Granola vs. muesli vs. Bircher muesli

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Many many moons ago, or about 13 years ago, Chris was trying to get me up to speed on differences in food and speech between Australian and American culture. One of the things he taught me at the time, which I have since realized is factually incorrect, is that what Americans call “granola,” Australians and British people call “muesli.” Initially, given I had no reason to think he was wrong, I believed him. But then when going down the grocery aisle at a Cole’s or Woolworth’s in Australia, I thought it was odd that all the things labeled “muesli” just looked like a bunch of raw oats with some nuts and dried fruit mixed in. There’s no way that Australians actually ate raw oats on the regular, right? The body doesn’t digest raw oats as easily as cooked oats, so this just seemed odd to me.

My suspicions were later confirmed. As ChatGPT sums it up, these are the key differences between granola and muesli: At a high level, granola is baked, crunchy, and sweet. Muesli is raw, softer, and less sweet. They are not the same thing.

In more detail: granola is baked and made crunchy with oil and sweeteners like maple syrup or honey. People like me who enjoy (homemade) granola love the large crunchy chunks or clusters. There’s pretty much always some combination of oats, nuts and seeds in it. And it’s usually eaten with yogurt or milk in cereal. Sometimes, you can even just snack on it by hand as you would chips. Muesli, on the other hand, is always raw, soft/chewy when soaked with a loose texture, with little to no added sugar. The base is usually a combination of oats, nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Muesli usually soaked overnight in milk/yogurt and eaten cold.

The concept of muesli comes from Bircher muesli, which was first created in Switzerland by Dr. Bircher-Benner. Bircher muesli has a lot in common with overnight oats, but tends to be heavier the emphasis on adding nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and also including yogurt (and sometimes even sweetened condensed milk!) for added creaminess and mouthfeel. During the pandemic, I ate a lot of overnight oats, but I eventually got bored of it. When I thought about eating a little breakfast on weekdays again in the last month (I normally don’t eat breakfast on weekdays), I thought about a Bircher muesli recipe I found on the Wall Street Journal (never thought I’d get a recipe recommendation from there!) that sounded good. I changed it up a bit and made a big batch for breakfast this week. And it was really satisfying and definitely kept me quite full and satisfied. This is what the base looks like (for 6-8 servings). The base is soaked overnight to allow the oats to “cook”:

1 C rolled oats
1/4 C unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 C raw cashews, chopped, toasted
1/2 C raw almonds, chopped, toasted

1/4 C pumpkin seeds, toasted
1/4 C ground flaxseeds
1/4 C chia seeds
6 Medjool dates, pitted and diced
1/4 C raisins or dried cranberries/cherries
1 Tbsp honey
3.5 C cow, almond, or oat milk
1 C whole milk yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
 
To add right before serving:
2 firm pears, cored and shredded with skin on
Fresh fruit, such as blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, or sliced plums

The ingredient I remember I’ve neglected for a while has been chia seeds. I’ve had a weird relationship with chia seeds. Lots of people love to add them to smoothies, but I absolutely hate them in smoothies. They stick to and expand in liquid, and they get physically stuck in everything: blender jar, blades, the sides of the kitchen sink, MY MOUTH. But I realize that in Bircher muesli, they are perfect because they create a pudding-like consistency when mixed with yogurt and milk. I’m definitely going to keep making this. Though I’ll be honest and reveal that I do something a bit sacrilege with my Bircher muesli: I do not eat it cold the way you are supposed to, as I hate cold oats. I always warm my bowl up a little.

The magic of tomato onion masala is re-discovered once again! And the lesson of not ignoring the tried-and-true classics

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Years ago when I started getting into Indian cooking, I kept reading about “onion masala” or “tomato onion masala” on Indian cooking blogs and was wondering what it was. It was a “hack” to expedite Indian cooking, which is notoriously complex given the number of spices and ingredients the average dish uses. With some upfront work, as in, stewing down tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and various spices, you can easily portion out 1/4-1/2 cup sized pucks, store in your freezer, and take a few pucks out every time you want to whip up an Indian dish that used tomato and onion in its base. I was obsessed with this idea, and I always kept frozen portions of tomato onion masala in our freezer. It allowed us to have relatively quick, home cooked, from-scratch meals just the day after coming back from many long-haul, international trips, when there was barely anything fresh in our fridge. I felt pretty proud of myself for embracing this. It was healthy, economical, and delicious eating.

