Category Archives: Food

Indonesian food: Under-rated, under appreciated

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When I lived in Elmhurst, Queens, from 2008-2012, I felt like Elmhurst was always this under-the-radar type neighborhood in Queens that never really got its due. Then, the rents were cheap, the area was safe for families and kids (it still is, in both regards, relatively speaking). And what was top of mind to me was that the food was so, so eclectic. Before I lived in Elmhurst, I had zero idea what Indonesian food was. So to think that I finally lived in a neighborhood where, on a single block, I could pick up Colombian pastries, eat Indian-Chinese fusion, have authentic Taiwanese breakfast, grab some fresh tomatillos for homemade salsa verde, and then have a full Indonesian lunch spread, was just mind-boggling.

We came back to Elmhurst yesterday and stumbled across a coffee shop that turns into a fun wine bar at night called Elm Roastery, right on Broadway, which is the main artery of Elmhurst. We ordered an ube latte and a jasmine lemonade, both of which tasted strongly of what they are made of (you’d be shocked how often this is not the case). The service was very warm and friendly. The decor was modern, sleek, and chic. There are ample tables where you can meet up with friends one on one or in small groups. And they have a large open counter that is designated a laptop-free zone (which I LOVE) where it’s meant for socializing and meeting new people. One of the walls was lined with handmade items for purchase, all made by local Queens-based artists so that locals can buy local. The bathroom was huge, well designed, and even had a European-style changing table (very similar to the ones I used when in Germany), complete with a cushion for your little one and thoughtful little shelves for you to temporarily place things like diapers, wipes, and diaper cream. We used this, and I was so grateful to have a cushion for Kaia and to not change her on the floor. I was stunned; 12 years ago, I would have loved for a spot to be like this in my ‘hood! It’s the time for the rest of New York City to finally embrace Elmhurst now that fun spots like these are popping up!

We revisited one Indonesian spot that I’d eaten at with a friend about ten years ago. Then, it was called Sky Cafe, but it has since been renamed to Sumatera. The owner retired, but the staff, chef, and menu remained the same. When I’d visited here before, I had never been to Indonesia. So coming here now, I actually had something solid to reference. And this meal was just like a meal I’d get in Jakarta or Yogyakarta: we ordered nasi padang bungkus, which is basically a big stuffed banana leaf with a variety of delicious things, like seasoned rice, a boiled egg, beef rendang, savory jackfruit curry, spiced shredded kale, and sambal; mie complit, which is a big bowl of chewy wheat-based noodles topped with ground chicken, bouncy beef and fish balls, a soy-sauce marinated egg, bok choy, deep-fried wontons (fried to order!), with a side bowl of deeply flavored chicken soup; an avocado shake (topped with Milo!!); and while all the above was beyond delicious and flavorful, the biggest highlight for me was the homemade cendol, made to order. The first time I’d ever had gula melaka, this nutty, toasty palm sugar that comes from a specific type of coconut palm found in Southeast Asia, it was in Yogyakarta in a cendol. The flavor was so deep, nutty, toasty, and distinct that no regular granulated sugar could have replicated the same flavor. Here, when we ordered it, the server warned it it would take some time to make. They were literally churning out the cendol jellies to order, which were green from pandan. They added the jellies to a tall glass of ice, coconut milk, and thick, brown gula melaka. And after I had just one sip, I was taken back to Indonesia. The flavor was exactly the same. It was as though I was brought to Indonesian dessert heaven.

Indonesian food is a rare find in the U.S., but I’m grateful to have semi-easy access to it here in New York City, in my original neighborhood of Elmhurst, in my original New York borough of Queens.

First Saturday back from South America means… spicy food!

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For the last two weeks, while we’ve enjoyed the food in South America, one thing that was blatantly missing in every single meal was… spice. There wasn’t much spice in almost anything we ate. Sure, there might have been cinnamon in some of the desserts we ate. But there wasn’t anything even remotely hot spicy. There were times we thought we might get it, like when we had a ceviche in Santiago or even ordered a lamb curry at a tapas restaurant in Montevideo, but there was literally no heat in any food we ate whatsoever. Towards the second half of our trip, Chris started making comments about this.

