Author Archives: Yvonne

A very exhausting and annoying play date

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I had scheduled a lunch and play date today with a building neighbor and her son. She asked me the night before if it would be okay if her other mom friend and daughter could also come. They had originally had a play date scheduled the previous Sunday but had to cancel because my neighbor was sick. I figured it would be fine… I’d likely just need to find a slightly roomier restaurant to accommodate three adults, three toddlers, and three strollers.

The first issue came up before we even got on the train to go down to Dumbo, Brooklyn. One of the moms said she couldn’t fold her stroller because it was too big, so she asked if we could use the elevator. I hate using the elevator and usually carry the stroller down while holding Kaia’s hand, so I told them I’d wait on the main level for them. After scanning into the subway, she wanted to take another elevator down to the downtown platform. I waited for them on the platform level… but they took over 20 minutes to arrive because that elevator was out of service, and they had to find another elevator further away to come down to us. My neighbor lightly suggested that we all stick together to prevent getting separated, but all I could think was… I would really love it if people could just be nimble and go with the flow, especially with the person who actually organized this outing. On the flip side, maybe I was actually being the rigid one because I didn’t want to use the elevator? Either way, this was not fun, and we missed three trains and ended up getting to the restaurant 15 minutes later than I’d wanted and had the reservation for.

Once we got to the restaurant, one kid had a face-down-flat meltdown. Then, one of the moms said she was avoiding carbs, and said the words of cardinal sin to Chris: “I don’t really eat fried rice (or noodles).” She asked me what was low-carb on the menu, so I tried to point out more protein/meat options for her. We went back and forth on whether we’d all share, which was stressful because no one could seem to come to a consensus. Finally, we did, and we ended up all sharing. The side order of stir-fried gai lan came to the table, and Kaia immediately said she wanted them. One of the moms said that would be an adult dish because “the kids won’t touch that,” and I had to chime in and say something. “No, my kid will definitely eat that. That’s her favorite vegetable!”

Kaia had a tantrum when I insisted she had to sit near me (and well, not with her best friend). She eventually had the biggest lunch out ever. I think she even encouraged one of the other kids to branch out and eat foods that weren’t just white and beige.

The first Space Club we tried to go to, which was brand new in Dumbo, had a 25-30 minute wait. So we took a quick Uber ride to the Fort Greene location where we finally got to let loose a little and not be so hyper focused on the kids. Kaia and I made some necklaces, and she seemed quite focused. We all enjoyed the large trampolines, which were unique to the Fort Greene location.

We mapped the closest subway, which was a 17-minute walk away. Neither seemed keen on that walk, so we ended up splitting a Lyft home. I wasn’t thrilled to tack on another $20 to my all-day play date, but I guess that’s the cost of being around people you don’t know well and are hesitant to take public transit. When I got home, all I could think was, I’m so glad to be back and not with two other moms and two other kids. My neighbor friend said to me as we entered our building with a smile, “So, feeling exhausted — just a little?”

Yeah, no kidding.

The more is not always the merrier, especially when you are leaving your neighborhood and relying on things like public transportation and everyone’s comfort level taking public transit.

My introspective, empathetic preschooler

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A few months ago, a friend gifted Kaia a book called How We Eat: Celebrating Food and Feeding Tools. The book celebrates all the ways we eat, from birth to adulthood, with vivid vibrant photos of real people, real babies, real families and friends interacting and eating. It covers eating with bottles, directly from the breast, using a breast milk pump, supplemental nursing systems, G-tubes, NG tubes, and more. There aren’t a lot of words in the book, but there are some nice descriptions of what’s happening and how people are eating for each set of photos. And right now, it is definitely one of Kaia’s favorite books. Sometimes when I am cooking or doing chores, I see her sitting by her bookshelf, flipping the pages of this book and “reading” it to herself by describing what’s happening in each photo.

Last night, I was reading to Kaia before bed. She chose this as one of her three bedtime story books. As we went through the book, she asked me to stop and turn back to the previous page. She pointed at a picture of a little kid with no forearm, with a metal tool that was attached to his upper arm helping him feed.

“Where is his arm, Mama?” she asked me.

