Category Archives: Travel

Lyman Orchards Corn Maze and a bi-annual Costco pitstop

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I don’t recall ever doing a corn maze during the fall growing up. I remember going to pumpkin patches, but the only corn maze I ever remember going to was out in Long Island in 2011 with some friends — at night. That corn maze was supposed to be spooky and “haunted,” and the only lights we had were via flashlights we were given or our own phones. Chris brought us to Lyman Orchards today in Middlefield, CT, for a corn maze and an apple stop. The theme was very fitting for us given what we’d recently eaten: it was Connecticut pizza themed! Kaia loved running through the corn maze and insisted on always going ahead of us and being first. She would also always squeal with high pitched delight every time she saw a corn on the cob that had its kernels peeking out. It was a really fun fall activity, and made even more fun by watching how happy and engaged Kaia was the whole time. Although I didn’t have a “bad” childhood, when I look at her and see how happy she is with all the experiences we’ve given her, it almost makes me relive my own childhood again just seeing how much joy she is experiencing. I love seeing her get excited about the leaves, the different seasons, and the different seasonal activities.

And of course, one last stop before we headed back to New York was at Costco! I loved the Costco experience in South Windsor, CT. Even though it was a Sunday, it wasn’t even remotely crowded. It actually felt quite quiet. There were barely any lines at checkout. The sample stations were quiet and not bombarded by endless hoards. The restroom was an easy in and out for us. And when we had a little lunch at the Costco food court, Chris easily got us a table and seats.

Here are some of the biggest highlights of what we discovered today:

Tim Tams (Australian formulation — WITH GOLDEN SYRUP ): Chris was very excited to see these, and of course, he added it to our cart to “tide him over” longer until he gets his Arnott’s haul replenished.

Kirkland Signature Belgian Chocolate Biscuit Cookie Tin: Chris’s favorite and present to himself each fall Costco trip we go on. 🙂

A WHOLE DUCK: For just over $16 grown at a farm in Indiana. I may finally use those duck class skills I learned a few years ago and get to work!

Wild chanterelle mushrooms: We haven’t scored these since the pandemic era. Chanterelles tend to grow in the fall and have a subtle but delicious earthy flavor. When they are in peak, they can go for anywhere from $28-50/pound, which is too much for me to stomach. I got two pounds of these babies today for $12.99/pound weeeee.

Nielsen Massey Vanilla Bean Paste: This brand always comes up in food forums I’m in where professional pastry chefs discuss products they love and absolutely need. I figured I’d never buy it because it was so expensive. But then Chris spotted it at Costco next to the vanilla extract and vanilla beans. I initially skimmed it over because I didn’t see the brand name. But when I did, I did a double take and scrutinized it to death, then Googled it to make sure this was the same product. A 10-ounce bottle of this magic was $19.99. For pricing reference, if you buy an 8-ounce bottle on Williams-Sonoma, it’s currently going for $47.95. What a deal! It’s best to use this product for baked goods where the vanilla flavor really needs to shine… and where you want to “see” the vanilla bean flecks.

Mrs. Meyers Hand Soap Combo Pack: Okay, so I’m kind of like Martha Stewart in that I do really like certain hand soaps over others, and Mrs. Meyers never fails. I almost got the same holiday scented set as last year until we came across the pack that includes the Tomato Vine scent, which I’d been curious about for a while because I’d read it had a near cult following!

We also got some good deals for clothes for Pookster, including a four-piece rainbow top and bottom set, a Minnie Mouse sweater, top, and pants set. And as the clothing section at Costco just keeps getting better and better, we also found some nice onesies that were Winnie the Pooh and Simba themed for some recent babies who have joined the family. It was a massive Costco haul this time, but I have zero doubt everything we got will go into good use (or into our bellies!).

More autumn leaves, Mark Twain House and Museum, and skeletons galore

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I’ve never been a big Halloween person. When I was young, I never got to have fun or elaborate costumes. I basically was a pumpkin for years on end because my parents didn’t care for Halloween, nor did they want to pay for us to have different costumes every year. But while I don’t really care for dressing up myself, I do love seeing other people’s Halloween decorations in front of their homes. In New York, we mostly see it when we go to the outer boroughs. Or in Manhattan, you can see a good amount of Halloween decorations at brownstones on the Upper West and Upper East Sides.

