Category Archives: Hope

The best of the Buy-Nothing Group hauls

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It’s been just over two years of being a member of my area’s Buy-Nothing group, and it’s been a really great experience. I’ve had, for the most part, very positive encounters with neighbors and great exchanges on different items that we’ve either wanted or been trying to off load. Just this last week, I was able to snag something out of a competitive lottery that I’d been thinking of buying Chris for some time, but I hesitated on it since he seemed pretty satisfied with his current basic version: a Burr coffee grinder. Burr coffee grinders, versus conventional coffee grinders like the one we have (and the one my dad has always used since I was young), are different in that they produce a more consistent grind size. They also generate less heat during grinding, which helps to preserve delicate oils and flavors in coffee beans. Given these factors, they are clearly a lot more expensive than the average coffee grinder, as they tend to go for $80+. The version I was able to get, a Bodum burr grinder, dummy-proofs the process even more for you: there is a guide right on the lid showing you which grind setting to choose depending on the type of coffee drink you are making. Then, it also has a timer built in; you just have to select how long. Thus, there’s less guess work this way! Along with the Burr grinder, with the same bundle, I got a bag of partially used ground beans that I plan to use for cold brew, a brand new one-pound bag of Costa Rican whole beans, a brand-new, still sealed electric milk frother (which I’d also been wanting, but didn’t really want to spend money on… even though it only costs at max $10), and a portable tea kettle, which I am planning to re-give.

Of the things I’ve gotten from of being part of this amazing Buy-Nothing group and community, these are most definitely the best and most useful items I’ve ever scored:

  1. Endless toddler/school-age books for Kaia
  2. Swim floaties in multiple formats (all of which have been regifted, other than the current puddle jumper which Kaia now uses and fits)
  3. Baby Bjorn potty for potty training
  4. The Oh Crap! potty training book
  5. The majority of Kaia’s toys, including a dozen Lovevery toys, a massive collection of cars, trucks, Hot Wheels, a very sturdy and like-new yellow dump truck, and Peppa Pig vehicles. Her favorite right now is the big Peppa ice cream truck she actually sits and rides on. I’m amazed it hasn’t been broken yet…
  6. Toddler training knives
  7. Toddler popsicle molds
  8. Two brand-new, full sized Dr. Bronner castile liquid soap bottles, which I use for multi-purpose cleaning. This stuff lasts forever because a little bit goes a long way! We still have 1.5 bottles left!
  9. Burr grinder and brand new milk frother
  10. Chemex coffee maker, with a near-full box of paper filters
  11. Real Pyrex brand liquid measuring cup
  12. Vintage Pyrex mixing bowls – all of varying sizes and different bright colors
  13. Bundaberg ginger beer – of course, these were for Chris
  14. Farmers market GARLIC – eight super fresh bulbs with fat cloves!
  15. A nearly full bag of organic, culinary grade lavender
  16. Organic mushroom matcha

I’m grateful to be a part of this group; I’m also grateful that I’ve been able to off load so many things that we have that we either do not use or no longer need — I’m all for declutterring, helping others to declutter, and also contributing to the circular economy!

La Morada – Indigenous Mexican and Oaxacan cuisine in the Bronx

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During the pandemic, Chris and I walked through the South Bronx and attempted to go eat at La Morada, a Oaxacan restaurant that is not only known for serving indigenous Mexican cuisine, but also feeds those in need through The Mutual Aid Kitchen. But alas, we were out of luck: they were actually closed on the Saturday we went. At that time, they were open only during the weekdays. We were able to come back today and enjoy some very chocolatey and slightly spicy mole poblano with the most delicious oven roasted chicken, rice (which was likely cooked in chicken broth, and luxurious black beans. We enjoyed it with a jamaica drink (hibiscus tea) and ended with a proper Mexican hot chocolate. Marco served us; his mom is the chef and owner. It was a warm, homely family-run and owned restaurant. And they were so warm and kind serving us and answering any and all of our questions. Everything about the place took me back to Oaxaca, from the decor on the walls to the open kitchen to even the plates and bowls our food was served in. Unfortunately for Kaia, she didn’t get to enjoy any of the food since she had passed out right before we arrived at the restaurant.

