Eat More Bittermelon

My brother and I share a glance of deep disappointment as we watch our grandma pick out her favorite porcelain plate from the dishwasher. She scoops stir fried bittermelon onto the plate and sets it on the dining table. Grandma always uses that red flower rimmed plate for bittermelon, so my brother and I have been classically conditioned to associate her favorite piece of crockery with our least favorite vegetable. She says “多吃苦瓜，对你身体好*” when we gag at the gourd's acrid taste. 

*Eat more bittermelon; it is good for your body.

I remember when my grandma purchased that red flower rimmed plate. It was a Tuesday, the least busy day of the week, so she and grandpa weren’t needed at my parent’s restaurant to help out. 

“我们去便宜店看看吧*,” my grandparents said to me and my brother. 

*Let’s go to the cheap store and look around.

The cheap store, according to my grandparents, is the Ross discount store. Ross usually offers low priced items, which my grandparents go crazy for. We drove thirty minutes to the nearest Ross store where my grandmother fell head over heels for the red flower rimmed plate on sale in the clearance aisle. In more precise words, she half fell in love with the fifty cents price sticker on the plate and half fell in love with the design of the plate itself, which reminded her of a traditional Chinese pattern. It was a steal.

My grandma doesn’t usually purchase fancy cooking products. She likes sticking to the old fashioned ways of cooking. Stuck in her daughter’s homogenous white town, she spends most of her free time watching Chinese dramas and preparing Chinese dishes, which stimulates a Chinese lifestyle similar to the one she would live if she were back in Fuzhou. 

So while my brother and I grudgingly scoop clumpy slices of bittermelon into our mouths, grandma parks herself in front of the large, shiny flat screen TV that occupies our small living room. The flat screen is one of my parent’s proudest purchases. It was the first expensive investment that my parents didn’t actually need. It’s something that would’ve never been possible had they decided ot stay in China. To keep the TV as pristine as possible, they didn’t remove the plastic coverings that came with it. As a result, each time the TV plays, there are always bright spots on the screen where light reflects off the plastic. 

Grandma presses the red power button on the remote and the black screen immediately brightens with color. A mother and son argue over the fit of the son’s soon to be wife in the family. They’re loudly arguing, but I think it’s funny because there’s a bright spot right on the mother’s mouth, making it seem like she’s spitting fire. 

In the evening, grandma calls her sister who lives in Hong Kong. Ever since grandpa died three years ago, she’s relied on my grand aunt even more for support and comfort. I’m upstairs in my room, but grandma’s room is right below mine and the drywall isn’t thick enough to block out noise. I’ve grown accustomed to grandma and grand aunt’s conversations because they talk every night. I unintentionally  eavesdrop on them sometimes, but usually I just block them out. Tonight was one of those nights. 

I’m lying on the floor drawing cartoons when the talking from downstairs comes to a stop. Keeping my pencil still for a second, I listen hard for grandma and grand aunt’s words. They’ve only conversated for ten minutes. That’s not right. They could talk for hours and hours. 

Quietly, I sneak downstairs and just barely peek into grandma’s room through the crack of her door. Grandma’s bed is placed so that it is parallel with the door. She doesn’t see me peering in and neither does grand aunt on facetime. 

Grand aunt looks just like grandma, but with a bit more feminine, delicate features. I haven’t seen her since I was a baby in China and I’ve never bothered to say hi when she facetimes grandma. She used to be my second favorite person in the world behind grandma. Perhaps time and distance has diluted our relationship.

On facetime, her lips are set in a straight line and her eyebrows are slightly furrowed. I tilt my head to see grandma, but she has a hand pressed to her face. Her shoulders quiver. She sniffles and releases a soft, strangled sob. 

“我想回家*,”grandma whispers.

*I want to go home.

As a middle schooler, it didn’t make any sense to me. Isn’t grandma already home? I’ve seen grandma cry before, but this is different because it’s a quiet kind of cry. 

A hand suddenly clasps my wrist and I almost run into grandma’s door. My brother tugs me away from the door and we both ascend the stairs to his room.

“What are you doing?” he asks after shutting the door.

I wonder how much he saw. Was he standing behind me watching grandma cry too? A wave of guilt washes over me as I realize I didn’t do anything to comfort her. 

