I discovered the joys of what a lamington were quite late. Chris had waxed on and on and on about how delicious these fluffy blocks of vanilla sponge cake, coated in chocolate and rolled in dried coconut flakes were. The best ones, he explained, are filled with a nice jam, usually raspberry, and some are even filled with jam AND cream. You could get basic ones from Cole’s or another grocery store, but the best ones always came from local bakeries in Australia.

Unfortunately, the very first one I had was at a Pie Face in Melbourne. It was not filled with anything. It just seemed like a big slice of vanilla cake coated in chocolate and coconut, which really was not that exciting to me. It was just vanilla sponge inside – what’s the big deal? I didn’t get the hype and immediately wrote the experience off.

But then, Chris discovered Bushwick Hot Bread, owned by an Aussie chef who works at Eleven Madison Park. Given the pandemic, she’s out of work, so she’s started a side hustle preparing Aussie treats and delivering them on Sundays. He ordered her lamingtons, and it was love at first bite: it was super moist, almost to the point where it felt like it was SOAKED in liquid, and the jam on the inside was fruity and delicious. I loved everything about it. We have since ordered many more, in addition to her other baked goods, as well, and none have disappointed.

Then, I noticed while at Super Moon Bakehouse this past Friday that they had their own rendition of a lamington that was filled with jam AND cream, double the size of Bushwick Hot Bread’s. So I bought one and brought it home to compare side by side. The vanilla sponge was good, but nowhere as moist as Bushwick’s. And the cream layer was almost triple the amount of the jam to the point where it overpowered the jam! In many bites, I could not even taste the jam. One glance at the innards after I cut into it, and the Australian in Chris went nuts. “No, I can tell it’s not as good because the ratio of cream to jam is completely off!” he exclaimed.

We all have strong opinions on something, and when it comes to Aussie treats, Chris lets it all out. Bushwick Hot Bread won easily.

Today, Chris and I were exploring Williamsburg and decided to meet up with my friend and her boyfriend. When I think about the meetup, it was pretty normal and fun the way it usually is, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking about how funny it is that we’re all meeting up, pretending not to acknowledge the elephant in the room: that my friend is in the process of telling her boyfriend that she wants to end their nearly 10-year-long relationship.

Ending a relationship with someone you’ve been with that long is really hard, and it’s even harder when you live with the person. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, or if she’s really going to end this, as the thoughts have been in progress for her for over a year now. But I suppose what I am most concerned about is that she will just jump right into another relationship with someone who doesn’t completely value her for what she is and doesn’t communicate openly yet again. It seems to be a pattern in her relationships whether she’s aware of it or not.

If they do break up, I will miss him. I like his no-nonsense, no-bullshit attitude and commentary. I also like that he just says it as it is and doesn’t care to be PC about anything.

During our Dumbo food exploration yesterday, one spot we visited that I’d been wanting to come to for a long time was Almondine Bakery. Obviously, if you go to a bakery that has “almond” in the name, you should definitely order their almond goods, so we got one almond croissant to share (likely the most expensive croissant I’ve ever purchased in my LIFE) and one hot Varlhona chocolate.

This was likely the most decadent and almond-filled almond croissant I’d ever tasted. It was super crunchy on the top, a little flaky, and it just EXPLODED with pureed almond filling. I could not believe how much almond filling was inside. Oftentimes, I am wary of almond croissants because places will literally just sprinkle some sliced almonds on the top and call it a day, but NOT here. Here, I could perhaps argue that there was more almond filling than there was buttery and flaky croissant outside! Because of how much filling it had, the croissant did not shatter on contact with my teeth the way a non-filled croissant would, but I’m happy to take the almond filling and give away some of the flakiness. That was a truly epic croissant experience, and I’m not sure it can be topped.

This afternoon, we explored the Dumbo area of Brooklyn before walking across the Manhattan Bridge to Chinatown for our monthly massage, food pickup, and grocery shopping. While walking across the bridge, it suddenly dawned on me that although I cannot count the times I’ve walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, this was actually my first time walking across the Manhattan Bridge. And well, it’s easy to understand that: the Manhattan Bridge is extremely loud not just because of the car traffic, but also due to the subway trains that are running across it alongside the walking and biking lanes. So, it’s not the most leisurely walk, but hey, when you need to get from point A to B and want to walk it out, this is the way to go. It definitely gave a different perspective of Brooklyn and Manhattan. And while walking across, we noticed a baseball field where someone had scrawled the word “HOPE” in capital letters across it. Hope. Well, we need some more of that now. Hope for the end of this pandemic; hope for the end of police brutality against Black lives. Hope for the end of anti-Asian racism. Hope for the end of racism period.

I took a couple of calls outside on my phone today because it was so warm out. I couldn’t believe it: it was 68 degrees F and sunny today! I wore a light coat and a scarf, and by the end of my walk, it was too warm. It felt so good to be outside and have the sun on my face… instead of being stuck in my apartment in front of a computer monitor.

This winter felt especially long and annoying. It didn’t help that COVID has been lingering and making us feel more isolated, like all we do is spend our time at home in front of screens, whether that screen is our TV, computer, or phone. It will be nice to be outside more and not have to worry about bundling up, slipping on ice, or whether we need to wear hats or gloves.