I explained to her that not everyone is born with all their limbs, so some babies are born without hands or arms or legs, and this is one of those kids. But luckily, we have tools like the metal attachment on the kid’s upper arm that can help them self-feed.

She looked pensive, touching the boy’s upper arm in the picture, then touching her own arm.

“He doesn’t have an arm?” she asked me with sad eyes. “What does that feel like? Does it hurt him?”

I told her that the child likely doesn’t know what it’s like to have a forearm on that side, and that like her, they likely don’t know anything different.

Kaia kept touching the kid’s arm in the photo and rubbing it.

“Can I help him eat?” she asked me, curiously. “I want to help him eat!”

I could feel tears coming on as she said this. It was like she felt this kid’s loss of an arm, and she immediately wanted to dive in and help however way she could. But she just didn’t know how. She expressed fear for this child’s pain, and deep sadness for the fact that this child didn’t have two full arms and hands to eat and play with. My baby isn’t four years old yet, but she has exhibited deep, mature empathy and care for others that I never even knew was possible at this age. I know for sure that when I was her age, I would never have asked questions like this at all if I saw a kid like the one in this picture.

I always hoped for Kaia to be many things. High on the list was that I hoped she possessed empathy and care for others. It appears that she doesn’t seem to have any struggle in this area. I’m so thankful for my sweet baby growing into a real, caring, loving, empathetic human.

“She’s getting under my ass about this!”

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My friend in New Jersey drove into the city today to have lunch together. We talked about a lot of things, like dentists, health, people in our lives, food, more food, learning/teaching philosophies, and friendship. She was telling me how she was thinking a lot about how Chris and I approach food with Kaia and how much she admires it. She is thrilled Kaia is a good little eater, that she’s adventurous with foods (likely because of her mama). She especially loves that we limit her sweets intake and pretty much ban candy except as a “very, very special treat.” She’s shared this with some of her friends, who are also parents, and apparently they think that I’m too draconian and asking for my child to eventually have an eating disorder (parents always have to criticize each other, don’t they?). She went on the defensive for me, saying that given the insane rates of obesity, not to mention the pre-diabetes and heart disease rates in children as young as 4 or 5, the approach we’re taking is data-based, prudent, and practical; she said if she were a parent, she’d likely try to do the same thing.

My friend also told me that she shared that I’m one of her only friends who “gives her shit” for not voting or voting third party. “She’s getting under my ass about not voting!” she laughed, telling me what she told her other friend about me. While one of her friends who has a “c’est la vie” attitude asked why she puts up with me being so pushy about voting, she responded, “Well, I actually appreciate it because it means she cares and wants to push me to do things that are important. And sometimes, we need someone to push us.”

I smiled. It’s nice to be in adult friendships where we individually take accountability for our actions and recognize that sometimes, uncomfortable conversations need to happen between friends who just want the best for each other, and who push each other to be better. Pushing friends to be the best they can be — that’s actually a good thing, isn’t it?

So much chicken stock, what to do?

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“This fridge is packed!” Chris said earlier this week after opening our fridge and inspecting the contents. “Are these all just ingredients, or is this stuff we can actually eat?”

Our fridge usually has a lot of food in it, but oftentimes, it’s mostly raw fruit and vegetables, condiments and sauces (homemade and store-bought), different milks, yogurt, and Chris’s stockpiling of kombucha. This week, though, since I just emptied out my vegetable scrap and bone bag from the freezer, we have a lot of jars of my homemade, gelatinous stock, aka bone broth. I can assure you that this is most definitely “bone broth” — it jiggles with so much collagen that it’s almost like jell-o after cooled in the fridge.

I originally was going to use the bulk of it for a butternut squash green curry soup, but then Chris insisted that we have chicken green curry this week, and I didn’t want to double up on the green curry flavorings because it would be redundant. I had to noodle around in my endless recipe bookmarks to come up with inspiration because I couldn’t readily come up with any ideas on my own that would be simple. Since I am trying to use up what we have and not buy anything net-new unless it’s a fruit or vegetable given our remaining time here in 2025 is so limited, I need to focus on what I already have, whether it’s in the fridge, freezer, or pantry. So I decided to pivot to something lighter and quicker: Vietnamese butternut squash soup with ground pork, also known as canh bi do nau thit bam. More traditionally, the squash would be kabocha, but I just cut up my big 4.5-pound butternut squash, so I used that. I defrosted a bit of ground pork and tossed that in with aromatics before adding the butternut squash cubes and the gelatinous stock. I guess what really makes this “Vietnamese” is that it’s seasoned with fish sauce and then finished with chopped cilantro, and a lot of it.

