Author Archives: Yvonne

Kaia, the voracious and good eater

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I went to Kaia’s school for their annual Thanksgiving lunch today. All the parents pitched in money, and the teachers and staff put together quite a feast for us. The staff bought a delicious roast turkey with gravy and made numerous sides, including mac and cheese, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, stuffing, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, creamed corn, corn bread, pumpkin pie, and cinnamon rolls. I didn’t realize that all the food other than the turkey would be made either at home by the staff and teachers, or on site at the school. It was really sweet to see that the staff went to all this effort just for us.

While the parents and kids were all sitting together eating, I was chatting with some of the other parents when I realized that Kaia had actually stolen all the broccoli off my plate as I was talking. One of the other parents also noticed this, and he exclaimed, “Wow, Kaia is such a good eater! Look at all the broccoli and cauliflower she just ate! She even just stole all of her mom’s broccoli!”

I smiled. My little Pookie stole all my broccoli. I was totally fine with that. Kaia had quite the appetite at lunch today. Of course, she indulged in her little treat, which were the “veggie sticks” that everyone likes. She dug into the turkey first on her own, then the broccoli and cauliflower, and then the mashed potato and stuffing. Unfortunately, Kaia wasn’t too keen on the sweet potato mash and told me to eat it. She cleared almost her entire plate, minus the mashed sweet potato, cinnamon roll, and some mysterious brownie-like thing that her teacher put on her plate. If you compared the plates across all the kids in 3K and 4K, you could definitely see that Kaia not only ate the most food, but she had the largest variety of food.

“It’s amazing that she eats so much, and she eats all her vegetables,” another parent said to me. “My kid basically just eats carbs, meat, and chocolate!”

I am fully aware of my child and all that she is and does. Even if I didn’t get comments like this as often as I do, I still feel very proud of my Kaia Pookie all the time. Since she was a baby, she’s always been very curious about everything, especially food, embracing new foods and digging in. I can only hope that it continues. I love that she eats a large variety of the same foods that Chris and I eat, and I never feel like I need to make her something different (what work that would be!!). It always makes me so proud. Today, seeing her eat this really well rounded meal on her own just made me feel like I was nearly bursting with pride. All the work I put into her baby-led weaning/early feeding days is most definitely paying off. I loved every moment of that work (when can we say that about any “work” we do?), and I still fondly (with an extreme amount of nostalgia) go back to my video memories of those days, encouraging her to eat and try new foods as a little wee baby. That little baby is not so little anymore.

Our neighbor friend also remarked the day that she stopped by a few weeks ago and saw Kaia eating dinner in her high chair how amazed she was at the sheer variety of food she was eating and what was on her plate. She said she could only dream of her son eating the way that Kaia did.

My Kaia Pookie is setting examples. I just love it.

Food waste and the problem of having plenty

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A friend and I were at lunch the other day, and she was telling me how she was trying to re-mold her semi-new boyfriend into repurposing different foods and leftovers, and to stop throwing out perfectly good food. Like me, she loves cooking and is constantly intrigued by new ingredients and produce she comes across. And also like me, she’s very anti food waste and always trying to make sure she uses everything she has and doesn’t let things go bad. So, it makes sense that she was a bit disturbed when her boyfriend would cook, and he’d throw perfectly good ingredients into the trash bin without a thought. If a recipe called for one cup of diced potatoes, and he happened to have an extra half cup, without hesitation, he’d take the leftover half cup and toss it into his compost bin. He said he didn’t want to “create imbalance in the recipe” by adding too much potato. She immediately told him he was crazy and wasting food, and he could either add those remaining potato cubes into the pot, or just repurpose them for another recipe the next day or so.

“But I don’t have plans to eat anything with potato in it the next day or so,” he countered to her.

“Then throw the potato pieces into the pot!” she raised her voice at him, clearly getting exasperated. “Recipes are just guidelines, but you’re supposed to adjust and tweak as you see fit!”