After years of having the tomato onion masala easily on hand in the freezer, though, I started getting bored of it. I wanted to experiment with other spices and flavors. Eventually, my pre-portioned tomato onion masala went neglected in the bottom of my freezer bin. But then after filling our freezer to the brim a bit too much recently, I re-discovered my frozen masala and decided I didn’t want to let it get freezer burn and had to use it up. During our Connecticut long weekend, we stopped at Apna Bazaar and picked up a number of fresh Indian ingredients and beans, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to use up my tomato onion masala.

I took out five pucks of 1/4-cup portions of the tomato onion masala from the freezer today after dinner and thawed it a bit (in a memorable moment when I had the frozen pucks in a bowl on the kitchen counter, Chris was confused as to what they were. So he asked, “What are these balls?”). I set it over the stove with some butter, a few spices, salt, and blended some “cashew cream” (cashews plus water) into it. Then, I tossed in cubed paneer from Apna Bazaar and added another random small puck of frozen heavy cream I still had (who knows from when…). After simmering it for a few minutes, I tasted it. And… it was delicious. It tasted perfect! Not to brag, but it really tasted restaurant quality and had a really sumptuous mouth feel. I felt a bit guilty that I neglected this tomato onion masala that I’d previously spent so much time making in advance for future quick-cook meals. But in that moment, I vowed to myself that I would never take for granted the magic of pre-made tomato onion masala ever again. It always has a place in my heart and freezer.

Elementary school applications, tiger parenting, and the desire to “have a happy child”

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Years ago, when the “tiger mom” book was making lots of media headlines, I thought that I might be a Tiger Mom Lite. I’d push my child to be the best that they could be within the bounds of what they actually enjoyed. I’d demand obedience (to a limit) and self-discipline. I’d expect them to do house chores, homework, and extracurriculars. And hopefully all that would culminate in their developing into a good citizen of society and the world — growing into an adult who would be intelligent, curious, empathetic, disciplined, globally minded, and passionate.

Fast forward years later, after a year of futilely trying to conceive, IUI, IVF, and finally the birth of Kaia Pookie, and I think I’ve softened quite a bit. I’m no where as strict as I thought I would be as a parent. I’m a lot more gentle than I ever imagined. And all I can think about is how not to continue intergenerational, “inherited” trauma in her. In my mind, I just want her to be safe, healthy, and happy.

I think about this during the recent weeks’ worth of elementary school tours, open houses, and parent outreaches and conversations. And all these parents seem to say the same thing: we want our kids to be happy and thrive in their environments. But then the big question when choosing a school is: which environment is best for my child to optimize their happiness and learning?

I recently finished reading this culinary memoir called How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert. Bonny’s father survived near-starvation during the Holocaust in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and this legacy of hunger impacts the family’s relationship to food. The book, though repetitive and slightly irrelevant tangents at times, shows how trauma can continue across generations even when the older generations who directly experienced trauma try so hard to shield it from their offspring. In Bonny’s case, her father steered as clear as possible from sharing vivid details of his struggle and survival during the Holocaust, insisting that she and her sisters not worry or think about it. He constantly says over and over to the girls that there’s no need to know about all that in the past. “Just be happy. I want you to be happy.” But the anxiety from not knowing the details but being aware of their father’s Holocaust experience constantly echoes in their lives and causes Bonny an internal instability that she cannot shake. We spend most of the book navigating this journey, which leads her… right back to Poland.

I suppose the reason I thought about this book during this elementary school application process is that it’s not really enough, at the end of the day, to focus on our child’s happiness, as made evident in Bonny’s case with her dad. What does “happiness” mean to kids at each stage of development, anyway? At times, it can seem like an empty, meaningless word. Something actually needs to drive them internally for them to move forward. And all we can do, as their parents, is to be the one to help them navigate through all their options and choose what we think is best for them as individuals.

That feels very difficult (and vexing) right now.

Cooking with chanterelles – an autumn luxury and privilege

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I love mushrooms. They are one of my favorite foods on earth. The more irregular and funny looking they are, the more likely I am enamored by them and just want to find ways to cook with them and get them in my belly. Over the years, I’ve had so many delicious varieties of mushrooms. In Asian cooking, shiitake and enoki mushrooms are extremely common. Since graduating from college, I’ve been buying king oyster and trumpet mushrooms more regularly. And while I am obsessed with morel mushrooms, they are almost impossible to find…and when you do, quite cost prohibitive.

