Love in the Kitchen

In the summer of 2011, we gathered on a lovely afternoon for a farewell brunch for my bestfriend who was leaving for Hong Kong. Little did I know that I would be reflecting on this afternoon constantly in the months to come.

As we prepared to make the switch from reisling to champagne, my bestfriend raised her glass and said to us all "This year will be life changing for us all! I can feel it!" At that moment as I glanced at her eyes shining through my wine glass, I could feel it too...down to my inner bones. With that, I popped open my bottle of limited edition Armand de Brignac champagne among the girls squeeling & V covering her ears because I always purposely open bottles right beside her... POP!

Indeed, starting summer of 2011... things will change for us all.

It's been a year since I last wrote here... V's words still ring like a bell, clearer than the ring of our glasses as we made that toast. Everything has changed in this half year. V is in Taiwan now with a sweet new bf & a chocolate mini toy poodle named Chloe. T is now engaged, A has totally turned her relationship around, 2 girls have survived breakups, 1 divorced, 2 gfs gave birth to little baby angels, and 1 has baby #2 on the way ( and I'm planning her baby shower which is this coming weekend!). Me? I graduated from nursing school and starting a new life.

These couple months, I focused on the word Friendship. What it is, what it means ( what I wanted it to mean), what it can be on the good and bad end the spectrum. I will save that for another day...because today something lovely happened. Love, and its meaning as it is transformed with Time presented itself to me in the most unexpected place of all places: in my kitchen...and from the most unexpected of people: Dad.

All my life, Dad was the ultimate 大男人-family man: He does not clean, does not cook, does not deal with children's tantrums or illnesses ( no. it's all for Mom). He works & brings home the bread & butter, so when we hear his car roll into the garage, we scramble. We fetch his house slippers, the cartoon are switched to the Taiwan news, Mom has a piping hot Chinese dinner ( 3-4 dishes & a hot soup from scratch) ready to leave the stove hot. Dad's resting chair's cushion is plumped, we scramble to make his tea and place his newspaper & the tv remote on the table next to his chair. The door opens & we straighten our clothes and all chime in unison "爸爸回來!"

35 years roll by marked in tally with increasing gray hairs... Mom spends her day surrounded with 50+ kids in the chinese daycare center she started 10 yrs ago as a hobby, and Dad relaxes and just collects rent from different properties here & there, occupies himself with ipods and iphones and goes ballroom dancing ( which he was known for during his university days).

One afternoon, I hear this clanging and banging of pots in the kitchen from my room. Didn't think much of it until I smelled this fantastic smell creeping into my room. I smelled clam pasta...and that's when I looked up from my fb. Something was wrong...terribly wrong. Why is there action in the kitchen when Mom is @ her daycare center til 6pm...and we all eat out now? I crept to the kitchen and suddenly, the world was round and the red sea had parted: Dad. was. cooking.... .... ?

He never even knew the difference between american and swiss cheese & use to get it all wrong so we never have him buy the groceries. Now, he is making white pasta sauce from scrap?! I swear, I did not see a single jar of pre-made, or a single can of preserved anything on the kitchen counter!!! My brain froze, jaw dropped and my feet forgot themselves...I just stood there stunned. He turned & saw me with my jaw hanging on the floor and said " Come here and do my dishes"

I found my jaw and my feet and walked over to the kitchen sink, looking around to see where he hid that premade pasta sauce jar (....must be hidden here somewhere). He said " Wash these dishes while I open these clams"...there they were....fresh clams bathing in a bowl of water. " Mom never eats till the kitchen counter is cleaned so if you wash them now, she will eat as soon as she comes home"

I washed the dishes in silent obedience as I watched Dad add some salt into his pasta sauce and peel his clams one by one with his own hands. He was struggling a bit, but he had this determined expression on his face...that same determination that drove him for 35 yrs to house & roof us and to allow us to live so comfortably and learn anything we wanted growing up. I had so many questions in my head... but out of my fear of destroying his concentration and having him throw a clam at me, I said nothing.

He suddenly stopped and said under his breathe "cilantro." With that, he dropped everything, grabbed the keys and left the house with me still staring from the sink to clams on the table awaiting their fate. 15 minutes later, he came back with a bag cilantro. The man who I knew never wanted to bother with small details like this and just made due with whatever was available....had dropped everything to drive out and buy cilantro to bring some little extra flavor to a dish?! He washed the cilantro and said " add a little of this in the soup and it will open up the flavor of the mushrooms"...and there it was, a huge pot of mushroom cream soup...and an amazing meat roll of pork brisket glazed in a sweet garlic-ginger glaze ( It's a Japanese dish, he explained)

When Mom came home, he had finished preparing his clam pasta, caramelized bell pepper salad, cream of mushroom soup and a japanese pork brisket roll. Set 2 wine glasses and a bottle of wine on the table. From the corner where I stood in the hall observing Dad, I saw him whip out a camera, take a photo of the food, then continue with opening the wine. "My dad takes photos of food he's cooked...just like me....he is human afterall~" I thought.

