What day is it again?

This afternoon I had an idea. I said to myself, “I think I’ll use the bread machine to make the dough for char siu bao, often called manapua here in Hawai’i.”

I check the list of ingredients and see that I have everything except unsalted butter, non-fat dry milk and char siu. Off I go to Safeway to acquire them.

I head for the baking shelves to find the dry milk. $4.89 for a box of 3 3.2oz packages. Check. I go to the Dairy section along the back wall to find the unsalted butter. $6.49 for a pound of the stuff. Check. Then I head for the meat department. No char siu in sight. Woe is me!

“Aha! I’ll buzz the butcher in the back,” I think. I press the buzzer once. No response. I press it again. Still no response. I try a third time and get no answer. I reach down to the meat department door’s kickplate, which isn’t flush with the door but is rather a piece of hard rubber or plastic that extends about two inches from the door. I pull the door open and look inside. It’s completely dark, not a light anywhere. “This seems odd,” I think.

Then I realize “It’s Sunday! The butchers get Sunday off!”

So I went back to the Dairy section and replaced the butter and back to the baking aisle to replace the dry milk, and I came home, sadder but wiser.

2 Comments

  1. It’s Chinese barbecued pork. If you’ve ever walked through a Chinatown market, it’s the bright red meat hanging on hooks near the hanging ducks. I wanted to buy the already-prepared kind I can get at Safeway rather than drive 30 miles into town and back to get the real thing in Honolulu’s Chinatown.

    Here’s a recipe.

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