When I was growing up, I was constantly told I had to finish every last grain of rice on my plate because if I didn’t, I was ungrateful and didn’t realize how hard my parents worked to provide this food. I was also told that when cooking, we should waste nothing — there was always a use for some food we had, and we had to make use of it before it went bad. Letting food rot was not an option. Food cost money, and money was hard to earn. We always ate all our leftover food; if Ed and I didn’t, then our parents would take the leftovers and eat them for lunch at work. I cannot remember a day when either of my parents went to work and actually bought lunch because I always remember seeing them pack their lunches for themselves the night before a work day.

That memory ended up influencing me as an adult: when I was working in an office, I rarely bought lunch out and always brought homemade food in, unless we had a scheduled colleague or team lunch, or at my last in-person company, where lunch was provided and comped by work through Seamless. So, this really ran deep with me. Plus, because I am passionate about food and cooking, I feel personally hurt when I hear about people wasting food thoughtlessly. It feels like money literally going into the trash or drain, which hurts my heart. I also think about all the real people who labored to grow that food, how likely underpaid they all were, and how their work just goes to waste when their perfectly good food is thrown out. That money could have been spent on something else, or that food could have fed someone who really needed (and would have appreciated) it. One friend said to me, “Do you really need to eat that a third day in a row? You make enough money to not have to worry about that and can eat something new.” I retorted back that it didn’t matter how much money I make or have; I am anti food waste. It is the principle that is bad, and food waste is a huge problem in our overly privileged society where food is seemingly plentiful. I don’t want to contribute to society’s problems more than I already inadvertently do.

The reactions you want when you send out a birthday dinner invitation

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Food is something I’m passionate about. That’s a pretty huge understatement. I love food, and I love being around people who love food, and not just one type of food, but food from all corners of the globe, in all shapes and sizes, eaten with hands, forks, chopsticks, a shovel. And the more people like to try different foods and talk about food, the chances are higher that I will like you even more.

I sent out the Paperless Post invitation for my birthday party coming up in January, and within an hour, I got two responses via text from invited friends:

“Oh man. Are we getting lechon for your birthday??!!”

I love this response because a) this means that this friend not only saw the invite, but he also went to look up which restaurant this dinner was being held at (this is exactly what I would do). And b) it is obvious that he’s excited for PORK with CRISPY SKIN.

The second response I got was from a friend who I shared my Sunday plate date lunch experience with. This is what she wrote me with a laughing giphy at the end:

“Mmm, I can’t eat anywhere that serves pork. I had a little pig stuffed animal that was my best friend as a kid, and it would be wrong to eat them.”

If she were next to me and said this, I likely would have whacked her pretty hard.

She later followed up and said she’s super excited for Filipino food and is positive this place is going to be really good — simply because I chose it.

These are the reactions I love — from friends I have who love food.

Eating out is never quite the same when you’re a maniacal home cook

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Yesterday during our play date lunch, I chose a general Thai place that was walking distance from Dumbo Space Club because I wanted something that was walking distance and also had enough space to accommodate six of us. It would definitely not be a place I’d choose if it was for me, or for me, Chris, and Kaia, but I figured it would have something for everyone at the table. One of the moms chose a green curry with chicken, which I probably would not have ordered since I just made green curry last week and really liked it. When the green curry came to the table, I already had a feeling I wasn’t going to love it: it was more white in color and not very green at all. The chicken used was just white meat (ugh, less flavor and far less moist), and there was basically very little flavor other than coconut milk in it. This green curry made me sad because it wasn’t anywhere as vibrant as the green curry I had made earlier this week (with the best tips from Pailin from Hot Thai Kitchen!!), and of course, it wasn’t zippy or spicy in the way my homemade green curry was. In fact, I don’t think I can ever order green curry at a restaurant ever again because I know exactly how to make it just the way I want it at home.

I shared this with my friend who cooks a lot, and she told me she feels exactly the same way. And funnily enough, she also had the exact same experience with green curry at a lunch recently with another friend.

“I didn’t want to sound like an ass to (my friend), but that curry was so bland and boring,” she told me. “My curry at home was a hundred times better! It’s just the truth!”

Usually when I order food out, I want it to be food that is not food I know how to make and make well at home, or using ingredients that I don’t easily have access to, or that is so laborious that I just have to leave it to the experts. The other moms enjoyed the green curry, and I’m happy they did. But I’d never willingly order this dish at a restaurant ever again.

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!