The necessity of soup at the Chinese dining table: an ode to my paternal grandma

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Growing up, I remember there was almost always a massive stockpot full of some kind of broth or soup on the stove. Sometimes, it was a gentle herbal chicken soup. Occasionally, it was a thick and packed jook/congee with lots of different proteins, like chicken, pork, tofu skins, shredded dried and rehydrated scallops. Other times, it was a ginseng-based tonic meant to “cool” our bodies from eating too many rich foods. Regardless of what was in the big pot, I grew up knowing that soup was an integral part of our diet at home. It was rare to have a day when there was no full stockpot on the stove. It was an everyday occurrence to hear my grandma, mom, or aunt insist that Ed and I “drink soup.”

Soup was the antidote to everything. You ate too much fried food? Drink soup. You aren’t feeling well? Drink soup. You’re feeling sluggish or tired? Drink soup. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a soup or tonic for pretty much anything you can complain about.

I started getting back into thinking about soup more regularly after I gave birth to Kaia in December 2021. My aunt had lovingly sent me ingredients to make a specific Chinese chicken wine soup (雞酒湯 ji jiu tang), which she insisted would nourish my body to recover quickly from childbirth, while also simultaneously helping my body to produce more milk for my baby (debatable, but it was still tasty). Two years ago, I started being more intentional about making soup. And this year, I am trying to make soup even more often. It’s delicious, nourishing, tasty, and given it’s been so cold this winter, who could say no to a hot bowl of soup? Soup rounds out any meal. In China, there is a saying called san cai yi tang (三菜一汤), meaning “three dishes and one soup,” which is a foundational principle of a balanced, home-cooked Chinese meal that is meant to be shared. It’s typically a meat/protein, one vegetable, one tofu/egg/seafood dish, alongside a nutritious soup. The soup type can vary depending on how it complements the other dishes at the table, but more often than not at home, the soup is a very simple broth that is lightly flavored and seasoned.

I made a simple home-style soup today called yuanzi tang (圆子汤), or pork meatball soup. I was inspired to make it because this blog post by Xueci Cheng, a recipe developer I follow, talked about how integral soup was to her family’s meals in Sichuan growing up. It reminded me of how I ate with my family growing up. And similar to me, she also had forgotten how soup was always at the dinner table at home, as she had moved away to Germany, and soup had mostly been forgotten as a thing to have at a meal. So she made this same soup, and she said when her parents made it for them all during their visit to see her in Germany, they immediately said at the first sip once it was finished cooking that it “tasted like home 家的味道.” This soup is really simple. There’s no required broth base, as it’s mostly flavored by the fat and flavor from the pork meatballs you make (though I did use a cup of dashi I happened to have in my fridge). But after I seasoned it, it really did remind me of the simpler, light home-style soups my grandma used to make when I was little.

My paternal grandma passed in 1995. If she were alive today, she’d be 109 going on 110 this September. Her only granddaughter just turned 40 last month — that’s me. I wonder how she’d feel knowing that even 31 years after her death that I still think about her and her cooking often. I wonder if she’d be pleased to know how much of an impact she’s had on my life and the way I view food, cooking, and our shared culture. She never thought cooking was that great of a skill; for her, it was just something she knew and did. It fed her family (and around Lunar New Year, it fed her friends), and that was enough for her. But in these moments when I taste things that remind me of her and her cooking, I do find myself missing her and wishing we could share that same taste together.

Bonding over the mental load of deciding what to cook

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My friend who loves to cook and experiment in the kitchen messaged me yesterday, telling me that she was inspired to finally browse Mala Market’s website after reading about this chili garlic noodle recipe she wanted to make. The special Sichuan chili flakes needed for the specific flavor of these noodles had to be from this website, the recipe insisted, so she said she would have no choice but to finally make the leap and buy from here. She remembered I originally told her about the website around this time last year, right before the stupid President Dipshit tariffs got announced. I told her I made a big order from the site right before the tariffs would be official to avoid any tariff hikes. I had zero regrets because everything I got was extremely high quality and made all of our stomachs happier.

