Monthly Archives: May 2014

Restaurant service in New York

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I love cooking, but I also love, love dining out. I love divey hole-in-the-walls where the only seats available are on dinky stools in food stalls (with slightly questionable sanitation), I love everyday affordable ethnic and “new American” casual restaurants, and I love the experience of five-star, multi-course tasting menus at coats-required restaurants. What I do not love, though is terrible service. In a city as competitive as New York, restaurants with rude service deserve only to go out of business. I rather just get delivery than deal with nasty service.

Tonight, we encountered the rudest service of my life in the company of Chris’s parents when the server at Olio e Piu had the nerve to wrestle the check holder out of Chris’s hands when Chris had already insisted he was *not* ready to give him the check. “Yes, you are ready to leave now,” the server responded to Chris. As you can imagine, this resulted in a lot of other diners staring at this pathetic act of idiocy. And Chris doesn’t take crap from anyone, so he let the server have it. The server was the rudest, most condescending person I’ve ever encountered on a restaurant wait staff. We went there just for drinks and were never told we had to order dinner in order to be seated in the outside dining area, and then we got scolded at by the host, which led to attitude and abrupt behavior by our server, who already had an icy tone when he first said hello to us. Restaurants that offer “hospitality” like this deserve to go out of business; there’s no place for that in New York – or anywhere, for that matter.

 

In-laws have arrived

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I was thinking about all the agitating, hurtful, and sexist things I’ve been taught by my parents, and I told Chris that maybe one day, I should write a book with all these sayings as a guide on what not to say to children as they are growing up.

The most recent annoying thing was told to me today. After I left work and called my mom on my way to Gramercy Tavern to meet Chris and his parents for their arrival dinner (and his dad’s belated birthday dinner, as his birthday was last week), my mom said to me, “Remember what I told you. Don’t pay for them.” I told her how ridiculous she was being, and she yelled at me and told me to stop talking back. “We always pay for Chris when he is with us, so his parents should always pay for you when you are with them. And you aren’t engaged or married yet, so you shouldn’t be spending your money on people who don’t really care about you.”

Thanks, Mom. It’s always nice to be reminded that no one in the world genuinely cares about me other than you and Dad. And then it’s even nicer to be reminded that even after getting married, I still can’t fully trust my husband because as she likes to remind me at least a few times a year, “Do you remember what Scott Peterson did to his pregnant wife?”

Vaccinations

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So in preparation for our World Cup Brazil trip next month, I’m going to a travel clinic to get vaccinated tomorrow. Unfortunately, the health insurance through my company does not cover travel vaccines, and before I could really complain about it, I found out that pretty much no modern health insurance in the United States covers them. They’re not considered necessities… since no one really needs to travel outside of the country, right?

So leave it to money-grubbing Americans to open up travel clinics all over this city and charge $70-80 just for a “travel consultation” – to discuss where you are going, diseases you should be aware of and how you can get them, etc. That fee doesn’t cover any vaccines. When you want a vaccine for something like yellow fever, in New York, it costs somewhere between $145-160. If you want the Hepatitis A vaccine, it will cost $95 per shot (there are two), and that doesn’t even cover the “administration” fees for having someone give you the shot… because you can’t really give yourself the shot. Well, it’s a good thing that my travel visa fee ($160 USD) got waived with proof of World Cup tickets because all that saved money is just going toward my vaccinations, and then some.

I’m convinced that this is the subtle way our lovely country wants to indirectly discourage us from traveling and realizing that there is a world outside of the United States that actually matters.

Chocolate banana bread

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I made two loaves of double chocolate banana bread tonight. It’s the first time I’ve made banana bread with chocolate, and two types – cocoa powder and dark chocolate chunks. I realize I haven’t baked anything for my office since I have started working there last August. I used to bake all the time and share when I was at my last company… Until I started getting jaded and realized it was a bad place for me to be.

