With her flight canceled and a snow day at hand, Laureen and I headed uptown and wandered around MoMA, where there is a woman with a baguette on her head. Oh, Salvador, why.

Lunch on a snow day called for going to the midtown branch of Joe’s Shanghai three blocks up, where xiao long baos awaited. Funny thing about the midtown branch of Joe’s Shanghai: the Chinatown clamor is exchanged for Smooth Jazz and the clinking of silver cutlery; the rattan steamer is opened to reveal six xiao long baos instead of eight; there is no plate of sliced oranges to accompany the bill at the end, but you may pick a pink mint from the crystal bowl downstairs on your way out.

All afternoon the snow was falling and falling and falling, and midtown was quiet, for once.

Back in Brooklyn, it was clear we needed soup. “Maybe a bean soup?” I said, jumping about a can of habichuelas rosadas in my hand. And, like that old stone soup tale, not too long later there was a clay pot of pink beans, carrots, kidney beans, red onions, potatoes, and ginger bubbling on the stove, and chunks of raisin-pecan toast for dipping, because why not.