“This could be spicy… but it isn’t,” he’d comment. “If this just had a little heat, this dish would be even better!”

There were a few times I thought something would be spicy, and it wasn’t even a smidgen. The two times we had chimichurri sauce (a delicious oil based sauce made with blended parsley, coriander, and garlic, oftentimes served with steak) in Argentina, the chimichurri was not green as I anticipated, but red. I later read that these were red because the restaurants added smoked paprika and likely some red bell pepper. Unfortunately, neither of those ingredients are spicy-hot. They are tasty… just not spicy. Oh well.

Chris loves the food almost anywhere and everywhere we have visited in the world. But he definitely likes his spice. And he is generally a bit disappointed when he doesn’t get it for too long. So when we got back, I knew he’d be craving spicy food. And I had a big, big hunch that he’d choose a Thai spot for our Saturday afternoon outing. And if it wasn’t Thai, it would be Indian, but I was doubting that. I was almost certain it would be Thai.

And Thai it was. We went to Bushwick and ended up at Chiangmai Diner and Bar. It was a beautiful corner restaurant, with lots of beautiful green tiling, fun decor, glowing lanterns in the back of the restaurant with full floor to ceiling murals. Even the bathroom matched the restaurant’s chic decor and smelled heavenly (I even noted the candle that was fragrantly lit in the bathroom for futur reference). We had spicy papaya salad with a fermented fish sauce that we’d never had before, which made the salad far more pungent than usual; a fried fish fritter appetizer known to be popular street food in Bangkok, sai oua spaghetti, and boat noodles. Everything was delicious with lots of complex flavors dancing in your mouth all at once, and other than the fish fritters, everything was spicy. Chris’s favorite thing (and Pookster’s) was the sai oua spaghetti, which had a really addictive umami spiciness along with nice al dente noodles for a fun fusion Thai dish; the sai oua was most definitely house made with fresh galangal and makrut lime leaf, with a nice soft texture. But for me, it was a pretty close tie between the boat noodles and the sai oua sausage noodles. I’ve been listening to Hot Thai Kitchen’s Sabai podcast on Thai food and culture, and in one of her episodes, Pailin says that if she could have just one noodle soup for the rest of her entire life, boat noodles would be it. But when she said it, I doubted I’d ever had a really good or authentic bowl of boat noodles (no, I definitely have not. And I knew I hadn’t as soon as she said that authentic boat noodles are enriched with pig’s blood, which makes for a more intense and rich soup). But this boat noodle soup… I could definitely have this again and again.

So yes, this is one of many signs that I absolutely know my husband. He always loves to say that he knows me better than anyone else… At the same time, I would also like to say that I know him better than anyone else… regardless of whether he wants to admit that or not (out loud).

Yerba mate: the national drink of Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina

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I first learned about yerba mate about 11 years ago. I had a colleague who had recently come back from South America, and he was addicted to mate. He drank it out of a cup that was oddly shaped (to me, at least, at the time) and used a peculiar looking straw. I saw what looked to be lots of tea leaves in the bottom of the cup, some were wet and some were half dry (as a tea drinker myself, I was truly bewildered by this sight; why would part of the leaves be DRY?), and I asked him what he was drinking. He told me it was yerba mate, a caffeinated herbal drink that was popular in South America. I asked him if it was a type of tea, and he said it was not. Technically, he was right: yerba mate comes from a specific holly plant that is indigenous to South America, whereas true “tea” has to be from the plant species camellia sinensis. I later learned that yerba mate is considered an “herbal” tea, similar to tisanes like chamomile and lavender “tea.” I remember he had a smile on his face when he described it to me. He said mate was healthier than tea; it supposedly has more antioxidants/polyphenols, and has lower caffeine content than coffee for an equivalent sized serving. Some research suggests that mate may help enhance physical performance and boost energy levels, so occasionally, you may see mate as an ingredient in sports or energy drinks.

