Category Archives: Contemplations on New York Life

Unexpected finds: deals at Eataly!

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For our extended family gathering on Saturday at Chris’s mom’s cousin’s place, I originally had planned to make a mango tiramisu to bring over. Unfortunately, the two places walking distance from us were no longer selling ladyfingers, so I had to go with a Plan B option pretty quickly based on my pantry. And because my pantry is pretty well stocked, I had a lot of potential options. But I stuck with my mango theme and ended up making mango lassi butter mochi cake from one of my favorite food bloggers Milk and Cardamom, and it was a huge hit. Since I had to open a large can of kesar mango pulp, I had a lot of pulp leftover. I had already purchased the heavy whipping cream and mascarpone to make the tiramisu, and I didn’t really have the headspace to figure out how to repurpose them. So I decided that for Chris’s dad’s birthday coming up this Thursday that I would make my original dessert of mango tiramisu repurposed as his birthday cake. But that meant I had to find those damn ladyfingers.

Chris insisted I was overthinking it and told me just to buy them on Amazon. So I went on Amazon, found a decent brand from Italy, and purchased two 7 oz. packs of imported ladyfingers for… almost $20. Yes, I thought it was expensive, but I chocked it up to inflation. Chris saw the email receipt from Amazon and balked at the price, asking me why they were so expensive. I told him my rationale, and of course, he didn’t think it was enough. So he started doing searches on ladyfingers and somehow found out that Eataly right here in New York sold a 14 oz. pack of Italian ladyfingers for $7.99, so less than half of what I would have paid on Amazon. He cancelled my Amazon order, and yesterday, I went to Eataly Flatiron to check out the ladyfinger stocks.

I think the last time I stepped foot into an Eataly was pre-pandemic, so over six years ago. I have zero reason to go to Eataly because I usually get my Italian groceries from Little Italy in the Bronx, or at other Italian grocery/specialty stores. Eataly has always just been too packed and touristy for me to enjoy. I always hated going in there and feeling like a sardine; walking in there was never a comfortable experience. But walking in there today (at an off hour, obviously), I was pleasantly surprised. There were a few interesting sample stations set up to entice visitors to either order interesting new drinks or treats. There were also a good number of sales when it came to grocery items, whether it was cocoa-hazelnut spreads, Italian olive oils, pistachio cream spreads, and multiple types of Italian cookies. Then, I found the Eataly brand of ladyfingers, a 14-oz. bag, for even less than what Chris saw online — it was $6.49! So I ended up spending less than a third of what I would have spent if I had bought a similar product on Amazon. Who would have guessed that the cheapest ladyfingers I could find would be at Eataly of all places! I just assumed they would be more expensive there, but I was obviously very wrong. In addition, I picked up a jar of wild strawberry jam from an Italian brand that I hadn’t seen in years — also on sale!

Now that I had this positive experience at Eataly and saw so many interesting items on sale at pretty reasonable prices, I realize that I have more of a reason to occasionally pop in there to browse, especially since there is an Eataly in SoHo, not too far away from Kaia’s current school. So, maybe I will be more intentional about stopping in there when I am in the mood to browse Italian groceries. It’s always fun to find good deals on tasty things!

Two companies combining officially

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Yesterday, my company officially merged with another competitor. As we are all supposed to say, we are all “better, together” to create new possibilities. Today, we had an an official all hands meeting to welcome the first week as a newly combined company, so “watch parties” were set up across coworking spaces around the world for employees of both companies to congregate and celebrate over lunch. We have a good number of employees at both companies in New York City/New Jersey, so we got a coworking space in Midtown West today and I attended.

