Category Archives: Culture

So much chicken stock, what to do?

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“This fridge is packed!” Chris said earlier this week after opening our fridge and inspecting the contents. “Are these all just ingredients, or is this stuff we can actually eat?”

Our fridge usually has a lot of food in it, but oftentimes, it’s mostly raw fruit and vegetables, condiments and sauces (homemade and store-bought), different milks, yogurt, and Chris’s stockpiling of kombucha. This week, though, since I just emptied out my vegetable scrap and bone bag from the freezer, we have a lot of jars of my homemade, gelatinous stock, aka bone broth. I can assure you that this is most definitely “bone broth” — it jiggles with so much collagen that it’s almost like jell-o after cooled in the fridge.

I originally was going to use the bulk of it for a butternut squash green curry soup, but then Chris insisted that we have chicken green curry this week, and I didn’t want to double up on the green curry flavorings because it would be redundant. I had to noodle around in my endless recipe bookmarks to come up with inspiration because I couldn’t readily come up with any ideas on my own that would be simple. Since I am trying to use up what we have and not buy anything net-new unless it’s a fruit or vegetable given our remaining time here in 2025 is so limited, I need to focus on what I already have, whether it’s in the fridge, freezer, or pantry. So I decided to pivot to something lighter and quicker: Vietnamese butternut squash soup with ground pork, also known as canh bi do nau thit bam. More traditionally, the squash would be kabocha, but I just cut up my big 4.5-pound butternut squash, so I used that. I defrosted a bit of ground pork and tossed that in with aromatics before adding the butternut squash cubes and the gelatinous stock. I guess what really makes this “Vietnamese” is that it’s seasoned with fish sauce and then finished with chopped cilantro, and a lot of it.

The art and appreciation of cooking seems to be dying in my generation. People like my friend in New Jersey and I are like rare breeds. We value homemade, from scratch, from source foods. We view the time we invest into cooking as time invested in our overall health, well-being, and happiness. We don’t look at ready-made or restaurant food as better or superior. This soup is humble, but it’s satisfying, tasty, and homely. We need more of this kind of dish in our lives.

The rebranding of “white whole wheat flour”

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I recently started noticing “golden wheat flour” by King Arthur in the baking aisle at Whole Foods. I previously always bought the standard Whole Foods brand whole wheat flour for use in baking and making Kaia “healthy” treats, but this caught my eye. In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Whole Foods always has sales in its baking aisle, so I stopped in earlier this week to restock on all-purpose and whole wheat flour. I decided to give the “golden wheat flour” a try.

I dug more into what “golden wheat flour” was, and I found out that about two years ago, King Arthur rebranded their “white whole wheat flour” to “golden wheat whole wheat flour.” It is 100 percent whole grain flour milled from hard white wheat, which gives it a lighter color and a milder flavor compared to traditional whole wheat flour made from red wheat (also from a branding standpoint, it’s very hard to wrap one’s head around “white whole wheat” because that sounds almost oxymoronic). This is definitely a welcome addition for those of us like me who are trying to incorporate more whole grains, less refined starches, and also want to increase fiber and nutritional profiles of what we are baking.

My first use of the golden wheat flour was in this week’s challah. I did 50 percent all purpose, 50 percent golden wheat. The color of the dough was definitely a bit lighter than when I used whole wheat as 50 percent. It is definitely on brand with the re-branding: the dough is very much “golden” in color! After shaping, proofing, shaping, and baking, the loaves came out in a beautiful brown golden color. And once I sliced into the loaves and had some, I knew golden wheat flour would be my go-to moving forward for whole grain flour. It has a slight nutty flavor, and it definitely is not as “heavy” or “hard” as traditional whole wheat. I could even see myself using this in cookies! I still want to use spelt flour, but I’ll likely use it in things like pancakes and quick breads as opposed to yeast breads like challah or brioche moving forward.

Cottage cheese as the new high protein food trend that I am not that into

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Before this year, the only time I ever really embraced cottage cheese was for German style cheesecake. Growing up, I remember my dad would make it once a year, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I’d always sit there and watch or help him make it. Real German style cheesecake is made with quark cheese, but given that quark was not readily available in the U.S. then (and barely is now), the closest substitute easily available here is cottage cheese. It takes ages to break up the cottage cheese curds, and you need a high powered mixer to do it, but I always loved it when we got to the final step and got the cake batter silky smooth.

