Category Archives: Contemplations on New York Life

Haw mok and Thai cooking fun

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Today as part of our dinner at home, I made haw mok, also known as Thai red curry custard with fish. I’d never heard of it until I saw a video that Pailin posted on her YouTube channel, Hot Thai Kitchen, but it sounded easy enough with ingredients I either already had or could easily source, so I decided to make it. It came out tasty and had a nice presentation, as it was steamed in a cake pan on top of banana leaves, which added additional fragrance to the curry custard.

While steaming the haw mok, I realized I had come a long way with my comfort with Thai cooking. I remember when I first moved to New York and how intimidated I was by Thai cooking in general. I lived in Elmhurst at the time and was surrounded by endless delicious and fiery Thai restaurants with lots of chilies and spices. I didn’t realize then how straightforward Thai cooking could be. Now, it seems like I’m always tinkering with some Thai recipe at least once a month. My comfort with Thai cooking and ingredients has grown to a point where we almost regularly eat something Thai or Thai inspired at home. And after Chris got me a bunch of Burmese ingredients, I’ve been learning more about Burmese cooking and techniques, as well. In the last week, I’ve been reading Burma Superstar’s cookbook, which has gotten me acquainted with different ingredients I’m not used to as well as ways of cooking that are most definitely a fusion of Chinese/Southeast Asian/Indian cuisines. This makes sense given Myanmar’s geographic location. Who knows – maybe I’ll get super comfortable with Burmese ingredients, and they’ll also be regularly on rotation at home, as well.

A friend I made recently who is also really into cooking said that people like me aren’t very common — people who not only are adventurous eaters, but also actively learn about different cultures’ food and cooking techniques. To be honest, I don’t even know what I would do with a lot of my spare time if I didn’t spend it reading and learning about this stuff. Food is an important part of our lives to live (duh, you have to eat), it’s a key part of our health and well being; it’s an integral part of our cultures and identity. What else would I do with all my time outside of family, travel, and work, if I didn’t spend it thinking about food?

The times when tough love is necessary: when you make the same mistakes during your workout twice

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As long as I’ve been living in our current building, I’ve had a friendly relationship with our building gym trainer. He’s a trainer who works at multiple sites under the same building management company and also has his own personal training business. We have gotten along and had some interesting conversations over the years. Sometimes, when he has a free moment and sees I am struggling with something or could improve my form, he will stop and help me. He’s not officially my trainer; I’ve never paid him (though I did give him a Christmas tip this last year), but he’s given me endless good advice and is just an overall fun, smart, good person to have around when you’re exercising.

Currently, I’m wrapping up a strength training program via my Alo Moves app, and yesterday, the session had some kettle bell-like movements. About five years ago, I injured my lower back using kettle bells. After that incident, I decided to swear them off, and I haven’t used them since. I told our trainer about this then, and he told me it was most definitely a form issue. He showed me the movement and the parts to focus on. But I shook it off and just avoided them like the plague. Then this week, I figured since it had been a while that I could revisit the kettle bell motion. Well, I messed up once again, even after five years: I woke up this morning with a back that just… did not feel aligned, and I knew immediately what the culprit was. I wasn’t in pain, and there was no clear tweak or pinch, but I definitely felt like I was walking around with something crooked in my lower back. I did lots of stretching and twisting to try to get my back in line.

I walked into the gym this morning and told him, “I’m never using kettle bells ever again.” He gave me a concerned look, but he was in a training session with a trainee at the time. I got on a treadmill for my cardio session. Once he was done and I was near the end of my cardio session, he walked over to me and stared me dead in the eye. He snapped his fingers and motioned for me to get off the treadmill, stat.

With that fierce look in his eyes, I knew that shit was getting real. And I had a feeling that if I didn’t get off that treadmill in that instant, he would have probably stopped my machine and pulled me off.