I’ve become a lot more hesitant to share food, especially things I have made, with my colleagues in general. Part of the reason for this is that I really just don’t think that the average person appreciates anything that is homemade or handmade. Most people just take it for granted; most people won’t even say thank you. Homemade food is a rarity in New York; pretty much no one you know will ever invite you over for a home-cooked meal here. It takes a lot of time and energy, and although homemade food is generally cheaper than food in restaurants, in New York, groceries aren’t that cheap, so your homemade meal may not be as cheap as you thought.

I’ll bring some in tomorrow and see what people’s reactions are. I’m sure I have an idea of what it will be – some people will be really excited; others will be the same jerks they always are. People will be who they are.

Making healthy things “low fat”

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I was at work the other day when I came across an article about the top selling items at Trader Joe’s. Most of the items, like Joe Joe’s (better Oreos), Three-Buck-Chuck, Speculoos Spread, and almond butter I would have guessed, but there were a few surprises, like fennel bulbs, which are the only vegetable/raw item on this list, and who knew that fennel was so popular?! Number Four, however, was the Reduced Guilt Guacamole, which immediately annoyed me when I saw the words “reduced guilt” in front of guac.

The description says that the reason it is “reduced guilt” is that part of the avocado is replaced with Greek yogurt, resulting in 50 percent less fat and 40 percent less calories than regular guacamole. When did guacamole become an unhealthy item? Of all the snack dips you could have, this is by far the most natural and the healthiest. At its most basic, it’s just avocados (good fat, mind you), onions, cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno, salt, and pepper. Sometimes it’s jazzed up with tomatoes or other vegetables to make it more colorful, but that’s it. What is unhealthy in that list of items that makes people think that they should be eating or buying lower fat guacamole? For the freaks who are anti-oil, there’s no oil, and there’s no animal fat here. I’m so tired of the food industry and people’s neuroses when it comes to what is “healthy” or “unhealthy.” The obsession with healthy eating just ends up resulting in unhealthy habits at the end of the day whether you realize it or not. Eat what you want, all in moderation, and exercise, and you’ll be fine.

Where is New Zealand?

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I’m not sure if this is a good thing, but I really think my patience level for certain things has waned over the last couple of years. In my Twitter feed at work a couple of days ago, I saw that Uber had expanded to Auckland. I’ve been getting into Uber lately (well, for work use, anyway), and I exclaimed out loud, “Uber is in Auckland now!” At least three male voices surrounding me asked in annoyed, confused voices, “What/where is Auckland?” I immediately felt irritated and told them it was a major city in New Zealand, and I exchanged a look with one of our auditors, who is temporarily on assignment in our office for three weeks and who is originally from New Zealand. He’s used to people not knowing what Auckland or Wellington are, and is even more used to people not even knowing where New Zealand is. He told me that he used to think that the stereotype that Americans’ geographical knowledge was poor was just exaggerated, but in his five and a half months living here in the States, he’s realized that maybe it actually isn’t an exaggeration. He’s had people ask him where New Zealand is or if it’s in Australia or Canada. He’s even confused people when he’s said he’s from New Zealand, and when they’ve heard him speak, they’ve told him, “You speak really good English.” Well, I’d hope so since New Zealand is an English-speaking country. “These people are morons!” He said to me. He must feel at ease because he can speak quickly with me and know I understand everything he is saying. I guess that’s what happens when my life partner is from Australia and I’ve spent extensive time with his Australian family and friends. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Aussies and Kiwis sound very similar accent-wise.

Some of my colleagues think I am odd for befriending an auditor who is checking our books, but I just find it ironic that I’ve made a friend at work who is not even my colleague.

To slide or not to slide

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When thoughts get dark, Ed comes back again.

I saw him in my dreams yet again last night. We were standing at the top of a hill where a family friend just bought a large house. It was one of those sunny, cloudless blue-skies days. Oddly, right at the center of the front lawn of the house was a long, skinny pole that went all the way down to the bottom of the hill. It was steep the way the steepest streets in San Francisco are, like the ones you can’t even walk up properly that require stairs to be built into the cement.

