Monthly Archives: May 2020

When making something the second time comes out worse than the first time

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Ego boost: you make something for the very first time that is known to be particularly finicky or difficult, like dosa or sourdough bread, and the very first time, it comes out… perfectly.

Ego deflation: you make something the second time knowing that the first time, you totally nailed it, and the second time… it comes out like total garbage.

The latter is what happened when I made Banh Cuon yesterday. I reflected on the first time when I made these delicious ripe crepes in 2017, and being very ambitious, I made it for a dinner party on the day of. I didn’t think they could be that hard, and after the first crepe was a failure, every subsequent one came out perfectly. I was like a Banh Cuon whiz. I still have pictures from that day, and I was so proud of myself. Now, I just feel like a bit of a failure. Was it the pan (yes)? Was it the unevenness of the heat – maybe? Was it the original proportions of the cornstarch to rice flour to tapioca starch – yes. Was it all the above? A little.

These are the trials and errors of shelter-in-place.

When your nonstick is no longer nonstick

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I was pretty ambitious today and tried to film two videos for the channel, one on Banh Cuon and one on coffee brewing using a drip coffee maker, a French press, and an Aeropress. The Banh Cuon video did not go as smoothly as I hoped it would… because not only did I mess up the proportions of rice flour/tapioca flour/cornstarch to use, but my nonstick Scanpan suddenly decided to fail, and fail quite miserably. It was so bad that the rice batter started disintegrating into the pan, and there was not even mush left; it just vanished into thin air! It was food filming gone completely awry.

I bought two Scanpans ages ago, one 8-inch and one 10-inch, thinking that maybe if I invested in pans that were more expensive and supposedly healthier (no teflon coating), that these might actually last longer. My 10-inch Scanpan failed a while ago, resulting in my shipping in it to evaluate the damages, and they sent me a new one. I had to pay for the shipping, though, which cost over $20. Nowadays, you can get a new ceramic, non-toxic, nonstick pan for about $25, so the idea of paying that again to replace another faulty product just seems a bit senseless. But the sad thing this shows is that…no, you do not always get what you pay for. Paying more for something doesn’t always mean it will be better or last longer, sadly. And paying for a fancy brand name will definitely not mean you will be in the clear.

When a white woman starts attacking successful women of color

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Apparently, The New York Times columnist Alison Roman, who I have recently decided I cannot stand because she likes to steal food staples of people of color and whitewash them, has decided to attack two successful women of color, Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo, for their “content farm” and creating empires with their names on them. It’s funny that she would actually go after women of color who are successful instead of other white women who have decided to stick their name on everything to make millions, whether that is Gwyneth Paltrow or Rachel Ray or Giada de Laurentiis. Her spice colonialization also clearly knows no bounds, because she has repeatedly been interviewed saying that her bland coconut turmeric chickpea stew is “not a curry” and is not at all influenced by the food of South Asia, even though the New York Times, after having experienced backlash for #thestew, has edited the description to say that the stew “evokes” the food of South India. A few other foodies in my Facebook college food group have also noted that she’s taken things like kimchi, fish sauce, and harissa, and made it seem like no big deal, like she just discovered them on her own and was not influenced at all by Korea, Vietnam, or countries in North Africa/the Middle East that use harissa. She even had the gall to host a paid food tour of VIETNAM last year so that people could experience Vietnam with her, even though this was her first time in Vietnam and she knew absolutely nothing about Vietnamese culture. This tour was clearly made for white people who did not know any better at all.

It’s always amazing to me how there can be such clueless white people out there who can profit off of the foods and creativities of non-white nations and think they are doing absolutely nothing wrong. Her cookbooks, supposedly best sellers, are catering to people who are exactly like her, and sadly, what that means is that there are too many people who are just like her out there. This is how my cynicism of the world continues.

Banh mi craving

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Sheltering in place has gone on for over two months now for us here in New York City. While working from home has been fine and bearable, though I do miss work travel, the worst part about all of this is not being able to do two of the things I love most: travel and eat. I can’t eat out at a restaurant, and many restaurants across the city have closed. So of the restaurants that are within walking distance or can do delivery, that’s what we’ve been indulging in once or twice a week during this period. And to date, nowhere in sight can I find a reasonably decent Vietnamese spot who can fulfill my banh mi craving… until today!

Pho Shop is actually on the Upper West Side on 72nd Street, and we found out from their Instagram account that they reopened this location today. Chris indulged me and got a big order of several banh mi, pho, shaking beef, and chicken skewers so we could try them for the very first time. To report back, Pho Shop did not disappoint. The fillings of the banh mi were on point and quite generous. Though the bread quality was not clear to me since it was delivered, but it definitely hit the spot. It felt comforting to know that I could get my banh mi cravings fulfilled from a spot that is walking distance from us now, and I don’t necessarily need to go to go all the way to Brooklyn Chinatown to Ba Xuyen for a reliable banh mi anymore. Though I do wish Ba Xuyen the best during these times and hope they come out of this okay.