First, he told me he knew what I was doing wrong. And when I did the kettle bell (or, well, what I thought was the kettle bell) motion, he confirmed what his suspicion was: my form was wrong. And when he observed more and touched my abs, he declared that not only was my form wrong, but I wasn’t engaging my core enough. “A kettle bell swing is a hinge, NOT a squat!” I tried again. “What did I say about the squat? No squat. HINGE. Too much bend in the knees. You need to feel this in your hamstrings. Squeeze that core. SQUEEZE. IT. I NEED THOSE HIPS MORE SOLID!” And then, if that wasn’t bad enough to identify two things I was doing wrong, he said he could tell from my hips that I was neglecting my pre-exercise glute-strengthening exercises he taught me that he insisted I had to do as a warm-up before any, any exercise moving forward. Geez, he’s like my mom; I can’t hide anything from him…

“This is not just to address an injury: this is to warm your body up so that you have a strong foundation,” he admonished me as I sheepishly admitted I hadn’t done the pre-exercises in a month. “As we approach 40, different things in our bodies just get a little weaker, and we have to give them extra love to prevent injury. You have to focus, focus, focus, engage your core, and do the pre-warm up before all else. This is for your health, your wellness. Don’t just mindlessly exercise without thought. You need to focus!”

He said we’re all guilty of mindlessly exercising, of not engaging our core, of getting lazy with warming up. But we needed to do this things even more as we get older. He’s totally right. I probably needed this scolding, this “tough love” wake-up call to call out that even if I am working out 5-6 days a week, none of that really matters if my focus is off or if my form is incorrect or if my stability is a bit wobbly. Sometimes, we really need to get back to basics to get to where we want to be. And it’s really easy to forget the basics when you’ve been exercising so regularly for decades.

Cooking mistakes happen in twos – the hot cross buns without crosses

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Since as long as I have known Chris, he has talked about how much he loves hot cross buns at Easter. He’s not a religious person at all, but he did grow up in a Christian family and with Easter traditions. And one of those traditions that exists in both Australia and the U.K. is having hot cross buns on Good Friday. These are lightly spiced, lightly sweetened fluffy bread buns that are usually filled with raisins and dried currants. They always have their unmistakable white crosses on the top. I originally always thought they were like a frosting, but I subsequently learned after reading recipes for hot cross buns that they are actually a flour-water paste that are piped on just for the appearance of a cross. Once the buns are baked, they are then slathered with a light sugar/honey/citrus glaze so that the outside has a faint sweetness.

I researched a few recipes to attempt to make this, but I wasn’t quite sure which one to go with. Chris found a recipe that claimed to be “the best” in Gourmet Traveller. It combined the famous recipes of three different well known chefs, and so I figured it would be a good one to use. Unfortunately, the explanations weren’t very clear as to “why” things had to happen, so I ended up going astray. For one, it uses instant yeast; I only had dry active yeast at home. But I’ve successfully subbed in dry active yeast on many other bread recipes, and I figured this wouldn’t be any different. That is, until I noticed that while the dough was rising, it wasn’t rising as much as I had anticipated. And I started going down a Google/ChatGPT rabbit hole, trying to figure out what I did wrong. And then I found it: milk has enzymes that tend to prevent dry active yeast from fully allowing doughs to bloom, and so it’s best to either avoid using the two together, OR to scald the milk and allow it to cool to a lukewarm temperature. The scalding would deactivate those competing enzymes.

This recipe suggested warming the milk until “lukewarm.” Nowhere did it say to heat it until scalding or why. Other hot cross bun recipes discussed this, but this one did not. I was beyond pissed.

It wasn’t a complete failure, as the yeast did not get killed and was clearly active. The buns were rising, just not as much. So I proceeded with the recipe. The second mistake I made was thinning out the flour-water paste too much for the crosses; it needs to be really thick to hold not just its shape, but also the white look of the crosses through baking at a high temperature. My crosses after piping looked fine. But once I put them in the oven, I could see immediately that the crosses were thinning out… and they eventually faded so that you could barely see them at all!

