and compared them. the brown one was bigger even though originally all the brown ones were smaller. as i said previously, the white egg was much easier to peel while the shell and membrane of the brown egg sort of stuck on the egg. inside, the egg whites are now pretty much uniform, displaying a light brown color. the yolks are also different as the salty flavor has finally permeated all the way through. there's still a bit of original yellow on the yolks but i felt the eggs were good enough to finally stop cooking them in the crock pot. an interesting note: the brown egg actually had 2 egg yolks.

i finally fished out the tea eggs and put them into one quart empty yogurt containers. i made 2 dozen but already ate 4 so i had 20 left, which i divided equally (brown and white) between 2 containers, filling them up with the hot tea liquid for some additional marinating. what i haven't mentioned is that the past 2 days the house has smelled like the aroma in a taiwanese convenience store. i never knew what it was but i now know it's the smell of tea eggs.

cleaning up, i was curious to see what was inside the 2 spice pouches. i knew one of them held the tea, but it was the other pouch that was the real mystery. since i was going to toss them anyway, i decided to cut them open to see what's inside. it looks to be a special blend of chinese five-spice: cumin, cinnamon, licorice, star anise, and bay leaves. it's difficult to really taste the individual ingredients though. i'm surprised cloves weren't one of the ingredients. i'm also amazed by just how much was in the pouch; if i was assembling the ingredients individually i would've never put this much.

i made it down to the cafe in time to deliver a container of hot tea eggs to my mother before my father drove her to her dentist appointment (her first one in years). she gave 2 to my 2nd aunt and then left with the rest.

drew came home around 3:00. i asked him if he wanted to go to the fresh pond whole foods but he took a pass. i went to union square briefly to cash a check from client M (arrived in the mail today: quick turnaround, i only sent the invoice just last week).

earlier this morning i had a conference call with client R. in hindsight, i should've just gone down to their watertown office since a lot of the discussion was visual. i got a list of fixes; the next version is due monday-tuesday. i wasn't able to work on it today, but i have all of thursday and friday to make these changes, hopefully i can get them done early so i can start my weekend.

for dinner i ate some leftover thai red curry. i don't think leftover thai curry taste very good. i still have one more serving (for tomorrow night) then friday i'm going to make some chicken stock and have some rice noodle soup for dinner (or i might do that tomorrow, if i'm not in a curry mood).