She said she felt like she had fallen into a rabbit hole with Mala Market. She would browse a page looking for one thing and then eventually want to buy five other things that were linked to that page. “There’s too many things I want to make!” my friend told me, laughing. “How do you decide what to make and when? And then so there are many MORE things to try out and make!”

“The mental load of deciding what to make, when, is real,” I lamented to her, also laughing. “This is a real struggle every day!”

“I think you’re the only person I know who understands this who I can talk about it with,” she confessed. “Whenever I tell this to other people, they look at me like I’m crazy.”

“And that’s why we were meant to be,” I responded back.

I still don’t know how or why it took me until November 2023 to find a friend like this, but these types of conversations always make my heart feel warm. She’s like my kitchen sister, if something like that even exists.

The new year: A time to declutter — starting with the kitchen

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After acquiring several new kitchen items, I realized that it was time to take a long, hard look at everything my kitchen had and see where I could start culling items. Given I have new baking pieces, I decided to give away one of my rectangular glass baking pans. I stared at it for a little bit: I bought this in a set with a larger glass baking pan from Kmart at Astor Place (RIP to that Kmart!); it was one of the very first kitchen items I had purchased when I moved into my Elmhurst, Queens, apartment during the summer of 2008. That summer, I also purchased two cheap but sturdy metal loaf pans and a nine-inch shallow cake pan from Kmart, as well. One of the loaf pans and the cake pan have been wearing; I knew the time had come to finally recycle them. I got 17.5 years of use out of these items, so they had lived a good life.

I posted the glass pan on my local Buy-Nothing group, as well as several like-new knives with knife guards. I didn’t realize how popular these items would be. So many people were in need of baking pans and knives! Or maybe it’s just so cold right now in New York that all people can do to keep warm in their apartments is to cook! I was able to get rid of them all quite quickly – far quicker than I had imagined.

I hope they go to good homes and get used often. It’s in these moments that I really embrace Buy-Nothing, our circular economy: One woman’s trash is another man’s riches. There’s no reason for me to hoard things that I will be unlikely to ever use again. So I’m happy to get these items put to use!

The growing Le Creuset collection

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I am now 40 years, two weeks old. For most of my life, I’ve looked longingly and with a bit of foam at the corner of my mouth at Le Creuset and Staub bake and cookware — you know, those glorious enameled cast iron dutch ovens, pots, and stone bakeware, all handmade in France, that you always see in fancy kitchenware sections and shops. Just the variety of bright colors would get to even the most indifferent-to-cookware people. Although I always admired them, I could never bring myself to buy even a single piece for myself. It felt like too much of an indulgence for me. I tend to be a lot more practical with kitchen items. So instead, I accepted a $35 Amazon Basics five-quart dutch oven from Chris’s aunt and uncle as an early Christmas gift in 2018 when they visited us, and I insisted to myself that I never needed Le Creuset or Staub anything. For comparison sake, a 5.5-quart Le Creuset round dutch oven currently goes for a whooping $435! So there’s clearly a massive markup there. So until this past December, I owned zero Le Creuset or Staub pieces. Hell, I bought a five-quart Staub dutch oven for our ex-nanny and never even bought myself so much as a single Le Creuset ramekin!

In December before we left for Australia, Chris presented me with an early Christmas gift: a Le Creuset 3.5-quart dual braiser and grill pan in a Marseille blue color; the grill pan also acts as a lid for the braiser. I was excited at the acquisition of this item, as it would be my very first and only Le Creuset item. I loved the color immediately. But I wasn’t sure how much I’d use it given I have most of the pots and pans that I use a lot. This braiser also seemed quite shallow at just 3.5 quarts, so other than pasta, I am still not sure what I will “braise” in it. But I knew I’d find ways to use it because after waiting almost 40 years, did you think I’d actually consider giving up my first and only Le Creuset…?!