When the buns came out, they looked like what my friend called “a cross between wanting to be a cookie or a scone.” Chris looked at them and said, “What happened to the crosses? Wow, you really are godless.” But then, we both ate one each tonight, and I happily yet reluctantly admitted that the flavor was still spot on, and while the bun wasn’t as fluffy as I had hoped it would be, it was still pretty fluffy and light. It even had crispy edges and bottoms.

“Good hot cross scones!” Chris declared.

This was even more frustrating that this happened tonight after my garlic chips debacle yesterday. Mistakes in the kitchen happen in twos…

Garlic chips go awry

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About a month ago, I made garlic chips (and its delicious residual oil) for the second time ever, and without intending to sound arrogant, the chips and the oil came out perfectly. The first time I attempted this about three years ago, I burned a lot of my garlic chips and they tasted bitter; I had waited too long and let the garlic brown in the oil, at which point they will get overcooked and thus bitter. This time, I did a proportion of one bulb’s worth of garlic cloves to one-third cup of neutral oil. I heated the oil on medium heat until it got hot enough so that when a garlic piece was dropped in, it would lightly bubble. Then, I dropped all the garlic slices into the oil and let it fry for about 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally until the garlic pieces turned a faint golden color. I shut off the heat, strained the garlic chips with a fine sieve, drained the garlic oil into a mason jar. And voila, I had garlic chips and oil to add to a Thai soup called gaeng jued that I made! It was really the perfect topping and flavor accent to this soup.

Today, I figured I would double this, so I used two bulbs of garlic to two thirds cup oil. Not thinking straight and trying to save time on de-skinning the garlic cloves individually, I nuked them in the microwave for 30 seconds before adding them to the oil. And well, the extra moisture from the microwaving prevented them from ever crisping up. The rule of dropping things into hot oil and hoping they will get crispy is that you need to make sure whatever you are frying is as dry as possible. And well, I did the opposite since I was clearly not of sound mind at the time and just trying to multitask. So while the oil turned out delicious and fragrant, the garlic “chips” ended up being a huge mass of garlic mush, having absorbed too much of the oil and thus never crisping up at all.

I was really upset with myself. That took a lot of my time and energy, and I ended up with a result I was not happy with. In the end, I’ll likely throw the garlic from this mini disaster into a stir-fry, but it still upset me because I really hate it when I don’t get the result I want in the kitchen; this is when my perfectionist tendencies really come out… So I decided to try it again. And this time, I got distracted by having Kaia around, and the garlic chips got too brown and turned out bitter once again. I think the multitasking didn’t help, but I also think that scaling is just hard. As much as I’d want to double the recipe, maybe I just don’t know my stovetop well enough to scale this up, even if it’s only twice as much. I failed to get the oil temperature right — it was clearly too hot. So next time, I’m just going to stick with one bulb of garlic to one-third cup of oil, and make sure to do this when I do not have my toddler around to distract me. Hot oil needs 100 percent of my attention — sorry, Pookster.

Aziz Ansari at Radio City Music Hall tonight

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One of the greatest gifts and privileges of living in New York City is the fact that pretty much every artist and entertainer will come through here. It doesn’t matter if they were born and bred in New York or if they are coming from halfway around the world. They *will* come here. In the entertainment world, New York City is essentially the center of the universe.

When I was younger, even though my parents would never let (or pay for) me to go to concerts, I used to look at touring and concert schedules of singers and bands I liked, and I always noticed that when they would come to California, the artist would most definitely make a stop in Los Angeles, but they rarely came to San Francisco or the Bay Area. That’s changed a lot now, so more artists come through the Bay Area. But even then, I always thought — how amazing would it be to live in New York, where literally everyone goes!

