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…

In 12+years of working full time, I somehow have managed, until this day, to get away with never doing a single presentation for an interview. I’ve always hated presentations, and I have a particular distaste for mock presentations where everything is fake, but everyone involved has to pretend it is all real. I’ve always thought that because I didn’t enjoy presentations that I wasn’t actually good at it. My friends and colleagues, though, who have all seen me present, have said that watching me, they would never have guessed I hated it, and that it appears that it comes naturally to me. I guess fake it until you make it? My former colleague and now friend made a good point to me, though: “There’s a difference between hating something and actually not being good at it. You may hate the process of putting the deck together or the delivery of it, but no one else has any idea at all because your delivery is good.”

So I gave a presentation for about 45 minutes today to a panel of six participants. And as I suspected, a couple people decided to throw in some curve balls to throw me off guard to see how calm and collected I could be under pressure. What I always remind myself in these tense situations is to a) breathe, b) think about the question before I speak, and c) as a result of b, do NOT use stupid filler words like “um,” or “uhh,” and instead, pause and use silence as my time to think, as that will actually make me come across as more thoughtful and deliberate.

It seemed to work. The recruiter emailed me a few hours later and said that all signs were quite positive post presentation.

I really appreciate honesty upfront. I appreciate it even more as I’ve gotten older and less patient. There’s many ways to deliver honesty. You don’t always have to be an asshole about it, contrary to popular belief. But in order to appreciate honesty, the receiver also needs to have somewhat of a thick skin and be able to take it. It’s a balance on both the giver and the receiver’s side. In an exchange between a recruiter and a job seeker, what I really love is honesty upfront: if there are certain benefits I am looking for or a salary range that I am eyeballing, I tell the recruiter in the first call, and I really appreciate it when they tell me that they can or cannot meet those expectations. It respects my time. It also respects their and their hiring team’s time. So you can imagine when I’ve been upfront about all these things since day 1, and two weeks later, when an offer is on the table, and somehow, the salary offered is about $40K off of what I originally laid out. What exactly happened here that got lost in communication?

The recruiter explained that the company tries hard to stay aligned with market rates, constantly does market research, and this is what they came up with for this job title. I told her in response… well, that may be the case, but that doesn’t align with the years of experience with that title, because someone with five years of experience doing this type of work is going to demand something a lot lower than someone with 10 years of experience. They need to align their compensation bands as such.

I was so frustrated. It’s the first job offer I’ve had on the table since I started loosely looking for a new job at the beginning of this year, and this is what the result of the last two weeks of interviewing has been — really? It felt like a total waste of time. I realize I should be grateful to have any offer given so many people have lost their jobs since the pandemic began, and many companies have hiring freezes, but this was just poor expectations set on the recruiter’s side since the very beginning. I would have much rather appreciated that she just tell me as soon as she found out that the comp wasn’t going to align so that I didn’t have to waste any more time or effort with them.

This afternoon, I spent some time filming my next video for my channel, which is for Kerala chicken stew. I always feel a little funny filming Indian cooking videos since I am not Indian, nor did I grow up in India or eat Indian foods when I was young. Therefore, someone watching my in one of these videos could easily ask, “Why should I trust this Chinese/Vietnamese woman on Indian food?” The concept of cultural appropriation has been much discussed in recent years, especially in the food world, and I really do not want anyone accusing me of trying to appropriate their food. I suppose my cooking it and advocating for it can be made more “legitimate” by the fact that Chris is Indian, and by default, so are his parents and family, so that’s my connection to it. It’s important to be sensitive to the roots of food and to acknowledge that no, I did not in any way “create” this recipe, and I just took a version of it and decided to make it because I thought it was delicious. And there shouldn’t be anything wrong with sharing delicious foods and recipes, right?

While outdoor seating has become far more prolific in New York City than it ever has been before, it does not always work out exactly the way you would imagine. While some restaurants in certain neighborhoods have been able to take over their sidewalks and even parking spots front of their restaurants with outdoor tables and chairs for dining, not every business has been able to enjoy this luxury and offer this option to its customers. Many are still relying on takeout and delivery only. Some, attempting to do what they can with limited space, have maybe one or two 2-top tables just outside their front door. They’re doing everything they can with what they have.