Cottage cheese suddenly rose in popularity this year because of everyone’s obsession with increasing their protein intake (and yes, I admittedly fall into this camp as of late). It’s considered the latest “hack” to increase protein in one’s diet, and it’s been showing up in endless different recipes. I’ve even seen it in some dosa and uttapam recipes! I finally decided I would try it out again, and I’d try using it in things like smoothies and pancakes. I figured that since Kaia likes pancakes, she wouldn’t mind it if I added cottage cheese to her pancakes.

Well, I was wrong. The cottage cheese made the pancakes more spongy, and she did not seem to appreciate this. She’d squish them in between her fingers and declare that she did not want to eat them, that she wanted ME to eat them. I’d have to cajole her to eat at least two before getting something else that she’d prefer. I tried three different recipe variations, some including pumpkin puree (because I like to add pumpkin to as many recipes as possible in the fall). Though I was able to mostly eliminate the sponginess she did not like, I found this to be far too much effort to continue attempting to use it. If trying to incorporate “healthy” or high protein ingredients into our diet ends up becoming more “work” than joy, then I don’t want to keep doing it. I have enough mental load, and this is not something I want to continue.

I finished the tiny bit of remaining cottage cheese in the fridge and mixed it into some just-cut pineapple. And even that felt like an effort for me. So, I’m declaring it now: No more cottage cheese in this house — unless I decide to make German style cheesecake.

New York City’s food scene, a new mayor-elect, and championing the “hidden gems” in lesser traveled to parts of the city

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Since the pandemic year, we’ve been using our Saturdays to explore the city we currently call home, traveling to a different neighborhood and borough each week to see what the vibe and food is like. Chris has kept a record of all our neighborhoods, which weekends we went where, and which restaurants and tiny stands we’ve visited. So, it was a bit fun to see that the new mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, had built his mayoral campaign around leaning into his love of food, foods and restaurants in areas of the city that the average New Yorker or tourist may not be readily willing to trek to on their own. He’s campaigned at bodegas in the Bronx, taken politicians and journalists to restaurants in Astoria and Jackson Heights, and even organized a city-wide scavenger hunt that included many small, family-owned businesses that make some of his favorite foods.

Mamdani is highlighting many under-the-radar food spots, and likely drawing more visitors to those businesses. This makes me happy to see — to see that we have a new mayor-elect who not only likes to eat and has a deep appreciation of food across cultures and boroughs, but also likes to go to lesser known spots. We love discovering new places, and then we also get excited when those lesser known amazing spots somehow get “discovered.” Chris likes to say that he’s been doing this since the pandemic, but alas, he does not have the same following that Mamdani has. What makes New York City special is not just the big-name, flashy, expensive restaurants, but the teeny tiny hole-in-the-walls representing cultures and countries from around the world, where the owners are simply trying to share some of their own culture’s food with the rest of us and make a living.

We really need someone to lead who has new ideas, who truly embraces diversity. All the endless cultures of New York City make it the very special city it is. So I think this is a welcome breath of fresh air in more ways than one. And I’ll be honest: I’m looking forward to seeing what else Mamdani is going to be eating along the way; I’ve already added a few of his favorites to my “to try” map list!

Vir Das in “Hey Stranger” at the Claire Tow Theater, Lincoln Center

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Oftentimes, when people think of the Lincoln Center, they think of huge theaters like David Geffen Hall or David Koch Theater. But there are smaller theaters within Lincoln Center that perhaps have less name recognition that are fun, classy, and intimate, with a seating layout that ensures you are pretty close to the performers and would have zero reason to squint to see them. Vir Das, one of our favorite comedians from Mumbai, is here doing his “Hey Stranger” show at the Claire Tow Theater at the Lincoln Center. He’s the first Indian performer to star in a show at Lincoln Center, so this was a pretty big deal. We went with my friend and her husband to see his show last night, and it was ninety minutes of near-crying laughing, but also with lots of serious moments spread throughout.

One personal thing he revealed during the show was that given the topics he covers in his comedy, he’s more and more not welcome home in India by the government, so he feels like he has no choice but to leave. And the U.S. has offered him a green card. Many people would see this as incredible, but for him, he’s quite torn. Moving to and living in America would mean… he’d ultimately become a different person. His comedy would not be the same. His identity would change. And he wasn’t sure he would like it that much. And we all know he’d end up being grouped with other brown comedians like Hasan Minhaj or Russell Peters, who are definitely talented in their own right, but their comedy is not the same as his. His jokes are what they are because he’s not in America living an American life. He can be critical about America from an outsider’s lens. And his comedy is all that much smarter for it because he has a bird’s eye view of how crazy and insane this place really is. Where you call “home” really defines us in ways we may not fully be aware, but he’s thinking about it long and hard now.