I later read more about La Morada and found out that their family actually has undocumented status, yet they are still so resilient, run their own business, feed those in need, and run a community garden, where they actually source a lot of their own vegetables and fruit. I found it shocking that they’d be so open about this, especially now with the current political climate. But it’s clear that they have guts and perseverance. It almost makes me want to go up there more often just to support them — and eat through their delicious menu, which I’m sure pretty much no other place in New York could replicate, and definitely not at their price points.

Handmade with love – ceramic mugs flown in from Seattle

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As someone who spends a lot of time thinking of what food to make and then making the majority of foods she eats at home from scratch (or near scratch), I have always deeply appreciated homemade, handmade things. Aside from food, I used to scrapbook a lot before Kaia was born. I also regularly handmade cards for holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day. The rare times I have been given handmade things, whether it was jewelry, cards, and Kaia’s hand-knit and crocheted clothes from Chris’s mom and cousin, I have always marveled that someone would actually want to spend their time and energy hand making something for me (or my child). We live in a fast-paced, fast-everything world, where people seem to value cheapness and mass production over unique, hand-crafted things now. Even the platform Etsy, which historically was founded as a marketplace for unique, one of a kind handmade items made by artisans, has now been overtaken by mass producers in China, Korea, and other parts of the world, touting the facade of uniqueness and artsiness.

Today, I received a package of goodies from a friend in Seattle. It included a few things she got Kaia and me on her recent Japan trip, as well as Rooted Fare black sesame butter (which I’d been wanting to try for ages), and something I was not expecting at all: two unique, handmade ceramic mugs her husband had made at their pottery studio to which they have a membership. While I love and appreciate all the gifts, I couldn’t help but stare at and move the ceramic mugs in my hands multiple times. As soon as I saw them, I was about 90 percent sure they’d made these at their pottery studio, so I texted her to ask. She confirmed that she actually did not make them, that her husband made them, since she was taking a break from pottery. I knew she had been going to a pottery studio, and I was floored that they’d actually share things they handmade with me. I just felt really touched.

I guess it’s my old-fashioned side, but I really don’t think people appreciate handmade items much anymore. It’s easy to look at these mugs and not be impressed; you can get aesthetically pleasing, reasonably priced (or exorbitantly expensive) mugs anywhere and everywhere now. But the special thing here is: I know these were handmade by friends of mine, and they chose to give these to me. And for that, I am grateful. They’re giving me a gift that they actually made with their own hands, and with their precious time. Their time that they put into these mugs is a gift.

And as an added bonus, they’re dishwasher safe! So I am definitely planning to use these regularly now.

Twelve-years-aged tangerine peels from my friend’s mom

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When I met up with my friend for lunch this past Monday, I was shocked when she told me that her mom had brought me back a gift from her trip to China. Over a year ago, I told my friend that I was taking on “old Asian lady” habits by attempting to dry a bunch of mandarin peels that winter. In the winter time, we eat so much citrus that it felt wasteful just to dump the peels out. One winter during the pandemic, I was taking citrus peels and making homemade house cleaner with it, but I eventually got bored of that. I felt like a better and tastier way to use the peels was to preserve them via drying for future Chinese dishes. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, aka TCM, preserved mandarin or tangerine peels are known to be a warming ingredient that can warm your spleen and regulate your qi. It’s supposed to help with dampness and disperse phlegm from the lungs. But in general, even if you don’t believe in TCM, aged tangerine peels give an interesting, complex, complementary flavor to savory courses, such as braised pork belly, beef noodle soup, or tangerine beef or chicken dishes. In a lot of traditional homely Chinese soups, a single peel or two can be thrown into the pot for an extra flavor note.

So, when I shared this with my friend last year, she told her mom, who I’d only met once back in 2018. I went to her house so that I could meet my friend’s then new baby. And since then, she’s shared lots of stories of what I cook with her mom and also showed photos and videos, and I guess her mom has been very impressed. She remembered this story about my drying mandarin peels, and so she picked up this individually sealed bag of 12-years aged tangerine peels for me and carted it all the back from China to New York! If you are not aware, dried tangerine peels get more expensive with age (the color also gets deeper and darker brown), so 12-years aged tangerine peels cost a small fortune here.