This trip, we’ve already seen endless massively large skeletons everywhere. Skeletons as tall as twenty feet have towered over people’s lawns. At March Farm where we stopped by for some apple cider donuts and photos so Kaia could frolic amongst the pumpkins, there was a huge tractor that had “run over” a skeleton. While we pointed this out to Kaia, she did not seem to mind much, as she was enjoying nibbling away at her first apple cider donut that she did not have to share.

During our coffee stop this morning before the Mark Twain House and Museum tour, we parked next to a car that had a skeleton in the front passenger seat. He had both his hands up… as well as his two middle fingers up! The Mark Twain House and Museum tour was fun and informative, though I will say that while the inside was quite elaborate that I enjoyed walking around its grounds just as much given all the fall foliage. It’s like the house was made to be flanked by these gorgeous autumn colors. The tour also kind of made me want to read Huckleberry Finn again… Maybe this time if I read it, I’ll do the audio version.

Maybe next year when Kaia has better fine motor skills, I’ll actually go get us a pumpkin that we can carve and light up — it will be Kaia’s first jack-o-lantern. Though I also did not do much of this growing up, when I’ve done this with friends or at work festivities, this has always been really fun and creative. Plus, there are so many tools available now that make pumpkin carving safe. It wouldn’t be like what my dad did when we were kids — he used an extremely dull (AND DANGEROUS) chef’s knife to cut poorly shaped triangles and squares to make a jack-o-lantern!

Long weekend in Connecticut for leaf peeping means tasty New England stops along the way

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Since Kaia’s first fall with us as a baby in October 2022, we’ve been doing a fall leaf peeping trip somewhere around the Northeast of the U.S. by car. The first year, we were based in Wilmington, Delaware. In 2023, we went to Springfield, Massachusetts, but unfortunately were a little too early given global warming; most of the trees were still pretty green. Then last year, we went upstate to Albany, New York, and the surrounds. We’ve found that we need to delay this trip to late October to see more of the vibrant autumn foliage. This trip was definitely timed perfectly: everywhere we drove, we saw so many brilliant shades of orange, goldenrod, and crimson.

Along the way, we stopped in Darien, Connecticut, to pick up some goodies from Flour Water Salt Bread, a local Connecticut bakery known for making every single item they have out of sourdough. When we popped in, I was pleasantly surprised to see generous baskets laid out on their counter of samples: vegan chocolate olive oil cake, pumpkin snickerdoodle, coffee cake, and chocolate chip cookie. This is nearly unheard of in New York City; if you want a sample, you can go ahead and fork over $5-9 for your desired pastry and “sample it” that way! Even their cookies are made with sourdough, which was quite shocking to me; I don’t know when the last time, if ever, I’d had a cookie made from sourdough! We settled on their sun-dried tomato focaccia (which Kaia picked almost all of the tomatoes off of to eat and left just the bread for us…), their salted caramel kouign amann, and a hefty loaf of their classic sourdough bread (made with ten percent upstate New York freshly milled flour).

After Flour Water Salt, we headed further north to New Haven, where we had lunch at Zuppardi’s Apizza. It is one of the well known New Haven pizza institutions, and it definitely lived up to its reputation: we had their signature tomato sauce pizza with mushrooms and homemade fennel sausage, plus their delicious white clam pizza. While I remember the other New Haven pizzas having a crispy and chewy crust, Zuppardi’s definitely seems to be more on the crispy, crunchy side, which I had no problem with and really enjoyed. I did notice that there did seem to be more sand residue on these clams than at Modern, which we went to last spring with Chris’s parents, but I guess that’s the “cost” of eating clams on white pizza.

It seems weird to say this, especially as someone who lives in New York City and loves New York City pizza, but in this very moment, white clam pizza is definitely my favorite pizza. Most people think of New York as the pizza capital of the U.S., but I may have to agree with a lot of these publications that say that maybe the real pizza capital of the U.S. is actually Connecticut! It’s rare to find white clam pizza in New York City, and if you do, it will inevitably be quite pricy. So while we are here, I’m thrilled to indulge and get my clams on pizza fix.

(One of) the most enjoyable conversation topics: cross-cultural differences

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I love talking about food, culture, travel, books, food, cooking, and more food. But when I think of the best and most interesting conversations I’ve had with people I am just getting to know, one of the most exciting ones is most definitely about cross-cultural differences. Although I have not always been passionate and loved what I have done for a living, I know I’ve been really lucky and privileged to meet a lot of genuine, kind-hearted, and truly good people in the last 17-plus years of full-time work. I mean, work life is how I met the love of my life — my fuzzball Chris. And it’s also how I’ve met some people I am lucky to still call friends today. What has also been lucky is that although all the companies I’ve worked for have been American companies, the last two have had global offices, so I’ve been able to meet people who were born, raised, and live in other countries that I previously had known little about.