The art and appreciation of cooking seems to be dying in my generation. People like my friend in New Jersey and I are like rare breeds. We value homemade, from scratch, from source foods. We view the time we invest into cooking as time invested in our overall health, well-being, and happiness. We don’t look at ready-made or restaurant food as better or superior. This soup is humble, but it’s satisfying, tasty, and homely. We need more of this kind of dish in our lives.

The rebranding of “white whole wheat flour”

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I recently started noticing “golden wheat flour” by King Arthur in the baking aisle at Whole Foods. I previously always bought the standard Whole Foods brand whole wheat flour for use in baking and making Kaia “healthy” treats, but this caught my eye. In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Whole Foods always has sales in its baking aisle, so I stopped in earlier this week to restock on all-purpose and whole wheat flour. I decided to give the “golden wheat flour” a try.

I dug more into what “golden wheat flour” was, and I found out that about two years ago, King Arthur rebranded their “white whole wheat flour” to “golden wheat whole wheat flour.” It is 100 percent whole grain flour milled from hard white wheat, which gives it a lighter color and a milder flavor compared to traditional whole wheat flour made from red wheat (also from a branding standpoint, it’s very hard to wrap one’s head around “white whole wheat” because that sounds almost oxymoronic). This is definitely a welcome addition for those of us like me who are trying to incorporate more whole grains, less refined starches, and also want to increase fiber and nutritional profiles of what we are baking.

My first use of the golden wheat flour was in this week’s challah. I did 50 percent all purpose, 50 percent golden wheat. The color of the dough was definitely a bit lighter than when I used whole wheat as 50 percent. It is definitely on brand with the re-branding: the dough is very much “golden” in color! After shaping, proofing, shaping, and baking, the loaves came out in a beautiful brown golden color. And once I sliced into the loaves and had some, I knew golden wheat flour would be my go-to moving forward for whole grain flour. It has a slight nutty flavor, and it definitely is not as “heavy” or “hard” as traditional whole wheat. I could even see myself using this in cookies! I still want to use spelt flour, but I’ll likely use it in things like pancakes and quick breads as opposed to yeast breads like challah or brioche moving forward.

A day off with snow flurries, freezing temperatures, lots of cooking, and scooting

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Since I started at my current company, I’ve had Veteran’s day off the last six years. No other company I’ve ever worked at gave me Veteran’s Day off. I suppose it’s one way to be “inclusive,” but what that ultimately means is that other days off I would hope to get don’t happen, such as New Year’s Eve. That is not a federal holiday, but every company before this current one gave that day off. These days, I have to request that day off officially. Now that Kaia is in preschool, she also gets that day off, so she was at home with us today. She woke up in our bed after creeping over to us a few hours before wake-up time and got excited to see tiny snowflakes falling from the sky.

“What is that falling from the sky, Mama?” Kaia asked, pointing out the window.

“It’s snow, Pookie!” I exclaimed. “Tiny little snowflakes falling down!”

Today, I made a bunch of things to feed the family: browned butter buttermilk oatmeal pancakes using toasted and ground steel-cut oats, my remaining buttermilk, and a bit of browned butter for extra toastiness. Both Chris and Kaia enjoyed these pancakes; they are likely the tastiest (but alas, most laborious) oatmeal pancakes I’ve ever made. So these will definitely be on rotation. I am very much in the “clean out the pantry and fridge” mode right now, so that ticked off using up my remaining buttermilk and most of my small amount of remaining steel-cut oats. That was followed by Eleven Madison Park style granola (which Kaia diligently picked out all the dried sour cherries from her portion…), Thai green curry with chicken and tofu using homemade stock from the bone bag in my freezer, leftover cut-up firm tofu, and pre-frozen cubes of green curry that I doctored up; plus, Thai-style papaya salad with the green papaya I got for super cheap at Apna Bazaar in Connecticut weeks ago! I even made the dough for my once/twice-a-year challah and left it to proof in the fridge overnight. I am planning for us to eat one loaf now, and then I’ll freeze the second loaf to await us in 2026 when we return from the Southern Hemisphere.