I was honestly in shock when my friend told me this, and I felt like my eyes were going to bulge out of their eye sockets when she presented the bag to me at lunch on Monday. I kept on staring at the bag and turning it every which way, admiring how thin and dried and deep brown they were, and even trying to see if I could smell some aged citrus fragrance from the sealed bag. I was just so touched that her mom would not only think of me, but even be so generous as to buy me a highly prized Chinese cooking gift while in China and carry it all the way back here for me. I’d only met her mom once — ONE TIME. And somehow, she has remembered me AND gifted me something now! I love a lot of things about this scenario, but I guess I especially love it because it is such a unique gift, one that not just anyone would appreciate. Her mom thought specifically of me, how I dried mandarin peels, and knew I’d appreciate this a lot. And I really, really do. I am beyond grateful and felt so blessed in that moment — not just for her thoughtfulness and generosity for someone she only met once, but also for having this friend who would have a mother who would do something like this for me!

“That’s my mom’s love language: remembering random things I tell her about friends or me and then taking action on it and gifting something related!” my friend exclaimed. “She’s bad at most other things, but she’s really good at this!”

As with most things that matter, if you know, you know #iykyk. And if you know, you know that 12-years-aged tangerine peels in Chinese cooking is like aged fine wine.

Grocery bagger’s integrity

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I was at Patel Brothers in Jackson Heights this morning picking up a few Indian grocery staples before getting some work done at a cafe and then meeting a friend for lunch in the area. At the cash register, one worker was ringing all my items up, while a second was bagging my groceries with my canvas bags. The Indian male worker who was bagging my groceries was likely in his 70s or 80s; he was short, had a bad back with his very visible hunch, and was slowly bagging each item into my first canvas bag. After all my items were rung up and I paid, I thought I would help speed things up given there was someone behind me who was about to be rung up, and we could get done quicker if we both bagged the items. The grocery bagger gazed up at me sternly but grandfatherly, shook his head and wagged his finger with a smile on his face to indicate to me that he didn’t want me bagging my items, and motioned for my second canvas bag to fill it with my items. I let him finish slowly bag up the rest of my items, thanked him, and departed. He gave me a slow smile and a wink on my way out.

I don’t know why, but on my walk over to the cafe, I kept thinking about this guy. He didn’t say anything to me; I’m not even sure if he spoke English. But what’s clear is that he took his job seriously and had a lot of integrity. He knew that if I helped bag my own items, it would have been quicker; two is always faster than one. But he really didn’t want me to do it. And it made me think about integrity. I am not sure what he did for a living before bagging groceries at Patel Brothers, but I am willing to bet that as a little boy, he didn’t dream about bagging groceries in his 70s and 80s. Yet what I also think is true is that given this is his current chosen job, he just wants to do the best possible job he can because he actually cares. And frankly, not everyone cares enough to do the best possible job they can at any job today, especially ones that are higher in pay or prestige elsewhere.

King Arthur flour on sale at Whole Foods

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Before my love of cooking was my love for baking. As a young child, I baked lots of breads, cakes, and cookies with my aunt in her warm upstairs kitchen. When we made bread, it was oftentimes “healthy” quick breads like zucchini bread or carrot bread. At some point during my childhood, my dad got a bread maker, and he’d occasionally make a rounded loaf and have it be part of our dinner. It was always a similar flavor and texture, and while I liked it, I always preferred homemade bread that was a bit more free form. When I got to my teen and college years, I started experimenting with commercial yeast and would make a number of different breads, ranging from sweet Portuguese bread, fougasse and focaccia, challah, brioche a tete, cinnamon rolls, and even sticky buns. I always felt very enthralled and stimulated during this process. There is something very magical that happens when you can see your yeast bloom, and then watch as your bread dough grows and rises and bubbles. It’s almost like your little yeast baby that you made from a bunch of flour, water, and yeast. It feels as though you are giving “life” to something.