Aziz Ansari was at Radio City Music Hall tonight. He no longer lives in the U.S. and actually resides in London now with his Danish wife. They got married two years ago and are trying to have kids; it was a big part of the second half of his show, being vulnerable about the “TTC” aka “trying to conceive” journey and how hard it’s been, especially given it is almost 100 percent his wife’s responsibility, and given he is currently on the road for work. He even had to have sperm samples frozen. He said he was so confident he would impregnate her their first time having unprotected sex, and lo and behold, that most definitely was not the case. And after seeing fertility doctors, they were simply told to “just keep fucking.” It’s been refreshing to have comedians and people of our generation be open about their fertility struggles. Hasan Minhaj, Ronny Chieng, and now Aziz Ansari have all spoken openly about their fertility struggles and IVF journeys. Fortunately or unfortunately, this seems to be the “new normal” for people of our generation trying to have kids and give our parents grandchildren. You really do have to “try” to have a baby, and it’s not just something that “happens” very easily anymore.

Grocery bagger’s integrity

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I was at Patel Brothers in Jackson Heights this morning picking up a few Indian grocery staples before getting some work done at a cafe and then meeting a friend for lunch in the area. At the cash register, one worker was ringing all my items up, while a second was bagging my groceries with my canvas bags. The Indian male worker who was bagging my groceries was likely in his 70s or 80s; he was short, had a bad back with his very visible hunch, and was slowly bagging each item into my first canvas bag. After all my items were rung up and I paid, I thought I would help speed things up given there was someone behind me who was about to be rung up, and we could get done quicker if we both bagged the items. The grocery bagger gazed up at me sternly but grandfatherly, shook his head and wagged his finger with a smile on his face to indicate to me that he didn’t want me bagging my items, and motioned for my second canvas bag to fill it with my items. I let him finish slowly bag up the rest of my items, thanked him, and departed. He gave me a slow smile and a wink on my way out.

I don’t know why, but on my walk over to the cafe, I kept thinking about this guy. He didn’t say anything to me; I’m not even sure if he spoke English. But what’s clear is that he took his job seriously and had a lot of integrity. He knew that if I helped bag my own items, it would have been quicker; two is always faster than one. But he really didn’t want me to do it. And it made me think about integrity. I am not sure what he did for a living before bagging groceries at Patel Brothers, but I am willing to bet that as a little boy, he didn’t dream about bagging groceries in his 70s and 80s. Yet what I also think is true is that given this is his current chosen job, he just wants to do the best possible job he can because he actually cares. And frankly, not everyone cares enough to do the best possible job they can at any job today, especially ones that are higher in pay or prestige elsewhere.

Coworking spaces in New York City are not all created equal

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Since I started using my coworking space work perk last October, I’ve only visited one coworking space, which is The Malin SoHo, just an eight-minute walk from Kaia’s school in Chinatown. It has a great location, near lots of food and shopping, and of course, its proximity to Chinatown. The space is clean, premium, with lots of lighting, healthy snacks, proper kitchen setups, a fancy coffee machine, and upscale soaps and lotions in the bathrooms and kitchens. Although initially I found the clientele a bit snobby, I’ve gotten used to the vibe there and found areas that I camp out in, so I’m pretty settled in there. Now, I go about once a week, so the staff always recognizes me.

I was planning to meet a friend for lunch today in Nomad, and I figured I’d check out a new coworking space in the area given the lunch location. I chose a space called Nomadworks, which is walking distance from Madison Square Park, Flatiron, and Koreatown. The booking fee, which my company pays but I can see, is less than half the cost of The Malin SoHo. I took a quick look at its listing on the coworking space booking app, and it seemed fine. So, I booked it on a whim the day before.

