The day we always expected finally came today

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This morning when I went to take the compost out to our trash room down the hall, Kaia came out running after me to find me (she loves trash room visits. Take what you want from that). I emptied the compost into the bin and when we came out, our neighbor was coming back from a walk with her new six-month-old puppy. I think the dog is a dachshund; her name is Natasha. She is golden, long-bodied, skinny, low to the floor, and screaming with energy, literally. She was jumping nonstop and whimpering when she saw us, as that was her way of saying “hello” to us. Kaia usually loves dogs, but with this dog, given she was yapping away and jumping like crazy, Kaia kept a semi-safe distance and just admired her and kept smiling at her.

To be honest, while I generally do like dogs, I cannot stand this dog even though this was the first time I have actually laid eyes on her. Since the neighbor got this rat-dog, I’ve heard it yapping and shrieking nonstop throughout all hours of the day and night. I can hear the dog crying the clearest when I am either in our entryway hallway, or when I am in my bedroom, which I HATE; if only the sound didn’t travel so easily down from their unit.

On the walk to school in the morning, Kaia finally asked Chris the question I figured she would ask eventually: “Can I have a dog?”

Of course, Chris responded negatively to this.

“No dog!” he responded without hesitation. He hates dogs as domesticated pets. He does not want dogs around him, and he definitely wants no dog in his living space. He had said repeatedly, before Kaia was even born, that he didn’t care what his child wanted; there would never be any dogs around as long as he was alive.

While I enjoy dogs, I also have zero desire to own one. I don’t want the responsibility or the expense. I also just think that too many people care too much about their dogs/cats and prioritize them over human beings, which to me, makes zero sense. So it will be interesting to see if Kaia continues to ask for one and how she responds with the repeated “no” replies she gets.

Dried scallops – a mother’s show of love

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Growing up in an Asian household, I rarely got complimented. Though I did get told “I love you” quite a lot from my mom, a lot of the time it was hard to really hear and digest that when it was in the midst of a lot of criticisms and comparisons. I will say, though, that the one area where my parents have never, ever failed my brother and me is around feeding us. We’ve always, always had more than plenty of food to eat in the house and lots of variety. And it is always one of their very first questions they ask me when they see or talk to me: “Have you eaten yet?” It’s a classic Chinese/Vietnamese way of greeting someone you care about.

When I graduated from college and moved to New York City, one really sweet and generous thing my mom would do is pack me a one-pound, carefully wrapped box of super premium, extremely pricey dried scallops. They would always be huge, fat, uniform, and perfect. She’d check in with me on calls to see how my stash was going, and when I told her it was getting low, she’d go to her favorite herb shop in San Francisco Chinatown and buy me another pack. She would either have it ready for me to pack when I came home for the holidays, or if she were coming to visit me, she’d pack it in her suitcase and cart it over to me. If you know what I am referring to, you know that this product is likely one of *the* most expensive foods you can cook with in Cantonese cuisine. The highest quality, most beautiful and unblemished dried large scallops, oftentimes from Japan, can be sold for as much as $80-110 USD for a single pound. They are truly worth what they cost, though: dried scallops bring an incredible seafoody, umami burst to anything they are added to. There is really nothing that tastes like them that can mimic the richness they bring any single dish. I would always use them to make Chinese sticky rice, Chinese turnip cake, or savory taro cake, would occasionally add them to stir-fry dishes, and oftentimes would even add them to my jook/congee as a decadent treat. Some particular friends used to tell me that adding dried scallops to congee seemed a bit wasteful given what a premium item they are, but because my grandma and mom would always add a little to their congee, I continued doing this with mine when I had them on hand.

Well, since Kaia has been born, my mom hasn’t bought me any more scallops. In fact, she hasn’t even asked me once how my stash has been looking. Her whole focus now, predictably, is on her only grandchild. All the gifts she packs when I see her are all for Kaia. I’m not complaining — it is what it is, and I get it. Well, I finally used up the last bits of the last box of dried scallops she gave me this time last year to make Chinese sticky rice and radish and taro cakes. So this year, I had to go to a specialty shop to pick up my own because there was no way I was going to make Chinese turnip cake or sticky rice without it. I hesitated when I saw how much the fattest, plumpest, and most beautiful ones in the shop cost: $98/pound. Ouch. I looked at the next tier: $80. And the tier after that was $68. Okay, it’s okay, I told myself. I only need a small amount to make my dishes, so I’m just going to buy a quarter of a pound. I asked for 1/4 pound, the employee measured it out on a scale, priced it out and handed me the bag of my dried gold.

Well, that just did it: that is the single most expensive item I purchased for my Lunar New Year celebrations: about $17.50 for a quarter pound of semi-premium Japanese dried scallops. And I am pretty sure if my mom examined these, she would say these weren’t that good and that I probably got ripped off.