Although my pandemic era fascination with sourdough starters was very short lived, as I didn’t have the patience to nurse a starter (and had even less patience to deal with the starter discard, as I didn’t want to throw food away, nor did I want to eat as many bread products as using up starter discard would warrant), I realized that for me, homemade bread would always require commercial yeast. I love the freshness and flavor of naturally leavened bread, but I’d have to leave that to the pros. After making my last two loaves of challah in the last couple weeks, I realized my all purpose flour supplies were dwindling, and they needed to be restocked. And then this week, Whole Foods had a King Arthur flour sale; I hadn’t bought King Arthur flour since the pandemic! They are known for having some of the highest quality, unbleached flour in the country, and for having consistent and higher protein levels, which produce greater gluten development, which results in higher quality bakes. I picked up their organic bread flour and organic all-purpose flour today — five pounds of each. As I walked home, I felt excited and alive knowing that more delicious bread and baked goods would come as a result of this ten-pound haul.

Why people who read books are the best kind of people

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Ever since I started learning to read as a child, I have loved it. I read voraciously as a child, and throughout my life, I’ve always enjoyed reading and have done it for leisure. Sometimes as a kid, I read because I had nothing else to do; when I was young, my parents never enrolled me in any activities, so I’d just be stuck at home during school breaks and summers. I’d end up reading whatever I could get my hands on. Sometimes, that included home remedy and house repair books. Other times, it included gardening and cookbooks. But even when I did start getting out of the house more, I always, always enjoyed my quiet time reading. When we read, we are able to whisk ourselves away from our current place and time and fully immerse ourselves in the stories, times, and lands where the book’s story takes place. We are able to learn and see through another person’s eyes, and thus, are likely to be more empathetic and understanding of different people’s experiences. Reading broadens our scope of knowledge and exposes us to different aspects of the human experience that we may never have the opportunity to get exposed to, for better or worse. I’d like to think this makes us more capable of deeper feelings. While reading the very best and complex novels, it can feel like a bit of time travel. As the physician/novelist Abraham Verghese says, “You suspend disbelief, and you live through centuries, sometimes, or at least decades, (…) births and deaths, and you put the book down and it’s still Tuesday.”

On top of adding to one’s knowledge of the world, increasing empathy, and just being a form of entertainment and even “time travel,” in its most basic sense, reading helps to improve critical thinking, vocabulary, grammar/sentence structure, and can even help with stress relief. It’s also been linked to helping with preventing dementia/Alzheimer’s Disease. So given this, it’s been really strange and unsettling to hear that to this day, Chris’s dad thinks reading books is not a good use of time, and even mocks his mother for being an avid reader. Apparently, he “learned” this disdain from his own mother, Chris’s Nana, who always thought that a woman’s place was in the home to take care of the household and children, and to never do anything else. She used to mock Chris’s mom’s love of books and tell Chris’s dad to get her to stop. They both failed in this endeavor (thankfully). Chris’s dad has often times made disparaging comments about Chris’s mom’s love of reading, saying things like, “She must get these crazy ideas through the stories she reads!”

Given we’re in the year 2025, Chris’s parents are in their late 60s/early 70s, and Chris’s mom is a medical doctor, this disdain for reading books is quite a primeval and unenlightened idea to have. I never would have thought I would meet someone in my lifetime who would disparage reading books of all things, but alas, the person ended up coming right under my nose in my own father-in-law, someone who has grown up in great wealth, comfort, and access to education and knowledge. I was reminded of this negative opinion while finishing The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese this week. It’s a long, long book (over 700 pages) that spans three generations of a family and two continents, but along with Verghese’s Cutting for Stone, it’s likely one of my all-time favorite books I’ve ever read. I love the character development, the interwoven stories of multiple families across countries, and how they all came together. I love the imagery of water and how it brings us together yet divides us, and I even loved all the medical details and how they came to life for me right on the page. Every time I picked up the book, I knew I was in love with it because it would literally feel like I was escaping reality and being transported to another place while I was reading it. While both of Verghese’s novels are rumored to be in film production, like pretty much every time I have seen any book I have read become a movie, it’s never the same. The richness of character development and locations is never quite there. The subtlety of speech and body language always falls far short in a movie than on a page. I have rarely rooted for any character in a movie the way I have rooted for a character in a book.

