spice rack #6

greetings from the big apple

Hi Spice Club! Missed you. I figured it was only right to use this spice rack for some quick hits of summer, for a lot can happen in 3 months. Or not much at all, as I was at home in the Bay Area, writing med school essays—which is to say I spent summer reiterating that I-am-driven-resilient-creative-compassionate-unique-fun-and-I-want-to-address-inequities-and-change-the-world-at-your-school (while maintaining a healthy dose of humility and self-awareness, of course). 

Although it was occasionally mind-numbing, it wasn’t as tiring as I anticipated. Writing all day in a room full of my mother’s thriving plants and being summoned for glorious lunches of leftovers had their perks. As soon as I finished a prompt, I showed my parents; I didn’t expect them to be so helpful, given their unfamiliarity with the application process, but they know me, and that’s what matters. 

the number of times my BeReal friends saw the same exact BeReal is astounding

Having both of them read and discuss my essays brought comfort to days that were otherwise unremarkable. My mom has always read my writing and will eventually read this very sentence, but my dad doesn’t. He’s supportive in other ways, showing more interest in the numbers behind my side hustle, like “how much are you getting paid for this video?” (which he often asks when I am not getting paid a single penny, aka most of the time). Every month or so, he’ll ask, “how many members do you have now?” (members, not followers). This summer, I showed him words about topics we hadn’t talked about before. I showed him essays about how my interests in food and storytelling fit into medicine, which he hasn’t always understood, but based on his enthusiastic suggestions, I think that has slightly changed.

Throughout all of it, I looked for a job, which is why I’m currently on the east coast! More on that under “extra spice.” I continued exploring how food fits into medicine, which I want to write about this fall, but not yet, as my brain could use a break from medicine. So here is a spice rack for summer.

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ate 

For breakfast: Lots of pan con tomate—a tapa consisting of a grated tomato with a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt, on toasted sourdough rubbed with garlic. Matcha coconut yogurt with strawberries (or peaches or blueberries or figs). Sprouts coconut yogurt has my heart, and I am crushed that it’s not available on this side of the country.

For lunch: Anything my mom made, so usually rotis with a new sabzi and leftover sabzis, which basically adds up to a thali. Someone replied “girl dinner” to my story but this…this is not that. 

For dinner: Rice, dal, more sabzis. Sometimes crispy rice paper rolls, smashed cucumber salad, and corn panzanella. 

drank

Iced blueberry matcha and iced strawberry coffee.

The matcha was inspired by this video by School Night Vegan, but I usually made a single serving at a time. I soak ~ ⅓ cup of blueberries and 1 tsp sugar with just enough cold water to cover the blueberries. 30 to 60 minutes later, the blueberries soften and I either mix the purple water into my milk or blend the whole thing, including the blueberries, into the milk. 

For the strawberry coffee, I made strawberry chia jam and blended that into soy milk. 

read

Stay True by Hua Hsu: The first book that made me sob in a long time. The Bay Area references and college stories hit me like a truck???

Calypso by David Sedaris: Essays from the perspective of a middle-aged man with a great sense of humor. I will be reading more of his books. 

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde: A coming-of-age autobiography with beautiful prose. 

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams: A playful yet poignant novel about the power of reading and relationships built on stories.

Happy Place by Emily Henry: This got on my very last nerve and the fact that I read it after watching too many Bollywood rom-coms with my family made it worse. Solid subway read though.

listened 

This playlist on many morning walks and runs, even though it’s absolutely not a morning vibe…unless you want it to be.

extra spice - from west to east

I’ve always known that I wanted to take a gap year before medical school, and in that year, I would live somewhere exciting and do something related to food. For a moment, I even considered culinary school, but I quickly realized it may be wiser to make money instead of spend money, especially before embarking on a decade of making very little money. But I decided to move to New York, so am I actually making money? To be determined. 

If I don’t get much of a choice for where I live for the rest of my 20s, they (the books, the shows, even the influencers) say there’s no place quite like the city. I’ve never lived outside of California and I’m not prepared for a real winter, but it sounded like a genius idea, even though I’ve only spent 4 days in NYC, and that too, when I was 9 and my parents thought traveling on a tourbus would be fun. (I didn’t think it was that fun, but my favorite part of the east coast was Hersey’s Chocolate World so who am I to judge.)

Anyways, I started thinking about working for a nonprofit involved in food advocacy in the city. As I learned how problematic nutrition education targeting underserved populations could be, I set out to find a role that resonated with my values, fit my qualifications, and paid enough to consider living here. I was interested in several jobs that required a degree in Nutrition, which I didn’t have. Long story short, I eventually got lucky and wound up as the Nutrition Program Facilitator at an organization that provides supportive housing to individuals who were formerly unhoused or in foster care. So far, I love it. I spend two days of the week mastering the public transportation system from Brooklyn to The Bronx, meeting with staff and tenants at 16 sites. The rest of the time, I work on a food justice curriculum that we’re implementing soon, so I will write a few essays about that when it starts.

Right now, I’m staying with my aunt, uncle, and 6-year-old cousin in Jersey City as I search for an apartment to move to in October. We live a block from India Square, a street lined with Indian restaurants and stores, so the food has been fun. 

My words feel like a mess right now, and it will take time to get used to writing here again, but my head is spinning with ideas and I’m excited. Next week marks the beginning of a series about South Asian foodways!