I honestly don’t want him to move here because I love what he says and produces just as he is, where is is from. He provides an intelligent, authentic voice that would not be the same if he lived here. But hey, what does my opinion matter? I’m just another fan of his living life in the U.S. He has his livelihood to consider, and he also has to pay bills and try his best to stay out of jail just for simply having opinions and speaking. Being a comic is hard, and he’s showing exactly how hard it is to do that job while living in India and having Indian citizenship.

First dermatologist visit and full body skin cancer screening

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After almost forty years of existence, I finally decided to schedule a dermatology appointment for a full body skin cancer screening. For many years, I wrongly assumed that you needed a specialist referral from a primary care provider for a “skin problem” to see a dermatologist. Then about two years ago, my doctor told me that I should actually see a dermatologist every year for skin cancer screening, and that it’s covered by pretty much every insurance — no referral needed. After trying and failing to make appointments at several derm offices that were in very high demand, I decided to go the ZocDoc route and find someone who got decent reviews and was semi close by. And so the appointment happened today.

It was pretty straightforward. I came in, confirmed the reason for my appointment, and then an assistant noted anything of concern or any spots you may want to have extra special attention looked at. Then, I undressed completely except for my underwear and put a fun gown on. The doctor came in and greeted me, asked me a few questions, and then proceeded to go section by section of my body, looking for any potential scary spots. The good news is that she said my skin looked great — I didn’t have any spots of concern. She was pleased to hear that I wore a hat and wore sunscreen every day (even inside, really). She did note a few freckles and sun spots I developed, especially the ones I pointed out to her on my face. We talked about potentially using a prescription grade 20% azelaic acid cream to lighten them. She emphasized sunblock and reapplication, plus covering up/wearing hats when outside. And given I knew it could be possible that insurance would cover a prescription grade retinol (and I am almost 40!), I decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask and spin it as, “Can retinol help with fading sun spots?” She said that it would help pretty dramatically and asked if I’d be interested in Tretinoin, the prescription retinol. She divulged that it is typically covered by insurance if you state it’s for the treatment of acne. “You do get the occasional pimple, right?” she winked at me. “Everyone does!” And then she quickly wrote me prescriptions for both the Tretinoin and the azelaic acid cream. She also told me that I had to be patient and consistent; I’d likely see changes over the course of three to four months. I could do that.

Within the hour, I got a text notification that my health insurance approved the Tretinoin, no problem. The azelaic acid cream was denied, though. Wahhh. So I will see how much it costs out of pocket vs. other methods and go from there. This is pretty exciting, though, to get a heavily subsidized prescription grade retinol for the first time. I am wondering if it will live up to the hype I read about in mom groups that it “changes your life” and skin completely!

Hosting another big meal at home for friends – this time with Indian food!

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We invited another couple over for lunch today. I was going through all the produce and ingredients I got from Apna Bazaar last week, and I figured it would be fitting to make an Indian meal. So this is what I made:

  1. Tandoori salmon 
  2. Chana dal 
  3. Paneer makhani 
  4. Aloo baingan – potato eggplant curry 
  5. Carrot and methi leaf stir fry 
  6. Jeera rice, whole wheat roti (roti were store bought)
  7. Kachumber salad (cucumber, tomato, yogurt salad with chaat masala) 
  8. Pumpkin snickerdoodles 

If you looked at the table, you’d probably think I spent ages making this meal, but I actually had just started food prep the night before. The dal, potato eggplant curry, and jeera rice were made in the Instant Pot and come together fast, especially since all three used the Quick Release setting (another situation where… if you know, you know!). The paneer makhani was made on the stove in less than 10 minutes with my magical pre-made tomato onion masala. The carrot and kasoori methi leaf stir fry took minutes, as well; the most time-consuming part of making that was ripping all the fenugreek leaves off the tough stems, which aren’t that pleasant to chew on. This was my first time using fresh methi / fenugreek leaves. I enjoyed the slight bitterness from the leaves, but like with most greens, I got sad when I saw the tiny quantity my leaf bunch cooked down to. The kachumber salad was basically just chopped tomato and cucumber mixed with yogurt and my homemade chaat masala mix and took five minutes to throw together. I made my own tandoori masala blend the night before and mixed it with some mashed garlic and ginger, dried methi, and salt, and let it sit before broiling for about seven minutes when my friends arrived.

