“Startling” laugh

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I was out at a Yemeni cafe having saffron adeni tea and Dubai milk cake with a friend, when out of nowhere she said that she “has gotten used to” my laugh. I wasn’t sure what to say about this and waited for her to continue. “When I first met you and heard it, I found it a bit startling,” she said. “But now it just blends in and I anticipate it now!” I kind of chuckled at this when she said it because I wasn’t sure whether she was saying a good thing or a bad thing.

I told her that I’ve always had a loud laugh, and that in general, people either love or hate it, and if they hate it, chances are high that we won’t get along or be friends. I’m not really one of those Asian women who, stereotypically as Chris always half jokes, “covers their mouth and goes ‘heeheehee!'” really lightly. People should live their lives as their full selves without abandon. And if you cannot laugh comfortably or fully, I”m not really sure you are fun enough for me to want to be around.

This comment, for some reason, reminded me of my one of my best friends from childhood, who is now living here in New York City. I think that if there is just one thing I love about her, aside from her general personality, it’s her laugh. When she is really laughing and finds something extremely funny, her laugh is the loudest, most boisterous thing in the world. She has a laugh that almost makes you want to laugh along with her, even if you don’t find said topic funny. And so when we’re together laughing nonstop about something, I always notice that there is at least one or two tables around us (assuming we’re at a restaurant or bar) that will turn around and look at us. I’ve never gotten self conscious about it or seen that as a way to police us. If anything, I’ve always looked at it as: we’re just here having a good time. And if that bothers you in some way, then the problem is clearly you and not us. Who gets annoyed at other people having a good time in their own respective space?

Persian Adasi (lentil) stew

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While still on my Persian cooking kick, I decided to also make some Persian style lentils, also known as adasi (lentils) stew. I soaked some brown lentils overnight, chopped up onions and garlic, and then simply used turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon to spice the lentils and simmered them for about 45 minutes. And when I seasoned and did a taste test, I just thought… wow. This is so warm and hearty tasting, and there’s no animal product in it at all. And though turmeric, cumin, and cinnamon are all spices that cross both Persian and Indian cultures, the resulting flavor is so, so different than any Indian dal you would ever eat, home cooked or at a restaurant. I was texting this with my Persian friend, who also agreed how interesting it was, while also nothing that at one time, they are all one empire. Then, they broke off and developed their own techniques and ways of cooking that are slightly the same, yet different.

I occasionally still meet people who are anti beans, who think beans are gross, give you gas, and should be avoided. I really think that if they had a lentil stew like this Persian version that they would be hard pressed to say it was revolting.

Persian cooking

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Given that we are now officially in spring, the Persian New Year, aka, Nowruz, has also come. At my last company, I made a Persian friend who was on my team, who also loved food. We spent a lot of time talking about food, different cultural traditions, and the first time we met, the two of us were actually charged with preparing food for two days for my team’s offsite at a semi-remote house in Northern California. The more she talked about Persian food, the more I started reading about it and got into it. And so I started experimenting more with Persian dishes like Persian lentils, rice, chicken and fish. I was amazed at how much saffron can be used in Persian cooking, as I’d never really known what to do with saffron before Persian or Indian cooking. I’d bought a number of small bottles of it from Costco, during travels in India, and had been gifted them by Chris’s mom. But given that saffron is actually more expensive by weight than diamonds, I always used it sparingly.

This week, in light of Nowruz, I made Persian sabzi polo, or Persian herbed rice with tahdig, or crispy bottomed rice, as well as slow-cooked salmon with herbs and spices. I had bought a massive amount of cilantro, parsley, dill, and scallions just for these two dishes. And as Chris watched me chop up a bunch of herbs, he looks at all the greens across the kitchen counter and goes, “We can’t eat herbs!” He meant we couldn’t *just* eat herbs for dinner, but because he said that sentence so slowly and didn’t say much after that, he made it sound like herbs were inedible. I reminded him how lucky he is to have such a varied diet with all my creative cooking even when he randomly forgets that yes, herbs actually are edible, to which he responded, “I give you a varied diet by taking you all over the freaking world!” Talk about men who don’t seem to take feedback well…

Grown men who cannot handle direct feedback are an embarrassment to society

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One of the things that I have always struggled with is confrontation. I don’t necessarily mean about really big, deal-breaker things, but I mean about sharing any type of “constructive feedback” to people that is ultimately not a compliment. You never know how they are going to receive the feedback. You never know if they will really understand or hear, even if you state it, that your intentions are positive, and you just want them to be the best version of themselves. Oftentimes, people will hear constructive feedback as a personal attack or a tear-down of who they are, take it really personally, get defensive, and just shut down. I think we’ve all been there, and it never feels good. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized exactly how important it is to be honest and forth right about constructive feedback, even when it’s difficult. It benefits the relationship in the long run. It’s transparent. It’s not passive aggressive. It’s direct. We ALL need to work on being more direct with each other, while also not being total assholes.

