Influencing others in foodie expeditions

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I was out with a friend, her son, and Kaia today for an outing to Arthur Avenue, aka Little Italy in the Bronx, and the Bronx Zoo today. We ate lunch at an Albanian restaurant Chris took us to a while back, and then we made our way around the Little Italy area so I could show her some of my favorite spots. Lucky me, I also got all four of us free tickets to visit the Bronx Zoo today, courtesy of a parent in Kaia’s class who works for the Wildlife Conservation Society. So the day ended up being quite inexpensive for New York City!

While hanging out today, my friend let me know that she, her partner, and son did a day trip to Fort Lee yesterday, after I had told her about the big Korean population there, and hence the delicious, authentic Korean food. They took an Uber over there and spent about half the day exploring. They ate at a local restaurant and were blown away by the food. She and her partner especially loved the banchan dishes that came out at the beginning of the meal, all complimentary.

“You know, this is all really thanks to you that we are branching out of just eating Turkish, French, and Italian foods,” my friend said to me. “We’re so much more adventurous now because of your influence! I started experimenting with more food, and now I am getting S out of his comfort zone. And he really, really enjoyed the Korean meal far more than I expected! He was still talking about it this morning!”

This made me so happy; it probably was the one comment she said to me that truly made my day. I love it when I hear about people — anyone really — taking my recommendations on anything from food, restaurants, sights to see, tours, places to visit. For me, it’s the biggest compliment. Everyone has so many choices they can make in a single day, so for someone to take my suggestion/advice seriously and actually carry it all the way through, it always makes me feel ecstatic. It was already a compliment months ago when she said she started exploring more cuisines because of me. But when she said that her partner, who is notoriously picky and narrow in his food choices, actually was willing and embraced Korean food, I just sat there in shock and joy.

I recently read an article about how you can get people to like you. And one of the ways it mentioned was to tell people when something reminded you of them, or tell them when you did something that was at their recommendation. This is 1000000000% true. But this is only true if you already liked them at least a little.

Autumn in Inwood; and the “stalker” at the library

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Today, we spent the day up in Inwood, which is on the upper tip of Manhattan. The last couple of years, we’ve come up here during the fall, when all of the leaves are changing color and there are large swaths of gold, red, and orange leaves scattered all over the ground. We all enjoy stepping on crunchy leaves at this time of year, but unfortunately it has rained the last couple of days, so instead of crunchy, they were all soggy. It still made for some picturesque walking and some good photos, though.

After all the years of coming up here, we finally decided to enter the Inwood public library branch. Just two years ago, this branch was fully redone and renovated, so it looks quite shiny from the outside. We spent a good amount of time inside looking at the endless variety of children’s books, all so multicultural in many languages. I always think about this when I think about children’s books now, but the representation is so much greater now than it was when I was a young child. The interior, as we imagined, was really well done: spacious, well laid out, with lots of floor to ceiling windows and natural light.

A separated children’s reading room can be accessed through double doors from the main children’s area. Kaia insisted on spending time in there, so I joined her and read some books with her together. While we were in there reading together, Chris stood from the outside of the room, and through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he snapped several photos of us reading together to “capture the moment” as he always likes to do. Chris loves taking candid photos, especially ones that we are unaware of, or that can frankly be unflattering (he contests this, but what does he not contest that I say?!). Suddenly, one of the librarians comes into the children’s reading room and says hi to Kaia and me.

“Hi! So sorry to bother you,” the librarian began, smiling awkwardly. “I just wanted to ask: do you know that man there in the blue hoodie? He has been taking some photos of you, and I just wanted to make sure you were associated with him?”

I immediately started grinning. Chris can be so ridiculous sometimes, and he gives “zero shits” what other people think about his behavior. But to a regular bystander who has no idea we are together, his behavior can seem super stalker-like and weird, maybe even borderline “inappropriate”!

“No worries,” I immediately reassured her. “He’s my husband. He just likes to capture the moment!”

We both started laughing.

“Oh, thank goodness!” The librarian responded. “I just wanted to make sure we didn’t have an awkward situation on our hands and I didn’t need to call security! Hope you all enjoy!” And she left the room.

And there, you have it, my friends: This is just one of many endless examples of what a weirdo husband I have and what a weirdo dad Kaia has.

My kid’s palate: You win some, you lose some

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Earlier this week, Kaia came up to me and started grabbing my leg.

“Mama!” she said sweetly, looking up at me smiling with twinkly eyes. This usually means she wants something. She glanced at the kitchen counter, where she saw some bananas I just bought. “Can you make me some banana pancakes this week?”

