The highlight of our Saturday yesterday was going out for a long walk… and going to Sunrise Market, the nearest Japanese market to us on 41st street between 5th and Madison. We lucked out, as we read earlier in the week that almost every Asian grocery store was facing a shortage of kimchi. We got a 1-lb jar of kimchi from Sunrise, among fresh shiitake and enoki mushrooms, Japanese egg noodles, and bok choy. I could get bok choy from Whole Foods, but refuse to out of principle. Why would I want to pay that much for bok choy, the most basic Asian green vegetable that white people have come to understand and like, and as such, is jacked up in price at places like Whole Foods? Although I would have loved to get water spinach/kong Xin cai or gai lan (Chinese broccoli), those don’t seem to show up in Japanese cuisine (not to my knowledge, anyway), so Sunrise does not carry them.

It’s always the little wins each weekend going out now: being able to get kimchi and not wait in line too long. Asian vegetables – YAY! Fresh enoki mushrooms, which cannot easily be found outside of Asian markets. This is our evolving reality now.