I met up with a friend and former colleague from my last company who happened to be in town from Amsterdam today. I hadn’t seen him since pre-pandemic — in November 2019 in Amsterdam, so almost exactly six years ago. This was before COVID-19, before the world shut down, before he got married and had two kids, before I got laid off, started a new job, and then went through IVF and had Kaia Pookie. We did the best we could to cover what’s happened between our respective lives in the last six years since we saw each other, though we had loosely kept in touch over Whatsapp throughout these years. He told me that while he would be in Manhattan, he was also meeting up with another friend he’d made recently, an American he met while in Uzbekistan last month. This person was very friendly, and they got along really well during their travels. And he had said to him that if he would ever come to New York that he’d like to meet up with him. And so he figured it wouldn’t hurt to message him to ask because he really did plan on coming.

“So, I never know what to think of Americans when they say things like that because most of you don’t mean what you say,” my friend started. “If a Dutch person says they want to meet with you while you are in town, they definitely mean it. I’m very direct in that sense, as Dutch directness is a real thing. But Americans? Americans say all kinds of shit they don’t mean, and then I’m left wondering if they really mean their offer!”

I laughed at this because I know exactly what he means. People here always say stuff they never follow through on: “Please keep in touch (this is actually code for: let me stalk you silently on social media/LinkedIn especially so I can see how you are doing personally/professionally, but I have zero desire to interact directly with you live).” “Please reach out when you are in town, and we can grab coffee.” “Let’s get lunch when you’re around!” Personally, I’ve messaged former colleagues and people I thought were work friends when I’ve been where they are. And when it came to making plans, a number of them have just not responded or responded initially, and then when it came to setting a firm date and time, stopped replying. And that’s when I realized, okay, I made the effort, but they don’t want to make the effort, and therefore, I’m not going to try anymore. It is what it is; I accept it, stop thinking about it, and move on.

I told him that at this point, I think he knows me better than to assume I am full of shit – this is where I am not like the American stereotype. If I say I want to see you, I definitely do want to see you. I will never suggest catching up with someone I am either indifferent to or flat out do not like.

He grinned. “I know, and that’s why I messaged you to see if you wanted to have a meal! Plus, I knew you’d recommend a good place because you know food!”

I think American culture could improve quite a bit by being more direct the way Dutch people are. At work, it can be especially painful. One of the things (of a long, endless list) I hate the most about American work culture is excessive politeness and small talk because then you are left wondering if they are asking because they genuinely care, or if they are just doing all this to put on a polite front to gain favor with you. But I suppose that is the fun in working with global organizations — learning to navigate all these nuances and making sense of it.

Scallion bun (cong you bao) in San Francisco is better than in New York

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Growing up, there are certain Cantonese bakery staples that would be on rotation at home. The most common ones were cha siu bao (Cantonese BBQ pork buns, both the baked and the steamed ones), nai huang bao (egg custard bao), lian rong bao (lotus seed bao) (my grandma’s favorite), occasionally ji wei bao (cocktail / coconut bun), and cong you bao (scallion bun). One of my dad’s absolute favorites was always the twisted scallion bao. There would be an ample sprinkling inside and out of chopped scallions/green onions, plus the bun would be rubbed generously with a lightly seasoned scallion oil. When made correctly, the bao itself was soft, pillowy, and nearly melt in your mouth tender and good. The best ones were like eating air; you had no idea how much you had inhaled until the whole damn twisted bun was gone.

I didn’t realize how good I had it getting Chinese bakery items through my grandma and parents growing up (plus the times when relatives would generously bring over the almost expected pink cardboard boxes of Chinese bakery items) until I moved out on my own – it was all trial and error by my own buying and tasting. When I was going to school in the Boston area, I had to figure out which bakeries were good on my own. The same was the case when I moved to New York. I had to rely on strangers’ reviews on Yelp and Google, plus the occasional word of mouth. Most were hit or miss. To this day, after 21 years of living on the East Coast, and 17 of them spent here in New York City, I can say with sadness that I still have not found a bakery that makes scallion buns as good as the ones I can find in San Francisco.