“Grandma is crying. Should we do something?”

My brother rolls his eyes and mutters stupid under his breath.

“She’s crying so quietly for a reason. She doesn’t want us to hear!”

“Well, we can’t just stand here and do nothing!” 

“Just leave her alone for now!”

We glare at one another in silence. I really do feel stupid arguing with my brother when my grandma is crying downstairs.

“What if we made her some bittermelon?” I suggest.

He raises an eyebrow and purses his lips together.

“Why? We had it for lunch and we hate it.”

Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes and mutter stupid under my breath.

“It’s not about us! Bittermelon is grandma’s favorite food, so we’re making it for her.”

My brother ponders the idea for a second then says, “If it’ll actually cheer her up, then fine. But if we’re going to use the pots and pans anyways, we should just make dinner.”

We’ve had experience cooking a few Chinese meals, but not bittermelon dishes. After all, why would we? If it weren’t for grandma, no bittermelon would ever touch our lips. I take a plump bittermelon out of the fridge and wash its bumpy skin while my brother searches up a good bittermelon recipe on google. 

“Stuffed bittermelon sounds good. It only takes thirty-five minutes too,” he says.

I remove the ends of the bittermelon, spoon out its seeds, then cut the gourd into smaller pieces. My brother prepares the stuffing by mixing ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, chopped onions, and some thin glass noodles leftover from last night. He spices up the mixture and hands it to me.

While I stuff the bittermelon, my brother heats up oil and makes the braising sauce. 

I place each stuffed bittermelon into the frying pan and fry both sides until browned. In another pan, my brother sautés garlic and chili and adds it to my pan before starting on another Chinese dish. 

The kitchen is fragrant with smells of sesame oil, soy sauce, and garlic by the time we’re done. On the dining room table sits three bowls of white rice, a platter of the Chinese classic tomato and scrambled eggs, a bowl of pan fried tofu and broccolini, and the red flower rimmed plate of stuffed bittermelon. There are splatters and spills all over the kitchen countertops, but at least my brother and I cooked up a Chinese dinner in an hour. I also slightly burned the rice and shattered a plate in the process. Who knew rice could burn?

“Roshambo for dish duty,” my brother says to me. 

I groan and glance at the mess. Sucking in a breath, I hold out my hand. I’m pretty good at this game, but my brother isn’t bad either.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” 

He holds out a rock while I hold out paper. 

“Uuuughhhh!” he cries.

“YES! You better get started now!” I say and turn on my heel to call grandma for dinner.

I’m excited to see grandma’s face once she sets eyes on the fabulous spread of food my brother and I prepared. I peek into grandma’s cracked door and notice that she’s no longer talking to great aunt. Instead, she’s looking at an old picture of her and mom standing in front of a restaurant she used to work at in Fuzhou.

“ 外婆, 吃饭了*,” I say softly.

*Grandma, it’s time to eat.

She looks up with puffy eyes and offers a strained smile.

“你们玩餐煮了*？”

*You guys cooked dinner?

She rises from her bed and follows me out the room, leaving her phone behind. My brother cleaned up the kitchen a bit so it doesn’t appear as if we spent the last hour spilling spices and splattering sauces. Grandma is surprised by our cooking skills, and she offers a genuinely happy smile. A smile that shows all her teeth.

“Wah!” she says.

My brother pulls out a seat for her and I hand her a pair of chopsticks. She goes for her favorite, the bittermelon, first. 

I don’t think she’s had someone else cook for her in a long time. Fresh tears spring to her eyes and my brother tries to wipe them away for her. 

“好孩子，好孩子。谢谢 你们 今天 做饭*。”

*Good kids, good kids. Thank you for making dinner today.

So we eat. For grandma’s sake, my brother and I try to speak Chinese for the rest of the evening. Our Chinese is a bit broken since we don’t practice much, but it’s the only way to communicate with grandma. She tells us stories and memories of China. I know she reminisces about Fuzhou, but I wonder why she never returned. Perhaps it's because of us. Although America is our home, it’s not hers.

The stuffed bittermelon reminds me of stuffed peppers from American cuisine. I suppose it could be a blend of American and Chinese cuisine. It’s like the best of both worlds.

Actually, bittermelon doesn’t taste too bad.