Food is a Love Language

I hum as I pull out the fresh ingredients from my fridge and cupboards. The salmon bakes in the oven while a small pot of olive oil sits on the stove on medium heat. I set a timer for 50 minutes for the salmon with one hand, leave a bagel in the toaster, and grab a chef’s knife with the other. My hands return to slice a carrot and celery stalk, as well as chop a small onion. For some reason, chopping onions and shredding chillis don’t tend to get me unless I touch my eyes. Never been much of a crier, I guess.

Working fast helps but the slices are still jagged and irregular in thickness. I remember when they used to be smooth and uniform as a kid, hoping to impress Papá when he’d return from deployments with my improvement. I scrape everything off the chopping board with my knife into the pot to sauté. 5 minutes. I start and slicing the ginger and mincing garlic when POP! Bagel’s done. “Ay, hot!” I finish mincing and slicing before plucking the bagel out, although the garlic ends up more inconsistently crushed than minced. Some are chunks. Others are almost paste-like. “Hm. That’ll affect the sauté,” I mutter. As I saw the golden toasted bread in half with a breadknife, the vegetables quietly sizzle in the pot as the timer ticks. The smell of the smoking salmon is starting to fill the kitchen and mingle with strong scent of sautéing onions and garlic. The crunch of the bread is such a satisfying symphony. My tremor makes the knife slip. The halves are uneven. I spread the cream-cheese on top unevenly to compensate before putting the bagel aside, reserved for the salmon once it’s done.

I return to the pot and scrape the chopping board’s worth of minced garlic and sliced ginger in, sprinkling in a bit of turmeric, and stir. I like to think stirring is something that my tremor helps with, even if it makes some bits miss the pot. I scoop up whatever lands on the counter. The floor chunks will just have to be wasted and put in the bin…or I can eat them. Depends on how impulsive I feel when I pick them up; we’ll see. I deeply breathe in the released flavours as I pour in water and bring the mixture to a brief boil. While waiting for it to simmer as the flavours meld together, I prep Link’s favourite: a giant fruit salad. “Mango, dewberry, raspberry, lychee, loganberry, blackberry. Make sure to save some for Bridget since they're her favourite.” Unfortunately, I couldn't find any guava or pulasan or guenepa, which Link will be sad about. This’ll just have to be an imperfect apology then.

The mango’s skin is smooth and slippery – a real enemy for my tremor but not my grip. Still, my paring knife has to scrape multiple times to clear up the patches left behind during the initial peels. I’m very careful to keep my hands clear of the blade’s path. I chop. The vibrant ripe cubes come out awkward and inconsistent like the carrot slices and minced garlic. I eat a few of the awkward wedge-shaped chunks and drop the matzo balls I made earlier from the fridge into the pot. Plop! Plop, plop! That’ll be about half an hour. I finish chopping and peeling. My hands now wet and sticky with juice, as the matzo balls simmer, I peel the lychees and toss everything into a bowl. It’s a vibrant riot of glistening gold, deep purplish-black, and ripe reds. That’s one dish done!

I glance in the pot. “Barely done.” I’ll move onto Chichi’s dish then. I wash and dry hands before I stuff my blender with passata, tomato purée, chillies, onions, peppers, garlic, rosemary, thyme, ground coriander, and paprika. I plug my ears as it blends. Some people may say that my use of earplugs was excessive when I was in the military. And to that, I say those people have tinnitus now while I don't, so who’s really the loser here? I take my earplugs out once the blend is smooth. Hopefully, Chichi will appreciate my jollof rice. It's not her mamá’s but her mamá is a professional Nigerian chef, so I’m fine with ranking second in this instance.

The matzo balls are still going so, if I start on the soup now, by the time the matzo balls are finished, I can take out two birds with one stone by frying the chopped onions, carrots, and shredded celery for Elisha’s dish with the halved cherry tomatoes of Chichi’s with a bit of salt and occasional stirring in the same pan before separating the two. 5 minutes should be enough for Elisha’s vegetables, and then Chichi’s tomatoes can stay in the pan. I grab the ingredients and return to my chef’s knife.

“Better start planning the trips to their places then,” I murmur as I grip the onion tightly in a claw. Elisha and Link are the closest to my place while Chichi is half-a-klick out from them. My knife bounces slightly, erratically chopping. The second carrot suffers like the first. Bridget will be last since she lives farthest away so, if I go to Chichi first, I can loop back around to Elisha and Link and then just head straight to Bridget. I shred the celery into uneven frayed strings and struggle to keep the small slippery tomatoes in place, leading to uneven halves and runaways. I frown. “Need to make a pitstop at that bakery on her road first.” I’d make her maritozzi and coffee myself if I could, but I cook. Baking is a different beast, cousin to pastry, and I’m not getting anywhere near that kitchen god-killer. “I can use a cooler box to keep all this hot and fresh, right? Put two layers of towels in the bottom, put everything in a Tupperware box, and drive reaaaalllyy carefully to not spill everything…” I wonder aloud as I grab a saucepan, dash olive oil in, and drop the vegetables in.

The chopped onions are a haphazard mess of large chunks while others are nearly minced…or crushed. The carrots are a mix of thick and thin, while the celery is a wild bouquet of differing lengths. I accidentally crushed some of the tomatoes. I eat those ones. Once Elisha’s vegetables are soft and golden, I separate them into the pot to simmer for matzo ball’s remaining 15 minutes. Chichi’s tomatoes remain in the pan, joined by the sauce blend. The timer for the salmon goes off. The ones with shrill screaming spook me…like a horse, so this one makes a cute little jingle instead. I pull the salmon out, slice out a square, and lay the blanket on. Bagel complete!

After another 5 minutes, bay leaves and rice are added to the pan. “Damn you, tremors. You make adding teaspoons so difficult. Just one and a half of salt- No, all over the counter. Ugh. Whatever,” I grumble as I swiftly clean it up. “Pinch it like the black pepper.” I stir and boil Chichi’s ingredients together before ladling Elisha’s food into a bowl with a sprinkle of fresh dill on top. Two done! I cover both bowls in clingfilm to keep them fresh before turning back to Chichi’s. “No. No sticking, rice. Or I have to stir you apart.” It takes 10 minutes of simmering and frequent stirring before the rice is fully cooked through. After that, I turn off the heat. Now, I just have to cover it with a lid and leave it to steam for 15 minutes. Easy!

I chop some coriander and fry the plantain while waiting. The leaves scatter unevenly onto the large stubborn chunks and finely minced cuts. When it comes to frying, I’ve learned the hard way to just leave the pan on the stove. Holding it by the handle tends to cause sizzling oil splatters that have a penchant for landing on me. Luckily, it only takes a few minutes until the plantain is golden and tender on all sides. I spend the remaining minutes prepping the cooler box, transporting the other dishes into Tupperware boxes, and checking the pan by spinning the lid to clear the trapped steam. Abuela always gets mad when someone just pops the lid off. Everything comes together with a sprinkling of coriander in a Tupperware box.

“Count it! One, two, three!” I cheer once it’s all in the cooler box. “Now, just gotta wash up.” It doesn’t take too long. Just a pot, a pan, and a few knives. I load up the dishwasher, turn it on, and check my watch again: 1050 hours. “Jaj. I’ll be right on time.”