Kaia has loved pancakes since she was a baby. Banana pancakes was likely her very first type of pancake I made her, and since then, she has consistently enjoyed and asked for them since. I’ve made many variations of pancakes for her over the years, but these seem to be her favorite.

I explained to her that work was very busy this week, so I wouldn’t be able to make the pancakes until this weekend. She doesn’t know this, but the bananas I’d use were actually overripe in the freezer, and so I needed to defrost those for these pancakes, as well. The bananas on the counter were for a different use. Luckily, she didn’t have a melt down and seemed to understand.

“That means you’re gonna make them for me this Saturday, before martial arts?” she replied, grinning. “I’m gonna have banana pancakes with maple syrup this weekend!”

Kaia started squeezing my leg. Though it was like she was tugging on my heart. This felt bittersweet, as in that moment, I wondered when she would become too tall so that when she’d grab me, she’d no longer reach just my legs anymore. It’s one of the many sweet parts of early childhood that I’ve always loved the physical feeling of.

The other thing I love about her pancake eating is that it’s definitely evolving. In the second half of this year, we started letting her have just a little bit of maple syrup regularly with pancakes. She does this really cute thing where she likes the maple syrup, but just on half of each pancake or each serving. And she prefers the maple syrup always on the side to “dip.” So, I never pour any maple syrup on top of her pancakes. It is always poured away from the pancakes, wherever on the plate they are. It’s cute that even at this young age, she has a preference (just like adults!) for maple syrup placement!

As cute as this is, Kaia is not a fan of every single thing I make. This week, I was excited to make my first butternut squash soup of the season, this time with my chicken/duck stock. Chris and I really enjoyed it; it came out thicker than I’d ideally like. I was planning to thin it out with more stock, but Chris insisted he liked the thicker texture, so I left it as is. Well, Kaia did not agree with this; she kept saying that it was “too thick!” and that it was “yucky!” Yet over the course of this week, she had three whole bowls to herself.

A week or two ago, she had butternut squash at school lunchtime. I asked her what she liked more, school lunch butternut squash or mama’s butternut squash. I did not get the answer I wanted.

“Butter Beans (that’s the name of the lunch provider) butternut squash!” Kaia responded enthusiastically. “It’s not yucky!”

Ughhhhhh.

Parent teacher conferences

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We’ve had parent-teacher conferences since Kaia was in daycare. We had them in 3K and 4K; all of them seemed fairly straightforward. We never heard anything that really surprised us about how Kaia behaves in class. She’s always been a very social, enthusiastic child who loves spending time with others. She generally respects authority figures while also occasionally attempts to test them. Today we had two parent-teacher conferences, the first with her English teacher and the second with her main two Chinese/homeroom teachers.

As expected, we heard about her growth in areas like attention span and writing mechanics in the short time she’s been in kindergarten, so almost two months now. One thing I have thought a lot about in our homework struggles, especially in the weekday evenings, is how maybe the muscles in her hands just haven’t developed enough, and that’s why she finds it uncomfortable to write… and thus dreads doing weeknight homework. One way to really develop that is to encourage her to keep writing in smaller spurts. And for fun things, she could do things like use a water spray bottle (strengthens the same muscles, surprise surprise, which she loves doing already!), roll and make shapes with Play Doh (which will need to be played with at the table, ONLY), and use kid-friendly scissors to cut shapes, tear paper, and crumple balls. Some of these were suggested by the teachers; others I looked up after the discussion. I think this could be another fun form of play that could help develop her hand muscles to make writing less annoying. And we all know she loves to draw and color, so of course we want her to continue that.

These are all the little things we don’t really think about as adults because we take these skills for granted; we’ve been doing them for so long, so we don’t immediately think these could be issues. But it’s comforting to know that Kaia has supportive teachers who want to help and can give us ideas at home to support. On the other hand, these are all things that are hard for me to relate to because unlike Kaia, I was not the youngest in my class; I was usually the oldest or one of the oldest (and biggest in kindergarten!). I also was writing letters (very regularly) before I even got to kindergarten. So this is about learning to be patient and helping my baby grow, which is going to be at a different rate than I remember for myself.

Sibling loss survivors meeting

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When I was at the AFSP NYC Out of the Darkness walk on October 25, as the walk ceremony concluded and the actual walk commenced, a lady walking alongside me tapped me on my shoulder and asked if I was Yvonne, who gave the speech on stage. I said I was, and she proceeded to give me her business card and introduced herself as J. She thanked me for my speech and said it really moved her, then burst into tears. I hugged her (well, as best as I could since we were a sea of walkers at that point along a route!), thanked her for reaching out to me, and let her know that I’d contact her after the walk.