On my team, we actually had a “taking and giving feedback” session at our offsite last month. It was very introspective, and it was also a practice in… just being a damn adult. But it probably was needed because like most organizations, our company is full of people who clearly cannot handle getting feedback from their colleagues. A colleague of mine who I’ve worked with for over 4.5 years was sending me really passive aggressive Slack messages yesterday. He was insinuating that an email I had sent to a customer was going out of my swim lane and that he was “concerned” that I was not aligned with him on roles and responsibilities. I re-read his messages a few times, compared it to the benign, friendly email thread I had with the customer, and felt very confused. He was clearly overreacting, and I have a feeling it’s because of pressure on him to hit his number this year as a sales person, especially since he missed it last year. So I very directly told him over Slack that I found his commentary counterproductive, that I had done nothing out of bounds, that my manager was aligned with my approach, and I would appreciate it he could get on a call with me to talk this through.

Instead of looking back on what he said and reflecting on our interaction and wondering why I would react this way, he instead shut me down and said, “If you don’t like my approach, then you can talk to (your manager), who can talk to (my manager), who can then address it with me. I’d like to avoid this type of confrontation in the future. Thanks.” He also made excuses about being “too busy” to get on a five minute call with me for the rest of the week.

The way I read that message from his side is: I’m a late 40s/early 50s-year hold grown man who is incapable of receiving direct feedback from peers or being introspective at all about areas where I could potentially be wrong. I would prefer that you tattle on me to your mommy, who can then discuss with my mommy, and then my mommy can determine whether I get a punishment or not.

I responded with, “I think that after 4.5 years of working together and given that we’re both adults that we should be comfortable enough to give each other direct feedback. If that is not the case, then clearly there is a disconnect between us.”

Work doesn’t have to be awful if your colleagues aren’t awful. But it’s in moments like this where I wonder how people get older and never really grow up?

“This is what it’s like to live”

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Unlike most Mondays, today I went to my SoHo coworking space. I was thinking about doing it anyway since I realized I had one March credit I had to use (I get four credits per month; it’s use-it-or-lose-it), and I want to use whatever perks I can get value out of from work as much as possible. But when a Brooklyn friend said she was taking Monday off and suggested we have lunch together, I decided it would be a good idea to meet semi-half way and meet up in Chinatown. We met up at one of my favorite Malaysian spots, Kopitiam, which she’d never been to before but loved (it’s an easy place to love; I have not brought a single person here who did not like it). Since my work schedule was relatively light, we enjoyed char kway teow, pandan chicken, fried duck tongues, Malaysian style French toast, lychee bandung, and iced Milo over two hours worth of chatter.

I told Chris what we ate, and in his usual snark, he made comments about what a busy work day I had and, “That sounds like a very luxurious Monday lunch!” If there is one thing I can never complain about with my current job, it’s the level of ownership I have over my schedule, as well as the flexibility I have to work wherever I want. I’ve had three managers now over the last almost five years, and every single one of them has agreed on the philosophy of: just get your work done, and no one will bother you about when/whether you are online.

It made me think about my neighbor I saw yesterday, who works as a doctor and is originally from Turkey. Her husband is French from France, and they both sound like they have very intense jobs. After their toddler goes to sleep at night, they both have to be back on their computers doing work and emails. She lamented how grueling it is, especially when she has to prepare all of her son’s school meals. It gets really tiring since she’s in the office five days a week, and her husband is in the office at least three days a week. So when she’s doing food prep for the week on Sunday, it’s almost like battling for time because it’s either she makes food OR she spends time with her son. He’s only engaged in the cooking if they’re making cookies, she said with a smile. The few weeks they go back to France or Amsterdam or somewhere where they have family, her parents will come up from Turkey and siblings will come from other European countries, and they will spend quality time together, 100 percent away from work. The kids will play and have fun together, and they will actually relax. She mentioned how it felt like, “All we seem to do here in America as foreigners is work, work, work. It’s so expensive here, so we don’t have a choice but to work around the clock. And so it almost feels like the only time we really get to enjoy life is when we take these trips together and spend quality time as a (wider) family. These are the times when it’s like a reminder to us: this is what it’s like to really live.”

