A local homeless shelter contacted me today to see if my band could play their annual benefit again early August. Turns out my keyboarder will be out of town that weekend, so unfortunately, I had to decline 
It was a very successful event last year with lots of donations, so I hope we can do it again in 2027 
As for WFD: our retired buddy and his boo left for yet another trip — to HK and Japan this time, and she was nice enough to leave a bunch of Chinese eggplant & scallions at our door so they wouldn’t go to waste.
Inspired by @BierMonk’s suggestion in this thread, I turned them into fish-fragrant Sichuan eggplant from WoL. I scooted to the Giant for the ground pork & an Asian market downtown for the doubanjiang before a massive storm hit mid-afternoon (hail and all!) 
I made the eggplant in the AF bc I didn’t want to stink up the house & added a couple of chopped hallapeenos that were getting wrinkly to the sauce for heat — authenticity be damned. Once again, the hallapeenos were devoid of any heat, so I added my beloved HK chile oil. Did the trick. My boo provided rice.
Delicious, and perfect for a rainy & chilly night.