Well, yerba mate was inescapable as soon as we arrived in Uruguay. It did not matter if someone was doing a brisk walk or jog along the Ramblas or walking through the bustling Sunday market with friends. You would see people walking with their calabash squash mate cup (the drinking cup is also called a mate), with mate leaves half dry and half soaked in hot water, with their bombilla (the name of the interesting shaped reusable metal drinking straw, which also serves as a mate leaf filter) in one hand; in the other hand or arm, they’d be carrying a long thermos to continue topping up their mate cup. If you were to walk through the streets of Montevideo and not notice this, you likely would either be blind or not have eyes; these mate cups and thermoses were literally everywhere and being consumed by everyone! After a while, I loved looking out for them as we people watched.

We walked into a couple supermarkets in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, where they would have full sections of the shop (in some cases, an entire shelf or wall!) devoted to all the different brands of yerba mate. And it was so cheap, too: you could get a kilo (2.2 lb!!) of loose mate for the equivalent of just a few U.S. dollars. As I stood to admire one wall of mate and all the different brands I was unfamiliar with while at a supermarket, at least eight or nine different people made a beeline for that wall to grab (what I’d assume was) their favorite brand of mate and headed to check out. Mate is very, very serious here, and essentially a household staple.

But whenever we’d stop in cafes or bakeries in Montevideo, we would never see yerba mate listed as a potential drink you could order. I kept my eye out for it, and it yielded no opportunity to just have a cup. I ended up spending $2 USD to buy 200 grams of organic mate from a supermarket near our hotel to bring home; I paid a relative premium for this mate because the bags were so small. The smallest average bags you’d see mate being sold in were at least 500 grams. I asked our hotel in Uruguay about this, and the front desk person said it was because it’s mostly consumed at home among family and friends, and not meant to be something in public restaurants or cafes. So while in Buenos Aires, when we did a tour of El Zanjon, which was a very deep house that had restored labyrinths and served as one of the first B.A. settlements back in 1536, our tour guide mentioned mate and a shop called Mate Ame where we could finally do a mate tasting. It made sense that a place like this existed in B.A. but not in Montevideo. Buenos Aires had more of a tourism scene, and so they could cater to this. Montevideo gets far fewer tourists than B.A. does.

Mate Ame was a short walk from our hotel, so we visited yesterday morning for a tasting of a traditional mate (plain) and an herbal one (with added herbs like mint, plus some green tea). Wow – this was not for the faint of heart — it was definitely potent! Mate on its own is actually quite in-your-face, imposing, and bitter! This is an acquired taste, not one that the average person would enjoy right off the bat. The herbal version was much easier going down for me, but Chris actually enjoyed the traditional version more. There is definitely a method to drinking it that the Mate Ame person walked us through. You’re supposed to put about 1-2 tablespoons of mate in your cup (basically half fill it), then tip it on its side to make sure you have the right amount. After that, you fill the other half of the cup (assuming you have a regular glass and not a calabash squash cup, which is meant for just one person given it can mold…) with less-than-boiling water — not too hot, otherwise you’ll burn the mate and ruin the taste! You dunk your bombilla into the cup, and DO NOT STIR. You sip slowly and enjoy. Once you hear this distinct scratchy sound from your straw, it’s an indicator you are out of water and need to top up. And so the process continues… until you reach the end of the water in your very tall thermos!

Traditionally, friends and family used to drink mate from the same cup (not super hygienic given the calabash squash gourd drinking vessel, but it is what it is) and pass it around; one person (the owner of the cup, I think?) would be responsible for topping up the hot water. For home brewing, I’ve read that a lot of people, even in Argentina and Uruguay, will just use a French press or equivalent and steep. That’s probably what I’ll end up doing when I go home.