I did what I said I would: I emailed her after the walk. She replied back within a day and we set a time to meet, which ended up being late afternoon today. We met at a little cafe close to Kaia’s school so I could pick her up easily after. She shared her story with me about how she lost her younger brother to suicide last year, how it took her by surprise because he was so high functioning, with a “picture perfect” life: married with two (now adult) kids, high powered, high earning career, living in the ‘burbs. Growing up, they lived in an affluent neighborhood and were part of a loving, “very functional” family. She said she’s trying to put together bread crumbs for why he took his life because she truly saw no signs, and that’s why it still hurts her so much. She has two brothers, but this was her closer sibling. She’s been in grief counseling every other week since his passing; she’s trying to find ways to support others to reduce the stigma around suicide and to get people to open up more about their struggles, their depression, their thoughts.

On the morning of the walk, I was interviewed by a New York City storyteller who asked what I wished more people understood about suicide. I only had time to give part of my answer, but one piece of it came back to me when I was talking with J this afternoon. I shared with her that some of the people who struggle most can also be the people who seem the most capable, successful, and the most put together from the outside. This is also known as “high functioning depression.” I’ve come to understand how easily impossibly high expectations can turn inward: when someone feels they are constantly falling short of the standard they’ve set for themselves, that disappointment can start to feel less like “I failed at something” and more like “I am a failure.” And in a very dark place, that belief can become the idea that they don’t deserve to be here, or that the people they love might somehow be better off without them. It was like a light went off in her head; J immediately responded to this and said this description was definitely her brother.

“Your speech was really beautiful,” J said to me over tea during our meeting. “I just thought it was so well written and spoken. It really spoke to me. And you and I are the same: we have both lost a brother we so dearly loved.”

She’s right: we are both sibling loss survivors. We are bonded through a shared experience of tragedy and despondency. I smiled and thanked her. It made me happy that at least one person in this audience felt something from hearing me speak. And it made me even happier to see that she was getting herself help and also trying to find ways to use her grief to help others in reducing the stigma around depression and suicide. That’s all we have left to do in life now to keep our brothers’ spirits alive.

Sharing memories

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To date for this year, I have raised $7,382 for AFSP in honor of Ed. I have a couple of pending corporate matches, but I have fundraised more than I thought I would given the slow start I had. After the walk, my friends shared videos they took of my speech during the opening ceremony, and for some close family and friends, I shared the video with them while thanking them for donating.

One of my college friends watched my speech, and she commented on the part in the beginning when I mentioned that Ed would always lavish generous gifts upon me. My friend said she used to remember when we were in college, and the rare packages I would get would always be from Ed. I completely forgot he had anything delivered to my dorm, but once she shared this, I started remembering. I remember he was skeptical of the bedsheets and bedding my parents bought me in a rush when I moved into my dorm during my first year. So he found a free shipping code at Macy’s while working there to send a bunch of proper bedding and pillows to me that were to his standard. Given he worked in the domestics department at Macy’s then (for regular people, that means bedding!), he wanted to make sure I was comfortable and slept well while studying. Over the phone, he muttered that “our parents won’t understand that.”

I always enjoy hearing memories that others have of my brother, even when they include me, because they are not always things I remember. Or they are things I of course knew, but with the passage of time, I have just forgotten and haven’t thought much about. I also obviously wasn’t part of every part of his life, so I also appreciated when his church friends shared memories of Ed with me at his funeral, in cards and letters after, and also at his funeral meal. That really meant a lot to me; they probably don’t think it meant anything, but it painted a wider picture of my brother for me than I ever knew when he was alive.

Shared memories, as they say, are like the “colors of my life.”

Homemade food: So under appreciated

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Since Kaia was a baby, I have been pretty maniacal about the food she has eaten and making sure the majority of what she is eating is homemade, made from scratch, and wholesome/healthy-ish. Then again, I suppose that even before her, I was maniacal about all that for myself. We really are what we eat; I believe that statement inside and out, and so I want to make sure that Kaia is eating mostly whole foods most of the time. Working from home and not needing to go into an office has made this very possible for us. If I had to be an an office four or five days a week, this definitely would not work out as well for us.

I remember during the early newborn days when cooking tasks that I consider basic and routine, like mincing garlic, seemed like such an annoying chore: that is how most people view cooking who do not like to cook. Every single additional step or ingredient is a chore, an annoyance, an inconvenience! So when I look back at my childhood and realized that almost every single night, Ed and I had something different to eat, something new, something homemade, I really think it was a true feat on the part of our mom (my dad only cooked occasionally, and it was more a hobby for him). She worked a miserable 9-5 job in an office five days a week, yet somehow managed to have dinner on the table ready for us by 6pm (she was also maniacal about getting on the express bus back home from downtown San Francisco!). Today, I just think that’s insane — real mom magic! I even told my mom this when I went back home in August. She half smiled and shrugged. “I have to take care of my family,” my mom said in response. It’s really that simple to her.