Sometimes, I wonder if the last 17 years of working has really brought me any actual meaning into my life. I haven’t worked to increase equality in the world. I don’t save lives. I’m not researching cures for cancer or Alzheimer’s. I’m not trying to eradicate fake news and educate the masses. I basically have worked for a bunch of for-profit companies where at the end of the day, I’ve worked hard (well, most of the time) to make rich, mostly White people even richer. But then I realize… I have it really, really good. I met my life partner, husband, and father to my Kaia Pookie through work. I’ve met so many good friends and genuinely good hearted people across all the companies I’ve worked at. And I’ve also had a level of work flexibility that most people I know completely envy and wish they had. Life, I suppose, is all about give and take.

Building play date with a new friend and neighbor

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Just over a month ago, we were in our building pool with Kaia when we met another neighbor, a woman with her toddler aged son, who is about 4-5 months younger than Kaia. We made some small talk, and she suggested that we do a play date since we’re right in the same building. I left my name and number with the lifeguard (since she didn’t have her phone with her), and we went on our way. I didn’t think much of it, but as usual, hoped for the best.

I’ve tried to arrange play dates/meetups with several parents and their children who are near in age to Kaia. For the most part, it has not worked out. One dad, who was very kind and who I liked — he actually was proactive and texted me for a play date. But we quickly realized that his son was pretty aggressive and did NOT like Kaia. So, that fizzled out really quickly. Everyone else has always said they’d reach out for a play date… it’s never happened. It’s always been me, texting to ask, and then getting rejected. What is also common is that we’ll happen to pass by each other somewhere in the building, and they’ll make some empty comment like, “let’s do a play date when you’re free!” And then never, ever follow up on it. Then, you add the fact that most parents at Kaia’s school rarely want to interact with me in the corridor (one dad was shocked I remembered his name. He still can never remember my name), and they’re oftentimes just glued to their phones until the doors open for drop-off or pick-up. Becoming a parent in New York City has certainly NOT opened the doors to new-friends-making, unfortunately. This is especially annoying to think about when I hear about my friends in Long Island or San Francisco, and they say they hang out regularly with the parents of their kids’ friends, even when the kids aren’t there! I can’t help but be a bit envious and wonder why it doesn’t seem as easy for me here.

Well, the neighbor did message me! We ended up having a brief play date (derailed, as per usual, by a nap that went awry) today in the play room and lounge rooms. And we had a pretty nice conversation that was a little bit about everything: New York, how we met our spouses, cultural nuances, parents, parenting styles, cooking, toddler recipes and habits, travel, work, kids, our road to kids (IVF for both, and she’s even a fertility doctor, aka a reproductive endocrinologist!). She was also just very polite and thanked me at the end for always pronouncing her name correctly (she is Turkish from Turkey). She seemed to enjoy our time together and suggested we meet up again once they are back from some spring break travels. We’ve already organized our next play date once they are back. And she suggested that once the roof deck opens up that we all meet up with our spouses for food and drinks on a warm day.

It’s funny being in my late 30s now and seeing how I jive with other “potential” friends. It’s almost like dating, but for friends. You never know if you are going to get along with someone and “click,” and even if you think you both do, they could have a totally different opinion and either never want to see you again or just do the dick thing of simply ghosting you.

So, if I get lucky, maybe I will finally have a real building friend after living in this building for almost eight years now!

A non-rushed meal after your friends come 45 minutes late to the restaurant

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A few days ago, I complained about rushed meals and service at restaurants since the pandemic. For the most part, that always seems to happen to me when I’m with a (female) friend somewhere in Manhattan. It’s usually a semi-trendy or relatively new restaurant. There’s rarely a wait, but the restaurant feels a need to kick us out at the 9-minute mark for a party of 2. When I told Chris this, he said he never felt that pressure while we’d be out together; and yes, he’s actually right. When we’ve gone out on the weekends, mostly Saturdays, with Kaia, this has never, even once, happened to us. We’ve never gotten told when seated that we only had x amount of time. We’ve never been rushed to leave when we finish our meal and get the bill. It seems to happen when it’s just a friend and me. Does this mean that women friends are getting targeted to get out of restaurants? Or was this just a Manhattan trendy restaurant thing?

