daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
I was reorganizing my browser’s bookmarks and came across this recipe for Salvadorian Chicken which I hadn’t made in a few years so I decided to make it for dinner. It’s a braised chicken in wine dish, and very easy to make.
I don’t really know how authentic it is, but it’s pretty tasty! I usually like very flavorful and spicy dishes, and this dish would be considered quite tame. Probably perfect for those with less-adventurous palettes.
Last year we put up a string of lights on our deck just outside our dinner/breakfast room and it made the space so nice to look at. But recently, the cord broke, and also our fancy remote-controlled power outlet stopped working. Remedying both situations was pretty easy (and cheap).
For the broken cord, all it took was my pair of wire cutters (like these) and electrical tape to reconnect the wires.
Instead of replacing the broken remote-controlled outlet (which lasted a year), I bought an inexpensive lightbulb socket outlet adapter. We have an exterior light that is rarely used because it’s positioned badly for providing light on the deck. However, it’s in the perfect location for plugging in the string lights. So now the light switch next to our dinner table light switch turns on the string lights. What a simple solution that I am ashamed I didn’t think of last year.
Now we can enjoy the deck lighting once again.
It’s weird to think that one would have to learn how to use a home oven, but here we are. Welcome to the 2020s! I touched on it briefly in another post, but we have a fancy Anova Precision Oven which has a sous vide mode. It basically uses a water reservoir to regulate the moisture level in the oven as you cook food. This cooks the food evenly and also keeps it from drying out. The addition of a food probe ensures even more precision as the food reaches and is held at the proper temperature depending on the recipe.
It’s a fancy bit of technology for sure, but is it too much? Mariko tasked me to try some recipes for the oven, so I’ll have a better answer in the coming weeks but what I do know is that it’s actually fun to use because you can control the oven with an app on your phone. If you use one of the recipes from the Anova website, the oven changes modes automatically (varying moisture level, temperature, heat source direction, and probe control) during the cooking process. It’s very satisfying to glance at your phone and see the status of the oven.
So far I have prepared a pork tenderloin, which came out pretty good, and today I tried the “Reheat Pizza” recipe, which also was a success. I admit that this oven is overkill for two slices of pizza, but I had to test it out! 😂
Today I spent a couple of hour working on Sophie, my 1972 Peugeot UJ-10 bicycle. Last week, the chain broke so I ordered a new one and it arrived yesterday. I first did some measurements to make sure the new one had the correct length (and I was curious to see if the original one was the right length), then installed the new chain without incident. The only bummer was that I thought I had ordered a silver chain, but actually ordered a black one. Oh well. Matches the original at least. 😊
Since Sophie was to be out of action for a while, I also bought a new set of spokes for the front wheel to replace the original, rusted ones. I used a pair of small bolt cutters to remove the old spokes, then cleaned up the hub a bit. (photo above)
And then I thought, why not clean the inside of the hub too? So I removed the bearings, cleaned everything up inside, then packed it with new grease and re-assembled.
Lastly, I polished up the rim with some steel wool. It’s easier to do without spokes.
I’m still waiting for some new rim tape to arrive before I can re-assemble the wheel, so it’ll be a few more days before I can take Sophie out for a spin.
It seems like I’ve been replacing lots of parts, but actually there’s not too much to a vintage bicycle. In fact, I only have to do the same service (spokes and hub) to the rear wheel and Sophie will be good as new. Or actually better than new, since she’ll be sporting several modern parts! 😁