Then we had the funny Shun knife debacle around my birthday. My friend kindly accepted the return of the eight-inch Shun knife. In its place, she got me a four-piece Le Creuset Heritage line stoneware baking set — one loaf pan, one fluted pie pan, one square baking dish, and one oval dish — all in Marseille blue to match my current braiser-grill pan duo. Of all these dishes, I will likely use the loaf pan the most since I make a decent number of loaf breads in a year. But all the dishes are sturdy, gorgeous, and heat evenly. They would all look beautiful simply as serving dishes. And they could easily reheat in different methods. I laid them all out on the dining table after opening them yesterday and just stared at them. I had the same feeling I do whenever we return from a Costco trip: I felt RICH. Once, I was poor and had no Le Creuset. And then, out of nowhere, I have (technically) six pieces! I am rich now!

Getting a response to your airline complaint

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I was telling a colleague on the way to the airport Friday that as soon as I got on my DFW-LGA flight and got WiFi, the first thing I would do was write a complaint about my flight cancellation/lack of comped hotel to American Airlines. She chuckled a bit, remembering how seething I was when I first told her the story. And she said while rolling her eyes, “Well, good luck with that! Who knows if they will even respond to you!”

“I have Executive Platinum status!” I said to her, indignantly. “I KNOW they will reply to me. I’m more just wondering how quickly they will, and what they will offer.”

I wrote that complaint in their portal on Friday afternoon. By Saturday afternoon, I already received a response with an apology, a request for my Charlotte hotel receipt, my mailing address for them to send a reimbursement check, plus 2,500 miles automatically added to my account for the pain and inconvenience I experienced. To be honest, I was expecting a response within two weeks; the fact that they responded in about 24 hours was actually quite impressive. Now, I just want to know when I can expect that check.

It’s very true that we live in an unjust and classist world. And they likely wouldn’t have been as quick or generous if I didn’t have Executive Platinum status. But in these moments when I get screwed, I have to play some card and get something out of them. Was a comped hotel really even worth wasting an entire two days of my life, though…?

Changing attitudes and demeanor with age at work

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It’s funny to think that this June will mark 18 years of full time work for me. That isn’t that long in the grand scheme of life. I’m 40, after all, and supposedly at the “prime” of my working years. But to say that I have 18 years of work experience sounds like a lot. I haven’t really “climbed” the career ladder, so to speak, in any externally admirable or impressive way. But when I reflect back on my working years, I realize that I’ve learned a lot about corporate America, work politics, and how luck plays a huge role in how “well” you do in our “dog eat dog” world. I am definitely not the same green, naive person I was when I was 22 and entered some tech startup in a questionable building near Union Square. As time has gone on, I’ve definitely become a lot more assertive, direct, sarcastic, and even snarky. I also just want to do what I want to do, and I care less about impressing others. That’s likely cost me promotions and/or raises, but I still have what I need, so it’s not like I’m going bankrupt because of my attitude.

In my first several years of attending my different companies’ annual sales and success kickoffs (SSKO), I used to make this huge effort to meet as many people as I could, to schmooze with leaders and people “above me” in the corporate ladder to make sure they knew who I was and we had some level of camaraderie. That’s the advice you’re always given — you have to politic in the world of politics. But in the last couple years, I feel so much less inclined to do this. I am in a fully remote role. I don’t get to see my direct teammates (who I mostly like) at all. So when I’m at this once-a-year-event when I can see almost everyone on my team in the same place, I kind of just want to see and chat with them. I can be myself around them. I can be as sarcastic, snarky, and jokey as I want, and they appreciate it and get it (at least the ones I like).

But of course, I still meet new people. I meet people I’ve worked with over Zoom in person finally. I have random chats with people I bump into, and all of that is fun for me. I an extraverted introvert, after all. But having worked remotely for six years now, these events are definitely draining because you’re essentially on — all day long, and far beyond work hours due to evening social events. I feel mentally tired coming back home from SSKO and feel this deep need to decompress and stretch both my mind and body out.