Well, today I got worried because I made a 1pm reservation at a Georgian restaurant in Brooklyn Heights to meet with two of our friends. They ended up running very late because my friend confused the booking time for later. So they showed up 45 minutes after my reservation time. We were, understandably, annoyed, but what I was actually concerned about, other than Kaia being able to sit in a high chair for that long, was whether the restaurant would get mad at us and rush our meal.

It never happened. The service was gracious. In that time, our server finished his shift and our table went to another server. That server ended up being very friendly and accommodating, and he never once told us we had x amount of time left or had to leave after a certain time. I was pleasantly surprised and felt pretty relieved in the end. I’ve come to the conclusion that the rushed restaurant situation happens when a) it’s in Manhattan), b) it’s at a semi new or trendy restaurant, and c) when it’s just a girlfriend and me. Of course, it’s annoying, but nothing can really be done about it.

Crispy bottomed guo tie / potstickers in New York City

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When I first moved to New York City almost 17 years ago, my cousin had already pre-discovered a high quality, local dumpling shop for me in my then new neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens. It was called Lao Bei Fang and was on a side street along the main Broadway drag of Elmhurst, in an area that you could easily consider like a mini Chinatown. Back then in 2008, the owner hand-pulled almost all the noodles that were sold; he also hand rolled all the dumpling skins while his wife and helper filled them with meat and vegetable fillings. When I’d go during off times, I could get lucky and enjoy my hand pulled noodles or crispy bottomed potstickers while listening to him sing random Chinese operatic songs. The fried dumplings, aka potstickers, aka guo tie, were always perfect: they were crispy bottomed, perfectly steamed, and had juicy, rich fillings, stuffed to the brim. And I still cannot believe how cheap they were: back then, you could get four fat, stuffed, juicy dumplings for just $1! Eventually, they raised the price by a quarter, then two quarters. I’m not sure what they are charging now.

Since then, they’ve gained notoriety throughout New York City. Even tourists go there now. They had to keep up with demand and their growing business, so they started hiring more staff and grew out of their hole-in-the-wall on Whitney Avenue and moved into a much larger, more spacious restaurant along the main Broadway strip. And that, sadly, is when the quality notably declined. Once, I went and got fried dumplings that barely had a crispy bottom and were borderline cold. The noodles were irregular and almost gummy. The owner was nowhere to be seen. My favorite dumpling/hand pulled noodle place had changed forever.

At that point, I wasn’t sure what my reliable hand-pulled noodle/dumpling spot would be. I’ve found a few places in Manhattan Chinatown and Brooklyn Chinatown that do reliable steamed/boiled dumplings and hand pulled noodles. But I have yet to find a really good crispy bottomed guo tie/dumpling spot. There’s a divey spot under the Manhattan Bridge called Fu Zhou Wei Zhong Wei Jia Xiang Feng Wei, and that’s it. There are so many dumpling spots in New York City, almost too many to keep track of, but not all of them are going to have the same crisp and glory that Lao Bei Fang once had for me.

“Daddy is SO mad at you!”

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My mom called the other day to tell me that while she and my dad enjoy the videos I send of Kaia, my dad was apparently very mad at me regarding one specific video.

“Your Daddy is SO mad at you!” my mom exclaimed on the phone the other day. “What in the world are you doing giving Kaia a knife to use? She could seriously hurt herself!”

My mom was referring to the video I took of Kaia on Sunday while we were cooking together. I had laid out king oyster mushrooms on my cutting board and was getting ready to cut them. She saw that I was about to start cutting and got really excited, so she dragged out her stepping stool so that she could “help” me. I relented, and I took out her plastic toddler training knives (key word is PLASTIC) and let her cut some of them. She loves being mummy’s little kitchen helper. Yes, she does slow me down a lot, and yes, she doesn’t cut the way I’d like her to cut, but I love watching her focus, and I love seeing her face when she does a decent cut. She has to learn at some point, so I think this is a good time when she actually does want to help and shows interest. She was enjoying being my kitchen helper, constantly looking back up at me for my approval and response, and continued cutting. It’s hard to say “no” to such eager eyes.

