Mirna’s Pupuseria in Flatbush

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I am embarrassed to say that I did not know what pupusas were until I reached adulthood. It wasn’t until the early 2010s when I finally went to a Salvadoran restaurant in the Mission District of San Francisco when I finally ate one for the first time. And it was certainly a memorable, delicious experience. If you aren’t familiar, pupusas originate in El Salvador, and they are flat, fine-cornmeal based savory pancakes with different types of stuffing, ranging from chicharron (not the crispy pork skin, but rather shredded pork shoulder), a combination of 5-7 types of Salvadoran cheeses that are like a mix of queso fresco and mozzarella in flavor and texture, to refried beans or loroco, an edible Salvadoran flower. There are so many stuffings, and many can be combined, but what was delicious about all of them was how deeply savory they all were. They are, what Australians would call, “moreish:” once you have a bite, you are easily tempted to keep eating more! When cooked on a griddle, the best ones have this nice textural contrast of crispy edges and chewy middles. Pupusas are always served with a curtido, which is a sour slaw of cabbage and carrots, as well as some salsa roja (red tomato-based sauce) on the side.

Once, I tried making them with some fine cornmeal I had purchased, but the project went completely awry. I figured that I likely did not have the right grind for my cornmeal. I probably also over kneaded the dough. The result ended up being more like a flatter hockey puck, and the texture was not soft or dreamy, but dense and far too chewy. After that first failed attempt, I figured that I could just find a pupusa somewhere in Queens or uptown when I really wanted one. It would be better to support a small business who makes them expertly than spend too much of my own time toiling over how to make them.

Then, in 2022, Chris discovered Mirna’s Pupuseria in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Mirna’s is a small pupusa shop run by a husband and wife team. When Mirna first moved to New York from El Salvador, she used to make her visiting friend’s pupusas when they came over. So they joked and said when they came over, they were coming to eat at Mirna’s Pupuseria. And that’s how the name originated. The pupusas are just perfect here, even when they are reheated a day or two later. We love the refried bean and cheese ones, plus the chicharron and cheese pupusas. I am sure all of them are good, so it’s hard to go wrong with them! The Salvadoran style horchata is a nutty and sweet thirst quencher. Maybe at some point when we come back, I’ll order some Salvadoran style tamales, but the pupusas are just so good that it’s hard not to just want to order these here. The staff take their time with the pupusas, as all are made to order. As I always tell Pookster and get her to (begrudgingly) repeat after me: good food takes time. And they put so much love, care, and time into making these pupusas. Little food shops like Mirna’s is what makes New York City so special.

Rendang Hang with the Sambal Lady

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For our fourth year in a row, we went to the Sambal Lady’s house and backyard in Flatbush, Brooklyn, for her annual Malaysian feast. This year, she called it the “rendang hang,” after her famous beef rendang.

For the delicious meal, we had freshly fried shrimp chips as a snack, rojak buah salad, ghee rice, beef brisket rendang, a vegetable curry mix and ended with a gula melaka and coconut sticky rice. We also had an interesting selection of local craft beers, as well as unique samplings of other booze, such as a fun durian brandy.

Given there were 70+ people at the event, it was hard to chat too much with Sambal Lady. But when we did chat a bit, she told us that she would not have had this event unless I had messaged her a couple months ago asking about it. Then, I told Chris that I’d be making beef rendang using Auria’s spice blend, and he asked if she was having her annual feast again. I messaged her, asking if this would still be happening given that her event partner had moved to Ohio, and “Chris has a hankering for your rendang.” She responded and said they weren’t sure, but now she’d start talking to him. So they settled on 19 October and set the date! She said she wasn’t sure she wanted to host a big event given she had a rough trip to Malaysia in August for her mother’s 90th birthday, but after I messaged her, she got into the spirit and decided to just jump right in. We were lucky and got some good pictures of us together with Kaia (who even smiled!). When I first came to her house and met her in September 2021, I was pregnant with Pookster. And we’ve come every year since. So this is now our fourth year coming with Kaia in tow… just that in year 1, Pookster was still in the uterus! Kaia always gets a little shout out during Auria’s welcome speech since she was named after Auria’s pandan kaya jam. And so we have a lot of repeat guests who recognize us and say that we’re like distant family that they see once a year; one of them remarked to me, “You two are like mini celebrities! We know of you and know you!” a dinner attendee exclaimed to me.

