woke up this morning to learn that aaron hernandez - former new england patriots star tight end and current serving a life sentence convicted murder - had committed suicide in his jail cell. this came as a shock because he was just acquitted of a double murder a few days ago, which would likely help his appeal for the murder sentence he was now serving. during his time with the patriots, hernandez was a great player and fan favorite. matched up with fellow tight end rob gronkowski, new england had a formidable offense. i always liked hernandez more than gronkowski, as gronkowski was a goofball, while hernandez seemed more like a business-like player. that he was ultimately arrested for murder was shocking enough, but then supposed evidence of multiple murders? here was a someone who was living a double life: football player by day, serial killer by night. and how his suicide.

miguel asked if i'd be interested in some stuffed eggplants for lunch. i said sure, and he went across the street to collect a few more ingredients. he was gone for a while and when he came back i realized why: he discovered petsi's pies and was enraptured by the shop, said this was exactly what he was looking for. he ended up buying 3 different pies, a lime 'cheesecake' and 2 vareties of apple pies. we finished the lime cheesecake and finished one apple crumble pie after lunch. as for the stuffed eggplants, a lot of effort went into the recipe, from stewing to frying to baking, but the final result was a little bland. it tasted better after i doused it with some yucatan habanero hot sauce.

while miguel made plans to meet karen at the museum of fine arts after she got out from work (wednesday evenings free admission), i biked to belmont for dinner.

i was still in shock from the hernandez suicide, when i received my second shock of the day: bill o'reilly fired from fox news over sexual harassment allegations. i spent the whole day not knowing about it until i turned on the news at my parents' place. i thought the man was untouchable, as the face of fox news. i knew there were allegations in the past, but nothing happened to him then, and i figured maybe nothing would happen to him now. but more reports were coming out, how fox paid millions to women over the years to cover up o'reilly's sexual harassments. that seemed to trigger advertisers to flee in droves, which what was ultimately that did him in. it's one thing when it's a he-said-she-said battle about the validity of these allegations, but it's another thing when advertisers lose confidence in o'reilly and the network begins to lose money. the news brings me some joy because o'reilly was a terrible human being who spent years spouting lies and becoming a media demagogue to the right. but cut off one head of the hydra and another one will grow in its place. someone else will fill that vacuum that he formerly occupied.

we continued to have ham for dinner, this time stir fried with some spicy peppers. i found all my glass pyrex ramekins from thanksgiving, along with a large pyrex lasagna tray. i took all of these back with me so i could make the flan when i got home.

at this point flan making for me is fairly routine. i made 16 this time around, which i simply just doubled the recipe. in past recipes i messed up the portions, thinking that the basic recipe made only 6 not 8, and ended up with more flan mixture than i needed. this time around i got everything perfect, not a drop wasted. karen and miguel came back home while i was melting the sugar to coat the bottom of the ramekins. i baked the 16 flan for about 2 hours, until the tops had that had nice burnt finish to them.