What I’ve realized after making lots and lots of large meals is that what actually takes the most time is rarely the actual cooking time, but the mental load of thinking about what to make, what ingredients I already have vs. what I need to get, what is perishable, what needs to be defrosted and when, and everything related to that. I usually enjoy this process, and I especially like cooking for friends in slightly larger groups. But sometimes lately, I get annoyed by it when thinking of balancing what to make with what we already have. As a result of this, I’m trying harder to first think about pantry and freezer ingredients we have (that I want to use up), and then planning what to make around that. It can be hard to do this when you are someone like me and has endless ingredients, though. So I’ve stopped myself from buying any dry pantry items until I get through a good chunk of what I already have now. I mean, I cannot expect my pantry to be a mini store, can I…?

But my end thought here really is: I cannot imagine making Indian food semi regularly without my Instant Pot. It’s truly one of the best kitchen appliances I’ve ever owned. My loyalty to this contraption is quite deep and cannot be disavowed.

“Couples” date in Elmhurst today

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Today, the three of us met up with my friend and her husband for lunch at an Indonesian restaurant we like in Elmhurst, Queens. The funny thing is we originally met them at a food event in a Brooklyn backyard just over a year ago, so this wasn’t actually our first time meeting her husband. I’ve met up with this friend over the course of the last year one on one, but we’d never arranged for the guys to come until this time. Kaia was intrigued by the “new friends” at the table. My friend’s husband knew way more about Bluey and Peppa Pig’s family than we would have ever guessed. And we talked a lot about family and cultural dynamics, travel, and college experiences.

The “couples mingling” thing is always funny because two friends can get along amazingly well when it’s just the two of them, but their spouses may not get along when in that group setting. Or, one of the friends may detest the other friend’s spouse, or whatever other combination you can think of. Given this was the first time we were all hanging out together, the conversation was fairly neutral and tempered, and nothing really edgy came up. But I was thinking about “couples friends” and how hard, in reality, they are to make, given the above potential situations. In most of my friendships, I far prefer just hanging out with my friends vs. hanging out with them and their spouses. I like being with them all occasionally, and I do enjoy seeing potential group dynamics and how they can unfold. But I almost always would prefer their spouse not be there. There are very few people I can name where I can say I equally enjoy time altogether as much as time spent with just my friend.

So, we’ll see if we all hang out again. I hope we do, but if it doesn’t happen that often or again, it won’t necessarily be the end of the world. The good news, though, is that both like kids, and they definitely enjoyed spending time with Kaia Pookie. I could tell Kaia was warming up to them, too. When we took a bathroom break, as we washed our hands, she asked me if my friend would still be at the table when we came back. When she asks questions about my friends, this is how I know she likes them.

Halloween with a sweet little ice cream vendor, and Kaia’s first real packaged Halloween candy

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This year, we dressed Kaia up as an ice cream vendor for Halloween. It was Chris’s idea, and Kaia was obsessed with it. The costume came with a hat, shirt with a big red bow, and white pants, but the part that really reveals her costume is a large white cloth tray that houses six detachable ice cream cones in six different colors. It has straps that you velcro onto your child. So it’s a bit bulky and annoying to carry around. Kaia did embrace carrying it around in the beginning, smiling and giggling endlessly while saying “Who wants ice cream?” and then naming her (constantly changing) flavors by color.

This year’s Halloween was quite cool and windy, so she had to wear a jacket over her costume to keep warm, as did all her classmates during their annual Halloween parade that the parents come for. Once we got to the playground and took group photos, she immediately wanted to rip off her ice cream tray and ice creams and run around freely. So of course, she handed all that over to me (which her teacher eventually took).

In the evening while Chris passed out candy to our building trick-or-treaters, I took Kaia trick-or-treating in our building for the second time ever. Last year when it was her first time, she did not completely get what was going on, but went with it. This year, she understands that when she rings doorbells and the doors are opened, if she says “trick or treat!”, then she gets candy! She got really sad, though, when some participating neighbors didn’t want us to ring their bell and instead set up “self serve” candy stations, either with large bowls, buckets, or bags full of treats. I’m still very impressed by some neighbors’ selections of treats they are dishing out, some of which I can remember from last year. This year’s treats handed out ranged from authentic packaged stroopwafels, Walker’s shortbread, granola bites, to “healthy” lower sugar options. When we went to all the units to trick or treat, we relented and finally let Kaia eat some of her Halloween candy (last year, we confiscated all of it). Chris let her choose two, and she settled on one tiny box of Nerds, and one Twix (mama’s favorite Halloween candy from childhood!). She savored both of them and ate them slowly. In the end, she declared she liked the Nerds more.

People ask us if we let Kaia “indulge” on Halloween. Well, that’s as far as “indulgence” is going to go for our almost-four-year-old! And she seemed quite happy with her overall Halloween experience and her candy eating allowance today!

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.