Kaia impatiently waited for me to finish shaving the papaya so that I could take her to Lincoln Center plaza for some scooting around. She is definitely mastering her scooter (minus some awkward turns), and she is gaining confidence using it. She loves riding it around and around the plaza reflecting pool, and then she likes to take breaks to pick up fallen autumn leaves and pebbles, pretending to “make pesto for mama.” She says she loves pesto pasta and wants to share it with me. This is her new thing whenever we’re in the Lincoln Center plaza together, with her intermittently scooting and then taking breaks to stir the special pesto pasta she makes for me in her imaginary kitchen.

We have about 2.5 weeks remaining in New York City this year. There is a lot left to do, lots of ingredients to use up, and plans still to be made. Every year seems to fly by quicker than the last, but I guess that’s how you know you are definitely getting older. I’m almost ending my 40th year, as Chris would say, yet I don’t feel close to slowing down even a bit just yet!

Cottage cheese as the new high protein food trend that I am not that into

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Before this year, the only time I ever really embraced cottage cheese was for German style cheesecake. Growing up, I remember my dad would make it once a year, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I’d always sit there and watch or help him make it. Real German style cheesecake is made with quark cheese, but given that quark was not readily available in the U.S. then (and barely is now), the closest substitute easily available here is cottage cheese. It takes ages to break up the cottage cheese curds, and you need a high powered mixer to do it, but I always loved it when we got to the final step and got the cake batter silky smooth.

Cottage cheese suddenly rose in popularity this year because of everyone’s obsession with increasing their protein intake (and yes, I admittedly fall into this camp as of late). It’s considered the latest “hack” to increase protein in one’s diet, and it’s been showing up in endless different recipes. I’ve even seen it in some dosa and uttapam recipes! I finally decided I would try it out again, and I’d try using it in things like smoothies and pancakes. I figured that since Kaia likes pancakes, she wouldn’t mind it if I added cottage cheese to her pancakes.

Well, I was wrong. The cottage cheese made the pancakes more spongy, and she did not seem to appreciate this. She’d squish them in between her fingers and declare that she did not want to eat them, that she wanted ME to eat them. I’d have to cajole her to eat at least two before getting something else that she’d prefer. I tried three different recipe variations, some including pumpkin puree (because I like to add pumpkin to as many recipes as possible in the fall). Though I was able to mostly eliminate the sponginess she did not like, I found this to be far too much effort to continue attempting to use it. If trying to incorporate “healthy” or high protein ingredients into our diet ends up becoming more “work” than joy, then I don’t want to keep doing it. I have enough mental load, and this is not something I want to continue.

I finished the tiny bit of remaining cottage cheese in the fridge and mixed it into some just-cut pineapple. And even that felt like an effort for me. So, I’m declaring it now: No more cottage cheese in this house — unless I decide to make German style cheesecake.

2025 AFSP Manhattan Out of the Darkness Walk at Pier 16/17 Seaport

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The AFSP Manhattan Out of the Darkness walk was rescheduled to today given that the original date of October 12 had stormy weather with flood advisories. Out of the twelve years that I’ve participated and fundraised, it’s the first year I’ve been on the Walk committee, and the first year I’ve actually volunteered to help with setup in preparation. I arrived at around 9am to help set up tents and stations. Chris and Pookster arrived once her swim class had completed, and my friend and her boyfriend, who also joined my team, came to the walk to support me and also support suicide prevention in general. My friend had a suicide attempt in her high school years that resulted in a days-long hospitalization. My friend’s boyfriend’s dad died from suicide when he was just a teenager. So suicide and mental health are very painfully relevant topics for both of them. My team was asked to lead the walk, so we kicked it off this year.

The walk turnout felt lighter this year, but I still think that overall, things ran much smoother than they did at last year’s. We were able to work out some of last year’s kinks. In addition, we tried to be more community oriented by calling out individuals and teams for walking with us for various numbers of years.