Since we both took Friday off and were out and about in Queens and at Costco, Chris felt very unmotivated to go out anywhere on Saturday. So I ended up spending some time on Saturday afternoon doing some of my own errands, from dropping off clothing donations, getting my sunglasses repaired, to stopping by Sur La Table to see if they had the Global knives I wanted to test out. The experience I had asking about knives, the craftsmanship, and the feel/grip was like night and day from the experience I had at Williams Sonoma.

Williams Sonoma is basically like the bullshit big-box “luxury” store that rarely has sales, and its sales people really know little to nothing about their products, so they are basically useless to you when you have real cooking questions. And when you walk in and they ask if you need help, they don’t really have any real knowledge in the items they sell to truly help you; they just pretend to “help” you by asking the most basic questions in the world that a five-year-old might ask you. I asked to test out a couple of their Global knives, and they had me try out one knife. They asked no questions in regards to what I was looking for and what I might need. It was a no-frills experience and the person who “helped” me really did absolutely nothing other than open a locked cabinet for me.

At Sur La Table, the assistant helping me asked me what I was looking for, other brands/requirements/thoughts I had on what might interest me most, and gave multiple suggestions not just for other brands and Global lines to consider, but also suggestions on knife sharpening methods. She had me test out a few other “similar” knives that were German and Japanese. She encouraged me to do more research online for both the Global Classic and the Global Sai line (which I had no idea about before I went in) before committing; it was the kind of customer service experience you hope to have when contemplating whether to drop $100-300 on a brand new, fancy knife. Honestly, although I am clearly big on cooking, I really don’t spend too much time in kitchen supply stores. But I will say that I do always enjoy visiting Sur La Table, and people who work there are always friendly and helpful. Plus, their cooking classes are approachable and fun. I’d choose them any day over Williams Sonoma.

After our Costco haul yesterday, we drove back to my original neighborhood in Queens to visit Tangra Masala, one of my favorite restaurants in New York City, if not on the entire face of this earth. I cannot think of anything tastier than the fusion of Chinese and Indian cuisine — the two most populous countries on earth. They now have a larger banquet location in Sunnyside, plus a Manhattan location that we’ve been getting delivery from in the last few years, but it’s not quite the same to eat their lollipop chicken at home vs. having it fresh out of the fryer at their restaurant. Plus, here, I get nostalgic about my first few years in New York, as I was a regular here and oftentimes got takeout from here on nights I didn’t feel like cooking. As they were then, they are still cash only, though they have fully renovated both the tiny interior as well as their front. They no longer look like a total no-frills, shabby spot like they used to.

I realized that despite having lived in that neighborhood for four years, I’d never taken advantage of their lunch specials, so today, we ordered their Tangra Masala fish, vegetable kofte Manchurian, which came with a tasty and spicy slaw, rice, and soups, and of course, the lollipop chicken. We got their corn soup and the hot and sour soup, and both were excellent — super flavorful, and the hot and sour soup was packed with different vegetables and tofu. I regretted rarely branching out from my staple dishes as we slurped their soups. And of course, their lollipop chicken was excellent — and a pleasant surprise: we got not five pieces, but SIX! The crunchiness and fragrance of eating them fresh was unmatchable. Love this spot and hope they continue to stay in business forever. We were happy while being the only indoor diners in seeing that many people were stopping by to pick up takeout orders, plus their phones were constantly ringing with more orders on the way.

Today, we took the day off, and Chris rented a Zip Car to take us to the Long Island City location of Costco. I hadn’t been to this location likely since 2010, and it had changed quite a bit: the products on offer seem a lot more Asian, and I cannot remember the fact that the ready to eat food was in a totally separate location than the regular merchandise. There’s an entire halal meat section, plus a freezer section that seemed to just be for different styles of Asian noodles and dumplings. In addition, there’s an entire section for local and niche craft beers, so we picked up two types, one of which is a small New York State brewery.

One item that has been particularly trendy across Asia in the last couple of years has been salted duck egg yolk products, and they’ve slowly made their way over to the U.S. A few of the Asian bakeries and restaurants have been selling them, but I hadn’t been compelled to buy any of the products just yet until I saw a whole box of salted egg yolk cookies at Costco – 60 individually wrapped cookies for just shy of $10. If I remember, a small bag of similar cookies at a bakery were $6. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to commit to this, especially since if I didn’t like it, I’d have a lot of cookies lying around, but Chris insisted that I just get it. I mean, to the point I made a few posts ago…. I’m not traveling or indulging in anything else, so why not buy it now?! So we picked it up and added it to what ended up being our $435 Costco haul. On average, we probably spend anywhere from $300-450 at Costco once per quarter, so this is pretty normal for us. I will report back when I try these cookies.

Our team has a bi-weekly team meeting where we all get together, talk about numbers, team results and goals, major projects in progress, and we also have a quick section where one person on the team shares “reflections” on something of their choosing, which is usually personal. My manager asked me to do the reflections for today, so I decided… I’m going to tell everyone how American I am in my obsession with productivity, with always doing something, that I got so obsessed with “making the most” of the sheltering in place due to the pandemic, that I ended up giving myself cubital tunnel syndrome as a result of it. And so I had to learn to slow down and ease my obsession with always “doing something,” and also took up meditation to slow my mind down.

My colleague, who I am friendly with, sent me a book recommendation in light of my reflection — Jenny Odell’s “How to Do Nothing,” which would likely aid in my desire to slow down. Yes, reading is actually doing something, but I like the idea of the book: resisting the attention economy.