I will say that the overall turnout on my company’s side was pretty paltry; people at the other company far, far outnumbered us, and they’re the ones with the remote-first culture, whereas we actually have a 2-day-a-week-in-office policy assuming we live within a 50-mile radius of an official office space. They passed out cookies, socks, and had balloons decorating our part of the coworking space. A decent lunch spread was put out in the kitchen. I made some small talk with a few of the employees at the other company and chatted with one of my current colleagues I rarely see. But I also noticed that there were some people at my company who basically showed up just to “show face” and left almost immediately. They barely even said hi to me and other colleagues they are supposed to know. It was so strange and even borderline rude. What was the point of even coming if you weren’t at least going to try to talk to new people who are supposed to be your new colleagues?

I wonder if people being so weird and cagey in these types of temporary work settings is a lingering result of the pandemic, of preferring to be holed up inside one’s own apartment and not wanting to socialize at work unless it’s simply to socialize “up” to get ahead, or to get favors done for you. Some people, even with age, do not actually get more mature.

One seemingly little decision that paves a very different future — forever

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Today, I met up with a friend’s friend I met for the first time at a kid’s birthday party several weeks ago. We met at a coffee shop on the Upper West Side and talked about our backgrounds, work, kids, and families. This friend grew up in the Dominican Republic, but she is fluent not just in Spanish, but also in French (and English). Her two young daughters are at a French daycare and school. So I was curious to understand how she learned French, and then how she decided to have her daughters immersed in French language.

She said that her mom wanted her and her two younger siblings to learn English. But when her mom started looking into the schools, she found out that while the private American international school’s fees were extremely high, the private French international school was just a fraction of the cost. With this school, her children would learn not just English, but also French — at a massive discount! So it was a no brainer for her to send all three kids to the French school. That French K-12 led to all three kids moving to France to study and eventually work. This friend lives in New York now with her husband and two daughters, while her two siblings are still living and working in Paris and the south of France.

I wonder if her mom ever envisioned the future of her three kids not just being tri-lingual, but also moving quite far away from home and in their daily lives, speaking a different language than their native tongue. That one seemingly little decision changed her kids’ paths in life forever. It makes me wonder what Kaia’s young adulthood and adulthood will look like — merely because of seemingly small choices that Chris and I are making now.

Mother’s Day breakfast at school on Friday

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Every year around Mother’s Day, Kaia’s preschool hosts a Mother’s Day breakfast/tea event where they invite all the mothers/mother-figures to school for a little party. Last year, I missed it since we took a long weekend to Rhode Island. But this year, I was able to attend. Since the classes are all quite small (Kaia’s class has THREE STUDENTS in it, with two teachers, one who teaches in English, the second in Chinese!), they combine all the kids and parents in the same classroom for this event. And while it was beautifully set up with food and hot tea and drinks for all, the parents just didn’t really want to interact with each other. It didn’t matter if you were on either end of the table or in the middle. Not a single parent wanted to proactively talk to anyone else. Every parent was mostly eating or interacting with their own kids. On the 4K side of the table where I was, I attempted and failed at small talk with the two moms of the other two 4K kids. It was mostly a lot of question, answer, question, answer, with me doing most of the questioning. Very occasionally, I got asked, “What about you / you guys?” questions back, but that was only because I asked first. It honestly felt like pulling teeth. And when it was time to go, I was more than ready to leave. Kaia was sad to see me go and started crying, but I really had to get away from these parents who seem to have zero desire to socialize even for the facade of being friendly.

I have really hated the lack of community at the last two schools Kaia has been at. I hope that we are able to feel some sense of community and camaraderie with the parents at her new school come September.

The Japanese experience of having different matcha ice cream levels right here in New York City

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I’m still sticking with my goal of trying at least one new business in Manhattan Chinatown (or the surrounds) while Kaia is in school down here. This week, I tried another new matcha place called Aoko Matcha. They started in the West Village, then opened two other locations in Bayside, Queens, and in Manhattan Chinatown. While it has different matcha drinks and desserts, what it’s unique in doing is offering five different matcha levels for matcha intensity in its matcha ice creams. Matcha cafes are opening up left and right in New York City; I don’t think you can get by in any neighborhood here without either seeing a matcha-specialized cafe, or at minimum, seeing a matcha or two (probably a crappy, low quality kind) on a drink menu. But the levels of matcha intensity are definitely a differentiator. I have only ever seen this in Japan, and most notably in Kyoto almost 11 years ago now. I remember trying the very high intensity level and shaking at exactly how bitter it was! I guess at this point, the matcha ice cream would cease to truly just be an indulgent dessert, and could even be seen as a health food…?!