Numb hands

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The last few mornings, I’ve been waking up with my hands feeling numb. They’ve been sore the last week, likely because I’ve been spending more time video editing, which means more time at the computer on top of already being on a computer most of the weekdays for work. The upside of COVID-19 quarantine is that I’ve been spending more time shooting cooking videos and editing. The downside of the quarantine, other than the obvious, is that the more editing I do, the more time I spend on a computer, which means the more my hands and wrists get sore and angry at me for abusing them. I did a quick Google search for “waking up with hands numb” and found that most of the results I got were around early onset carpel tunnel symptoms.

That’s exactly what I need to hear. Granted, I’ve been able to handle wrist and hand pain from computer use with my dyna-flex power ball and stretching, so it’s been manageable for all these years in front of a computer. But I hadn’t needed to use the power ball in months now. More physical therapy is needed for my body and me during shelter-in-place.

Teddie Peanut Butter appears in NYC

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We’d been getting low on our Teddie peanut butter jar. After some initial skepticism, Chris embraced this brand of peanut butter, declaring that it really did have just the right amount of sweet and salty to it. He did a quick search on Teddie’s official site and found out that Teddie peanut butter can actually now be found at select Key Food locations in the city, one of which happened to be walking distance from us on 85th and Amsterdam. Chris insisted I didn’t look carefully enough. I insisted that back in 2011, when I ran out of Teddie, Teddie was definitely NOT outside of New England, with the exception of buying it on Amazon for inflated prices.

We trekked up to the Key Food, stood in line for about 10 minutes, and went inside to discover not only raspberries and blackberries packages for a buck each, but also both conventional chunk and smooth Teddie peanut butter (with salt). I was ecstatic. We picked up a jar of each and gleefully went home.

We were telling our building handyman and friend about this, that this was our highlight of our Saturday. He laughed and said, “What a time we live in now when the major highlight of our weekend is finding a specific brand of PEANUT BUTTER at a grocery store!” I insisted to him that this peanut butter was absolutely worth the hype. He said it probably was quite good, but these are the biggest things we look forward to in a time of shelter-in-place. Once upon a time, we looked forward to discovering new eats and restaurants, going to the theater, seeing a movie, catching up with friends visiting from out of town, an upcoming domestic or international trip. Now, it’s peanut butter.

When ingredients run out

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Once upon a time, when a specific ingredient that I like to include as an “always there” pantry, freezer, or fridge item would be near running out, I’d make a note on my phone to refresh it the next time I went to whatever market I’d typically get it from, whether it was one of the Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai markets in Chinatown, the Indian/Pakistani markets in Jackson Heights, and so on. I never really thought much about the inability of attaining these items when I wanted them because I knew they were always available. But now, in a time of shelter-in-place when I cannot just hop on the train to Queens or downtown Manhattan, I find myself feeling some of the more minor pains of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s obviously not detrimental. We have a full fridge, freezer, and pantry. We have fresh fruit and vegetables every single day, and if we didn’t, they’d be easy to access with the markets that are walking distance from us. We have food — that’s what’s important, and a good variety at that. It’s more that now, I realize what a luxury it was to be able to readily get my hands on red-fermented cubed tofu, gai lan vegetables, or frozen grated coconut. I had those choices and could act on those choices extremely easily. And now, I don’t. If I want to order some of these things via Mirchi Market or FreshGoGo, the wait time could be anywhere from a week to over a month. This is one of those times when it’s important to use what you have, improvise, and get creative. Or, really, just put off making a particular dish until… whenever this all ends.

when your mom goes through your things without asking

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Last night when I was chatting with my friend, she was talking about how random things you see during the day or things you may do can suddenly trigger a long-lost memory of something that you had seen, witnessed, or been a part of that you had just forgotten after all these years. That’s not to say that it never happened and that your mind was making it up, but rather that so many things have since happened that this memory just got de-prioritized by your brain.

She was talking about her schoolteacher mom and the lessons she was working on for her students, and out of nowhere, it made me remember the times when I was in high school, and my mom used to go through my school binder when I wasn’t there. I had all my subjects separated by dividers, and within each of those dividers, I had separated assignments being worked on, assignments completed and grade, notes, and tests. Every now and when I’d emerge from doing household chores, showering, or dressing, I’d catch her at my desk, going through my binder, page by page. The first time it happened, I obviously got really irritated.

“What are you doing?” I asked, in a slightly accusing tone.

