Shrimp and egg fried rice (蝦蛋炒飯), for and by Mom
(more…)Tag: food
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Mercado de San Miguel
there was a time when you were younger when the pressing of bodies against yours terrified you and honestly speaking it still does to an extent since every body brings with it heat and force and sound and of course you’d prefer to eat sardines than be one of them simmering in the masses
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At the Family Table
Dinner (takeout) in Madrid: biang biang noodles. I’ve had a lot on my mind over these past few days in Madrid (and back in Europe). My family and I have truly enjoyed spending time together walking the city and marveling at its urban landscape. In particular, we’ve been especially impressed by its wealth of art and food, and by the striking contrast between its fast-paced traffic and slower-paced rhythms of life. For my part, I’ve been inspired to learn Spanish again—not just because I’d given it up after high school, but also because there’s a wealth of poetry and fiction I’m desperately trying to catch up on.
There’s much that I want to write about these aspects, however rough my ideas and language about them may still be. But over the course of the past few evenings and mornings, I’ve been drawn to something far closer to home: our family meals, and the colorful conversations—in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin—that animate them. Beyond filling my life with laughter, wisdom, and excellent food, our meals have helped me understand the pleasures and challenges of navigating the richness of the world: one whose vibrancy seems to demand even more color from my ever-expanding palette (or, if you prefer, pallet).
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Oranges
I never expected to love oranges the way I did in Belgium. Not because they were any different from the oranges I’d eaten in America. Not because they were ever in short supply, despite not being native to the Low Countries. And certainly not because they were the only fruit I ate away from home. (Shoutout to the many other fruits I cooked and baked with—pears, apples, strawberries, mangoes, and especially pineapples—plus the others I craved, like peaches.) Rather, by just a few too many overlapping circumstances to be called “coincidence,” oranges ended up populating my days, nights, and even my imagination.
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Pork Bone Soup
I ate well in Belgium. From mosselen met friet to stoofvlees, from dame blanches to pain au chocolat, I savored (and in some cases, cooked for myself) as many beloved dishes as I could, finding ways to map the country’s astonishing variety of cuisines onto my own tongue. Just as importantly, I learned to love eating not simply for eating’s sake, but also for the ample opportunities it gave me to share laughter, wisdom, and the occasional hare-brained schemes over long, languid meals with the best of company.
Still, if there was any one dish I missed—one that I never managed to bring across the Atlantic—it was pork bone soup.
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Between Two Rivers 