One mushroom that had remained on the “out of reach” list for ages were chanterelles, a rare, delicate, and difficult to cultivate mushroom. They cannot be commercially cultivated and can only be grown wild, thriving on tree roots. Chanterelle mushrooms form symbiotic, mycorrhizal relationships with tree roots in a way that is so complex that humans still have not figured out how to reproduce this in a controlled farm environment. And thus, every chanterelle mushroom anyone buys has been foraged by hand in the wild and not farmed. They also have a very short season that is usually late summer to fall, and their yield heavily depends on rainfall, temperature, and soil quality being at optimal levels.

Given this, it’s been pretty usual that if I go to Whole Foods or a fancier grocery store (regular grocery stores will rarely have chanterelles!) around September to October each year that I will see chanterelles being sold for anywhere from $28-50 per pound. While I have loved them and have enjoyed them in a couple tasting menus we’d indulged in, I never had the pleasure of cooking with them myself until during the pandemic. In 2020, we spotted them at a Costco for about $12-13/pound, and I obviously pounced on it. And then once again during our Costco trip this past Sunday, I got two pounds of them for the same cost. Sure, they’re expensive and are priced like fancy meat even at this far-cheaper price, but to me, chanterelles are worth it as a rare autumn treat.

Today, I made my chanterelles two ways: I seared and tossed them into a cashew-cream based sauce with short pasta, along with cannellini beans and baby bella mushrooms for extra protein and mushroominess; and for something I hadn’t previously done but wanted to do, I seared them and tossed fresh green herbs into them, adding them atop crusty Breadivore bordelaise sourdough and a generous pat of salted French butter. It was simple, delicious goodness. But once I finished cooking my two pounds of chanterelles down and looked at my final dishes, I looked down and sadly noted how much they shrank down in volume, just like all my greens, into just a teeny tiny fraction of what I originally started with. This is often why when people ask me how I can possibly eat all of <name whatever squash, vegetable, bag of greens at Costco>, I tell them that it always cooks down to far, far less than what you’d think. So while it looks like we bought a lot, we”ll likely get through it in just two meals each!

Lyman Orchards Corn Maze and a bi-annual Costco pitstop

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I don’t recall ever doing a corn maze during the fall growing up. I remember going to pumpkin patches, but the only corn maze I ever remember going to was out in Long Island in 2011 with some friends — at night. That corn maze was supposed to be spooky and “haunted,” and the only lights we had were via flashlights we were given or our own phones. Chris brought us to Lyman Orchards today in Middlefield, CT, for a corn maze and an apple stop. The theme was very fitting for us given what we’d recently eaten: it was Connecticut pizza themed! Kaia loved running through the corn maze and insisted on always going ahead of us and being first. She would also always squeal with high pitched delight every time she saw a corn on the cob that had its kernels peeking out. It was a really fun fall activity, and made even more fun by watching how happy and engaged Kaia was the whole time. Although I didn’t have a “bad” childhood, when I look at her and see how happy she is with all the experiences we’ve given her, it almost makes me relive my own childhood again just seeing how much joy she is experiencing. I love seeing her get excited about the leaves, the different seasons, and the different seasonal activities.

And of course, one last stop before we headed back to New York was at Costco! I loved the Costco experience in South Windsor, CT. Even though it was a Sunday, it wasn’t even remotely crowded. It actually felt quite quiet. There were barely any lines at checkout. The sample stations were quiet and not bombarded by endless hoards. The restroom was an easy in and out for us. And when we had a little lunch at the Costco food court, Chris easily got us a table and seats.

Here are some of the biggest highlights of what we discovered today:

Tim Tams (Australian formulation — WITH GOLDEN SYRUP ): Chris was very excited to see these, and of course, he added it to our cart to “tide him over” longer until he gets his Arnott’s haul replenished.

Kirkland Signature Belgian Chocolate Biscuit Cookie Tin: Chris’s favorite and present to himself each fall Costco trip we go on. 🙂

A WHOLE DUCK: For just over $16 grown at a farm in Indiana. I may finally use those duck class skills I learned a few years ago and get to work!

Wild chanterelle mushrooms: We haven’t scored these since the pandemic era. Chanterelles tend to grow in the fall and have a subtle but delicious earthy flavor. When they are in peak, they can go for anywhere from $28-50/pound, which is too much for me to stomach. I got two pounds of these babies today for $12.99/pound weeeee.

Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean Paste: This brand always comes up in food forums I’m in where professional pastry chefs discuss products they love and absolutely need. I figured I’d never buy it because it was so expensive. But then Chris spotted it at Costco next to the vanilla extract and vanilla beans. I initially skimmed it over because I didn’t see the brand name. But when I did, I did a double take and scrutinized it to death, then Googled it to make sure this was the same product. A 10-ounce bottle of this magic was $19.99. For pricing reference, if you buy an 8-ounce bottle on Williams-Sonoma, it’s currently going for $47.95. What a deal! It’s best to use this product for baked goods where the vanilla flavor really needs to shine… and where you want to “see” the vanilla bean flecks.

Mrs. Meyers Hand Soap Combo Pack: Okay, so I’m kind of like Martha Stewart in that I do really like certain hand soaps over others, and Mrs. Meyers never fails. I almost got the same holiday scented set as last year until we came across the pack that includes the Tomato Vine scent, which I’d been curious about for a while because I’d read it had a near cult following!

We also got some good deals for clothes for Pookster, including a four-piece rainbow top and bottom set, a Minnie Mouse sweater, top, and pants set. And as the clothing section at Costco just keeps getting better and better, we also found some nice onesies that were Winnie the Pooh and Simba themed for some recent babies who have joined the family. It was a massive Costco haul this time, but I have zero doubt everything we got will go into good use (or into our bellies!).

More autumn leaves, Mark Twain House and Museum, and skeletons galore

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I’ve never been a big Halloween person. When I was young, I never got to have fun or elaborate costumes. I basically was a pumpkin for years on end because my parents didn’t care for Halloween, nor did they want to pay for us to have different costumes every year. But while I don’t really care for dressing up myself, I do love seeing other people’s Halloween decorations in front of their homes. In New York, we mostly see it when we go to the outer boroughs. Or in Manhattan, you can see a good amount of Halloween decorations at brownstones on the Upper West and Upper East Sides.

This trip, we’ve already seen endless massively large skeletons everywhere. Skeletons as tall as twenty feet have towered over people’s lawns. At March Farm where we stopped by for some apple cider donuts and photos so Kaia could frolic amongst the pumpkins, there was a huge tractor that had “run over” a skeleton. While we pointed this out to Kaia, she did not seem to mind much, as she was enjoying nibbling away at her first apple cider donut that she did not have to share.

During our coffee stop this morning before the Mark Twain House and Museum tour, we parked next to a car that had a skeleton in the front passenger seat. He had both his hands up… as well as his two middle fingers up! The Mark Twain House and Museum tour was fun and informative, though I will say that while the inside was quite elaborate that I enjoyed walking around its grounds just as much given all the fall foliage. It’s like the house was made to be flanked by these gorgeous autumn colors. The tour also kind of made me want to read Huckleberry Finn again… Maybe this time if I read it, I’ll do the audio version.

Maybe next year when Kaia has better fine motor skills, I’ll actually go get us a pumpkin that we can carve and light up — it will be Kaia’s first jack-o-lantern. Though I also did not do much of this growing up, when I’ve done this with friends or at work festivities, this has always been really fun and creative. Plus, there are so many tools available now that make pumpkin carving safe. It wouldn’t be like what my dad did when we were kids — he used an extremely dull (AND DANGEROUS) chef’s knife to cut poorly shaped triangles and squares to make a jack-o-lantern!

Long weekend in Connecticut for leaf peeping means tasty New England stops along the way

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Since Kaia’s first fall with us as a baby in October 2022, we’ve been doing a fall leaf peeping trip somewhere around the Northeast of the U.S. by car. The first year, we were based in Wilmington, Delaware. In 2023, we went to Springfield, Massachusetts, but unfortunately were a little too early given global warming; most of the trees were still pretty green. Then last year, we went upstate to Albany, New York, and the surrounds. We’ve found that we need to delay this trip to late October to see more of the vibrant autumn foliage. This trip was definitely timed perfectly: everywhere we drove, we saw so many brilliant shades of orange, goldenrod, and crimson.

Along the way, we stopped in Darien, Connecticut, to pick up some goodies from Flour Water Salt Bread, a local Connecticut bakery known for making every single item they have out of sourdough. When we popped in, I was pleasantly surprised to see generous baskets laid out on their counter of samples: vegan chocolate olive oil cake, pumpkin snickerdoodle, coffee cake, and chocolate chip cookie. This is nearly unheard of in New York City; if you want a sample, you can go ahead and fork over $5-9 for your desired pastry and “sample it” that way! Even their cookies are made with sourdough, which was quite shocking to me; I don’t know when the last time, if ever, I’d had a cookie made from sourdough! We settled on their sun-dried tomato focaccia (which Kaia picked almost all of the tomatoes off of to eat and left just the bread for us…), their salted caramel kouign amann, and a hefty loaf of their classic sourdough bread (made with ten percent upstate New York freshly milled flour).

