daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
Tonight’s dinner was yakiniku with Japanese wagyu beef, sliced pork belly, sausage, mushrooms, cheese, and homegrown nasubi and jalapeño peppers. The beef was amazing, and the peppers were off-the-chart spicy! We also had some store-bought peppers which were very mild, thankfully.
I love spicy food, but these peppers were almost too much. I’d say these were almost as hot as habaneros! 🔥🌶 I loved them though. 😂
Our poor Prius was showing us the “red triangle of death” light on the dash this morning, so we had to send it off to the auto shop. Luckily, our AAA service towed it there for cheap (our mechanic is a couple miles farther than the 7 miles that AAA gives you for free). We’ve taken our Prius to the same mechanic for years now, and I trust them to be honest with the work. In fact, one of the mechanics there has a Prius as well, so he knows a lot about the common issues, and lets us know what he would do if he were in our situation.
This time, however, I’m expecting a larger bill because it’s got almost 200k miles on the odometer, and the motor batteries are probably just about done for. I love the Prius, though, and Bay will be driving it down at college so I want to make sure it’s safe for him. Anyways, we’re crossing our fingers that it won’t be too expensive a fix.
Don’t you love when it’s bright and sunny, but it’s also raining? That happened this afternoon, but it wasn’t just a few drops, but rather a full-on downpour! It was so cool that both Bay and I had to take photos. 😀
Yesterday I reattached Sophie’s broken chain and it looked good as new (as good as a 50-year-old chain can look) so today I went for a ride. When the chain broke, I was shifting into the lowest gear while applying a good amount of pressure. I think that stress caused the chain link to pop out, so with that in mind, I was shifting very gently today. I’m happy to say that the chain was fine, and the shifting was almost flawless. 😀
I should probably replace the chain, as well as all the spokes, but I’m in no rush. The next thing on my list of to-dos for Sophie is to get some new handlebar tape. I’m just pleased that Sophie is back in action and performing nicely. I love that bike!
One thing that I am not in love with, but is a necessary evil, is the frame bag. It’s super convenient to carry my cellphone and camera, but it’s a huge eyesore, isn’t it? Maybe a nice vintage-looking chrome rack is in order. Hmmm…
I made a beef brisket for our holiday meal using a slow-baking method as I have done in the past. However, this time it took a couple of hours longer than usual for some reason. The delay was okay, however, as the family was in full relax-mode, and we snack on the smoked sausage and drank margaritas (just Mariko and I!) while we waited. I also made jalapeño poppers, Bay made mashed potatoes, Mariko made a salad, and Koa set the table.
It was a yummy meal, and easy to make.
FYI, the traditional way of preparing jalapeño poppers is to wrap the cheese-filled peppers with bacon strips, and then pop them into the oven. But what we do is to fry up the bacon, cut into bits, and then just add them with the cheese stuffing. This method is so much easier, not nearly as messy, and it’s simpler to get the jalapeños to the right done-ness. It’s also way easier to eat. 😀🌶
I hope you had a nice day!