We did our weekly Saturday day trip to another neighborhood today, and this time, we visited Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. And the spot we ended up choosing to get food from, Lucali, had no seating at all outside; it was takeout only. It’s actually a place that has been on my list for a long time given it’s supposedly the best Brooklyn pizza in all of New York City, and it normally commands waits of 3-4 hours, as they take no reservations normally, and they are also cash only. So in some way, COVID-19 has allowed us to try this famed pizza with zero wait! Once we picked up the pizza, the next challenge was… where to eat this darn thing?

We walked around aimlessly for a while, struggling to find a bench or somewhere to sit that was semi shaded during this hot summer day. In the end, we finally settled on a stoop… right at a random public school nearby. We sat there and ate an entire pie, just the two of us. And it was likely one of the best pizzas I’d ever eaten in my life. The crust and base were so light and airy but crisp. The cheese was light, chewy, and had just the right amount of saltiness. And the tomato sauce had a little tang and wasn’t too sweet. The fresh basil thrown on whole on the top was like icing on a cake. It was the most expensive Margherita pizza we’d ever eaten at $28 for the pie, but it was truly worth every last cent.

Ahhhh. I’m so grateful to live in New York and be able to enjoy this, even during a global pandemic. And since we have lived in New York for quite some time, New Yorkers tend to be resourceful, so we certainly made the most of the situation and enjoyed it the way we could… on a stairway at school just before the downpour began.

I spent 45 agonizing minutes on the phone today with a hiring manager who, based on his LinkedIn, had barely had any management responsibilities in his short career. He’s approximately 1-2 years older than me, yet he was trying to grill me on why I thought I was suited for this management role, particularly given that I had spent the last 3+ years in an individual contributor/player-coach role after leaving a management role. Did this guy realize the hypocrisy coming out of his mouth, or was it really just me?

When he asked about the company I am leaving, I told him the changing strategy moving forward, and he could not contain himself on his disgust and disagreement with leadership’s decision. He probably spent about 10-15 minutes asking me questions about the rationale behind this… even though I obviously was not the one making any decisions. I had no idea where the hell this interview was going, but I knew just five minutes into this that this is not someone I’d want to report to, work with, or even be associated with.

I truly believe that everyone who is ever in any position to interview anyone else must be taught and given a guide on how to do this because I have had way too many interviews where the interviewer forgets that an interview is a two-way street: the company is evaluating the candidate, but the candidate is also evaluating the company… and the people who are interviewing her. I’m guilty here, too: I know for a fact that I haven’t always been a great interviewer, either. But why are we not investing time and money into building these skills?

The above example is just one instance of terrible interviewing that genuinely does not need to happen. It can be better than this. We can do better than this as a human race, right?

These days, it seems like having anywhere from 3-6 rounds of interviews is no longer enough to get a job. Now, you have to do things like submit writing samples, sample email responses for customer emails, case studies, presentations, and mock meetings. Because once upon a time, having three to six rounds of interviews was not grueling enough. Getting grilled by anywhere from 6-12 people? That’s a piece of cake — let’s really put this person through a ringer and see how much she REALLY wants this job by grilling her in the form of a mock customer meeting!

I was sitting on the couch today, putting together a mock business review presentation and adding graphs I’d created to slides as I contemplated this. I understand why companies do this; they want to make sure you at least are presentable and have some semblance of competence before getting a job offer and enjoying company perks. But I would argue that a lot of what should be measured during interviews themselves is passion, curiosity, and empathy. Tasks like data analysis, presentations, how to actually present and run a meeting — these are things that can be taught and learned. You can’t really teach passion, curiosity, or empathy, though. You just have to have it.

Chris has been attempting to put YmF branding on everything. We have shirts and now we even have masks with my logo on them. In addition to this mask, I also have a mask that a colleague gifted to me, but outside of that, I really don’t have any others that I would regularly want to use. We temporarily used airplane eye-masks for sleeping as “masks,” but they were hard to breathe in, so we eventually stopped. But now, knowing that masks will be our new normal, I figured I would get some new interesting ones to have some variety and also to accept that this is our new normal moving forward… until probably forever.

I ordered some masks that are locally designed and made here in New York City, and some of the proceeds go to the nonprofit Color of Change. One of the masks has different Asian sauce bottles on it, and the second is pink with dragon fruit on them. It had to be food related for me, right?