So I’ll be honest and say that after lunch, I didn’t feel up to having an ice cream all by myself, so I didn’t end up sampling any different matcha levels for ice cream. But I did get the matcha coconut cloud drink, which was matcha cream, coconut water, fresh coconut fruit shavings, and coconut jellies. And given how delicious this drink was, I’d say that I have very high hopes for all levels one through five for the matcha ice creams!

Pre-recorded video interviews as the norm in today’s interview process

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For the last 22 years (including interviews during college), I have been used to having interviews conducted over the phone, video conferencing, and of course, in person. Back in 2020 when I was looking for jobs, presentations of various sorts were a given with the types of roles I considered. But alas, a lot has changed since 2020. Artificial Intelligence has taken over. Pretty much every tech company out there is either pushing an AI product, or at minimum, claims to have some product, which is then “powered by AI.”

So it shouldn’t have come as a shock when I was invited to interview with a company in the last week, and instead of being asked to have a recruiter phone/video screen, I was asked to do a pre-recorded video interview as the first step of the process. This is meant to streamline the screening process and to get a sense of how well I speak and present myself (especially given I am being considered for a customer-facing role, which would require these skills). In the brief email, they shared that I would be given three questions, with about one to two minutes to answer each question. If needed, I also had the option to re-take each answer once. Before I would start, I would be given the opportunity to test my microphone and video to ensure the audio/visual was working properly. In total, they said this should take me no more than five minutes of time to complete.

I did some research on the tool I’d be using. It seems like this is more “normal” now than it is not. Every organization on the face of the planet is looking to streamline their processes and become more efficient, and if a recruiter can review hundreds of candidates in five minute videos of each speaking versus thirty minutes, that’s cutting the time needed to interview by over 80 percent. Why would they not do this if they could and then focus on tasks that actually require direct human-to-human interaction? I guess these are the things I am learning now since I’ve been out of the habit of interviewing for almost six years now.

Buttermilk Falls State Park

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Our last stop in the Finger Lakes region before heading back home today was at Buttermilk Falls State Park. The park is named after the foaming cascade (little waterfall) formed by Buttermilk Creek as it flows down the steep valley side toward Cayuga Lake, one of the eleven Finger Lakes. It was named for its “frothy” appearance of its churning waters. Similar to the rock formations at Taughannock Falls State Park, the rocks form in endless horizontal layers, creating flat slabs and angular, even sharp edges as they erode and fracture. The gorge and waterfalls formed since the last ice age, within the last twenty to thirty thousand years.

We did the gorge trail at Buttermilk Falls this morning, which was quite wet on and off throughout the walk up and down the stairs. There were times when we actually just had to walk through large puddles, which soaked our shoes and socks (Pookster was not a huge fan of this, but she was a good little trooper and sucked it up). After going through three of these gorge trails already, I am so impressed with how well maintained they are. The paths are very clearly defined; it would be impossible to take a wrong turn or get lost (…unlike the Mount Jo debacle I caused back in the Adirondacks in 2014 when I thought I would be disowned by my then-future in-laws). There’s really zero way for you to get lost on any of them, and all the stairs are sturdy and taken care of.

While the main Buttermilk Falls is impressive at this park, I would actually say that my favorite part is along the gorge trail further down, where you can see all the pinnacle-like rock formations with layers upon layers of stone etched out. The pinnacles flank all the little waterfalls that keep flowing into each other. When you look at the pinnacles, it almost appears as though a human etched them to look this way; it’s so beautiful and scenic, just asking to be stared at and photographed!