There are distinct ways of drinking mate in each of the three countries. I’ve read that Uruguayans are the purists; they do not like anything added to their mate. Argentines are much more amenable to additions like mint, tea, and other spices. And in southern Brazil, people enjoy mate as well, and especially like to add a sweetener like honey to it. I can totally see this being delicious, but sacrilegious to Uruguayans! And generally, Uruguayans prefer their mate ground to almost a powder, whereas Argentines like it more rough cut like you’d imagine some varieties of tea leaves.

Mate is the most consumed beverage across Argentina and Uruguay after water. I think that says quite a lot about these countries and their drinking habits. While I do not love it, I really did love observing mate consumption throughout both Montevideo and Buenos Aires, and I loved staring at all the different styles and varieties of mate drinking cups and the bombillas. The bombilla, along with its many variations, is likely the most intriguing straw I’ve ever seen in my life. The version that I liked the most was the metal straw that had a flat spoon-like bottom with little holes to filter out the mate leaves. The part of the straw that you drink from is not rounded like the majority of straws, but instead, it is flat and thin, like a very thin rectangle. I’d imagine it would be a pain to clean, but I guess I don’t have to worry about that since i’m not buying one!

We actually did get two bombillas (the cheaper version, not with the round straw bottom I liked) to take home, which was included in the price of our mate tasting. It’s a cute souvenir, but honestly, I’ll be unlikely to ever use it for mate drinking at home. I’ll just drink it, hot and strained, out of my mug!

The alfajor: a decadent sweet treat

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I first learned what an alfajor (plural: alfajores) was when I was in college. One of my best friends had a friend whose family had lived in Peru (they immigrated twice: once from Japan to Peru, and then a second time from Peru to the U.S.), and during that time, they were introduced to these little sweet treats. My friend used to rave about her friend’s family’s homemade alfajores. And although I’d never tasted them, occasionally I would see them at Latin American bakeries here in New York, and I’d pick up one or two. I loved all the different textures and flavors in a single bite.

Alfajores are Spanish in origin, but they have taken on different iterations as they have traveled the globe. An alfajor comes in a number of different shapes and sizes, but in Latin America, you can expect it to consist of two round buttery cookies, usually made with butter, corn starch/nut/wheat flour, sandwiched between a thick layer of dulce de leche. If you are lucky, in some parts of Latin America, you can even find alfajores filled with cajeta, or goat’s milk caramel, instead of dulce de leche, which is technically sugar and cow’s milk caramel. They are also sometimes rolled on their sides in shredded coconut. They are buttery, flaky, crunchy, soft, sweet, and not too sweet all at the same time!

Almost everywhere we went in Montevideo and now Buenos Aires, we saw alfajores, mostly made with corn starch to be even more flaky and nutty. Most of the time, they were dusted in powdered sugar and sometimes rolled in shredded coconut. You can find them in bakeries made fresh, as well as at supermarkets and random little grocery shops pre-packaged individually. Argentina is particularly obsessed with alfajores, as they are known to be the world’s largest consumer of alfajores, consuming more than a billion alfajores per year. The food packaging, likely by law, is also very transparent and honest: they are high in both saturated fat (butter) and “excessive sugar.” So far, the best one that I’ve enjoyed on this trip has been at the Mercado Ferrando in Montevideo, at the bakery that is on your left when you walk in. They have several types of alfajores, including a chocolate and a chocolate-filled one, but I wanted the more classic variation and just got the alfajor de maicena (with corn flour). It was flaky, buttery, and not too sweet. I was obsessed and fought the urge to buy another one. I’ve had many cookies in my lifetime to date, but I will say that the decadence of a South American style alfajor really ranks up there when it comes to the meaning of “decadence” in a single bite of dessert.

Regarding dulce de leche — it is truly ubiquitous here, regardless of whether you are at a bakery, looking at a restaurant dessert menu, or at the supermarket. You cannot escape dulce de leche here! We found out that there are even dulce de leche taste contests across some South American countries, probably similar to the baguette contest in France. Though oddly enough, we’ve noticed that dulce de leche here actually isn’t as cloyingly sweet and rich as the ones we’ve eaten back home. Not sure if it’s just us, but it’s something we both concluded, after having quite a bit of dulce de leche in almost everything and anything sweet here.

