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My mother and I get along quite splendidly—better
than most parents and children, in fact. We talk frequently
and often laugh a lot when doing so.
But there are a few situations when that’s far from
the case. From the time I was little my mother guarded
her kitchen. Not the kitchen or our kitchen, but her kitchen.
My mother was queen and we idolized her. When I think
about it, most of my memories of her involve her cooking.
She could handle phone calls as she added ingredients
based on their weight in her palm and the scent they created.
To this day, her ability to chop, slice and peel anything,
knife grazing—but never cutting—her skin, amazes
me to no end.
For most of my childhood, my sisters and I would clamor
to be the most help in the kitchen. My mother would delegate
and we would feel as if without our help, the meal would
not have been completed. But by the time my mother really
was eager to have us glean her culinary knowledge, my
sisters and I had already replaced our interest in the
kitchen with our love for lounging and TV. There were
a few attempts at her teaching me how to cook, but these
only left us red-faced and me soaking in tears. Once when
she was making banh xeo, a type of omelet, my mother asked
me to cut lettuce with which to wrap the food. She came
over and berated me after my lettuce strips were decidedly
too wide for the dish. The next time we fought over lettuce
that was too thin for bo nhung giam. My mother was a perfectionist
and I a beginner. I stalked off both times vowing to never
cook in her kitchen again. I’ve somehow succeeded
in maintaining this oath.
But then came college. Back at school, my bleak attempts
at creating these same foods left everything to be desired.
When my rice—made sans rice cooker—came out
both soggy and dry, I knew it wasn’t worth trying
to create anything involving more than two ingredients.
Unfortunately, every time I called with the intention
of asking my mother for a recipe or cooking advice, I’d
hesitate and then fail to say anything remotely related
to food. I’d fallen to asking my dad for culinary
advice. He can only cook three things.
After a drawn-out conversation, the recipe finally was
in my possession. Now I had directions on how to create
a delicious dish requiring rice bowls I didn’t own
for measurements and intuitive decisions for the remaining
quantities. I’d taken leaps and bounds only to have
gone nowhere.
So I gave up and nearly forgot about my culinary adventure.
A reminder came six months later when I flew to Seattle
to visit my sister. While there, she handed me photocopies
of handwritten recipes passed along by my mother. Bo nhung
giam, nuoc mam, goi ga (a chicken cole slaw of sorts),
bun bo xao (beef with vermicelli noodles), bo nuong vi
(another stir-fry beef wrap), thit bo xao (stir-fry beef),
and bo luc lac (another beef dish). Just like that, I
had a bevy of recipes—measurements and all.
They laid quiet for a while, the recipes did, and I tried
to leave them alone. Eventually my craving for bo nhung
giam bubbled over and I prepared to face the judge and
jury once again; not only would I make some for myself,
but I’d also treat my friends to an authentic, home-cooked
Vietnamese meal.
The recipe took only torturous phone calls, a 3,000-mile
trip to procure the recipe and a long train ride through
the Chicago north side during which decrepit old men leered
at either me or my bags of food. Pain and suffering begot
more pain and suffering. I picked up the phone.
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