We also had our couple friends that we met three years ago come to the event again tonight, so it was like our three-year anniversary of meeting — and at the same location! The older I get, the more I marvel at how quickly time flies. Three years ago really didn’t feel like that long ago, even though I was pregnant then, and Kaia is now almost 3!

Auria’s shindig always attracts lots of interesting people who not only love to eat and drink, but also love to cook (given her line up of spices and sauces) and by default, travel. So I had a lot of interesting conversation tonight, which has left my throat even more sore than it was when I woke up this morning. But it is all most definitely worth it!

Brothy beans and the magic that is Malaysian sambal

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A friend I made late last year and I have been bonding about all things fancy food related. She gets most of her meat and beef bones from a local farm that is a short driving distance from her apartment in New Jersey. She also has been purchasing Rancho Gordo heirloom beans, and at around the same time I made my first (and so far, only) order from them. She told me she has been so ruined by these beans that she doesn’t think she can buy regular beans anymore. Given that I still want value, I’m definitely still buying regular beans, but I plan to reserve the Rancho Gordo beans for recipes and dishes where the main flavor I want is the bean (instead of any strong spices). So sorry to Indian dals, but I won’t be using Rancho Gordo for you — at least, not yet! When I last saw her during the AFSP walk, she had told me she’d just made a big pot of Rancho Gordo beans. I asked her how she prepared them. And she said that all she did was boil them with some basic vegetables (onions, carrots, bay leaf, etc.), seasoned, and ate them just like that, with the delicious bean broth and all. So I thought…. Hmmmmm. Maybe I should do that, too. I should stop overthinking the preparation and just take advantage of the fact that the Rancho Gordo beans yield a delicious bean broth and eat them as is!

So I took out a bag of heirloom Jacob’s cattle beans this week, soaked them for four hours, then threw them in a pot with water and a parmigianno reggiano rind and simmered for another three. Once they were done, I stored them in glass jars with the bean broth and all. When serving, I added some grated parm, salt, pepper, and that was it. It was delicious on its own, but I wanted to add some heat to it, so I took out the Sambal Lady’s hot chili sambal and dolloped a small amount on top of our bowls. And that really made it special! I have honestly been neglecting the hot chili sambal, and seeing how much it enhanced my brothy beans here, I knew it was a reminder to me to use it more!

Since I always love tinkering, sometimes it’s hard for me to appreciate that less can be more. In this case, these simple brothy beans made our week. Pookster was obsessed with these brothy beans; she’s already had second helpings two days this week at dinner time!

Porcini mushrooms are too expensive

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I get a few emails a week from Food & Wine magazine, along with a number of other food bloggers/writers/cookbook authors, as an inspiration for what to cook and what to add to my “to cook” list. This can get a bit overwhelming, especially when you add all the recipes I’ve already been wanting to make because I just want to, and all the dishes I get inspired by on Instagram. But I suppose we all have something to live for and look forward to! The latest recipe I decided to make this week was pork and porcini mushroom meatballs. We went up to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx this past weekend and restocked on tinned San Marzano tomatoes and some high quality dried pasta. I also picked up a gorgeous bunch of fresh basil and onions. We stopped by Casa Della Mozzarella and got a pound of their fresh mozzarella bocaccini balls. And luckily, Borgatti’s was open, so we got a pound of fresh egg noodles (pappardelle, of course!), a large pack of porcini and ricotta ravioli, along with some jam and tinned clams. Given this, I figured we’d have some pappardelle with a side of the pork and porcini meatballs. But when I looked at multiple shops for the required dried porcini mushrooms for the meatball recipe, I was shocked: a pound of dried porcini mushrooms would cost at least $60! I couldn’t stomach paying this much for any mushroom, so I decided to take the more frugal road out and instead used chopped fresh cremini mushrooms.