Customer service wins – Burlap & Barrel

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I found out about the spice company Burlap & Barrel about three years ago. The Sambal Lady was coming out with three different spice blends that she created in partnership with this spice company, and I was intrigued. They work directly with farmers to get to the source. There’s accountability for things like farming practices, ethical treatment of workers and wages, and the spices are just fresher. You’re closer to the source. Of course, this comes at a much higher price tag, but occasionally, especially when it comes to the ingredients I cook with, I am definitely willing to splurge. What we put into our bodies is really important.

Last year, I bought this really rich, pungent sumac from Burlap & Barrel. It was totally different than the last sumac I had purchased from Fairway. The color was this really dark, deep burgundy color. The fragrance wafted strongly out of the bottle. And the feel on my fingertips of the sumac flakes was really rich and oily. I was really blown away by the quality almost immediately. They even suggest starting with half of what a recipe recommends for a given spice because their spices are that much fresher and richer. And I believe it. I’ve done just that and never felt like I was skimping out on spicing my foods with their spices.

But this past Sunday, I had a total snafu. I was about to roast a tray of vegetables and was sprinkling sumac directly from the bottle when the little shaker top on the bottle fell off. And plop! Almost half of my beloved, rich, and expensive sumac came pouring all over my tray. I tried to salvage as much as I could, but it was already too late. It was contaminated, and some sumac flakes even got some olive oil on them.

I sent an email to the B&B customer service, and within minutes, someone from their customer service team responded and said they would send out a replacement bottle immediately. Given shipping would be free, she asked me if I wanted to add anything to my order. Free shipping on just two bottles? Ummm, yeah! So I added a bottle of herbes de Provence, which I’ve been wanting to try. She even threw in a free kitchen towel! I was floored.

Now, if every customer service team could be that responsive and empathetic, while also taking immediate action, every single person on earth who buys anything would be happy.

Hidden cafes in Philly

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Yesterday, I came to Philadelphia for a quick overnight trip to have a meeting with a customer. The only real alone time I would get to walk around and explore would be early Thursday morning before my flight, so I walked around Center City and Rittenhouse Square before getting into an Uber going to the airport. In the last several weeks with the hot weather and my obsession with having cold brew / iced coffee in the morning, I was definitely in a coffee mood. So I did a quick search for places walking distance from my hotel where I could get a unique coffee drink. I found a place that was about an 8-minute walk from my hotel. It was completely nondescript; if I didn’t map it or look it up, there was little chance I would have stumbled upon it, especially since it was barely marked from the outside and was in an alley.

I walked inside the cafe, and it was huge. Even though I travel quite a bit, because I am so used to the small, cramped spaces and limited seating in New York, I still always marvel at the space inside cafes in other cities. The floor space was so wide, and the tables were large with lots of walking space between them. I ordered an iced strawberry oat milk latte plus an almond croissant from a local nearby French bakery. The oat milk was blended with pureed strawberries and infused with beet juice, and it really complemented the espresso well. I love finding unique drinks like this when traveling, even on short notice.

Oyakodon – “parent child bowl”

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Once I made my dashi this past Sunday, the first two things I could think of to make with this potent umami ingredient were miso soup and oyakodon. Oyakodon, for whatever reason, has always seemed like a deceptively simple dish. All it really is made of is chicken, egg, some kind of seasoning/broth, over a steaming hot bowl of rice. Oyakodon is one of the main comfort foods of Japan – it’s satisfying, comforting, hot, and quick to make (and eat). In Japanese, “oya” means parent and “ko” means “child.” This references the chicken (parent) and the egg (child).

Before I made dashi, I always assumed that oyakodon was complicated. Whenever I’ve had it at Japanese restaurants, it always tasted so complex yet comforting. Steaming hot chicken and egg with Japanese seasonings over rice is hard to get wrong. But with a sweet savory combination of homemade dashi, some soy sauce, a little sugar, and some scallions, chicken slices and onions get simmered and become this umami bomb of flavors. The egg is swirled in during the last minute of cooking to barely be done and look like ribbons on top of the bowl.

