Lockdown Day 40: Tough Day
Today was a slog. Not a particularly long day, nor did one thing happen that was
It’s just tough to need to do work remotely, when the work is truly better done in person, meeting clients face-to-face, designing things together.
The day started with a yummy bowl of steel cut oats made in the Xiaomi, this time with a couple small dried shiitake in it. I soaked them briefly last night (together with the shiitake for my stir-fried noodles), and then cut them up in small pieces. They really added a wonderful depth of flavor! I added a kind of mashed semi-cube of fermented tofu, and a little bit of salted olive vegetables. I’m becoming more and more parsimonious with these toppings, because I’m afraid I’ll run out before the end of lockdown!
I also had a bit, maybe 1/3 of a sachet, of Starbucks Via with my powdered coconut creamer (from 2020 in San Diego!).
I had a late lunch because I had a meeting scheduled at noon. This made me glad to have this lentil shepherd’s pie handy! Most of the ingredients came from my government deliveries, the exception were the lentils.
I used lentils instead of ground beef, and the Chinkiang black vinegar was a good stand-in for Worcesteshire sauce. The vinegar is not just sour, but also is a bit sweet and funky, like Worcesteshire.
Then later in the afternoon we got an audio message from entryway leader to come down for a delivery! I saw someone with a bag, so quickly went up to get a bag too: it looked like a multi-part delivery.
It wasn’t large, but special! Well, the TCM Lianhua Qingwen I did not care for. Why do we keep getting these? Is it to self-medicate if we get sick but don’t tell anyone? And a bottle of hand sanitizer.
The special part was the insulated bag of meat. Another whole chicken! And yes, it looks like the head and feet are still on. The label says it’s a 1kg chicken, with the head and feet attached, while the Tyson one my friend had given me was 1.6kg without head and feet. So that Tyson one was a pretty big bird for China. And for the first time, unprocessed pork: 400g of black-haired pig ribs! I have to think of something nice to make with this… Besides the other whole chicken, the only other meat we’ve gotten were processed pork: luncheon meat and sausages. The least processed one was the soy sauce pork.
Shortly after I sent in my afternoon antigen test result.
Then after work, I had a mandarin orange.
And then I prepped the bok choy for dinner, so it would be ready to go after doing my workout of the day (lower body day).
After the workout and showering, I finished making noodles with the tofu chili topping. For the noodles I used the thin dried 龙须挂面 from the government delivery. I think the noodles came out well today: only about 25-30 seconds in boiling water, and no rinsing. But I forgot to take a picture of it! The bowl looked much like this cover picture, but with even thinner noodles. So sad I didn’t take a picture.
Now I’ve just done my late antigen test.
And that’s today.
