After months of looking and a few months of intense job search and interviewing, I finally have concluded my job search with three offers on the table, and today, I finally accepted an offer with a company whose mission I can actually get behind — in real life, not just for myself to make money. Looking back, I never really thought that in year 12 of my career that I’d be on company #5, but things rarely turn out how you hope or expect them to. In a day and age where pensions are a thing of the past and loyalty to a company only gets you screwed, I guess it makes sense that I’ve never been at any single company longer than just over four years. I wish I could have stayed longer at the current company, but… that just wasn’t in the cards.

It’s funny. I’ve just left the best company I’ve ever worked at of my working career, but in many ways, it was probably also the worst — the dichotomy there is a little perturbing, but when I think about it more deeply, it makes sense. I had a love/hate relationship with this place. I met so many high-integrity, good humans there who I still keep in touch with and consider friends. But I also encountered a handful of the most toxic, school-time drama individuals that made me remember how terrible gossip can be in middle school. There is rarely good without the bad in life. But I think I’ve taken what I can from this place and hope to continue picking away at my naïveté so that I can be practical and do what is right for me and my general morals.

Life goes on, and lucky for me, I don’t have to take those toxic people with me in my steps forward. Life is pretty good right now, and I feel very lucky and privileged to be in the position I am in today.

Filming with a mirrorless camera on a tripod can be really annoying for many reasons. You always have to have the right setting on both your camera and the tripod, be at the right angle if your camera is not wide angle enough, and then on top of that, once you hit “record,” the camera actually zooms IN, so there’s no way to check to see if the view is correct until you’ve actually pressed “record.” Filming with the phone is so much easier and less maintenance. What you see is exactly what you get; no surprises. So when I started filming quick TikTok cooking videos in the last week, it felt almost like instant gratification. All I needed was a tripod for my phone, and I was all set.

I’m still getting used to the TikTok app. I feel very old for saying that it took some learning, and I’m still learning as I go, but I can see how and why it’s even more addictive than Instagram; the videos are all videos, so they are very interactive and they really pull you in. This is what the next generation is all about, huh?

We went back to Queens for the second time this weekend yesterday, this time to the Forest Hills/Rego Park area. We did a mini food crawl, which included spicy silken tofu and fish fillets, meat-filled samsas, lamb kebabs, and crab-and-pork Xiao long bao/soup dumplings. Eating in Queens is always such a delight; so many options but not enough time or room in our bellies to eat everything.

When I look back, I’m always so happy and grateful that I spent my first four years living in Elmhurst. While it was certainly not a trendy or hot neighborhood to live in by anyone’s definition, it made me more aware of all the different neighborhoods and food destinations across Queens, and that’s only fueled my desire to keep going back to old favorites and discover new goodies. THIS BOROUGH IS THE BEST and TASTIEST.

I think of all the things I am grateful for in the professional world, the biggest thing is definitely the network I’ve become acquainted with in the last 3.5 years. Even if we had never even met because certain people had left the company before I even joined, people have been so friendly and eager to help others with job referrals, introductions, and even helping to search for new roles when I’ve been looking. It’s been lots of feelings of warm and fuzzy over the last couple of months; people are so eager to help in any way they can, even total strangers. And of the ex-colleagues I know and have worked with, they’ve been even more willing to do extra things for me, whether that means acting as job references, making introductions to hiring managers or higher-level management on teams I might be interested in joining, or just having conversations with me so that I can have a sounding board about what I want to do next.

I feel extremely lucky and privileged to know such good, talented, genuine people who want to help in whatever way they can. In many ways, it cancels out a lot of the bad experiences and the few bad and toxic individuals I’ve met over the last few years. Life definitely has been treating me well as of late.

A good friend I’d made through work and I decided to finally get together since January, before the pandemic began in New York, today with our respective husbands. It was funny when we first met; we weren’t sure if we should be hugging, elbow tapping, or shoe tapping to greet each other. But that’s the thing during a global pandemic where everyone is concerned about germs and hygiene: I guess handshaking and/or kissing is probably the least hygienic greeting, followed by hugs. Maybe the Asian greeting of showing hands together and doing a little bow was really the best idea all along, conveying both warmth and respect at the same time.

We had never met each others’ husbands before, so it was interesting to watch the two get along pretty well and bond over travel, airlines and hotels, airline and hotel status, and so on. Another area that stood out was when my friend’s husband summarized all Chinese vegetables (very relevant given the experience with the white woman and her daughter at outdoor seating yesterday) as “all the choys!” Until that moment, I’d never heard a more perfect summation of Asian vegetables ever before. As soon as those words came out of his mouth, I knew… I liked this guy.

One of the indulgences that Chris loves the most is having a massage. He could probably just get his back rubbed all day, and he’d be a happy baby. Since massage spas have been allowed to open up during the pandemic, Chris jumped at the chance to get a massage at his favorite spot in Chinatown. Usually when we do this, we also plan to eat in Chinatown, and I make sure to stock up on all my favorite Asian produce and ingredients while down there.

While I understand that it’s for everyone’s safety, the one precaution we are required to take while getting a massage is to wear a mask. The first time we did this, my mask didn’t really allow for much breathing space for my nose, so I felt stifled the whole time and had to keep taking deep breaths. Since then, I’ve expanded my mask collection so that I have ones that are roomier around my nostrils, so I was able to relax a bit more this time around.

We indulged in suckling pig and roast duck, along with Gai lan vegetables for dinner. As we sat outside in the spacious outdoor seating area of Wu’s Wonton King, a white woman with her daughter sat behind us. As she was ordering, she added at the end that she’d “like some Chinese vegetables, too.” The server looked at her and said, “Many Chinese vegetables… you want Chinese broccoli? Bok choy? Pea shoots?”