Now that I know how easy this is to make (as long as you have dashi, or even dashi powder), this could become a new staple to make. It’s even a one-pot dish! It’s funny how over the years, when I’ve thought things were too complicated to make, they’ve actually become quite simple once you get one or two basic ingredients or steps down.

Vegan lemon olive oil cake

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Vegan baking is not something I ever imagined really getting into while I was in high school or college. I did bake a few vegan brownie recipes while in college because someone I worked with one summer inspired me with her own veganism. But I always thought of vegan baking as annoying because of all the substitutions that have to be made, and how not intuitive it all is. Eggs are typically used as a binder for cakes, cookies, and pancakes, so what do you use in place of them? The two major options in the realm of vegan baking seem to be a) flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flaxseed to 3 Tbsp water), and 2) aquafaba, which is a term for the bean liquid left in a can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas). How do you get buttery or creamy richness without butter or cream? You can use a rich oil like coconut oil or olive oil, or you can make cashew cream with soaked cashews blended with some water.

Once I started reading about all the alternatives, I realized it actually wasn’t that hard after all. But you can’t really just tweak a recipe and make 1:1 substitutes to make it vegan. You really have to start from scratch. And so I had this vegan lemon olive oil cake bookmarked for ages, but I never made it until today. I got inspired to make it after the non-vegan orange olive oil cake was such a hit at Chris’s mom’s cousin’s place a couple months ago, and I wanted to see how I could make a version of that cake but a) not use as much olive oil and b) not use as many eggs, or any eggs at all, as that recipe I originally used calls for a LOT!). All these ingredients can get really expensive. Plus, we’re living in high inflation times. And for baking, I rarely have heavy cream or cream cheese on hand, so it would be nice to get substitutes that are more pantry-based. This recipe had no egg substitute. I wondered if it would really bind together well or if it would totally fall apart. But I had been following this vegan baking blogger for ages, and she had over 68 5-star reviews, so I figured it had to be a pretty good recipe. I also thought it would turn out well when I saw metric measurements noted on her site. Ever since I got my cheap $10 digital kitchen scale, I don’t think I can go back to regular measuring cups for baking anymore. It’s so exact, and it’s just fun!

So I mixed the batter, added it to my greased, parchment-lined loaf pan, and baked it in the oven for 60 minutes. I let it cool and then unmolded it. Then I took it out and had a small slice, and wow – the edge piece was really crunchy, and the lemon and olive oil flavor really came out beautifully. The crumb was very moist and tight — not even a remote sign of falling apart. I used 10 grams less sugar because it just seemed like a lot of sugar, and the cake was just sweet enough to be called dessert.

I’m planning to share this cake with some neighbors, one of whom just had her second baby. I can’t wait to tell them that this cake is vegan!

Seis Vecinos and Lechonera La Pirana in the South Bronx

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I’ve spent almost 16 years here in New York City now. It’s funny to think that when I first moved here, I thought I’d be here for 2-5 years and then leave. What the hell did I think I was going back to in San Francisco, anyway?

We came back to the South Bronx today for our annual pit stop since the pandemic at Lechonera La Pirana. We got an entire plate to go of Angel Jimenez’s famous Puerto Rican-style lechon (complete with crispy pork skin) for $20, plus I made sure we did not leave without a photo with Pookster, Angel, and his famous (and terrifying) machete. It’s been cute to see photos of Pookster with Angel and the machete over the years and see how the both of them have changed (and aged).

Given we were just a few blocks away from the popular Central American restaurant Seis Vecinos (which means “Six Neighborhoods” in Spanish), we finally had a sit-down meal here today after the last several visits when I’d wait in line at the lechon truck (in the hot sun, phew), and Chris would take Pookster to Seis Vecinos to pick up freshly made pupusas and our favorite Salvadoran-style horchata.