I was reminded of this when I visited two excellent bakeries in San Francisco this last week. We visited Cherry Blossom Bakery on Clement Street in the Inner Richmond, then Good Mong Kok Bakery, one of my family’s staple SF Chinatown bakeries. Cherry Blossom Bakery has had rave reviews and been on my list a while, but I finally popped in while going to the nearby Kiss of Matcha for my reliable and favorite matcha latte. I chose the scallion bao, which was $2, and whe we brought it home, I realized it was truly perfect. It was exactly as I described above: pillowy and deceptively light, with a rich scallion flavor throughout. It must have been made with an excellent tangzhong, or milk bread base paste. Then a couple days later, we visited Good Mong Kok, which my family has been going to as long as I can remember. They are known for lines out the door and very typical Cantonese (read: yelling/barking and quick) service. I picked up one cha siu bao for Kaia, and one scallion bao for us. The scallion bun was very long and only $2. And it was also super pillowy, almost flaky at the edges, and unbelievably fluffy.

While digging into Good Mong Kok Bakery’s perfect cong you bao, I lamented why I still haven’t found this perfection in New York City across any of the endless Chinese bakeries I’ve visited. Even my most favorite Manhattan Chinatown bakeries don’t come close to this taste or texture. Or worse, they like to add extraneous toppings like sliced hot dog (ugh), Chinese sausage (unnecessary), or other meats. When you have a truly delicious and perfect scallion bun, it needs nothing else other than its perfect dough, scallion oil, and scallions.

Who knows – maybe next year when I come to San Francisco, I may just be desperate enough to buy a bunch in bulk and freeze them to bring back to New York with me…

What changes in ten, twenty-plus years

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I feel like every time I come home to San Francisco, I notice yet another thing that has changed. I hadn’t passed 6th and Geary Blvd in ages, and I was shocked while walking along Geary yesterday to see that the entire area that used to be the Ashley & McMullen family owned funeral home was not only demolished, but completely replaced by a multi-story condominium building. There’s no way this happened in just the last year, and I guess I hadn’t passed this part of Geary to notice it. I don’t know why that felt so strange to me, though; condos replace older buildings all the time everywhere, especially places like San Francisco that have a housing shortage. Both my grandma and my uncle had their funerals at this funeral home, in 1995 and then in 2000.

The Alexandria theater at 18th and Geary is still abandoned and looking worn down, a pigeon-poop filled home that is blocked off to humans by aggressive gating. Gaspare’s, the neighborhood Italian American restaurant in the Richmond, still seems to be going strong; we ended up getting takeout pizza and clams with linguine from there on Friday night for family dinner at home. B. Patisserie, a popular (and at that time, very innovative) bakery run by a Chinese American female pastry chef that opened in 2012, is not only humming along in the same location on California at Divisadero, but they have even opened a second location in the heart of downtown now. We went there yesterday and enjoyed some pastries and coffee before walking to Japantown. While I was there, I thought about the week and a half I spent at home in November 2014 because of my dad’s scheduled bypass surgery. His hospital was walking distance from the bakery cafe, so I remember meeting my friend there for lunch one day, and also going there on my own a separate time to decompress a little.

On Friday, I took Kaia to the South Park playground to play while I caught up with an old friend there who drove out to meet us. She was meeting Kaia and also seeing me as a mother for the very first time. It was funny to be in that area after so long, as the last time I remember being in South Park, it was summer 2003, when I had a full-time summer writing internship at WireTap Magazine, a now defunct youth magazine that was owned by the Independent Media Institute (which also used to own Mother Jones). Over twenty years ago, I was an aspiring writer in high school, and today, I am living across the country and am a mother. The play structure had completely changed in the children’s play area, yet the park and surrounding buildings all felt the same. Even some of the fancy cafes that were there twenty years ago still remain today, like Caffe Centro.

People always say things like, “If these walls could talk….” The truth is that there are memories that are conjured every time you walk through old hallways, streets, and neighborhoods that you had frequented, especially when you call the city or town your childhood home. The memories are always a mix of happy, sad, infuriating, and even indifferent, but they are ultimately what colored our lives at a given point in time. Because Kaia is with me, I can see the city through her eyes now. On this trip alone, I’ve lost count of the number of neighborhoods we’ve taken her to and playgrounds/play areas where we’ve played: the Richmond, the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, Chinatown, North Beach, South Beach, downtown/the Ferry Building area, the Tenderloin, Noe Valley, the Fillmore. I love watching her run around and play on these local playgrounds. Of course, they are not the same as the playgrounds and structures I played on as a kid, as all of them have been redone regardless of the neighborhood. But when I asked her if she likes San Francisco and being here, she vigorously nodded, “yes.” And that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

My mom’s first ride in a Waymo

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On Saturday when we went to the Ferry Building Farmers Market, my mom said she wanted to come with us while my dad waited for workers to come remove the staging in front of the house from having the facade painted. I figured it would be a good idea since now that she hasn’t worked in over two decades, she rarely has any reason or desire to go downtown. Plus, she would never be interested in visiting any San Francisco farmers’ market without me. Before we even arrived in San Francisco, Chris had declared that he wanted to take Waymo, the self-driving cars, as much as possible while we were within city limits (Waymo only works within the city and on local roads now). We took it a couple times while back here in August 2024, and Chris was eager to have the self-driving experience again.