When I’ve flown home from these events in the last few years, I’ve thought a lot about the workplace in general. And I’ve always wondered but never quite pinpointed: how much of “work” is your actual day to day responsibilities and customer requests versus just internal politicking — creating a brand for yourself, making your name and accomplishments known, elevating yourself against your peers and advocating for yourself in terms of recognition, raises, promotions, President’s Club? I don’t know what the percentage is obviously. But what I do know for sure is that if there is just one thing I cannot stand about work, it’s the constant internal politics, which exist anywhere and everywhere as long as there are people. It’s my least favorite thing about the corporate world. Your work will never be enough, and it will never speak for itself even if you are the best.

I also wonder to myself what the feeling will be like one day when I no longer work for a company, for “the White man.” I wonder how much of a weight off my chest that will be, and how it will contribute to my quality of life. Or, will I become one of those people who misses what I hate (that’s also called masochism) and tries to go back into it….?!

First world problems: Bad food at CLT airport, the wait list that keeps you waiting at the CLT American Express Centurion Lounge

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Trying to eat “healthy” while on the road, especially for work, can be really challenging. You often hear of people who travel frequently on business say that it’s hard to eat a well-balanced diet when you are constantly on the go. Even when you think you may be choosing the “healthy” option, hidden *extra* things like fats, sugars, and weird thickeners and preservatives lace your food with all the nasty things you’d ideally like to avoid.

When I got to CLT yesterday, I wanted to get some kind of fruit in, but I wasn’t sure how to do this. I scanned all the food options in the “plaza” area of CLT around the E gates, and I found an acai bowl stand. That sounded promising, I initially thought. I went up to the stand, decided on a protein acai smoothie, added some mango, and ordered. But when I took the first sip, I almost gagged.

“Is there added sugar in this?” I asked the employee who made it for me. It tasted like there were several tablespoons of sugar added to this. Acai is not naturally sweet at all; mango and berries would also not have made this that sweet. So where the heck was the intense sugar hit coming from?

She shrugged her shoulders. “I just followed the proportions,” she said to me nonchalantly.

I hate wasted food. It’s ingrained in my DNA; it’s almost like I feel pain in my body when I have to throw food out. As a young child, I got lectured and yelled at more times than I can count by both my paternal grandma and my mom that they grew up with barely enough food, so Ed and I were lucky to have more than enough to eat every single day. So even if food didn’t taste good, we were still expected to eat and finish it. So, I ended up drinking the rest of that likely-refined-sugar-laden acai smoothie. I rationalized it in my head as, well… I barely ate anything else today, so who really cares if this is what my body has to feed off of today?!

Chris kept reminding me to go to the American Express Centurion Lounge at CLT because last year, he signed me up for an American Express Platinum card (for a big bonus that he insisted was worth it), and one of the perks was that I could get airport lounge access (when I wasn’t with him, since I get access when traveling with him due to his Qantas status). I checked the status of the lounge online, obtained the QR code, and went to the front desk. And then, I very politely got turned away because the front desk guy told me they could let me in only up to three hours ahead of my flight; I was there 3.5 hours ahead of my departure time.

I know this sounds spoiled, but wow. I felt like such a pleb in that moment. I just got turned away from an airport lounge when I was supposed to have this shiny card that would get me access. AHHHHHH.

So after twenty minutes (and eating a subpar sandwich for dinner), I went back into the AmEx app to see if I could generate a new QR code. Well, I had no such luck: I had to get on the wait list. I put my name in, and I got a confirmation I was on the wait list. And well… 1.5 hours later, I never got off the wait list. By that time, I had to walk 12 minutes to a different concourse to get to my gate to board. The entire experience was miserable, unsavory, and definitely did NOT scream “premium experience” whatsoever. Or maybe I’m just annoyed and cranky because this entire travel experience thus far has been awful, and I’m getting older and just feel like I am losing patience for situations like this.

Too many people have this American Express platinum card. Unfortunately, as classist as it sounds, you just cannot create premium experiences for everyone. Because if everyone has access to the premium experience, then it is no longer a true premium experience. Chris poked fun at me, saying that I am just spoiled now by always having access to fancy lounges through him. That’s probably true. When you have nice things… you kind of get used to them.