Coincidentally, and it’s really no shock, most of the people I’ve liked and have enjoyed company with in my adult life are readers. They read fiction and nonfiction, and they love sharing what books they are enjoying (or not enjoying). Readers are the very best kind of people. I don’t think that’s really a debatable point.

Customer relationships: relationships for life

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I’ve been in a customer-facing role at work for about 14 years now. As with any type of customer work, it can be pretty annoying, painful, and thankless. In my role, I have to get used to the fact that people will not always show appreciation for anything you have done for them, regardless of whether it fits your exact job description or whether you’ve truly gone above and beyond.

However, I do have a handful of customers over the years I’ve held in really high regard and have built really positive, mutually respectful relationships with. A number of us keep in touch via LinkedIn and occasionally still message. A handful actually follow me on Facebook and Instagram. And I have one customer who nearly made me cry about a week ago when I was transitioning off his account and handing them over to a counterpart on my team.

I announced on this call that after 4.5 years of working with these folks that I’d be transitioning off. They were my first customer at my current company since September 2020, and the only customer I’ve had since day 1; that’s 4.5 years of working together and chatting about everything regarding work and life. It was a bit bittersweet to be honest, as I really liked this group of people, but this decision wasn’t in my hands to make.

One of them took some time on the call, with my current colleagues taking over on the Zoom, to explain why it was so hard for them to see me leave. He said that among vendor/partner relationships in his 20-plus-year-long career that I was a rare breed. He never felt like I was trying to sell him or make him buy something he didn’t need. I was always straightforward and shared what I really thought could help them as a business. I was genuine to the core, inside and out, he said, and consistently so. And he could tell I truly cared for him and his team as people. He recounted the time, about three years ago, when his nephew had suddenly died in a tragic motorcycle accident. His nephew was like another son to him, as they were very close, so he took the news quite hard. He was out on bereavement leave, and his colleagues had shared this sad news with me. I immediately reached out to get his address and had some flower arrangements sent to his home to send our company’s condolences. No other colleague or vendor partner had done this, he had shared. “I will never forget you and will always remember how kind, generous, and compassionate you were at the time. You will always, always have my trust,” he said on the call.

To be honest, I had forgotten this had happened. I hadn’t thought about it much at the time, because to me, a gesture like that seems like a no-brainer regardless of whether we had a working relationship or a personal relationship. But when he mentioned it on this call, I was so shocked and caught off guard that I started tearing up that he even remembered this. “Ahhh, this is too much for work!” I exclaimed. I felt so embarrassed, especially with two of my colleagues on the call listening to this and watching our faces.

Work can be shmerk. But it’s in moments like this when I realize the real value of my job, and what I will remember long after I have left said industry and said company, which is, at its core, helping others.

I’m 39 today.

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A former boyfriend of one of my best friends used to say that Asians always look good, that they age well… until they don’t. He had this fictional graph where the X-axis showed one’s age, and the Y-axis was “good looks.” Asians were high on the chart as they aged… until they hit somewhere between 55-60. At that point, their “good looks” would come crashing down and they’d basically become a pile of leathery skin, endless wrinkles, liver spots, and grey hair.

I think I know what he was trying to say. The truth is that when the average person thinks of aging, they immediately think of things like white hair and wrinkles. But “aging” shows up differently for non-White people like Asians. For people who look like me, the things that stare back at you in the mirror, reminding you that you are no longer in your teens or 20s, are things like this: sun spots, freckles, teeny tiny fine lines, less fat on your face (yes, really), which means that your bones stick out more, and you start noticing “angles” on your face, like around your eyes and cheeks, that you never saw before. Of course, Asians will wrinkle. And of course, we will get grey/white hairs, as I already have some. But those are the things I see when I scrutinize my face now at age 39 that I never really took notice of until this time last year.