The woman turned to look at our table and pointed at our plate of garlicky gai lan, “That Chinese vegetable!” she exclaimed. We briefly made eye contact and she winked at me and smiled.

To get to the point, my YmF social media following has been pretty abysmal. I was posting a couple times a week on Instagram for nearly a year, and no one new was really following me other than people I already knew or were connected to me in some way. Then finally, a month ago, I started doing more engagement with other food/cooking Instagrammers and YouTubers. I did more interaction, posting, and commenting on Reddit. I also started commenting and watching other vloggers’ videos on YouTube. And then within the last month, I gained over 100 new Instagram followers just from that. My subscriber count on YouTube has also been increasing much quicker since mid-July, as well. Maybe then, the key is really a lot of interaction and engagement from and with similar accounts to start appearing as “suggested” for following for those prime to find new content and handles to follow. Weeeee.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon exploring the Sunnyside, Woodside, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights areas of Queens. This area is near and dear to me since I lived in Elmhurst for my first four years in New York, and because of that, spent a good amount of time exploring these other three surrounding neighborhoods. The true glory of New York to me has always been its insanely diverse population of people. In a single neighborhood, particularly if you are in Queens, you could easily walk through it and hear over 20-30 different languages being spoken. And with a diverse group of people always comes a diverse array of cuisines and dishes that you can choose from. Because of this, I will always consider myself a Queens baby and have immense pride for having lived in Queens. And I obviously still come back to it all the time to eat and explore and find new delicious things.

In our afternoon of exploration, we had snacks at a Paraguayan restaurant, explored a few Filipino markets, purchased some fresh and jarred items to cook with at a local Thai grocery store with great prices, and ended in Woodside, where we ate at one of my all-time favorite restaurants in New York City — Ayada Thai. Until this day, Ayada has the best Thai fish, tom yum soup, and papaya salads I’ve ever eaten outside of Thailand, and they do NOT shy away from the heat – you will leave sweating and borderline in pain!

I was pleasantly surprised to see how two blocks in this area were completely blocked off from car traffic and set up completely for spacious outdoor dining, complete with overhangs to shade from the sun and lots of hand sanitizing stations. I felt so happy to see this; these quiet little Woodside/Elmhurst streets had been fully transformed in a positive way that they weren’t even fully recognizable to me at the beginning. They felt so warm and inviting, charming, cozy and fun. A huge feeling of pride came over me; my old neighborhood is just killing it during COVID-19. I really hope these delicious family-owned businesses can survive this pandemic. It will be a total loss to our city and our stomachs if they do not.

During our day trip yesterday to Jersey, we spent some time exploring the Indian and Filipino shops in Edison, and one of the places I briefly popped into in search of the season’s very last mangoes was Patel Brothers. Since I’d been to the Jackson Heights location so many times, I really didn’t think much of going into this location (also, there are THREE Patel Brothers within short driving distance on the exact same street in Edison! What is this about??). But when I stopped in after Chris dropped me off on a mango mission, I was immediately taken by the fact that when I entered, to the left of the entrance was an entire BAKERY devoted to fresh Indian breads: parathas, rotis, naans, theplas, samosas, puri… I could not believe it. Some people were standing in line for the breads just out of the oven. The front was lined was recently baked, still warm breads. It smelled like a mix of cumin, hing, ghee, and wheat. I was seriously in heaven and could not stop gawking at the bakery and all its offerings. It’s like I was a kid in a candy shop and I couldn’t contain how overwhelmed I was. I wanted to buy one of each, but ended up exercising some self restraint and settling on the coriander thepla and the palak parathas. How was it possible that I had no idea that Patel Brothers in the suburbs could have a bakery component? I wish the Jackson Heights location had a fresh bakery! I felt so deprived and like I had been missing out for the last twelve years of living in New York and being a regular customer at the Jackson Heights Patel Brothers!

I was likely the only non-South-Asian customer in the entire store — at least from what I could see. As I waited in line to purchase my breads and mangoes, I noticed the trays of mangoes strategically placed at the entrance of the store. As each couple or family unit entered, it was literally these actions taken, one after the other, no fail: Enter, grab cart, plop a tray of mangoes, proceed. Enter, grab cart, plop on a tray of mangoes, proceed. The store knew what it was doing. It knows its clientele. It knows that South Asians love their mangoes, and so they placed these right at the entrance to lure the customers. And lure they did.

I, however, did not need to be lured. I came in with one mission: buy those mangoes. And I left with not just a tray of mangoes, but also TWO TYPES OF FRESH INDIAN FLAT BREADS — oh, and some Parle-G biscuits since they happened to be on sale, and they go pretty darn well with my ritual Friday chai. It may have been the best day ever in a long time for me.

Our second day trip out of the city this summer was to New Jersey today for a mix of nature and hiking, local orchards and produce, and exploration of Edison, New Jersey, arguably one of the largest Indian-populated towns in the country.

After a morning hike, we visited Terhune Orchards in Princeton, New Jersey, and Chris immediately felt at home when he saw a sign at the entrance that said, “No pets, No picnics.” Many signs were everywhere to emphasize social distancing and limiting head count in indoor areas, and they even had hand washing and hand sanitizing stations outside throughout the property, so it was clear that this place took health and safety seriously. What really stood out to me immediately, other than the health signs, was the fact that they were selling apple cider slushies and apple cider donuts.

As soon as I see apple cider donuts and apple cider signs, that’s when I know for sure that autumn is right around the corner and that summer is really coming to an end. Apple cider donuts just scream “FALL” to me. It feels especially strange this year given the COVID-19 pandemic, as we’d normally take a few trips between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and this year, we really did nothing outside of the city other than two day trips within the tai-state area. It’s the end of the summer time… starting now…