Maybe I am truly a capitalist after all.

Flight cancellation, terrible service, and an unexpected overnight stay in Charlotte

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I guess I spoke too soon. After five delay notifications and my flight getting pushed back to 8:30 from an original departure time of 3:50, AA officially cancelled the flight, stating that they did not have a complete flight crew and could not take this plane from Charlotte to Denver.

I immediately called the AA Executive Platinum desk. They said the earliest they could get me to Denver was 9pm Wednesday night. I would be missing an entire day (that’s 50 percent) of our entire program. I chatted with my manager, who suggested that I still come if I could fully participate in the sessions all day Thursday. Given our company’s getting acquired, this will be my company’s very last annual kickoff. If this weren’t the case, I might have seriously considered just going back to New York. But I wanted to be there for this, even half time, and I wanted to see my colleagues and attend Thursday night’s party. So I booked the flight tomorrow night. And as per usual because American Airlines’ service is just getting worse and worse, the phone agent told me the recorded reason for the cancellation was “weather,” and so unless a gate agent gave me a hotel voucher, they could not give me a hotel voucher over the phone. It’s always fun when AA lies on paper about the real reasons for a flight cancellation, but then gives blazingly loud announcements at the gate that it’s due to lack of flight crew. I saw the line at each of the gates — it was over two dozen people long, and there was no way I was getting in one of those lines without setting something on fire. My company could deal with my hotel. So, I got my corporate booking app to book me an airport hotel that I could stay at until Wednesday afternoon.

I got a Lyft at Charlotte to the airport hotel. After already being infuriated by this whole debacle, I immediately got even more annoyed when I realized no car had a front license plate. People can talk all they want about states like New York and California being nanny states, but you know what? FRONT AND BACK LICENSE PLATES MAKE SENSE AND ARE LOGICAL. North Carolina is clearly backwards here. When you see a sea of black and grey vehicles, and your Lyft is a grey sedan, how the hell are you supposed to tell them apart? Do you want me to go behind the vehicle and check? That is so inefficient and insane.

So I found my car and went behind him to check his license plate. I got into the car, and I said to the driver as soon as I sat down, “Do you know how ridiculous it is that your state doesn’t require front license plates? How am I supposed to know it’s you in a massive sea of grey and black vehicles?”

He responds, laughing, “Oh, I LOVE that North Carolina doesn’t require a front license plate! It’s not necessary. You found me, didn’t you?”

There went his rating. And that was an automatic “no-tip.” I don’t care if it sounds ruthless. I just told him that I found it difficult to find him, and he basically said to me in his own words, with zero empathy, “I’m so happy it was hard for you to find me!”

And it only got worse. When I got to the hotel, the line was over two dozen people long. Only one person was at the desk. The line eventually grew to over 50 people. And after almost thirty minutes of waiting, another hotel employee miraculously showed up to split the line in two. I think all of the people servicing me tonight were competing to see who could be the absolute worst.

I’m not sure how worse this night could have been. Why does our annual kickoff almost always have to be in Denver, and in JANUARY? Would it never make logical sense to make it in San Francisco, our actual company headquarters where the weather is always mild and temperate….?!

The continued effects of Winter Storm Fern: Delayed flights, accidents on the road, and an endless customer service line at the airport

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I woke up this morning to Chris telling me that my first connecting flight was delayed (a sign of his love: he monitors my flights even when he’s not flying with me). So I’d need to really hustle and run when I landed in Charlotte because my connection time between landing and boarding for my flight to Denver would be just minutes. And given the way the connections work at CLT, I’d typically land in one concourse and have to go all the way to a separate concourse, which would take at least 8-11 minutes at my usual speed-walking pace.

En route to the airport, my driver and I witnessed three different car accidents, all completely preventable and due to the idiocy and carelessness of drivers on the road. “Look at these people!” my driver exclaimed, exacerbated. “They’re driving and not even paying attention! It’s like they don’t realize there is SNOW and ICE on the road! Why can’t people just slow down? You should have seen how many accidents I saw happen on the road yesterday — I lost count!”