Baby shower at Monday at 8am?

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I went down to the gym at around 8am today for my usual weekday morning workout after Chris took Kaia to school. Our gym is on the third floor, which is also where the resident lounge is where parties can be hosted, as well as the children’s play room and laundry room. I was surprised to see a “Private Party” sign on the lounge doors so early in the morning. Inside through the glass, I could see a crowd of at least 15 people, a mix of men and women. There was a table full of what was clearly baby gifts. Several large bundles of balloons filled with helium decorated the middle of the lounge. Everyone was dressed up and chatting away.

I understand when people throw parties or or events at non-peak times. I get it when people host birthday parties or weddings or bridal showers on Fridays or Sundays versus Saturdays, as Saturday always has peak pricing since it’s the highest in demand. To be clear, we had our wedding welcome dinner on a Thursday night, and then we had our wedding on a Friday; we definitely got some discounts for having a Friday wedding vs. a Saturday wedding. But Monday… at 8am, really? Who wants to be anywhere at 8am on a Monday morning, the first day of the work week? And is it really this many people who are taking time off of work for this one person’s baby shower?

Lunar New Year’s lunch party – lots of food, and lots of people at our place today

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Chris used to have this arbitrary “six person maximum” policy when we would host friends over for meals in the past. I decided to do away with this and basically invited all my friends I could think of to our Lunar New Year party today. I invited 14 people to our place today; two were out of town, one had a baby shower, and one had to work, so in the end, we had 10 guests plus the three of us. This is the most number of people we’ve ever had in our place at a single time.

“It’s going to be a zoo!” Chris grumbled the night before.

This was what I made and served:

Starters:

Luo bo gao – Pan-fried Chinese turnip cake slices

Goi cuon – Garlic shrimp summer rolls with Vietnamese herbs, dipped in nuoc cham

Nem nuong cuon – Nha Trang-style pork paste sausage summer rolls with Vietnamese herbs, dipped in peanut-hoisin sauce

Mains:

Burmese tea leaf salad

Thit kho – Vietnamese braised pork ribs and eggs in coconut water, with a side of pickled carrot and daikon

Chinese whole steamed black sea bass with fermented black beans and garlic

Nuo mi fan – Chinese sticky rice

Yi mian – Longevity noodles with carrot, bell peppers, chives, and king oyster/shiitake mushrooms

Stir-fried garlicky gai lan

Desserts:

Hei zhi ma tang yuan – Glutinous rice balls filled with sweet black sesame served in a brown sugar-ginger soup

Black sesame-swirled ube nian gao / Chinese New Year sticky rice cake

Chinese almond cookies

Other than the cha siu in the sticky rice, I made everything myself, from scratch. It was an endeavor, but I loved every minute of it!

It was boisterous, chaotic, loud, and lots of fun with lots of food, people, and laughter. Kaia had her little friend over to play and run around with. Everyone had plenty of savory and sweet food. I was shocked repeatedly when I found out how much people enjoyed dishes like my black sesame tang yuan; even people like my friend’s husband, who usually scoffs at Asian sweets for being “not too sweet” (“Desserts are supposed to be ‘too sweet’; it’s DESSERT!” he exclaimed). I had people who either don’t eat dessert or don’t eat Asian desserts ask for seconds and even thirds. In the end, I had to boil a second batch of tang yuan! I thought I’d have a ton of frozen tang yuan left over, but I actually only have about six or seven left.

I love preparing food for my people. I spent the last week cooking and preparing food for this. I devised my menu about a month ago with my list of ingredients and action plan. And I loved hearing the comments people made, which included:

“This shit is terrible (referring to my black sesame tang yuan), but if you have more of this shit, can I have some more, please?”

“I don’t normally like desserts, but these (black sesame tang yuan) are incredible. Can I have some more? (Then, when asked how many more): “How many more do you have ready?”

“This sticky rice is so good. It’s like being at dim sum, but even better because yours is packed with all the good stuff!”

“These almond cookies are so addictive! Could you share the recipe?”

“The sea bass was so good! It tasted like the steamed fish I had with black beans in Flushing when I went!”

“I just couldn’t stop eating! I can’t even decide what I liked best!”

“If I ate any more, I definitely would have regretted it. It was like being at a restaurant!”

It was a smart move to get disposable paper plates; it made cleanup so much easier. At the end of the night, the dishwasher was mostly filled with utensils, small serving bowls, and glasses. Now, I’m wondering when the next time will be when I can host another meal at home…

Modern version of Chinese New Year (sticky rice) cake – 年糕

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For Chinese New Year since I started living on my own, I would make traditional brown sugar based nian gao or 年糕. It’s an extremely plain cake, with only three main ingredients: glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, and water. You mix it into a thick dough, shape it into a round cake pan, and steam it for an hour. The cake it topped with some white sesame seeds and red dates for presentation. Then, you cut the cake Chinese style into rectangular slices, dip in egg, and then pan fry it. The egg and pan frying make this dish tasty. Everything else always feel like eating carbs and sugar for the sake of it. In the beginning, I made it for nostalgia. But I gradually realized that I didn’t really care for this dish at all and needed to change it up so that it was appropriate to my tastes today.