Ed effortlessly slid all the way down the pole to the bottom of the hill, then ran back up to meet me. I could see our parents standing at the bottom of the hill, and I could vaguely hear them arguing over whether doing this was a good idea. “You can do it! Just slide down. You don’t need to think about it so much!” he encouraged me. I keep staring down the pole at the base of the hill, and all I feel is terror at the idea of sliding down and potentially falling off the pole. “I can’t do it,” I whispered to him, yet he continues to encourage me on and on and tell me that I can do it. The last thing I remember is that at the end, I still wouldn’t slide down the pole.

Busy times and thinking

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A friend and I were chatting today, and I was asking about how her new job was going. She said to me that she was so busy learning and doing all of these new things that she hadn’t really spent much time thinking about how she felt at all – she was just doing it. I can relate to that; it’s easy to just do things because you have them scheduled and planned or because work just sucks all of your time, and then forget about your actual mind set while doing all of these things. There were times in my life I remember being like that socially – socializing for the sake of socializing, even when it was with people who I barely clicked with at all and didn’t even find remotely interesting. And in the last few months with work, I guess I haven’t spent that much time until now thinking about how I feel about it all. It’s been really busy, which seems like it would be a good thing… or is it?

Like my friend said to me today, is this really what I’m supposed to be doing with my life for the foreseeable future? Is there something else out there that’s for me that would be more fulfilling? Every time we make a decision, we’re also making a decision to give something else up. So when’s the next time I’m going to actively make a big decision that will affect my life?

Driving

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Tonight, a friend and I went out for dinner and we were talking about how he’s thought about moving to the Bay Area to live for a while. He just visited my hometown for a wedding and lamented that despite how much he loves it there, he absolutely hated all the driving. He said he ultimately wants to settle down here in New York; it’s pretty much the only place you can live in this country where you don’t need a car.

I hate driving. I know I’m going to have to drive again at some point, but once we reach this summer, it will officially mark seven years since I was last behind a wheel. I don’t want to live in New York City the rest of my life, so I guess I will have to suck it up and drive again, but I’m not looking forward to it. Parallel parking sucks, and gridlock makes me want to grind my teeth. Lately, I’ve been romanticizing about having a beautiful house somewhere in Southern California – maybe Santa Barbara or San Diego, but those romantic daydreams do not include road rage and constant honking.

Going home

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Today, Ben asked if Chris was free to chat on the phone. The last time he did this, he got laid off from his job, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Well, we found out that after three years of living in Toronto, he’s decided he wants to move back to Melbourne. His tentative plan is to move back at the end of the year. I suppose the cold winters got to him.

While it makes me sad to think about him leaving North America (and being a 20-hour flight away instead of a 1.5-hour flight), it actually made me think about my own situation and made me sad in that way. He feels a pull toward Melbourne, his home. Part of it’s lifestyle, part of it’s family and friends, and part of it is probably an emotional attachment to the place he calls home. He looks back on it and remembers fondly all these moments he’s shared with family and friends who are still there and thinks about how difficult it is when he leaves after Christmas to come back to Toronto.

I feel none of that. When I think of home, the first thing I think about is how broken my family is, how my dad doesn’t even have a relationship with his own brother and sister (my uncle and aunt), how my cousins disregard my parents and me and really just think of themselves. I think of how cold and hostile my parents’ flat is in the Richmond district, how the yard is in complete disrepair and unrecognizable from when my grandmother was alive tending to it. I think of how my loving brother is dead, and how he will never be there waiting with his arms open for me ever again. I remember how much of a stranger I feel when I walk through the streets and realize that everything is changing so fast that even a few months away means yet another thing that is unfamiliar to me. And I realize that pretty much all of my friends have left that city, and the ones who are still there – I’m not quite sure where they are heading in mind or in life.

Maybe no place is really home anymore for me. I’m not sure where I will settle, and I am undecided when it comes to where I really want to be. I’m not even sure I want to be in New York anymore.