My metabolism is slowing down. Since I weaned off breastfeeding two years ago, I’ve never been able to totally work off the extra belly fat right in my lower abdomen; the flat stomach I once enjoyed seems to be just slightly out of my reach no matter how much cardio, exercise, and strength training I do. I’ll need to rethink my strategy on dealing with this in 2025. Sometimes now, when I eat very spicy hot food, which I love, I get more mucus in my throat — the same annoying side effect my mom has been telling me she’s been experiencing as she’s aging. That deters her from wanting to eat hot food, which she always loved and grew up loving.

But it’s all okay. I’d like to think I am smarter now, wiser, that I see life with more shades of colors and all its nuances. Unlike in my early life, there’s really no such thing as something or anything that is all good or all bad, all “hero” or all “villain.” Every person in our life is part villain, part hero, whether we want to admit it out loud or not. I have more perspective now. I’ve never had a single moment when I wished I were in my teens or 20s again. I like having more money and more financial stability. I’m a lot more confident in literally everything I do, from the way I walk on the street to how I conduct myself at work. I tolerate far less bullshit, abuse, and questionable treatment from literally everyone and anyone. It takes time to be comfortable in one’s skin. And so here I am, in my 40th year, happy to grab life by the balls and make sure that every moment is a moment worth living and speaking my truth.

I’m so fortunate and privileged to have the life I’ve had, full of meaningful, fun, vibrant experiences, travels, people, and tastes. Sometimes, I cannot believe how much fun I have had in my life, what good fortunes I’ve been able to enjoy, the kindnesses I’ve experienced all around from those closest to me as well as total strangers in everyday life and struggles (like the ones who stop and try to coax my child when she refuses to walk and wants to lie on the dirty sidewalk…). I hope that things will only get better from here on out, even with all my sun spots, fine lines, and grey hairs coming in. And I can only hope that my daughter will appreciate me for all of it.

The reasons to keep fighting

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It would be easy to write off the 74 million-plus people who voted for Dipshit and just sit here and be disillusioned… if I didn’t have a child of my own who has to inherit this world and live in it. But now, I’ve been sitting here, reading headlines, different publications, points of view that outline what the Democratic Party potentially did to create the total annihilation it has experienced this past week. Lots went wrong. A lot needs to change with the Democratic Party. A lot needs to change with education and disinformation and how it’s handle and addressed that will not be fixed in the next two, four, or 10+ years. But we have to keep fighting the good fight… even when those against us are just trying to kill us all.

I had the day off from work today for Veteran’s Day, as did Kaia from school. So this morning while Chris was on a call, I took her down to our building’s play room and brought along her favorite bubble machine (which I procured from my local Buy-Nothing group). I watched her gleefully run around with it and spread bubbles everywhere. She giggled, squeaked, and ran around endlessly to spread bubble literally all over the freaking room. I documented her joy through photos and videos. I stopped and just watched her in all her youth and innocence. And I just thought… she deserves a much better world than this. When she is older, how are Chris and I going to explain to her that the first presidential election she was around for, this country elected a convicted felon with a track record for spewing hate? Is this going to teach her that you can get away with literally everything you want as long as you are some rich White man?

This last week, my limbs have all felt heavier. Yet when I check my weight on the scale, I’m the exact same freaking weight. Even walking around and doing day-to-day tasks feels like it’s all been such an effort. But I have to throw myself into life and the future for the sake of my Pookster. I have to set an example for how she should be. The last thing I want is for her to repeat the line that I’ve said about my parents, the line that I read in Julia Child’s book My Life in France, which she wrote about her own regressive father: “He is an example of how not to be.” I’ve done a bit more cooking and food prep. I started reading a book that I’d been on the Libby / NYPL wait list for, for nearly five months, called Against the Loveless World, by Susan Abulhawa. It documents the life of a young Palestinian woman who lives as a refugee in Kuwait, then Jordan, then goes back to Palestine and becomes “radicalized.” I thought the title of the book was quite fitting for my general sentiment the last week, if not moving forward.