I had leftover black sesame paste from my black sesame glutinous rice balls I made earlier this week (which are currently in the freezer waiting for my party tomorrow). I also knew I wanted to use ube since I had just less than a pound of frozen grated ube waiting to be used in my freezer. I kept thinking about black sesame swirled into ube for a new version of nian gao, and I figured this would be a good time to try and make it happen. A purple cake with a black swirl sounded very aesthetically pleasing in my head, and a bit unique even. So I thawed the ube out, mixed it into a batter of glutinous rice flour, eggs, white sugar, coconut milk, oil, and a little vanilla extract. This is probably the first time I was truly winging a recipe and hoped for the best. I swirled some black sesame paste on the top with the tip of a chopstick and then put it into a loaf pan in the oven for about 45 minutes. And out came this black oozy purple cake that ended up being quite addictive. The texture was soft and squishy. The black sesame was messy, but it really did complement the cake. Even though it wasn’t the prettiest thing once sliced, I think it’s still good to serve for tomorrow.

Next time, I am considering keeping the ube cake base the same, but perhaps mixing the black sesame with cream cheese so that it becomes a version of black sesame cheescake ube New Year’s cake! That will be real fusion right there!

Lo bak go / luo bo gao / 萝卜糕 Chinese turnip cake transition from taro cake 芋頭糕

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For many years once I started living on my own, and as an ode to my paternal grandma, I would make a whole yu tou gao 芋頭糕 or Chinese savory taro cake around Lunar New Year. Since I was very young, I always loved taro. I also have fond memories of my grandma making it around Chinese New Year every year. She would fill her savory taro cake with generous amounts of Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp and scallops, then steam them and top them with scallions and cilantro. Unfortunately, having lived with just one roommate, and then one partner and now husband, we could never get through the cake in time before it would start drying out and feeling very dense. Taro is a very starchy root vegetable, and as such, once you cook it, it doesn’t really retain too much water. And after it’s cooked and you let it sit there, every day that goes by means more moisture loss, resulting in a dryer and denser cake. My grandma also made luo bo gao 萝卜糕 or Chinese turnip cake, but not as often as taro, likely because she preferred the taro one herself. One year, I told Chris that I was going to make the turnip cake. This is a bit misleading because no turnips are in the cake; the base of the cake is radish, usually daikon, which is high in water content. He didn’t seem too enthused by it… until after the cake was steamed and he had some pan-fried slices. He declared that it was much lighter than the taro one, predictably. And given the radish has more water in it, it also didn’t dry out after day 4 or 5 the way the taro cake did. So from that point forward, I started making the turnip cake more often or alongside the taro cake. And so it stuck.

I spent some time this morning grating and cooking the daikon, folding it into my rice flour batter with all the generous fillings. It steamed on the stove for an hour. And as usual, it was a beauty, one that I will be sharing with 13 other hungry people on Sunday when we host our Lunar New Year lunch.

Using the Chinese butcher at my usual Asian supermarket

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I’m not sure why in previous years I never really considered using the butchers at Hong Kong Supermarket. I had previously purchased meat from Asian markets in Elmhurst Chinatown and Flushing, but I’ve probably only done it in Manhattan Chinatown once or twice ever. Every year around Lunar New Year the last number of years, I’ve gotten into experimenting more with Vietnamese Tet Lunar New Year dishes, as I never grew up with them and only had Chinese dishes for the New Year. One dish that I’ve really loved and that Chris, Kaia, and every friend I’ve introduced this to has loved has been thit kho, or Vietnamese braised pork ribs with eggs. It’s delicious for a number of reasons: it’s rich and comforting because of the pork. It’s traditionally made with pork belly, but because our family loves meat on the bone, and ribs are frankly leaner than belly (when we have pork belly, we prefer it crispy), in the last several years, I’ve made it with pork ribs. It has this really deep sweet-savoriness from the pairing of fish sauce with 1) caramelized sugar syrup and 2) coconut water and its pulp. And once you throw in the copious amounts of browned garlic and onions, plus some whole hard boiled eggs for braising, it’s like comfort in a bowl.