I told my mom that they were both being ridiculous, that the knife was meant to be a toddler training knife and was made of plastic. So no matter what Kaia did, there was zero chance she could get hurt.

“It doesn’t matter!” my mom insisted. “She could still hurt herself!”

You could hear the logic in that response. Of course it doesn’t matter… because she doesn’t realize that she’s being called out for being wrong in her assumption, and she’s never wrong in her head, even in senseless moments like this. I told Chris this anecdote, to which he replied, “I’m not going to take advice from someone who has a dead kid and who only has a 50% success rate at raising kids.”

Post-pandemic time limits at restaurant tables are NOT hospitable

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In a post-pandemic Manhattan, one of the many things that has been frustrating to me while eating out, other than the massively inflated costs and expectations of extremely high tips (I have, on more than a handful of occasions, been handed or flipped a suggested tip screen where the default tip is 30 percent), has been the time limits set on tables. When you make a reservation at a restaurant that is a notch above no-frills, whether it’s on Open Table, Resy, or over the phone, you are immediately prompted with a message stating that you will agree to abide by the time limits set on tables. This is usually different depending on the size of the party, but for a party of two, it’s almost always 90 minutes; for a party of four, it’s somewhere between 2-2.5 hours. This is particularly frustrating when you already know, going into this, that you are going to be paying a lot for your meal, and that the expectations for tipping have increased. And it’s a real whammy when you check in at the host stand, and they remind you and your party on the way to your table that there’s a X-minute time limit on your table, and they ask that you respect that. When I go out to eat, I want to enjoy the company of the people I am with, AND enjoy the food and drink. I don’t want to feel rushed to order right away, to stuff the food down my throat, and to barely say hi to my friend before looking at the menu and ordering. It’s completely ridiculous and an unrealistic expectation that restaurants have of their patrons. I understand this if the restaurant has stacked reservations, is in high demand, and people are waiting. But when restaurants are not at capacity and are even nearly empty, it makes zero sense and only makes the restaurant look stupid and stingy with their space.

Tonight, I met up with a friend for dinner at La Dong, a relatively new and modern Vietnamese restaurant in Flatiron that ended up costing over $55/person after tax and tip. So in other words, this was not a budget meal. As soon as we sat down, the server handed us our menus and at the same time reminded us that we had to leave in 90 minutes. It was such a warm welcome — to say hi and in the same breath, tell your guests to get the fuck out in the next hour and a half! And then, with a smile once again, when the server came back and asked if we were ready to order, we told her we were not and would need a few additional minutes. She smiled sanguinely and said, “Of course! Please take your time!” That response was completely disingenuous; given she already told us about our 90-minute time limit, we obviously could NOT take our time and had to get a move on with ordering everything.

As soon as we ordered our two starters, shock of shock: the food came out within minutes. Another reminder to eat quickly. And when the two mains came out, they were swift and took away our starter plates. Even as we were catching up, I could feel the staff’s eyes on us, wondering how long it would take us to eat and if they’d need to remind us again that we had to leave by 7pm, as we were seated at 5:30 on the dot.

Was the service here awful? No. They tried to be friendly and gentle. I think they are all under pressure to abide by their idiot management’s instructions to enforce the time limits on tables. But it really doesn’t go well when you are in hospitality to make your guests feel that they need to rush through their meal and their socializing. What next: are restaurants going to charge by the half-hour for the table/seating space on top of charging you for food and drink? Or will they want to charge you to use their restrooms? What the hell is next?

What was really awful, which happened a few weeks ago when I had lunch with a friend in SoHo, was when twice, I had my plate taken away while I was literally still eating from it. Both times, I had just lifted chopsticks from the plate to put food in my mouth, and servers/bus boys came to clear my plate. The second time it happened, I glared hard at the server and said I was still eating.

Hospitality at restaurants has declined pretty badly across Manhattan since the pandemic. Hospitality is barely even a word with any meaning here in this borough. How can you be hospitable when welcoming someone into your business when you immediately want to chase them out as soon as you can? It’s almost a rarity now to not feel rushed through a meal in this borough and actually feel… relaxed while dining out. Even when the food and ambiance are good, even when the company is good, it’s impossible to forget that you felt you were rushed through your meal and verbally pushed out the door.