Monthly Archives: February 2026

Bonding over the mental load of deciding what to cook

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My friend who loves to cook and experiment in the kitchen messaged me yesterday, telling me that she was inspired to finally browse Mala Market’s website after reading about this chili garlic noodle recipe she wanted to make. The special Sichuan chili flakes needed for the specific flavor of these noodles had to be from this website, the recipe insisted, so she said she would have no choice but to finally make the leap and buy from here. She remembered I originally told her about the website around this time last year, right before the stupid President Dipshit tariffs got announced. I told her I made a big order from the site right before the tariffs would be official to avoid any tariff hikes. I had zero regrets because everything I got was extremely high quality and made all of our stomachs happier.

She said she felt like she had fallen into a rabbit hole with Mala Market. She would browse a page looking for one thing and then eventually want to buy five other things that were linked to that page. “There’s too many things I want to make!” my friend told me, laughing. “How do you decide what to make and when? And then so there are many MORE things to try out and make!”

“The mental load of deciding what to make, when, is real,” I lamented to her, also laughing. “This is a real struggle every day!”

“I think you’re the only person I know who understands this who I can talk about it with,” she confessed. “Whenever I tell this to other people, they look at me like I’m crazy.”

“And that’s why we were meant to be,” I responded back.

I still don’t know how or why it took me until November 2023 to find a friend like this, but these types of conversations always make my heart feel warm. She’s like my kitchen sister, if something like that even exists.

The new year: A time to declutter — starting with the kitchen

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After acquiring several new kitchen items, I realized that it was time to take a long, hard look at everything my kitchen had and see where I could start culling items. Given I have new baking pieces, I decided to give away one of my rectangular glass baking pans. I stared at it for a little bit: I bought this in a set with a larger glass baking pan from Kmart at Astor Place (RIP to that Kmart!); it was one of the very first kitchen items I had purchased when I moved into my Elmhurst, Queens, apartment during the summer of 2008. That summer, I also purchased two cheap but sturdy metal loaf pans and a nine-inch shallow cake pan from Kmart, as well. One of the loaf pans and the cake pan have been wearing; I knew the time had come to finally recycle them. I got 17.5 years of use out of these items, so they had lived a good life.

I posted the glass pan on my local Buy-Nothing group, as well as several like-new knives with knife guards. I didn’t realize how popular these items would be. So many people were in need of baking pans and knives! Or maybe it’s just so cold right now in New York that all people can do to keep warm in their apartments is to cook! I was able to get rid of them all quite quickly – far quicker than I had imagined.

I hope they go to good homes and get used often. It’s in these moments that I really embrace Buy-Nothing, our circular economy: One woman’s trash is another man’s riches. There’s no reason for me to hoard things that I will be unlikely to ever use again. So I’m happy to get these items put to use!

The growing Le Creuset collection

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I am now 40 years, two weeks old. For most of my life, I’ve looked longingly and with a bit of foam at the corner of my mouth at Le Creuset and Staub bake and cookware — you know, those glorious enameled cast iron dutch ovens, pots, and stone bakeware, all handmade in France, that you always see in fancy kitchenware sections and shops. Just the variety of bright colors would get to even the most indifferent-to-cookware people. Although I always admired them, I could never bring myself to buy even a single piece for myself. It felt like too much of an indulgence for me. I tend to be a lot more practical with kitchen items. So instead, I accepted a $35 Amazon Basics five-quart dutch oven from Chris’s aunt and uncle as an early Christmas gift in 2018 when they visited us, and I insisted to myself that I never needed Le Creuset or Staub anything. For comparison sake, a 5.5-quart Le Creuset round dutch oven currently goes for a whooping $435! So there’s clearly a massive markup there. So until this past December, I owned zero Le Creuset or Staub pieces. Hell, I bought a five-quart Staub dutch oven for our ex-nanny and never even bought myself so much as a single Le Creuset ramekin!

In December before we left for Australia, Chris presented me with an early Christmas gift: a Le Creuset 3.5-quart dual braiser and grill pan in a Marseille blue color; the grill pan also acts as a lid for the braiser. I was excited at the acquisition of this item, as it would be my very first and only Le Creuset item. I loved the color immediately. But I wasn’t sure how much I’d use it given I have most of the pots and pans that I use a lot. This braiser also seemed quite shallow at just 3.5 quarts, so other than pasta, I am still not sure what I will “braise” in it. But I knew I’d find ways to use it because after waiting almost 40 years, did you think I’d actually consider giving up my first and only Le Creuset…?!

Then we had the funny Shun knife debacle around my birthday. My friend kindly accepted the return of the eight-inch Shun knife. In its place, she got me a four-piece Le Creuset Heritage line stoneware baking set — one loaf pan, one fluted pie pan, one square baking dish, and one oval dish — all in Marseille blue to match my current braiser-grill pan duo. Of all these dishes, I will likely use the loaf pan the most since I make a decent number of loaf breads in a year. But all the dishes are sturdy, gorgeous, and heat evenly. They would all look beautiful simply as serving dishes. And they could easily reheat in different methods. I laid them all out on the dining table after opening them yesterday and just stared at them. I had the same feeling I do whenever we return from a Costco trip: I felt RICH. Once, I was poor and had no Le Creuset. And then, out of nowhere, I have (technically) six pieces! I am rich now!