As we all sat down to eat...it struck me that this could be a total disaster. Dad has his pride, and even if he is wrong, we have never dared to correct him in anything. If it tastes bad, do we grunt in savory like it was Wolfgang Puck's and shower him with compliments?...what if these compliments encourage him to cook every night?! as I pondered up all these scenarios, Mom had picked up her fork, stuck it into the bell pepper salad & put one in her mouth.

After a couple chews: The Test of Love~

The gentle nature of Love is often thrown off by the over-powering nature of Pride. So it is only natural that Love will test Pride & the person who bears it before Love reveals itself in its most unconditional form~

Mom:"What did you add in here? it's too sour." At hearing this criticism, I forgot to swallow my food before inhaling and almost choked as I turned to look at Dad

Dad: he tastes his own salad "Hm. You're right. I must have left it in the vinegar too long"

Mom continues: "And now that it's cooled the butter is all caked up on it." Mommy, I love you but where is this new found boldness coming from? are you trying to kill off all your offspring?!

Dad: he looks at it and says " You're right. I should make it a bit later so it's served hot".
..I swallowed a bite of my sour, butter-caked bell pepper salad out of love for Dad. Afterall....he's never been in the kitchen...and he made this for us...

But then I realized...there is a bigger love at this table than my own sacrifice:
Joyce asks, "Dad, where d'you learn to cook this stuff?"

Dad:" Well, I'm watching that Korean drama with Mom everynight now (yes, my mom forces him to watch it with her~) and the main character is a pasta chef so I thought I'd try."

Joyce: So you're saying you learned this from Korean dramas?"

Dad smiles proudly: "No, I watch on Youtube" Youtube? There was once a man who was internet illiterate in my memory...

This Big Thing Called Love~

I had observed the ups & downs of my parents marraige and because of it, I had even challenged the very existance of Love, re-defined what Love was, and saw Love and Time like Earth & Water. Over time, the water which is silent yet ever present and moving (like Time) along Earth (like Love)...changes the Earth. Through Spring and Winter, from rain & floods, rivers are reduced to streams that can dry up and cease to exist, as new streams are created and find its way to the ocean. Ponds can dry up and all the Life in that ecosystem can be wiped barren, yet new ponds can be discovered with tadpoles swimming about and plants surrounding them....

Here is the ultimate man who never cooked or cleaned for all 35 years of his marraige... watching korean drama's with his wife though he likes to watch nothing except the news, then staying up late to look up youtube videos on how to cook, take down notes & list the ingredients....then go buy those ingredients fresh from the market to cook. He will even drop everything in the middle to go out to buy a small ingredient just to get that dish right for the woman who has cooked everyday for 35 yrs for him. And for a man who has pride & face, to put his beginning creations at the mercy and criticism of a woman who even I aspire to cook like...because he wants to get better.... For that man to remind his daughter to wash those dishes before dinner is served bec ause he remembered his wife never sat down at the dinner table until she had cleaned the counter during the days he had come home from work... is this not Love that has been weathered by Time? I had noticed Mommy never seats herself at the dinner table until the kitchen was clean, but I could never tell Daddy noticed at all. He never pointed it out and I don't recall him saying thank you for it either... but he had noticed after all! I was never happier to do someone else's dishes than I was today, doing Dad's ... His consideration & leaps of courage in his battle with pots, pans and clams was truly more a show of appreciation and love than those 2 short syllables of gratitude, or that 3-word phrase of love can ever measure up to.

I realized that my view of Love's travel & weathering through and by Time was jaded. I had thought that Love can only inevitably fade into a comfortable companionship. I had thought that Love cools like Passion, and fades like our Youth. But instead, I have come to learn that Love doesn't weaken with age as our bodies do: it may weaken or break without a foundation to stand on ( just like any other type of relationship with any other person, right?) But if it has a strong foundation to stand on, it may not be as bright & bold as it once was...but it can strengthen into a long steady flame that can withstand winters no matter how difficult or harsh. And unlike so many things in this world, Love can surpass and outlive Time. Love can withstand Time. We just don't realize it because we must first be able to see that Love changes as all things should change...Time changes everything: seasons change, we change, love changes...because Time changes. Love must change in order to survive the weathering of Time. But just because Love's form changes, it doesnt mean it is any weaker or it doesn't exist.


Thank you, Dad. Thank you, clams. Thank you, cilantro...and Thank you, God for showing me the answer to this riddle of an affair Love has had with Time and revealing Dad happens to be an amazing chef. He thinks he's Iron Chef and watches youtube videos when no one's home & cooks dinner almost everynight now. The only downside is that I have to do dishes everyday, and I'm not losing any weight because all his food must be eaten & finished. I owe Heaven for bestowing him a talent for the culinary arts and his cooking tastes so good. But above everything else, I thank Love and Time, with a huge smile for making this food feels so good to and in me.

For those who wonder if Love can attest to Time , here are 2 people that have shown me...that it can =)

Perhaps....I should start a fb album of all his cooking adventures....