our first stop was the waltham market basket. pork butts for charsiu pork, milk, oat milk, frozen peas, gatorade, stewart diet root beer. this is the only market basket where they make you pay for bags, even the paper ones, so we always have to remember to bring our own.
second stop was the nearby waltham costco. we came here for eggs. egg prices have stabilized, but still expensive compared to what they were a year ago. 5 dozen large white eggs at costco sell for $16.99, which comes out to 28¢/egg. we bought 15 dozen, which is equal to the quantity in a case of eggs from restaurant depot. they also had duck eggs (never seen them sold before) and my father bought a dozen ($6.49) to make salted duck eggs, a chinese delicacy.
i saw the weber genesis II E-335 grill for $900. it's a thing of beauty, the latest version of the weber genesis we currently use. 3 front facing burners with a side burner, dedicated electric starter (no crossover tube), heat deflectors underneath the burners. it also has a secondary heat shield on the porcelain-enameled lid that keeps it cool. the only thing we didn't like was the porcelain-enameled cast iron cooking grates; we prefer stainless steel because they're easier to clean (though cast iron is better for heat retention).
my mother grabbed a box of melona korean ice cream bars. we thought it was an impractical choice since we still had another stop after this and wouldn't get back to the cafe until probably another 1-1/2 hours. the ice cream bars would be all melted by the time we got back. my mother insistent she got them from the front of the store, but they're only available in the back in the freezer aisles. when i questioned her she was adamant they came from the front of the store, even after i showed her. i ended up putting back the ice cream bars.
our third stop took us onto the highway traveling south down to needham to restaurant depot. here we source our beef shank for the beef noodle soup and the boneless chicken thighs for our salt & pepper chicken and chicken curry. the cheapest for a case of large white eggs was $53.33 (15 dozen), which comes out to 30¢/egg, just a few cents more than costco. keep in mind just a few years ago, a case of eggs was around $20. we also got some drinks we didn't find in either market basket or costco, like san pellegrino sparkling mineral water and sparkling fruit beverages.
the restaurant depot checkout lines were crazy. you had people just buying a few things mixed in with people who were buying multiple carts. there was also a bottleneck so you were never quite sure which line you're standing in. the checkout process is very inefficient, you don't remove anything from your cart, but instead the cashier scans everything with a price gun. so sometimes they can't find the barcode and has to move the items around. they also do a count to make sure what they see on the cart matches the total quantity, otherwise they have to start all over. it was also monday, and that's when my restaurants are closed, so it can get pretty busy as everyone uses this day to get supplies. finally, restaurant people are not the most courteous or patient, so there was some snide comments as we waited what seemed like forever in line. i did see the owner of heidi's restaurant, i saw him the last time we were here. i recognized him by his distinctive t-shirt. later i found out that heidi's restaurant is an fashion breakfast diner on moody street, i ought to visit one of these days.
we didn't leave restaurant depot until 1pm. we got back onto the highway and didn't get back to the cafe until 1:30pm. it took us another 30 minutes to unload everything before we eventually left for belmont.
my mother got a roast beef sub from market basket that she couldn't find and told my father and i to split it for lunch. i'm not usually a big roast beef fan, so i added some sliced banana peppers to spice things up, and drizzled some frank's red hot wings sauce (nashville hot). it was actually super tasty, felt like i unlocked some new flavor dimensions.
i wanted to spray another round of horticulture oil on the cherry plum. i reread the directions yesterday, it said multiple applications (every 7-10 days) might be required to properly control scale infestation. unfortunately it was just too windy today. my father ended up rinsing the tree with water in hopes of washing off the sticky sap, but the sticky residue seems like it's on there for good. my father did find a ladybug eating some scales, so at least the beneficial insects are helping us out.
while my father was doing that, i was in the basement watering the plants in the grow room. every week the grow room changes, as i consolidate the plants and turn off more grow lights in an attempt to wind the room down. today i gathered all the orchids in one place. it's kind of amazing that they bloomed during the winter but the flowers haven't faded for the most part. not only that, but even those that've flowered have grown additional flower spikes and continue to bloom. they must really like the conditions in the basement. it makes me want to get a different kind of orchid other than phalaenopsis, maybe something with a fragrance.
after i finished watering, i started moving all our outdoor plants back inside. all this coming week the night time temperature will dip into the 40's. plants like the jasmines would probably survive, but the overwintered hot peppers need to come inside, as well as the seedlings. so i ended up bringing all of them indoors, just to be safe. peppers and a few jasmines went into the grow room, while the rest (jasmines, osmanthus, seedlings) went to the sunroom.
the one plant i didn't move inside was the gardenia. i heard it needs 50 degrees temperature to induce flower bud formation (it hasn't formed a single one this year). maybe keeping it outside in the cold will trigger something to happen. should the cold temperature kill the plant, i wouldn't be sad. the plant requires too much care and it doesn't even bloom. frankly, it's taking up valuable plant space. other than never blooming, the plant itself is very healthy. it had a bout of yellow leaves midwinter, but after i started giving it some acidic fertilizer, it went back to being happy again. last winter it had spider mites, but no pests this winter because i sprayed it with bifenthrin in the fall.
i also transplanted a few ground cherries into pots. at least i think they're ground cherries. i didn't grow them this year because i didn't have any seeds left, but they naturally pop up in our raised beds all the time. i also saved some foxglove seedlings, either replanted them in individual small pots, or multiple plants in large pots. i love foxgloves but the ones we have in our backyard all our pink varieties; i'd love to get a few more different color ones.
around 5:30pm it was time for grilling again. my father got a chance to use the steam cleaning grill brush again. my mother marinated the chicken wings in some sticky fingers smokehouse memphis style sweet & smokey barbecue sauce. we also thawed a half dozen package of lamb loin chops that i salted and peppered on both sides.
we grilled the wings first. because of the sugar in the marinade, they scorched easily from the high heat, so we lowered it to medium-low. they seemed done, but when we tried them, there was still some rawness around the bones, so we cooked them again, to get them even more well-done. i also brushed on some sweet thai chili sauce, but that only seemed to get them scorched even more.
after my father cleaned the grates, we grilled the the lamb on high heat (500 degrees). 5 minutes per side. after 10 minutes we probed them with a thermometer but still wasn't done yet, so we left it on the grill for 2 more minutes. we checked the temperature again, 150 degrees plus, so we took them off the grill.
my father really loved the lamb, said they were cooked perfectly. he didn't think they were too salty, and had a crispy crust from the high heat searing. the wings were okay, but even better with some nashville hot wings sauce.
i headed home around 7:30pm. luckily i brought a hooded sweatshirt as it was getting cold. there was street cleaning today and street cleaning tomorrow, but i was lucky enough to find a parking spot across the street from my house.
no NBA action until tomorrow (western conference championship series), so there was nothing good to watch on television. i went onto youtube and learned the difference between the lester versus donner cut of superman II.