Volunteering for any nonprofit can be pretty taxing, frustrating, and time-consuming, not to mention insanely (but understandably) fundraising and money obsessed. But I felt happy and proud to finally be a part of the Walk committee, to get to know some of the committee members, and to also get to know our executive director more personally. I appreciated the opportunity to represent AFSP NYC on CBS News twice; it was definitely the highlight of participating on the Walk committee this year. New experiences like that are always exciting and fun, plus they test me in different ways and help keep me on my toes. It’s been a valuable experience, and maybe I will actually continue to be on the committee next year.

New York City’s food scene, a new mayor-elect, and championing the “hidden gems” in lesser traveled to parts of the city

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Since the pandemic year, we’ve been using our Saturdays to explore the city we currently call home, traveling to a different neighborhood and borough each week to see what the vibe and food is like. Chris has kept a record of all our neighborhoods, which weekends we went where, and which restaurants and tiny stands we’ve visited. So, it was a bit fun to see that the new mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, had built his mayoral campaign around leaning into his love of food, foods and restaurants in areas of the city that the average New Yorker or tourist may not be readily willing to trek to on their own. He’s campaigned at bodegas in the Bronx, taken politicians and journalists to restaurants in Astoria and Jackson Heights, and even organized a city-wide scavenger hunt that included many small, family-owned businesses that make some of his favorite foods.

Mamdani is highlighting many under-the-radar food spots, and likely drawing more visitors to those businesses. This makes me happy to see — to see that we have a new mayor-elect who not only likes to eat and has a deep appreciation of food across cultures and boroughs, but also likes to go to lesser known spots. We love discovering new places, and then we also get excited when those lesser known amazing spots somehow get “discovered.” Chris likes to say that he’s been doing this since the pandemic, but alas, he does not have the same following that Mamdani has. What makes New York City special is not just the big-name, flashy, expensive restaurants, but the teeny tiny hole-in-the-walls representing cultures and countries from around the world, where the owners are simply trying to share some of their own culture’s food with the rest of us and make a living.

We really need someone to lead who has new ideas, who truly embraces diversity. All the endless cultures of New York City make it the very special city it is. So I think this is a welcome breath of fresh air in more ways than one. And I’ll be honest: I’m looking forward to seeing what else Mamdani is going to be eating along the way; I’ve already added a few of his favorites to my “to try” map list!

Vir Das in “Hey Stranger” at the Claire Tow Theater, Lincoln Center

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Oftentimes, when people think of the Lincoln Center, they think of huge theaters like David Geffen Hall or David Koch Theater. But there are smaller theaters within Lincoln Center that perhaps have less name recognition that are fun, classy, and intimate, with a seating layout that ensures you are pretty close to the performers and would have zero reason to squint to see them. Vir Das, one of our favorite comedians from Mumbai, is here doing his “Hey Stranger” show at the Claire Tow Theater at the Lincoln Center. He’s the first Indian performer to star in a show at Lincoln Center, so this was a pretty big deal. We went with my friend and her husband to see his show last night, and it was ninety minutes of near-crying laughing, but also with lots of serious moments spread throughout.

One personal thing he revealed during the show was that given the topics he covers in his comedy, he’s more and more not welcome home in India by the government, so he feels like he has no choice but to leave. And the U.S. has offered him a green card. Many people would see this as incredible, but for him, he’s quite torn. Moving to and living in America would mean… he’d ultimately become a different person. His comedy would not be the same. His identity would change. And he wasn’t sure he would like it that much. And we all know he’d end up being grouped with other brown comedians like Hasan Minhaj or Russell Peters, who are definitely talented in their own right, but their comedy is not the same as his. His jokes are what they are because he’s not in America living an American life. He can be critical about America from an outsider’s lens. And his comedy is all that much smarter for it because he has a bird’s eye view of how crazy and insane this place really is. Where you call “home” really defines us in ways we may not fully be aware, but he’s thinking about it long and hard now.

I honestly don’t want him to move here because I love what he says and produces just as he is, where is is from. He provides an intelligent, authentic voice that would not be the same if he lived here. But hey, what does my opinion matter? I’m just another fan of his living life in the U.S. He has his livelihood to consider, and he also has to pay bills and try his best to stay out of jail just for simply having opinions and speaking. Being a comic is hard, and he’s showing exactly how hard it is to do that job while living in India and having Indian citizenship.