The meatballs still came out delicious and satisfying, especially when paired with my pappardelle tossed in a creamy San Marzano tomato sauce I had simmering for over an hour. I don’t know when the price of porcini mushrooms will go down. The price just made no sense. Even with fresh chanterelles, which require you to go foraging since they cannot be domesticated, at their peak price, they are $30/pound when fresh. I just couldn’t wrap my head around how anyone could justify paying so much for dried mushrooms. And I suppose many others agreed with me: every time I picked up a bag of the insanely priced dried porcini mushrooms, they all had a thin layer of dust on them, as if to indicate no one had touched them or even considered buying them for a long time. Given this, I wonder if dried mushrooms can actually… stale?

Laundry stripping

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Well today, I can say that I honestly feel so productive and like a super adult. Or rather, I feel like a true domestic goddess, as Nigella Lawson once discussed. Why? You would ask. Well, it’s because today, I have finally tried out LAUNDRY STRIPPING.

I had no idea what this was until earlier this year, when I came across a mention of laundry stripping on Instagram. I’d read that TikTok had popularized the idea of laundry stripping, which is a term that is used for filling your bathtub up with really hot water, using a 1:1:2 part solution of borax, washing soda (NOT to be confused with baking soda! It’s more alkaline and far more powerful), and laundry detergent. You mix it all up until everything has dissolved, and then you place bulky items of a similar color, usually towels or bedding, into the water and swish them around about once an hour for about four hours, or until the water fully cools. You wring out all the items, throw them into your wash for a rinse and spin cycle, then dry as usual. The idea behind this is that in your washing machine, your washed items never fully get clean because of laundry buildup, grease/body oils/etc., so this method gives your bedding and towels a true “deep cleanse” and takes all the excess grime out that your machine wasn’t able to do.

So I gathered a large bunch of our white/off white/beige towels as my first attempt at laundry stripping. I made the solution, filled the tub, dumped all the towels in, then swished. I swished a total of five times, then did the whole method of wringing them out and adding them to the rinse/spin cycle. And WOW! Just after five minutes of sitting in the water, you could see how gross the water had become. It was already a deep, murky grey color. And that was just after five minutes! This is all the dirty and nastiness the washing machine couldn’t take out!

I’ll be honest: I did feel a happy sense of cleanliness and accomplishment after seeing this. I just hope that the towels actually look and feel a bit better after all this. See? You can never fully trust your washing machine to *really* get your stuff squeaky clean.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold – time traveling to see the deceased

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I just started reading the book Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It’s the first book in a series of of novels that was originally an award-winning play. The idea behind the story is a simple premise: time travel in a nondescript cafe. The customers of the cafe Funiculi Funicula can travel back in time, to any time they like and to see whomever they choose, but there is one basic rule they must all follow, above all: they must return before their cup of coffee gets cold. A few other caveats are thrown in, too, to make things a bit more challenging: you can only time travel when sitting in a designated seat in the cafe. You cannot get up from the seat at any point of this time travel session. And lastly, whatever is said and done when you go back to the present time, nothing will be able to change the future. The present will still be the present, and all will be unchanged.

The beginning is painfully slow. I wasn’t actually sure I would continue reading because of how slow and annoying the descriptions were in the beginning. It also is extremely annoying to read about all the cultural stereotypes of how Japanese men vs. women are. Japanese society, like most Asian cultures, does not like to express emotions openly. They are sexually repressed and can never fully say what they think to others out loud, even people who are supposed to be their closest friends or family. So that repeatedly happens throughout the stories in the book. But my general rule with all books is that I have to read to page 100 to decide whether I really want to continue or not. Some books are just slower than others, and that’s how stories can build.