After Flour Water Salt, we headed further north to New Haven, where we had lunch at Zuppardi’s Apizza. It is one of the well known New Haven pizza institutions, and it definitely lived up to its reputation: we had their signature tomato sauce pizza with mushrooms and homemade fennel sausage, plus their delicious white clam pizza. While I remember the other New Haven pizzas having a crispy and chewy crust, Zuppardi’s definitely seems to be more on the crispy, crunchy side, which I had no problem with and really enjoyed. I did notice that there did seem to be more sand residue on these clams than at Modern, which we went to last spring with Chris’s parents, but I guess that’s the “cost” of eating clams on white pizza.

It seems weird to say this, especially as someone who lives in New York City and loves New York City pizza, but in this very moment, white clam pizza is definitely my favorite pizza. Most people think of New York as the pizza capital of the U.S., but I may have to agree with a lot of these publications that say that maybe the real pizza capital of the U.S. is actually Connecticut! It’s rare to find white clam pizza in New York City, and if you do, it will inevitably be quite pricy. So while we are here, I’m thrilled to indulge and get my clams on pizza fix.

Jeans with belt loops for my very verbal and demanding toddler

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As Kaia has gotten older and more verbal, she’s been expressing more of her wants in terms of actual things she wants. In recent weeks, she has explicitly says she wants a Hello Kitty pink dress with sparkles, a birthday hat (I’m assuming it’s the cone type?), a play kitchen (hmmmmm, I am not sure about this one– we have a real kitchen. Is this really necessary?!), and new ice cream hair clips. In addition, she’s actually said for months that she wants to wear jeans. Earlier in the summer, I made the mistake of going to Uniqlo, being a practical toddler mom, and getting her faux jeans, as in, “jeans” that did not have an actual zipper, fly, or belt loops, but were simply denim in appearance with an elastic waist. When I told her I got her jeans and unveiled them, she was not happy. Her disappointment was written all over her face.

“But it doesn’t have belt loops!” Kaia cried, staring at her new “jeans” with the most horrified look on her face.

Yep, that was a failure. She ended up still wearing them fairly often (because we made her and had already removed the tags). But alas, I’ll have to give them away now because they were already running short back then for 4T (how the hell did this happen at Uniqlo?) and now, they are basically like cropped pants on her. This is definitely not good living in a place like New York City where we experience four seasons. And yes, we are currently in fall and quickly transitioning into winter very soon.

So as I usually do for her once a year, I did some online shopping this month with all the seasonal fall sales and got her a few things she needed. And I happened to find jeans with a “faux fly” and REAL belt loops, so I ordered them. And when they arrive, we shall see very soon if they live up to her standard of what “jeans” should be!

(One of) the most enjoyable conversation topics: cross-cultural differences

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I love talking about food, culture, travel, books, food, cooking, and more food. But when I think of the best and most interesting conversations I’ve had with people I am just getting to know, one of the most exciting ones is most definitely about cross-cultural differences. Although I have not always been passionate and loved what I have done for a living, I know I’ve been really lucky and privileged to meet a lot of genuine, kind-hearted, and truly good people in the last 17-plus years of full-time work. I mean, work life is how I met the love of my life — my fuzzball Chris. And it’s also how I’ve met some people I am lucky to still call friends today. What has also been lucky is that although all the companies I’ve worked for have been American companies, the last two have had global offices, so I’ve been able to meet people who were born, raised, and live in other countries that I previously had known little about.

I met up with a friend and former colleague from my last company who happened to be in town from Amsterdam today. I hadn’t seen him since pre-pandemic — in November 2019 in Amsterdam, so almost exactly six years ago. This was before COVID-19, before the world shut down, before he got married and had two kids, before I got laid off, started a new job, and then went through IVF and had Kaia Pookie. We did the best we could to cover what’s happened between our respective lives in the last six years since we saw each other, though we had loosely kept in touch over Whatsapp throughout these years. He told me that while he would be in Manhattan, he was also meeting up with another friend he’d made recently, an American he met while in Uzbekistan last month. This person was very friendly, and they got along really well during their travels. And he had said to him that if he would ever come to New York that he’d like to meet up with him. And so he figured it wouldn’t hurt to message him to ask because he really did plan on coming.