We have enjoyed endless delicious meals in New York across all five boroughs (and across the world), but I will say that this lunch we had at Seis Vecinos today was truly spectacular; even if we had never stopped at the lechon truck, this restaurant itself would have been worth the train ride up to South Bronx. We ordered a freshly blended papaya smoothie, passion fruit juice (both HUGE!), two pupusas (revuleta, which is a mix of chicharron, refried beans, and cheese, and cheese with loroco, the Salvadoran green herb we were introduced to last week while in El Salvador), and the fried fish filet, which was served with delicious refried beans, Salvadoran crumbly cheese, crema, a thick slice of avocado, maduros (fried sweet plantains), and two freshly grilled handmade corn tortillas.

The portions sizes for all the above were gigantic; all of these dishes are most definitely meant for sharing. The freshness was also extremely visible from the perfect ripeness and softness of the avocado to the rich fragrance of the masa used to make the thick corn tortillas. Another interesting thing about Salvadoran tortillas is that they are always made quite thicker than the average Mexican tortillas. The fish filet was very crispy and brown on the outside, with moist, flaky white fish on the inside, which Kaia happily devoured. We also loved the pupusas, both thick and gooey, also fragrant from the masa used to make the outside layer. The curtido that accompanied the pupusas was not too sour but pickled just enough to give some well-rounded tartness to the richness of the pupusa filling. In the end, we predictably had leftover food to take home.

We ended our meal with a thick slice of maracuya / passion fruit tres leches, which Kaia was extremely excited about, as she got to enjoy this Latin American treat twice during our trip two weeks ago. And we also got a Salvadoran horchata to go since we still weren’t over the delicious creaminess of this nutty drink.

The layout and space of the restaurant was also fun: the bar is long and spacious, and they have a great outdoor seating area (with covering) where we ate. It’s on a corner, so it benefits from that level of visibility. And much to Pookster’s excitement, we were sitting with a full-frontal view of the local fire station, where multiple fire trucks were coming in and out. One of Kaia’s favorite things right now is seeing and hearing sirens, whether they are on ambulances or fire trucks. She always knows the different types of vehicles and gets pumped up when she sees or hears the sirens going off. The fire station is what kept her excited and engaged for the full duration of our lunch, and she didn’t need to have any toys or temporary screen time to distract her thankfully.

There is something delicious pretty much everywhere in New York if you are willing to make the trek. These little gems are what make this city so special.

Today, I learned that regular granulated white sugar in the U.S. is not vegan.

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I recently got off the library wait list for the cookbook The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition, by Hannah Che. It recently won the James Beard Award for cookbooks and has been designated one of the best cookbooks of 2022. After just reading the introduction of the book on my Kindle, I found that it wasn’t surprising at all that she won a James Beard award for her writing: she is clearly passionate and obsessed with food in all its most minute details. When she decided to become a vegan, she worried that it would separate her from the traditions and food that her Chinese family celebrated. But then, she learned about zhai cai, the plant-based Chinese cuisine that emphasizes umami-rich ingredients that can be traced back over centuries to Buddhist temple kitchens.

Within just the first chapter, I found that I was not only loving her writing style, but I was learning so much about Chinese terms for food, flavor, and cooking, as well as… things that you’d think I should know about our own food supply, but I definitely do not (and you probably do not, either). Take this, for example: Hannah says she only cooks and bakes with organic white sugar because regular granulated cane sugar in the U.S. is actually processed with bone char. That’s right: animal ingredients are used in the processing of white (and even brown!) sugar in the U.S.! Specific brands like C&H don’t use bone char, which is often known and labeled as “natural carbon), and organic sugars completely ban the use of it. Granted, I’m not sure how other countries bleach their cane sugar to ensure it is white, but this is sadly what the U.S. does that few people are aware of. And if you doubt it, feel free to visit this PETA page that details more about this terrible process. It’s truly a shame and an embarrassment that the most basic processes are kept a secret in our food industry.

Today, at age 38, I learned that regular granulated white sugar in the United States is not vegan. That is absolutely bonkers.