As with last year when I turned 33, I’m having similar feelings this year when it comes to turning another year older in light of Ed’s passing. Ed was 33 when he passed away; he was about a month shy of turning 34. So while last year, I turned the age that he was when he passed away, this year, I will be turning the age he never lived to see. It probably didn’t mean much to him; he didn’t want to live to see another day and made that more and more clear to me the closer we got to his death. But the only reason he felt that way was that he was blinded by his own pain and suffering. This prevented him from truly seeing and appreciating everything that was great about living on this earth.

It doesn’t always feel great to be a part of the world today. With ridiculous politics, a moronic leader of “the free world,” climate change, endless wild fires, misinformation, constant ignorance of overly privileged people, and other awful current events, I’ve caught myself oftentimes thinking that I am currently living in a dystopia, and I don’t know when all of this insanity is going to end; actually, I know the answer to that question: it will never end. The stupidity and chaos will continue. But being able to see light and hope through all that is a daily challenge and one that we have to strive for, otherwise, what’s the point of living, anyway?

I don’t really know what is going to happen this year, but I do know that I owe it to Ed to try to do my best, to continue living life as fully as I can to prove to him that this all actually is worth it. I still catch myself feeling in shock that not only is he gone, but he’s been gone for this long. This July, it will be seven years — seven years of living without my big brother. I really can’t believe it sometimes. But I have to keep hoping for the best, if not for myself, then for his memory. It’s the least I can do for him.

While we were in Indonesia a few weeks ago, we visited Jakarta’s colorful Chinatown, where we saw endless displays of Chinese New Year decorations, red envelopes, and packaged foods and gifts. It was a reminder to me that Chinese New Year is right around the corner, and in fact, this year, it’s actually much earlier than it’s been in previous years. This year, Chinese New Year falls on January 25th, which is super early; that’s just a week after my birthday! It reminded me that I want to make some of the traditional new year’s dishes that I skipped making the last couple of years since I was more focused on making Chinese New Year dinner foods, such as spring rolls, noodles, and braised pork belly and eggs. Traditional Chinese (and Vietnamese) New Year treats such as turnip cake, taro cake, and New Year’s glutinous rice cakes are not actually meant to be eaten as part of a formal “meal,” but rather as a snack/small treat when having guests come over for New Year’s red envelope rounds.

In past years, I’ve always made the taro cake because it was my favorite, but I’m considering staggering making different cakes this year just to test new things. I’ve never made the turnip version, so I hope to try that this year. And for nian gao, or new year’s cake, I’m thinking about testing out an iteration that has pandan and coconut as a flavoring. I figured it couldn’t be that original of an idea to apply pandan and coconut to this cake; I quickly did a Google search for it, and there are versions of this cake with these flavors that are made and sold in Singapore. We were so spoiled in Indonesia with pandan and coconut as sweet flavorings in dessert there, and given nian gao is usually such a plain glutinous rice cake, it could benefit from these two additional flavorings.

I also want to test out another version of Vietnamese cha gio, or fried spring rolls. I wasn’t that pleased with the color of the rice paper wrappers when I deep fried them for the first time during Lunar New Year last year, but I’d likely need to invite other people over to eat these since I would not want to eat boat loads of spring rolls on our own.

My boss was in town from San Francisco this week, and suddenly in the middle of a meeting yesterday, he had sharp, shooting pains in his abdomen that required him to go to the emergency room. We were worried about him, so a few of us left work early yesterday to check in on him to see if he was all right. His pain had subsided, but he was still waiting to do a cat scan to get a full diagnosis because the culprit of his pains still was not known.

The last time I was in a hospital was in November 2014, when my dad had his bypass surgery. The smells, sights, and sounds of being in any hospital always completely disgust me. But what was even worse this time was that this hospital’s emergency room “waiting area” just seemed like a complete mess, total chaos everywhere, with patients given far too little space given whatever contagions they may or may not have. I didn’t stay in there long, but for the period of time I was in there to see my boss, I felt uneasy. Hospitals, ironically, are known in this country to be some of the dirtiest places. Medical professionals don’t even wash or sanitize their hands after using the bathroom. So what on earth would make me feel comfortable about being in a place with people like that plus those who are actually ill? The least amount of time I can be in a hospital, the better.

I felt so terrible looking at my boss on his bed in his cramped space, in pain, yet grateful that we came to see and check up on him. I cannot imagine how awful it must be to need to visit an emergency room far away from home where you don’t really know anyone and have no idea how things are supposed to work.

Another part of getting back into the usual groove of daily work and New York life also means that I need to figure out what books I am going to prioritize this year, whether that means reading via Kindle, paperback/hardcover, or Audible. Then, I also have to balance that out with regular news and all my podcasts. I listen to a variety of podcasts ranging from daily news, in-depth news, feature pieces, to ones that are about mental health, relationships, culture, and food. I was so excited to see that one of the latest Gastropod podcasts was about kimchi. In it, I learned that the very oldest recorded iterations of kimchi actually were not spicy at all. Any “spice” they had were from Chinese peppercorns (I’m assuming they meant Sichuanese peppercorns, but I may be wrong?). And chilies actually did not get to Korea until the Japanese got them from the Portuguese in the 1500s and then subsequently brought them to Korea. When the Koreans saw these bright red chilies, they immediately added them to their kimchi and got addicted not just by the spicy flavors but also by the fiery red color. In most Asian cultures that I am aware of, red is considered highly auspicious, so they were excited just by the mere appearance of their new and improved kimchi.