After I boarded my first flight, I got a notification that my connecting flight was also delayed. This wasn’t the end of the world: this small delay would mean I wouldn’t have to rush to my next gate. But then the news just kept getting worse and worse: another delay came, followed by a third, and then a fourth. At this point, my arrival time changed from 5:40pm all the way to 8pm local time. I was supposed to have a 7pm dinner reservation with a former colleague I haven’t seen since pre-pandemic. She had moved from San Francisco to Denver several years ago. She changed the reservation to 8pm to accommodate my first delay. But by the time the final delay notification came, I realized it would be far too late to meet up with her tonight, especially given that it’s quite a distance from Denver airport into downtown, so it would take time. I had no idea what the road conditions would be there, nor what traffic would be like at that time. We agreed to cancel dinner but to try to find a small window to meet for coffee or tea in the next two days.

I was disappointed, but I know I didn’t have it that bad relatively speaking. Everywhere I walked through Charlotte airport, I was overhearing horror stories of people’s massively delayed flights, cancellations, and re-routes. One guy said his connecting flight changed three times. Another person said she got rebooked on a flight in another six hours. The American Airlines customer assistance line in my current concourse was so long that it almost went into the main atrium!

As long as I get there tonight, I’ll be fine. These are the woes of air travel immediately after a major winter storm.

Winter Storm Fern on Sunday, a Snow Day (no school) Monday, and evolving views on snow

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In the winter of 2004, it was my first real, snowy winter that I’d ever experienced in my life. I was 18, in my first-year at Wellesley, and we had a beautiful snow fall that blanketed the entire suburban campus. I was preparing for my first real New England winter: I had bought a thick winter coat and a pair of big, bulky, waterproof snow boots. I was so excited to see the snow fall. My first time watching the snowfall, I really did feel like I was in a snow globe. And when the snow fall stopped, my friend and I immediately went outside to Severance Green, this vast lawn with a huge hill, for some sledding (using dining hall trays we temporarily stole from inside). We had to take advantage of the snow while it was still light and fluffy, and before it froze over into hard (and uncomfortable) ice.

I couldn’t believe how much fun it was to be in the snow for the first time. I was giggling like crazy. A friend and I made snowballs and threw them at fellow classmates. We all made snow angels and went down the hill “sledding” more times than we could count. My friend took lots of photos of my first real snow experience. She’s originally from Arkansas and had seen snow countless times, so she was thoroughly amused at how child-like and glee-filled I was to experience this all for the first time.

Since then, I do not have the same excited feeling about snow. I do enjoy watching it fall… while I am in the comfort of my heated home with a hot beverage in hand. I have very little desire to go outside and play with it. I get grossed out by how the snow is plowed in New York City and how that prevents me from getting into cars when I need to, and the black ice is terrifying to me. I know several colleagues who have had very painful falls from black ice in New York; one of whom actually broke her femur and had to have a very intense (and likely expensive) surgery that kept her out of the office for almost two months. But I do know Kaia likes it. I like how she gets excited by snow, creating snow balls, and getting snow thrown at her. It’s cute and funny. But outside of her enjoyment of it, I stay away from it. Maybe that’s just me getting old and senile. Or, what is more likely the case: I just want to avoid freezing temperatures as much as possible. And if I am making snowmen or snowballs, my hands are just going to freeze over.

Winter Storm Fern came as expected yesterday. The Department of Education announced early on Sunday that schools would be closed the next day (today). Given Kaia is in 4K/Pre-K, she has no ‘remote learning’ option, so this just meant we were with her the whole day and had to find ways to entertain her between work.

I tried to make a couple snow balls and throw them at her this early afternoon when we came back from lunch. It was cute to see her laugh and try to escape. But my hands got so frigid so quickly that it almost felt like the numbness was going to lead to frost bite in seconds. But even with Kaia, while she gets amused by seeing snow falling and seeing snow piled up, we can tell she doesn’t love it. She has said repeatedly she hates the cold. And how can we blame her given we 100 percent agree with her hatred of the bitter cold?