But then I got to the second story in the book about two sisters. One runs a bar and runs a pretty casual life, but we later learn that she left home and got cut off from her parents because as the oldest, she was expected to take over their family business of running an inn, which she didn’t want for herself. Her younger sister is left to to take over the inn. The sisters got along as children, but as they get older, they drift. The older sister is constantly pushing the younger sister away when all the younger sister wants is to be close to her big sister. The younger sister dies in a tragic head-on car collision. The older sister finds out and is struck with so much grief. After over a decade of never going home, she finally goes back to the family house, where she finds her parents mourning her sister’s dead body, lying in an altar-like state. Her parents ignore her and pretend she isn’t there. Later, she goes to the cafe in an attempt to see her late little sister one more time. Another caveat is introduced: when you time travel back to see someone who is deceased, a little alarm goes off at your table to warn you it’s almost time to leave… because the cafe knows from experience that in tragic reunions like these, the person time traveling never wants to leave their deceased loved one.

When there is a person who comes to the cafe to time travel, they need to pinpoint a specific point in time they want to go back to, and who they want to see. And usually, they have a purpose: they want to re-phrase something they said. They want to share a letter that they failed to give. They want to take back something they said. This particular sisters story was particularly touching to me because I think about what it would be like to time travel to the past to see Ed again, and which moment I would have chosen. Of course, this is a bit different: this younger sister did not die by suicide; her death was 100 percent accidental. At first, I was unsure when I would have chosen. But then, I thought… I would time travel to March 2013, when I was home for a long and painful two weeks on my own, without Chris. Endless arguments and snips from my parents happened that trip. But I would time travel to the day I suggested to Ed that we take a walk and get bubble tea at 23rd St and Clement in San Francisco. I would have had a different conversation with him. I still remember the conversation we had: I shared with him that I was worried and wanted him to get therapy. I would have come with a better plan to help. I would have reassured him with stronger words how much I loved him and wanted him to get better. I would also have reiterated to him that he needed to get the hell out of our parents’ house and move out on his own. I would have asked him to commit to a plan and reassured him that he had so much more potential.

Like in the Funiculi Funicula cafe, the present would not change. He’d still be gone. But maybe if I’d had a firmer, more reassuring conversation with him about how deeply concerned I was and how much I loved him, maybe I’d feel a tiny bit better about what I did. I suppose I will never stop regretting what I did and didn’t do with him. But regardless, the world keeps turning and we must go on. I wonder if I had had the conversation I really wanted to have if that would have elicited different words from him. Maybe he would have shared something with me during that conversation that would give me more closure today. Even though it would hurt a lot to see him again, I would jump at the chance to time travel back to see and talk to him again.

Response from the executive director of the Manhattan Chapter, AFSP

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Last week after I sent my email to the executive director of the Manhattan Chapter of AFSP, she responded. She was really kind and thoughtful in her response and said she appreciated my feedback and heard everything I said. She wanted to invite me to lunch in the next month so that we could get to know each other, and also to ask me to join the Manhattan Walk committee for next year.

I immediately said yes to lunch. I think it would be a good idea to sit down with her to see what her role is about, how she got into this since she’s new to the organization, and to see what the future of the AFSP Manhattan Chapter looks like. It would be a good learning opportunity for me. Plus, her work is paid work; she works for AFSP. I’d like to see her perspective on all this. Honestly, as terrible as it sounds, I do not speak much with people who work at not-for-profit organizations. I did tell her that while I was flattered to be asked to join the Walk committee, I was not 100 percent sure given the time commitment. The idea of dealing with politics and bureaucracy at a job I’d receive zero pay for does not necessary delight my senses.

It made me feel good to know that she cares and was quick to respond. This is supposed to be a community, after all, so I’m hopeful about the future for AFSP.

Kaia, the Chindianese eater

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Like every toddler, Kaia has her moments with food. Although relatively speaking, she is a very adventurous toddler and loves a large variety of foods, I suppose it’s also helped that I was extremely rigorous with exposing her to as many flavors, foods, and cuisines as possible before she turned age 1. I am proud to say that she loves many of the foods of her cultures, whether that is various forms of tofu (she is particularly fond of pressed smoked or five-spice tofu), gai lan and other Asian vegetables, dal, many different curries, cha lua, and pho broth. And her absolute favorite food, noodles, certainly defines her as my sweet noodle slurping baby. Today, she gobbled up a large amount of stir-fried pressed five spice tofu with celery and bell peppers for both lunch and dinner.