So without telling my mom, Chris ordered a Waymo to appear at the house to take us to the Ferry Building. When it was coming up the block, my mom panicked when she saw it and asked if that Waymo was for us. “Oh, no, no, no!” she cried. “I’m not getting into that! This is so dangerous!” I urged her to get in and not make a fuss. We buckled in Kaia with her ride-safe belt as she giggled in glee and excitement. “WAYYYYY MOOOOOOO!” she kept yelling happily. Kaia is absolutely obsessed with Waymo and can spot any of them from far away on the street or through the window. Every time she spots one, she yells out, “WAYYY MOOOO!”

When the doors closed and we started the ride, my mom began to calm down. She liked the welcome message, that it says hello and urges you to fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride. She loved how clean the car was and the (at-the-speed-limit) speed it was driving at. And she especially loved the message that came at the end when you are approaching your destination — it reminds you to take all your belongings, and not to leave your phone or wallet in the car. “Oh, that’s so nice!” she laughed at the auto reminder message.

Later, my mom admitted to me that she was really scared and didn’t think that self-driving cars should be legal. But then once she got into the car, she realized how comfortable, clean, and nice it was. “It’s so clean and well maintained!” my mom exclaimed. “And it drives so safely (read: slower)!”

The very first time I got into a Waymo in August 2024, I was a bit leery initially. But after the first 30 seconds, I got used to it right away and love it. As Chris loves to create verbal bullet points for all the pros of self-driving cars, his points are all true: these cars are safer. You don’t have to worry about a driver judging you for any reason (what you look like, how you talk, what you talk about, how long it takes you to load the trunk/get in the car/get your child properly fastened in). There’s no need to feel rushed when getting in and out of the car because the driver will negatively rate you. If you need to take a phone call or call someone, you can do it without annoying the driver. You also don’t have to worry about whether you are slamming the door or trunk too hard, whether you are bothering your driver with any seat preferences you may have (some Uber/Lyft drivers really don’t like it when you sit in the front seat alongside them). And you have full control over things like heating/air conditioning and music and can calibrate them yourself.

And as someone who has always hated driving and hasn’t driven a car since 2008, I think that self-driving cars really should be the future!

Ferry Building Farmers Market and the whining and whinging in the background

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On Saturday morning, we decided to take a Waymo out to the Ferry Building for the famous Saturday morning farmers market there. I love that farmers market; it’s likely my very favorite one in all of the U.S. that I’ve visited. As a native San Franciscan, I quietly feel a lot of pride and joy when I walk through the endless fresh produce stalls there. Every time we walk by the stalls, whether they are selling various (all labeled by variety!) heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, strawberries, or peaches, it’s as though the perfume of these fresh fruits and veggies beckon to us. I have yet to visit any farmers market in the U.S. that has such rich fragrance coming from the fresh produce all around. If my parents’ house weren’t as cluttered and dirty, I’d be tempted to buy a bunch of the produce there to prepare simply and eat at home, but I guess that is not to be.

While I enjoyed seeing, sampling, and inhaling all the deliciousness around me, it felt like there was someone whining in the background every time I reveled in a tasty piece of tomato or local Valencia orange. No, it was not my toddler. It was actually my mom, mulling in the background, complaining that this peach or that strawberry was too expensive. Seemingly every stall we visited, she’d remark how expensive something was and how could anyone pay so much for any of this produce. It almost dampened my experience of the market. Unlike her, these people take pride and joy in the produce they grow and sell, and they should be charging what is a reasonable price to make a living and continue to sustain themselves. Not everyone has the luxury to not work and have several paychecks come in every month. But she is so out of touch that she never thinks about this.

My mom said she wanted to come with us to spend time with Kaia. But I think we all know there was no quality time spent together. The one moment I actually stopped to pay for a small basket of sun gold tomatoes, I asked my mom to watch Kaia. That didn’t work out. She held her hand for maybe five seconds, and then Kaia ran off. My mom ended up luring her back with candy, which I explicitly told her not to give. If it’s not one thing, it’s always something else that is going wrong.