I came in and immediately felt the difference. The coworking space is essentially a bunch of open tables with outlets and monitors you can use. There’s an option for standing desks upon request. A handful of phone booths are available for private calls. The “kitchen” has no sink or fridge, though the description in the app said it had a fridge. A few bags of Doritos were at the entrance upon coming in. There’s premade drip coffee for all, which I’d never dare to have because I am 1000% sure it’s revolting. Oddly enough, there’s a variety of several loose leaf teas. There are little compostable paper bags for you to use a teaspoon to measure your tea leaves into, and then you close the bag with a drawstring on top. I used the China jade green tea, and I really think the bags gave an off flavor to my tea. I did not enjoy it and just ended up having hot water because I wanted a hot beverage, but did not want to deal with weird tea bag off-flavor or awful drip coffee.

The space also has rare rooftop access, which I will check out shortly before I leave for the day.

I texted Chris about this, and told him that at least the staff is very friendly and nice, and there’s ample natural light. He responded: “Of course they are friendly. What else do they have when they don’t even have a sink? Sounds like some shitty studio apartment in some dump.”

This type of response is one of the many reasons I truly love my husband.

Yemeni coffee houses in New York City

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Several years ago, Chris and I were walking along Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and we walked into Qahwah Coffee House. It’s a Yemeni coffee house originally from Dearborn, Michigan, and they take their coffee very, very seriously. There are endless types of beans and preparations available, and they also had delicious spiced milky tea options. The pastries and desserts on display looked sweet and appetizing, and the space was quite huge for a regular coffee shop in New York City. Since then, we’ve gone in there a number of times; they’ve also expanded and now have a location in the West Village. A few other Yemeni style coffee shops have since opened across the boroughs, and the latest one I am aware of is Haraz Coffee House. They have a location in Astoria, Queens, and a semi-new location on Spring Street in downtown Manhattan.

I went there to meet a friend on Friday for tea and dessert, and I was shocked at how big it was. There were endless seats and tables, mostly unoccupied at around 2pm. They had a really large selection of tea and coffee drinks, plus pastries and sweets. The service was fast and friendly. They had a restroom (yes!), and the Wi-Fi was complimentary. I had a quick Zoom meeting before my friend came to meet me, and we ordered the saffron adeni tea pot and the Dubai (pistachio) milk cake. The saffron tea was just like an Indian spiced chai, heavy on the saffron and cardamom, which I loved. The serving was quite generous and served beautifully on a big tray. And the milk cake was really soft, moist, bursting with pistachios and nutty goodness. My friend, who is a night owl, marveled over this place before we came, because she said that unlike most coffee shops, this spot actually stayed open until 11pm. I told her it was meant to be a Muslim meetup spot since Muslims traditionally do not drink alcohol, so bars would not be the go-to hangout spot. As we were leaving, the coffee house filled up, but it was a comfortable, clean, and fun place to hang out for a few hours. And as a bonus, I never felt like someone was going to come and rush me out.

I could definitely get used to these types of coffee spots opening all over New York. It’s nice to have a coffee shop that has ample seating and isn’t just a to-go counter.

Toddler cuteness elicits freebies and kindnesses everywhere we go

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The very rare times I encounter rude people in public, whether it’s on the streets or on the subway while with Kaia, I always quickly remind myself that those rude moments, those annoying, un-empathetic people, are the exception to the rule. The vast majority of the time, people are neutral to friendly to over the top kind. Once last week, Chris forgot to refill our OMNY card for the week, and I didn’t realize this. When I take her through the turnstiles, I usually have Kaia duck her head and go under the turnstile, and then I quickly tap to enter. But given the OMNY card wasn’t refilled, it gave me a red error message and said that I could not go through. I immediately realized the card wasn’t topped up, and given Kaia was standing all by herself on the other side of the turnstiles waiting for me, I got nervous she would run off and didn’t feel comfortable going out to look for an OMNY refill kiosk. So I just tapped my phone to pay for a swipe and entered. But that entire time, Kaia realized something was wrong. Instead of running off, she just kept peering over at me, saying several times, “What happened? What’s wrong? It’s not working.” And that whole time, a caring woman inside the station, who had observed the whole situation, lightly hovered over Kaia to protect her and make sure she did not run away from me.