After this trip, I would say that the state parks in the Finger Lakes region are likely one of the most underrated, lesser known, and lesser appreciated public parks in the country. While I’d always been aware of the Finger Lakes region for wine and hiking, I didn’t actually realize how “gorges” the area was until doing research for this trip, and then finally going on it. I’d love to come back and see Watkins Glen State Park and some of the other gorges in the area. Who would have guessed that scenery like this existed in upstate New York?! We’re still always learning about the state, country, and world we live in.

Cascadilla Gorge, Taughannock Falls State Park, and Purity Ice Cream Co.

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Much to Chris’s mom’s annoyance of walking on surfaces that are not flat or cement, we did two hiking trails today: in the morning, we visited Cascadilla Gorge, which drops 400 feet from Cornell’s campus to downtown Ithaca. The gorge is carved through bedrock — shale, siltstone and sandstone, exposing sedimentary rocks that were deposited over 400 million years ago. When you walk through the extremely well-maintained trail, it feels like one little waterfall after one big waterfall after endless waterfalls over and over. And if you take the gorge trail from the trail main entrance, you end up on the Cornell campus!

In the afternoon, we went to Taughannock Falls State Park and did the North and South Rim trails. The name “Taughannock” has Native American origins, as one translation suggests the name is derived from a combination of Iroquois and Algonquin terms meaning, “great fall in the woods,” which would be quite aptly named. The waterfall and gorge together are an example of a “hanging valley,” which is formed where Taughannock Creek’s stream-carved valley meets the deeper glacially carved valley that contains Cayuga Lake. When we reached the falls outlook point on this trail, I used my camera to zoom in on the fall’s base. You could see right away the effects of erosion over time right at that point.

It didn’t seem to matter how many waterfalls we saw on this short trip, but each one was incredible and breathtaking in its own way. I also loved seeing the different colors of the water at different points of the hike, and also when the sun occasionally poked out of the clouds to reveal itself. Though because Chris’s mom hates stairs, inclines, and anything that is even slightly uneven or not flat, she kept muttering, “Another waterfall? Again?” And not necessarily in a positive way…. It also gave way for some fun jokes. Even Kaia at some point said, “Another waterfall? I don’t want that! I’m tired!”

Kaia did get a very special treat at the end of the day, though: at the end of the day, we stopped at Purity Ice Cream Co, an Ithaca institution operating since 1936. It is known as “The Ice Cream of the Finger Lakes” and is quite the impressive ice cream shop: its storefront is huge, with generous seating (booths!), WiFi (a big plus for Chris’s dad), and huge restrooms. There’s even a drive-through where you can pick up ice cream and not even get out of your car! For the first time ever, we let Kaia have a waffle cone — she chose strawberry as her flavor. I shared it with her (since she’s never allowed to have her own to control sugar intake/portions), and I will say that the strawberry ice cream was truly excellent — really creamy, with strawberry flavor infused throughout, and generous with frozen chunks of strawberry fruit. And while I never get waffle cones, this waffle cone was really, really good. It still seemed like it was warm, maybe even fresh off the waffle cone iron, and it was thick and crispy throughout.

We could easily spend a week here exploring all the interesting food spots and hitting every single gorge, but alas, tomorrow is already Sunday and time to go home. I am still wondering how it took us this long to finally come up here. And I still can’t get enough of how good and fresh these state parks smell!

TIL that Cornell was built between two gorges

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When I was in high school listening to peers around me talking about how they would choose the colleges they’d apply to, one criteria inevitably always came up when it came to private schools out of state (of California): the beauty of the campus. This seems a little ridiculous when you think about it: when you are enrolled and going through the hell of midterms or final papers and exams, do you really think you will be meditating on how beautiful your chosen college campus is?! My college had a beautiful campus, and while I did appreciate the architectural details, the large green lawns, and the lake, these details were always lost when I was stressing about my studies.