Sometimes when I watch Pookster eat, I am reminded of a conversation I overheard between my aunt (my dad’s younger sister) and one of my cousins shortly after he and his wife had their two kids. My aunt was asking my cousin what his kids like to eat. When he named a bunch of generic American junk food like chicken tenders, fries, and pizza, my aunt, clearly not happy, asked why he and his wife let their kids eat all this junk. “Do they eat Chinese or Filipino food?” she asked. My cousin said they did not, and my aunt goes into a rage, pressing him as to why. My cousin insisted they “just don’t like it.”

“They are Chinese and Filipino! This is their culture!” my aunt cries. “How can they not eat their own cultures’ food? This is your fault! You are their parents! You have to teach them!”

As much as I disdain my aunt, she had a valid point. It’s really on parents of children to lead by example and teach them how to eat, what to eat, and what their heritage is about. The easiest way to appreciate culture is through food, and so if you cannot teach your child to enjoy their culture’s food, then what luck are you going to have with your child embracing other parts of their culture?

An imperial family dream

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It’s almost as though since my college friend came to visit that all these vivid dreams have started. I know I dream every night, but in the last several months, it’s been harder to remember them once I’ve woken up. Last night, I dreamt I was part of an imperial family. I was in a huge banquet hall with a lot of other people, who I presume were my family members. We were all dressed in elaborate gowns and suits. I had an elaborate and large hairdo with endless pins in my hair. The only person I recognized was my mom, who was seated at the head of the table. She was discussing in an “I am very important” tone of voice my betrothal to someone I was not particularly fond of. As soon as she mentioned this man, I felt a bit of disgust and a bit of annoyance. But I said nothing. I suppose that was just my future that someone else would be determining for me, I thought to myself. I simply sat there and stared, mindlessly eating the food that I was served by a fleet of servants. As I got up from the table, one of the servants caught my eye, and I could see his eyes glimmering. I turned the corner, and he discreetly followed me and tried to brush his hand over mine. I was confused and looked up at him, and his face came right up to mine. We were so close that I realized he had a hard-on and was trying to show it to me. I felt even more confused and at that point flustered, so I pushed him away and quickened my walk away from the banquet hall and all those people, including him.

So what – in my dream, I’m a part of a wealthy imperial family where the servant tries to make a pass at me? What is that about, anyway?

No Stupid Questions Podcast: When do you become an adult?

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In the last year or so, I’ve gotten into the No Stupid Questions podcast, which is a spinoff of the very popular Freakonomics books series. Research psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth and tech and sports executive Mike Maughan ask a lot of questions, some that can, at a glance, appear to be “stupid,” and so they ask each other these questions and delve into them. Many of the questions are suggested by their listeners.

The latest one I listened to that made me think was on “When do you become an adult?” and how it’s been fairly arbitrary that 18 has been the designated “adult” age. Why shouldn’t people ages 16 and above be able to vote? Why can you legally drive at age 16, vote at age 18, but then you cannot drink alcohol until age 21 in the U.S.? They go through all these questions and the historical reasons behind them in this episode.

One of the things that really made think was what Duckworth called the “life history theory,” which says that these things that you think are just fixed, or are on some cellular clock, they are actually profoundly influenced by experience. There’s an evolutionary reason behind it: if you sense that you are in some chaotic, uncertain, and/or dangerous environment, you had better get to adulthood fast. “Get to adulthood, reproduce, and get the hell out of there! You don’t have a lot of time!” Duckworth says. Life history theory says: what if you have the sense that you are in a stable, rich environment where you will live years and years? Then you have an incentive to forestall puberty and whatever line you want to give yourself for adult roles. This theory says you can procrastinate on adulthood if you live in a secure world because then, you have time to learn from your parents, get more educated from your peers and develop skills.