A friend of mine, who also has a dysfunctional relationship with her mom, reminded me that our parents will never change who they are, and we’re incapable of changing them. The only thing we should be focused on is making sure we are an improvement from them and try to be better parents to our children than they were to us. Each generation should be “better” than the previous. I hope I am achieving that — I hope.

Workplace camaraderie when virtual

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As a parent of a young child, I find it hard to fathom a life where I actually was required to be in an office five days a week full time. That’s a pretty privileged and spoiled thing to say since the majority of full-time working America only knows what that is like, and not what remote or hybrid work feels like. But I was remotely working full time once the pandemic started. I got laid off from that job during the pandemic, then six weeks later got hired at another company that required me to be 100 percent remote in New York City, where my company has no offices. So for over five years now, I’ve only been working remotely. And while I have loved the flexibility, especially with Pookster in tow, I know I still really miss in-office camaraderie.

It’s really hard to “make friends” at work when you are fully remote. Pretty much any “meeting” you have with colleagues will be over Zoom/some other video chat, and virtual meeting fatigue is a real thing. If you have all these internal and external meetings throughout the day, the last thing most people want is a friendly “coffee catchup” over yet another Zoom call. So the very small handful of people I consider “work friends” are actually people I do commit to chatting with 1:1, at least once a month or once every other month, and we chat about work and non-work things. And it’s a relief to chat with people about things that are not work related because it acknowledges that we’re actually human and have things that matter to us outside of work.

I spent almost four hours hanging out with a work friend who is based in the Raleigh area over dinner and drinks last night, and we had so much fun just talking about all things work, positive and negative, and also our lives outside of work. We were laughing so much that our bartender/server seemed a bit left out of the fun and kept checking in to see if he could possibly join in (half joke). But all that reminded me of the fun I used to have when I was at the office, when it was easier to make friends the “normal way” (as in, in person!) and get to know people over work happy hours, dinners, and just by the water fountain or kitchen. At my last company, I was basically the culture queen, organizing work socializing events and getting people to mingle. Here, no one thinks of me that way since we’re all virtual. All of that in-office fun seems like a very distant past, even though it was just over 5.5 years ago.

Quick 24-hour trip to Raleigh, North Carolina

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I booked a relatively last minute trip to come down to Raleigh, North Carolina, to do a customer meeting and also host a customer happy hour. Our customer chose the happy hour spot, which was a new, upscale restaurant in downtown Raleigh. It had high ceilings, textured murals on the walls, beautiful, modern chandeliers, a large bar that actually sparkled, and a level of service that really blew me away. We had a group of about 15 people in total. Somehow, our server was able to remember every single person’s drink when offering to top them up, as she asked them specifically if they would like a second (fill in the name of the specific drink) when coming around. It was really impressive to see her in action; she was like a wizard! In addition, we ordered a number of appetizers for the happy hour event, which included a pull-apart bread served in a cast iron pan with scallion butter, beef sliders with horseradish boursin, arugula, and caramelized onion jam, amongst other things. The sliders were delicious, but what really impressed me was the pull-apart bread. It was a little crisp on the outside (from being baked in a cast iron pan), and super warm, fluffy, soft, and tender on the inside, with a subtle sweetness that reminded me of Portuguese sweet bread. I think I got a third portion of the bread because it was truly that good.

While I’m aware that Raleigh has been growing in popularity with both companies opening offices and headquarters there (and thus more people moving into the area from all over the country, if not world), it didn’t really hit me exactly how “new” everything was until I walked the streets of its downtown area. Almost every building felt like it had just been constructed and had a new and shiny feel to it. All the restaurants seemed modern and spacious, with large open bars and extremely high ceilings. A bakery I visited that got rave reviews had creative pastries on the menu, like a baklava croissant and a “have a little faith in me” pull-apart croissant with brown sugar almond frangipane. I visited only three different food establishments today, but the quality of the food, drink, and service has been really astonishing. I suppose it’s partly the New York City snob in me to be skeptical, but I’ve traveled enough around the U.S. to know that delicious, truly hospitable places are really everywhere, and oftentimes in cities and neighborhoods where you’d never expect it. The other part of me, though, is more impressed because post-pandemic, overall it feels like quality of service has declined everywhere. So it’s given me good vibes to get really great service during my short time in Raleigh.