However, for those I knew who applied to and went to Cornell, whether that was for undergrad or grad work, not a single person ever, ever told me that the campus was intentionally built between two gorges: the Fall Creek Gorge and the Cascadilla Gorge. There’s a huge waterfall and dam that runs through the middle of the campus. From certain hills on the campus, you can see sweeping views of Cayuga Lake, which is one of the eleven Finger Lakes (and one of the most well known, next to Seneca Lake). And the university actually utilizes the natural water flow through Fall Creek Gorge to power a hydroelectric plant, which generates a portion of the campus’s electricity. That’s quite impressive. Ezra Cornell, who designed the university, intentionally built it around the two gorges. I just found this to be such a unique and impressive story, one I had zero idea about before visiting the campus today. And it would be very good future trivia on American colleges and universities — and a point in favor of Cornell being on the top lists for “most beautiful college campuses.”

Although I will say that as soon as I knew there were gorges around the campus, plus the huge dam, my mind (and eyes) immediately started looking for suicide netting… which I quickly noticed. The nets are like the suicide net around the Golden Gate Bridge — meant to feel like slicing yourself through a cheese grater if you chose to jump into it. Where there is beauty, there can also be pain.

Banh xeo love for the family

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Although I am half Vietnamese, I never ate banh xeo until I was a teen. My mom never made much Vietnamese food at home because her favorite Vietnamese dishes were so laborious. Plus, cooking was done out of necessity, not passion, so she could feed her family economically. So when we ate Vietnamese, it was at the occasional Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco, during a day trip to San Jose (along Story Road), or down to Westminster, California, which has the biggest concentration of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam. With banh xeo, it was love at first bite for me: the banh xeo, or sizzling crepe, was crispy, almost chewy in the center, fragrant from coconut milk, and generously dotted with mushrooms, shrimp, and pork pieces. Banh xeo is usually stuffed with mung bean sprouts, and the most traditional ones have mung bean in the batter and also scattered inside with the mung bean sprouts. The sizzling crepe gets an even bigger hit of flavor once you add fresh Vietnamese herbs, roll it in lettuce or rice paper, and then dunk it into nuoc cham dipping sauce. 

Banh xeo is not a weekday meal, as it has multiple steps. its batter needs to be soaked, ground, then rested. And each crepe takes at least 12-14 minutes to make, end to end, assuming you are making it properly, have your mise en place ready to go, and are allowing the crepe to get fully cooked and crispy at the edges. It’s a true labor of love. The cooking part on the stove can be tricky and is where I have personally messed up a number of times because I’ve rushed it — a true rookie move. Some take the easier way out by shallow or deep frying the Banh xeo, as this cooks the crepe much faster. I stick with the traditional and less-oil/less caloric method of pan frying. And once the banh xeo is ready, it ideally needs to be eaten within 20-30 minutes to be enjoyed at its peak, otherwise it will quickly get soggy and even mushy, and the magic will be finito. So it’s hard to make for large groups unless you have multiple pans going at the same time. They don’t keep well warm in the oven, sadly. One of my Instagram food friends said that when she makes it, she has everyone gather around her kitchen counter and wait for the next banh xeo to drop, and the second it comes off the pan, she serves it immediately and they literally dive right into it. Once that one is done, it’s onto the next one. As the chef, she eats it all while cooking and standing up. The rush is real!

Well, I had the craving and ingredients, so I wanted to make it for Chris’s parents’ arrival back from their Nevada, Utah, and Toronto travels. So we did have to start cooking dinner right before we ate to ensure peak crispy banh xeo. But I think it was worth it: they got to experience something super fresh and authentic, and I got to witness Chris’s dad try to roll and wrap rice paper with his “I can’t stand eating with my hands” mindset. Kaia even got to enjoy another rice paper roll. Joy for all!