“So, I never know what to think of Americans when they say things like that because most of you don’t mean what you say,” my friend started. “If a Dutch person says they want to meet with you while you are in town, they definitely mean it. I’m very direct in that sense, as Dutch directness is a real thing. But Americans? Americans say all kinds of shit they don’t mean, and then I’m left wondering if they really mean their offer!”

I laughed at this because I know exactly what he means. People here always say stuff they never follow through on: “Please keep in touch (this is actually code for: let me stalk you silently on social media/LinkedIn especially so I can see how you are doing personally/professionally, but I have zero desire to interact directly with you live).” “Please reach out when you are in town, and we can grab coffee.” “Let’s get lunch when you’re around!” Personally, I’ve messaged former colleagues and people I thought were work friends when I’ve been where they are. And when it came to making plans, a number of them have just not responded or responded initially, and then when it came to setting a firm date and time, stopped replying. And that’s when I realized, okay, I made the effort, but they don’t want to make the effort, and therefore, I’m not going to try anymore. It is what it is; I accept it, stop thinking about it, and move on.

I told him that at this point, I think he knows me better than to assume I am full of shit – this is where I am not like the American stereotype. If I say I want to see you, I definitely do want to see you. I will never suggest catching up with someone I am either indifferent to or flat out do not like.

He grinned. “I know, and that’s why I messaged you to see if you wanted to have a meal! Plus, I knew you’d recommend a good place because you know food!”

I think American culture could improve quite a bit by being more direct the way Dutch people are. At work, it can be especially painful. One of the things (of a long, endless list) I hate the most about American work culture is excessive politeness and small talk because then you are left wondering if they are asking because they genuinely care, or if they are just doing all this to put on a polite front to gain favor with you. But I suppose that is the fun in working with global organizations — learning to navigate all these nuances and making sense of it.

Third time to Staten Island this year

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I shifted a bunch of meetings today so that I could go to my friend’s place in Staten Island and work remotely while also cooking for her. She’s now 2.5 months postpartum; it’s crazy how the time flies. Her baby has increased his weight by almost 50 percent and is very responsive now. My friend is pretty much healed from her birth and getting around a bit more. She’s now returned to cooking, something she enjoys, and is also proactively trying to get outside at least once a day for a walk and fresh air. It’s been good to see her healing and looking and sounding more like herself.

I will admit, though, that while I am happy to go all around New York City and explore different neighborhoods, it’s not necessarily the easiest or most convenient for me to get all the way out to her neighborhood in Staten Island. It is not subway accessible; I either need to take an express bus (which is an extra cost on top of an OMNY card) or the ferry; then, I need to either get picked up by her fiance or take an Uber/Lyft to and from her place. Staten Island is not public transportation friendly at all; it really requires you to own a car and drive everywhere, just like the suburbs. It is the least New York City-like of all five boroughs. While I enjoy the one-off rides on the ferry and seeing Manhattan drift away, plus views of the Statue of Liberty, I am not a fan of her being this far away and removed from everything she loves about New York. But I suck it up because it’s her choice to be there. This is my second time visiting her in Staten Island since she gave birth. I saw her once in the hospital after birth in Manhattan.

She was chatting with me about a bunch of her “good” or “close” friends while I was over today. Since she brought them up, I asked her if any of them (or any other friend, for that matter) had come to visit her since I was last over last month. The response was negative. I was her only friend who had come. The only other people who had been over were Joe’s family plus her own mom. I just found this really surprising. Usually, friends would love to come see their friend after giving birth and just to see the baby. I definitely don’t expect any of her friends to come cook and clean for her, but I’d at least think someone would have come to see her at least once. I am sure it has to do with distance given where she is located. People are lazy in general and don’t like to make huge efforts for others unless there is some incentive for them.

Though she has been my friend for almost thirty years, I don’t see her as just my friend; to me, she is my chosen family, my created and chosen “urban tribe” that I read about in my college sociology class. I treat her the way I would treat my own family members. And I know she sees me the same way. We are always bonded even without blood. And so I am happy to cook for her and stuff her face with browned butter pumpkin cookies and Chinese chicken wine soup. And unlike a lot of other friends I have, she is always, always outwardly and obviously grateful for even the littlest things I do for her. And that’s one of the many reasons I adore her.