These are the types of podcasts I love: the ones that go in depth about random, quirky knowledge nuggets that are fun to know about something you are already familiar with but did not previously know. And it’s an added bonus when it’s about food.

In a world where money did not mean anything, I would own zero pieces of clothing or shoes, except for underwear or socks. I realized a while ago that I’m just not a fashion person. I do not enjoy the process of building an outfit or “look.” I hate shopping in store and trying on clothes. I dislike thinking about what to wear. I harass my Alexa with this question nearly every morning because I’m always so uninspired by my closet. And I really really do not like buying clothes, whether it’s fast fashion or “investment pieces.” The thing that makes me the most mad is that most clothes that are affordable today are made out of bi-products of plastic, so we’re not even spending most of our money on real fabrics like cotton or wool. And if you don’t think that’s that terrible, think about all the times you do laundry on your polyester blends, your viscose, your rayon (all “man-made” materials made from plastic), and all the plastic that runs from your laundry into the sea. Yep. That’s pretty terrible.

Well, I think we did pretty well in 2019 with our spending: together, the two of us spend a whopping $261 on clothing, far below the $1,000+ investment most families make, and that tends to vary by income level. That is pretty impressive over the course of 12 months across two people, if I do say so myself. In my head, I think the goal I’d like to set is around $500 or less for this year.

In the U.S., in high-cost metropolitan areas, the average household spends about $125 per week on groceries. After looking over our spending patterns by category in 2019, we spent about $40/week on groceries. Part of this is because we eat out, are traveling for work, and the fact that I get free Seamless from work. We’re also a two-person household with two people working full time with no kids. But I’d like to suggest that some of it is because we keep a pretty good pantry/freezer/refrigerator stock of staples that we like to use that are always on hand, whether that is rice, dried pastas, many types of beans, sauces (soy, fish, sesame, chili), spices, etc. Part of the reason people are paralyzed about cooking or doing more cooking is that they are intimidated by committing to too many different ingredients that they may or may not use in the future, whether it’s turmeric, white pepper, oregano, or something else. The key is to always invest in spices or products that you know you will use in the future and use a lot, and if you do not plan to use them a lot, make sure, if you can, to only buy a small quantity of it so that it either doesn’t go stale or rancid. If it may go stale, preserve the life of it by keeping it in the fridge or freezer. Or for things like rice or pasta, they will live on your shelf indefinitely.

Keeping a well-stocked pantry allows me to create meals from whatever I already have without going out to buy much. For example, last night, I made dan dan noodles with the frozen “fresh” noodles and ground turkey in my freezer, the sesame paste in my pantry that was still new and sealed, plus the soy sauces, sugar, and Sichuanese peppercorns I already had in my drawers. I also had a packet of preserved pickled Sichuanese pickles in my fridge, so I used that, as well. I felt pretty self-satisfied once the dish came together that I had made a full dish that would last three days with just what I had without needing to go out and buy anything extra.

It’s strange. I was dreading the bitter cold and snow of New York when we got back, yet when we arrived back at JFK on Tuesday, it felt… mild. I was wearing my bomber jacket while waiting for our car to go home and didn’t even need my scarf to shield my neck. And this week, it was consistently in the 40s-60s F. It’s almost like I flew back to San Francisco instead of New York for the Northern Hemisphere winter.

It doesn’t matter, though, because I’m still not that motivated to go outside and frolic much. Most of what I tend to focus on in the winter is “indoor” activities such as scrapbooking, but because I got such a good start on scrapbooking through September 2019 last autumn, this January, I plan to focus most of my indoor time on video editing for the YouTube channel. I’ve already wrapped up one video since coming back, and am actively working to upload a second by the time this weekend is up. And the real doozy faces me once I have to organize all my footage from Belgium and The Netherlands.. and even more in Australia and Indonesia. The backlog seems incredibly long and a little intimidating right now!

After nearly a month of indulging probably a bit too much on super rich foods, I decided that as soon as we got back that I wanted to eat lighter and eat food I would cook. I feel this way most of the time when we come back from a long trip; I just want food I made in my own kitchen, where it’s not super salted or oily or too anything. So on our first full day back in New York, I managed to make two wholesome dishes from scratch in less than 1.5 hours, all thanks to the glory of not only my beloved Instant Pot, but also my frozen cubed pre-made tomato onion masala. This tomato onion masala has truly changed my life when it comes to making Indian food; so has the Instant Pot, but the Instant Pot does not just miraculously mince garlic and puree tomato for you. The tomato onion masala pre-prep has made worlds of a difference when it comes to prep time when making Indian food. With these two, along with a well stocked freezer and pantry, I made chicken saag and spiced toor dal in such a short amount of time that most would be shocked to see the food on the table for us last night. I served these with rice that was already made, but frozen from before we left for our time away.

And when making the saag, I didn’t use any cream, butter, or ghee, and used just two generous pinches of kasoor methi (dried fenugreek leaves). Who would have thought what a difference two pinches of anything could make! The addition of just a couple pinches of kasoor methi made the saag go from generically North Indian tasting to authentic North Indian food. It really is just the little things sometimes.