This made me think about two individuals I know. One is a former colleague from my last company who was essentially the biggest child I’d ever known who was my age. Let’s call this person Amber. Amber came from a wealthy, prominent Bay Area family with all the resources and support you could ever ask for. Yet somehow, when she started working at my last company, Amber came across as the most needy and insecure 30-something-year-old adult I’d ever met. She was constantly trying to make friends with everyone and get everyone to like her. It was really confusing to me, and I kept my distance from her. But eventually, I found out that she seemed jealous of the role I played in the office. I was effectively the culture queen in the office and organized happy hours and gatherings, and she did not like it since she wanted that role. She tried to get people to call her the “office mom,” as ridiculous as that sounds. Since Amber was the first and only recruiter in our office, she was the land line to HR in our San Francisco headquarters, and she kept tabs on and falsely reported goings-on and “moods” in the office. I will forever and always remember this stupid incident that happened: She had the balls to report me to HR for not wishing her a public happy birthday message on our team Slack channel. Amber knew I had an office birthday list, and when I happened to forget to ask her when her birthday was, she got upset and actually reported me! On top of that, because I had recently co-organized a happy hour event for a departing employee (who left on awkward terms), she also reported me for being “exclusive” and not inviting her (even though 1) another colleague was helping me organize, who she never reported, and 2) I purposely didn’t invite her because I knew she would be out of town for a work-related conference). Instead of HR looking at this as some senseless, childish, and elementary-school-like behavior and dismissing it, they actually took it seriously (since HR at my last company was full of toxic, drama-instigating individuals who substituted activity for achievement every day). Our “People Partner” (what a joke of a title, by the way, as she couldn’t have been less of a “partner” but an trouble maker who abused her “power”) asked my manager to have a chat with me about it. My manager, who was relatively new at the time, seemed a bit helpless when he confronted me about it. It was clear he thought it was dumb, but he shrugged and said he was simply delivering a message that HR had asked him to share with me. In general, people at the office despised Amber; endless people would say she was childish, bratty, and lacked self esteem (one former employee who was on her way out said to me in disgust, “She is a child! She tried to force me to hang out with her after I left!”), but they were generally afraid of Amber since she was like a pseudo HR-representative in our satellite office.

The second person I think about when I think of this life history theory is a friend of mine who is currently on her second divorce. We met in college and connected over our love of Chinese language and culture, food, and travel. Throughout college, I got to meet and hang out with her parents multiple times. They used to visit at least a couple times a year and were so generous to take me out to many delicious meals together. We talked about all sorts of topics that I’d never dream of discussing with my own parents. They treated me and my opinions with respect. I’d never felt so intellectually stimulated by another person’s parents in my life at that point. I always envied her relationship with her parents, and I had wished my parents could be more like hers. My friend married for the first time in 2011, then got divorced around 2015. The guy was literally a clown, as he was a professional clown artist and apparently a bit of an unstable fraud. She got married a second time in 2017 (to someone who, from any outsider’s view, was the total opposite of her, morally and politically), had a kid with this second guy in 2019, and then filed for divorce last year. Somehow, she has dug herself into a hole where she not only gave up her house that she is still paying bills and mortgage payments on, but she is also paying for a Christian private school that she didn’t want her child to go to. Because medical related decisions need both parents to sign off on them, he rejected my friend’s request to get their child therapy for how to handle the divorce. Their child is struggling and hating the separation, and she’s acting out because she doesn’t understand what is going on. Her ex-husband, who is unemployed, is making no attempt to work again given that he’s essentially living for free off my friend’s hard-earned money. She is so short of money now that her grandparents, who are well off, are paying for her rental payments for her apartment that she escaped to.

I wonder about the two of them, though. Is it possible that both of them were so loved, so supported, so coddled by their parents and grandparents and all the money and resources they had, that they are basically like living examples of people who never felt truly compelled to “grow up”? No one wants their children to feel unsupported or unloved, but according to life history theory, we may need to find ways to instill grit in our children so that they do not feel like they have all the time and endless resources in the world to “grow up” and be independent. No one will really respect you when you are in your mid-30s and crying to mommy when someone won’t wish you a happy birthday. Few people will respect you when your grandparents are paying your rent payments as a nearly 40-year-old.