Another day on the subway to school, the train was packed. Kaia wanted to sit on an open middle seat. Both men in the two surrounding seats got up and asked me to sit. I told both of them thank you, but that wasn’t necessarily, and I certainly did NOT need two seats for myself!

Another toddler tantrum occurred just a block away from our apartment earlier this week. Kaia sat on the ground and refused to walk. She said she wanted chocolate and that she was “too tired” to walk. I tried every threat and bribe I could think of over five minutes, but she would not yield. Another kind woman came up to us, clearly coming back home from work, and said hi to Kaia, and suggested that she go home with her. When she tried to pick Kaia up, Kaia screamed and yelled. But eventually, Kaia got up and started walking with me.

I guess in some ways, you could say that these total strangers, these fellow New Yorkers, are like the extended “village” that Chris, Kaia, and I have. We don’t know each other. We likely would never recognize the other if our paths crossed again. But at the end of the day, we’re all people just trying to live our lives to the best of our ability, and that means just being kind when we can to others, even if we don’t know each other. I always think of these moments when people joke or actually say that New Yorkers are rude or mean, or that people must just be out for themselves in this concrete jungle.

Today, while we were out exploring another part of Forest Hills we haven’t seen before, we popped into an Italian bakery so that Chris could try one of their hot cross buns. Like many Italian bakeries, this bakery had a huge spread of beautiful cookies that you could buy and pay for by the weight — it ranged from rainbow cookies, jam-thumb print cookies, to biscotti and the related. Kaia got excited when she saw all the cookies and declared she wanted some. Chris did not take well to this and said, “No cookies,” and walked out with his hot cross bun. Kaia was unhappy and started whining. The woman behind the counter, taking pity on Kaia, told Kaia that she could pick which cookie she liked best, and she would get one. Kaia chose the black and white checkerboard cookie, and when I reached into my wallet to pay, the woman insisted it was on the house. “It’s for sweet baby,” she insisted. “No money needed! I just want to make her happy!”

I wonder when the “toddler/young child cuteness yields free stuff” will end, and when Kaia’s freebies and constant acts of kindness on the part of strangers will end. I hope the latter never ends for her, regardless of her age or the chubbiness of her face.

“Startling” laugh

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I was out at a Yemeni cafe having saffron adeni tea and Dubai milk cake with a friend, when out of nowhere she said that she “has gotten used to” my laugh. I wasn’t sure what to say about this and waited for her to continue. “When I first met you and heard it, I found it a bit startling,” she said. “But now it just blends in and I anticipate it now!” I kind of chuckled at this when she said it because I wasn’t sure whether she was saying a good thing or a bad thing.

I told her that I’ve always had a loud laugh, and that in general, people either love or hate it, and if they hate it, chances are high that we won’t get along or be friends. I’m not really one of those Asian women who, stereotypically as Chris always half jokes, “covers their mouth and goes ‘heeheehee!'” really lightly. People should live their lives as their full selves without abandon. And if you cannot laugh comfortably or fully, I”m not really sure you are fun enough for me to want to be around.

This comment, for some reason, reminded me of my one of my best friends from childhood, who is now living here in New York City. I think that if there is just one thing I love about her, aside from her general personality, it’s her laugh. When she is really laughing and finds something extremely funny, her laugh is the loudest, most boisterous thing in the world. She has a laugh that almost makes you want to laugh along with her, even if you don’t find said topic funny. And so when we’re together laughing nonstop about something, I always notice that there is at least one or two tables around us (assuming we’re at a restaurant or bar) that will turn around and look at us. I’ve never gotten self conscious about it or seen that as a way to police us. If anything, I’ve always looked at it as: we’re just here having a good time. And if that bothers you in some way, then the problem is clearly you and not us. Who gets annoyed at other people having a good time in their own respective space?