So when I made butternut squash soup today, which ended up becoming part of tonight’s dinner, Kaia whined and said she didn’t like it even before she had a bite. And all I could think was… ugh. Kids are inclined to be this way, to whine and whinge and decline things they don’t know or haven’t tasted. Their moods change with the wind. But she has no idea how much effort went into this soup: the bones-in-the-freezer saving, the Instant Pot pressure cooking, the (whole!) butternut squash needing washing, peeling, cutting, and cubing — just some of the steps to begin. That last part is such a chore that many people who eat butternut squash do not do any of that prep. They skip straight to the “buy butternut squash peeled and cubed” step (which I have never done even once in my life!). Then there’s the cutting and roasting of the carrot and squash, the dicing of the onions, more garlic slicing, sauteing and browning, simmering, BLENDING in a real blender (yes, really!). And then you end by simmering for a last time and adding extras like spices, a splash of milk, cream, or additional stock. THEN, IT IS FINALLY DONE. These autumnal soups are a labor of love; most soups are. But really, all homemade dishes are a labor of love that not everyone can appreciate, even in adulthood.

In the end, Kaia ate the whole bowl of butternut squash soup. She whined, but we could tell she enjoyed it. I am waiting for the day when she has other versions of food out there in the wild, and she comes home and tells me she prefers my version. I am still waiting patiently and eagerly.

Kaia’s first ring pop… and real lollipop experience

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After Kaia finished a bunch of English and 75 percent of this week’s Chinese homework today, I told her that as a reward, she could pick one piece of candy from yesterday’s trick-or-treating stash and eat it. Of course, she chose one of the two ring pops she got — this time, the “blue raspberry” one. She licked and sucked it and giggled and shrieked throughout. And as I watched her greatly enjoy this massive sticky ring on her finger, it dawned on me that this was her first real lollipop experience; she’s never had one before. She’s watched many other kids have them, but she herself has never enjoyed one. I showed her a mirror so she could see how blue her lips and tongue were turning from the blue ring pop, and of course, it completely delighted her. Kaia knows that we don’t allow candy, so this truly is a very special, very rare “treat” for her. She savored it until the very, very last lick. It was really cute for me to watch her enjoy and savor every bit of that teeth-rotting thing.

It’s funny to think about how permissive my parents were about my sugar consumption when I was the same age. I got to eat plenty of candy, chocolate, and ice cream all the time; I suppose my grandma didn’t help because she also had a sweet tooth, and she’d let Ed and me eat whatever she was eating. Then, she’d indulge us further by buying us candy at the corner stores nearby. We especially loved “sour power,” or the sugar-coated sour belts; even thinking and writing about them now still makes my mouth water a bit. My parents never brushed my teeth except with water until the age of 5 because I was so fussy with the toothpaste, so my mom just gave up (I think it’s a safe bet to say that my dad never attempted to brush my teeth… ever). Then I ended up with three cavities at my first dental visit at 5 years of age — what a surprise! So when I tell my mom that Kaia doesn’t get candy or almost any sweets unless it’s a shared dessert, she thinks I am being far too strict.

Well, times have changed. We need to protect our child’s teeth and physical health for long term benefits. We know a bit more now about the dangers of overconsumption of sugar versus back then. And so, it actually makes me feel quite proud to see how Kaia self polices herself with sweets, and how she knows what foods we approve (and don’t approve) of. I hope she keeps this up.

What Halloween and trick-or-treating means is very different depending on where you live

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Halloween means different things to different people across the U.S. (and world). I have some colleagues whose streets completely shut down in the suburbs for neighbor-sponsored parties of bouncy castles, haunted houses, games, food, and drink. Friends in San Francisco go house to house trick or treating, with some of their neighbors even redoing their garages for a mini-haunted house experience. Some go to adult-only Halloween parties where everyone dresses up. Others go to different neighborhoods to see what kinds of candy and fun will be available to them. Until I moved to New York, I had no idea that high-rise, doorman buildings like ours did their own version of trick or treating: they would have participating residents sign up for their unit and time slot they’d welcome trick-or-treaters, Some buildings even do their own lavish decorations in their entrances and lobbies as I’ve seen a few times this year.