“I’m looking at your schoolwork,” she would reply back smugly. “I’m your mother. I have a right to go through your things and see what you are doing in school. I support you and provide a roof over your head.”

It was so rude and disrespectful, but in my mother’s view, it’s impossible for a parent to be rude or disrespectful to one’s child; that can only go one way, meaning only the child can be disrespectful or rude to her parent. When she’d see any test or graded material that was less than a B, she’d interrogate me with empty questions, accuse me of talking too much on the phone and spending too much time with friends instead of studying and preparing for tests. When she’d see As or anything positive, she’d say absolutely nothing — no compliments, no words of congratulations, no “I’m proud of you.” I let it go because I was clearly powerless: what was I going to do — refuse to let her go through my things? She already had spies watching me at school, reporting back exaggerated falsehoods and would call my friends behind my back to confirm that I was, in fact, actually with them and not running off with deadbeat losers and boys. She didn’t realize that I knew all of this and that my friends actually told me.

In retrospect when I look back on this, I realize even more what a massive failure in parenting this was. Instead of going through the contents of my backpack or binder, she could easily have just asked me how school was going and ask specific questions about my subjects the way the average good parent actually would, the way I hear parents of today and 20 years ago having done. We could have had what many parents try to facilitate with their children, which is trust and open communication. She clearly didn’t want this. She wanted to feel powerful, to feel like she could do whatever she wanted and could control me. She said she “had no time” because she was busy working and putting a roof over my head. Oh really? But somehow, she made the time to go through all my things and ask people to snoop on me?

The best decision I ever made was to leave home, and stay away from home. She knew no one on the East Coast who could spy on me as a student, and she sure as hell would not know anyone who could follow me all over New York City as a working adult. It’s been refreshing, particularly in the last seven years, to force my mother to realize that she has absolutely no control over me, my life, or anything that happens to me. She cannot take credit for everything I’ve accomplished, because if she does, she should also take “credit” for my brother’s untimely death.

Book worms

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I spent over three hours tonight catching up with a friend on old TV shows, books, and podcasts. We talked about our experiences with others dealing with our mixed ethnicities/backgrounds and talked about different religions and how they view the world. I spent much longer on the Zoom chat than I thought I would, but I think it’s because I just found the conversation very stimulating. It actually made me think, particularly about topics and issues I don’t constantly think about day to day. Those are the types of conversations that seem to be lacking in my usual day-to-day, whether that’s with friends, family, or colleagues. I rarely hear anything that provokes me to stop and think, to really dig into how I feel about something.

But I think, even on a more basic level, it’s really refreshing and fun just to talk about books we’ve read, why we love them, and what they mean to us. Too often, and maybe it’s partly due to the context in which we are discussing, but when people talk about books, all that is really said is whether the person liked or didn’t like the book, whether they would or would not recommend it. There’s no conversation around what the actual plot line is in more than sentence. There’s no talk about the meaning of the characters, the nuance of the characters themselves and their personalities. There’s no depth in the discussion, if you even want to call it a discussion. I hate it when friends try to give me book recommendations, and all they do is say they liked the book, think I would enjoy it, and just leave me with the title. In many of these cases, I actually did read the book and hated it. Many of these books were books I never even finished because I found them so unbearably insipid. One of them is sitting in my Kindle, 43 percent finished, but will likely never get finished because so many other books are far more interesting to me.

I now have two friends I’ve met in the last few years who are both avid readers and have similar tastes in books that I do, so it’s been fun to talk about these works with them and see what gets them going. These are the types of people I need in my life.

Two Bros pizza

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Two Bros pizza is one of New York City’s most famous. When I say that, I do not mean that it’s considered the best, the most loved, or of the highest quality ingredients, but that New Yorkers know it for being the cheapest, most reliable, and consistent slice. At no other pizza spot can you get a $1 slice of pizza, and add another dollar, a soda for the “recession lunch special.” The pizza is not quite “New York style” in that it’s not extremely thin, but it’s not too thick either, and no one would mistaken it for deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. The tomato sauce is passable, the cheese is okay. The ingredients are fine. The pizza can easily and frugally satisfy a pizza craving a city known for pizza.

Chris had a pizza craving on Friday, so we decided to get Two Bros pizza delivered from the limited number of pizza places that would deliver to us. He wasn’t sure how large they would be, so he ordered two. Two massive pizzas were delivered to our front door, which was likely enough for about 8-10 people to eat. It was really overwhelming to open the boxes and see the large mushroom pizza and the large meat and vegetable pizza. The pizza quality was better than I last remembered it: the meat was tasty, the sausage was spicy, the crust was chewy and slightly crisp; the mushrooms were definitely canned, though. This is what you can expect from Two Bros.