The last couple years when I’ve made this dish, I either used large pork ribs from Butcher Box or Whole Foods. The issue with Butcher Box is that they send you a full rack, but there’s no way to customize how you want the ribs cut. Clearly, I don’t have the tools for cutting through a rib bone at home, so that’s out. At Whole Foods, you can ask them to cut a rack of ribs through the bone once maximum, and then, you’re on your own. You want the ribs all separated? Well, you can do that yourself at home! Ideally, I want the pork ribs to be cut bite sized the way they are in Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants; that means they need to be cut through the bone several times. That’s a lot of labor and equipment on the butcher’s part, and most places won’t do this for you. So when I went to the meat counter at Hong Kong Supermarket, my regular spot in Manhattan Chinatown, they already had what they call “jin sha gu” (literally, in Chinese, this means “gold sand bone”), racks of ribs that were only about 2 inches thick. This was perfect. I asked the butcher if he could cut between the bones so that the pieces were 1-2 inches, and he immediately agreed, measured out the four pounds I requested, and went to work. No fuss, no objections. He already had a rack that was close to what I wanted, and then he further customized it so that it would be ready for me to literally just throw into my pot for cooking. When you go to an Asian butcher, there’s an understanding of what you want and why; there’s no reason to explain what you are trying to do.

I’m definitely going back to buy more meat in the future now. I’m just regretting it took me this long to “discover” them as an option even though I frequent this market at least 1-2 times per week.

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.

Kaia’s first hong bao (red envelope) from a non-family/non-friend person

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At school pickup today, Kaia and I went down the stairs into the building lobby to exit. As usual, the friendly older Chinese male doorman was there. Since the beginning, he’s always been really friendly with Chris, Kaia, and me. At pickup, we always make sure to greet him and have Kaia give him a high-five (or “pai shou!” in Chinese). We call him “Ah Gong,” which is a friendly and polite way of greeting someone who is of grandpa-age in Chinese. Kaia is always excited to see him and say hi. We always give him a high-five, then say thank you and goodbye or “see you tomorrow” in Chinese. Ah Gong always says that Kaia is so cute, so smart, and so “guai guai” (well behaved, obedient).

Today, I lifted her up to give him a high-five, then I asked her to wish him “xin nian kuai le! gong xi fa cai!” given the Lunar New Year has already come. Kaia first said it very quietly. Then, when I told her to say it louder, she shouted it! And Ah Gong got SO excited! He started laughing and exclaiming how proud he was that she knew how to wish him a happy Chinese New Year in Chinese. Then out of nowhere, he puts his hand into his inside chest pocket, which had a wad of sealed hong bao, and immediately handed her one. He wished her a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year in Chinese and told her to study (haha) and continue being “guai guai.” Kaia thanked him in Chinese, gave him a hug, and we went on our way.

On the train, I let her open the hong bao. Inside the hong bao was a very crisp, brand new five-dollar note (in case you aren’t aware, notes placed in hong bao must be brand new and crisp. Banks in areas with large Asian populations know this, and so they always have lots of crisp bills ready during the Lunar New Year period). Wow, I thought. We have no real family or friend relation other than the fact that he works as a doorman at the building where Kaia happens goes to school, and he was so generous to give her $5?! When he handed it to her, I figured he would give her a crisp one-dollar note as a cute gesture. But I was surprised. As Blanche DuBois once said, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” This line can be applied to so many instances of our lives, and this is definitely one of them. For every total dud, intentionally rude and obtuse, ill-intentioned person out there, there are, in fact, at least eight or nine really well-intentioned, kind individuals to even it all out.

Kaia wants more coddling from mummy

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Kaia woke me up several times last night. The first time, she was screaming and crying for me in her room, waiting for me to come. I didn’t come, so she ran to our bedroom, grabbed my arm, and dragged me into her bed with her, screaming the whole way back to her bed. Only then did she stop crying. I stayed with her for about three hours and had a bit of broken sleep before waking up and going back to my own bed. A few hours later, she snuck back to our bed, poked my face and chest a bit to wake me up yet again. But this time, it was to help get her on the bed. She can actually get on the bed just fine herself, but apparently when I am there (as in, not on a work trip and away), she simply gets into bed on her own and tucks herself right next to Chris. She slept soundly, as did I… up until 7:30, when I woke up and realized we were 30 minutes late getting out of bed. I was so annoyed — this has never happened before! My alarm didn’t go off because I set all my alarms differently while on my work trip last week, and I had forgotten to turn them back on for today. I got her ready quicker than I’d ever gotten her ready and packed some defrosted and just warmed pancakes for her ride to school with Chris. She gets two breakfasts, one at home and then one at her current school, so it’s not like she’d have any less food to eat given we were rushed this morning.

Chris commented and said that she only acts this way when I am around. She always quietly gets into bed with him when I am not here. When I am here, she demands that I wake up, pick her up, and tuck her in. She demands that I go to bed with her. She wants coddling from mummy and only mummy, Chris insisted.

I’m not sure what to do with this information. Is this an encouragement for me to go away more often on work travel?