In the last two years, we took Kaia trick or treating just in our building. Two years ago, she didn’t quite understand what she was doing, but went along with it. Last year, she understood she was getting candy every time we knocked on a door and she said “trick or treat!” This year, when I said we’d go trick or treating on W 69th Street between Columbus and Central Park West, she didn’t quite understand what this meant. When we started leaving our building at around 4, she got confused and said to me, “Mama, I thought we were going trick or treating?”

“We are going, Pooks!’ I exclaimed to her. “We’re going outside, to 69th Street, to trick or treat there! And then maybe we can see some of your friends, too!”

I chuckled. It dawned on me in that moment that to date, Kaia’s only concept of “trick or treating” was just in our many multi-unit building, going unit to unit, up and down the elevator. Her puzzled face transformed into a big grin when she said, “Aww, okay! I thought we trick or treat in our building?” I had to clarify for her that there are many, many ways to trick or treat, and in our building is just one of them! This was becoming a real adventure for Kaia Pookie, as she’d never before gone trick or treating outside the building!

She got so excited as we got to West 69th Street and saw all the decorated brownstones and businesses; the entire street was shut off to car traffic with cops all around. She loved going to front doors and saying “Trick or treat!”, with pretty much everyone passing out candy also elaborately dressed up. (She avoided the skeletons, though, and was not a fan of them!). Her favorite was this guy who had spray painted his entire naked body, from head to toe, bright green; he was wearing white shorts while passing out candy. She kept giggling afterwards. “He’s so funny!” she shrieked to me after as we ran along up and down W 69th Street.

I tried and failed to get in contact with some of her classmates’ parents; everyone seemed to be running behind, and Kaia was quickly getting tired. We waited at the end of the crowded block for at least 15 minutes before I had to call time and tell her it was time to go back to our building. She kept saying she was tired and wanted to go back… but she also said she wanted to trick or treat at our building. So we hit every unit, and she got excited every time someone opened a door for her to yell trick or treat. And just like last year, she was not super happy whenever someone laid out a bowl of candy instead of allowing her to ring their bell and see her. There is one exception to this, though: one neighbor left out a massive bowl of candy, with RING POPS! Kaia got so excited. I didn’t even realize she knew what those things were. She grabbed two and started giggling hysterically. “I GOT TWO RING POPS” she kept saying over and over to the next floor.

Halloween this year was quite fun for all of us, though it wasn’t the group trick-or-treating I had envisioned with her new classmates. Maybe next year we can be more organized. But either way, the day ended well, with Kaia laying out all the candy she got from trick-or-treating on the rug and telling me which of them were her favorites. My sweet baby is growing up super fast… I cannot believe this is already her third time trick or treating!

“I don’t want you to come to my Halloween party!”

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Since preschool, Kaia has had many moments when she does not necessarily want her parents there. Sometimes, she insists on walking and holding hands with her classmates. Sometimes, she doesn’t greet me at all at pickup, shoves her backpack into my stomach, then keeps walking. This is all “love” when taken for granted, right? I suppose it starts at an early age!

This morning when Chris and I told her we were coming to her school for the Halloween parade and class party, she started whining immediately and kept saying over and over, “I don’t want you to come!” I actually came to the class 45 minutes early to help the class parents set up the Halloween party activity and party treats. So when Kaia was coming back from her other class and saw me, she immediately looked away, pretending not to see me. This is what love feels like with school-aged kids, eh?

The Halloween parade and party were a lot of fun; I got to meet some parents of Kaia’s class I hadn’t previously met, and we got to chat and get to know each other. I even had a pretty lengthy discussion with one of the classmates’ grandparents, who was in town visiting from Singapore. She got so excited when I not only told her that we are planning to go to Singapore at the end of the year, but also when she realized I could speak Chinese (the other parents volunteering don’t speak Chinese). So I had some unexpected time practicing my basic Mandarin. That was a bonus for me. I had a quick chat with Kaia’s homeroom (Chinese) teacher, who told me that Kaia’s focus on Chinese stroke was improving a lot in the last couple weeks; this was news to me, I told her, because every night of doing homework was a cry fest and a repeat shouting of “I don’t like homework! I don’t like it!” in both English and Chinese!

A friend of mine also came to see Kaia for the class party, and then afterwards when after-care started, we went to catch up at a nearby cafe. This was when Kaia suddenly wanted her parents: I went over to her to tell her I was going out with my friend and that I’d pick her up in a couple hours. Chris was already out the door at that point. Kaia grabbed my leg and suddenly said she wanted to come with us with her big sad puppy-dog eyes. The teachers ended up having to console her and gently pull her off my leg…

So, that’s love from your kindergartener. They want you when they want you, and when they don’t want you, they… ignore you and pretend you don’t exist. Love comes in many forms, as I am constantly reminded….