Cooking in Her Shadow

I instinctively reached for the switch in the darkness and in an instant, bright fluorescent light flooded the small, 15 square-metre rectangular kitchen. I placed the blue plastic A4 folder on the countertop. For a moment I was worried that the loud glare would wake my family or the neighbours at two in the morning. But it was only the light. My mother loved this white brightness. She could see better. For years though, when I was still living in this house, I hated this fluorescence that made everything look stale and unpleasant. I could never take social media worthy photos in this kitchen - food always looked unappetizing and it used to make me feel amateurish. But who was I kidding, I was an amateur and probably still is. I wished I had heeded my mother’s advice to spend more time learning to cook from her - no food that she made was stale and unappetizing.

The kitchen of my childhood looked smaller than I remember, even though it was less than a year ago when I last stood in this kitchen. Everything was still in the same place as they were twenty years ago. L-shaped counter lined two sides of the walls, accompanied by matching wall cabinets. On the opposite side sat two cabinets, a trolley and some rudimentary carpentry work done by my father that held a microwave oven, a rice cooker, pantry items and various other kitchen knick knacks. The stainless steel wok, still shiny after two decades of nearly daily use, hung quietly beside its family of pots and pans above the sink, all kept shiny and clean. The only telltale sign of use were the scratches made from the equally immaculate stainless steel ladle, left to dry on the rack from yesterday’s use. I picked it up, its sturdy weight felt like my mother’s steady confidence in her ability to nourish our bodies. I wondered what my mother cooked yesterday, and if it was something that I liked. But yesterday I was still in my cosy, tiny little apartment in Tokyo, working a job I was no longer sure I liked after five years.

I kept the ladle in its drawer and removed the wok from its hook, then lowered myself and sat cross-legged on the rough, white-grey marble tiled floor. I placed the wok in my lap, feeling the coolness of the metal against my skin. I remember the day we bought this wok. I was nine and I never went anywhere without my parents and so I was there on every shopping trip they made, leaving my two older siblings at home. When we got to the shop that particular day, the place was set up like a classroom and my mother sat me next to her and told me to just watch the cooking demonstration and to remain quiet until it was over. I recalled the tantalising aroma of stir-fried mushrooms with garlic and wanted to know when we could eat. My mother shushed me. When it was over, my parents started chatting with the staff and other customers. They gave me a plate of the mushrooms and I was chomping happily while my parents paid for the work that made this plate of delicious mushrooms. I asked my mother if she would make me the same mushrooms again. She smiled, ruffled my hair and said she would make me even more delicious things. I didn’t know it then, but later my mother told me they had spent about six month’s worth of savings on this wok that has now lasted them twenty years and counting. I had never given much thought to this piece of cookware but now I sat cradling it in my lap, considering its role in my mother’s culinary adventures. Oh, the food she could make without following any recipe. She herself was the recipe creator. I silently thanked the wok for what it and my mother had done for us and placed it on the speckled black granite counter.

Next I gently opened Fridge Number One’s door to prevent things from falling out. It was, as usual, packed with all sorts of edibles - jars of sauces, fresh vegetables, fruits, bottles and bottles of homemade plum juice and things I didn’t recognise. Fridge Number Two contained all the dried Chinese ingredients my mother needed to make soups and tonics and herby things that were supposed to be good for the body. Everything was written and labelled in Chinese. There were things I knew and things I didn’t.

“You should come back more often and learn how to cook your favourite food from me,” she used to nag whenever I would return for a quick visit, usually a six- to nine-month frequency. “One day I will be gone and nobody will be able to make the food you like. How will you eat then?”

“I will just buy from whomever, wherever,” I used to reply nonchalantly. What arrogance I had. My mother would huff an exasperated sigh and shake her head. 

Now I sat on the kitchen floor, wishing I knew how to use some of these dried herbs and what they were meant for. I opened an old rectangular ice cream box, so old and kept for so long that it had turned a deep hue of yellow, the print on the sticker label nearly scratched off but still hanging on for dear life. Inside the box, I found a couple of ginseng roots, forlorn and forgotten, as if they too, knew that with the master of the kitchen gone, they would likely remain in this cold graveyard until one day someone clears out the fridge. 

I sank back down to the floor, leaning against the only empty wall and reached for the blue folder. I unfolded the piece of lined paper and reread my mother’s note to me again. She had written this some time earlier this year, just after I went back to Tokyo after Chinese New Year. In her neat, beautiful Chinese script, she told me that she had, over a period of years, written down the recipes for all the food that she had made that I loved. Although she would have preferred that I stayed with them, she also understood my need for adventure because she saw herself in me. She had given me all the best things she could to let me be myself, so how could she hold me back? I was her precious little one, her youngest, also the one that gave her the most troubles. She said that she had made all the recipes easy because she knew I didn’t have the patience for complicated preparations. She hoped that one day if I have a daughter of my own I would be able to pass these down. 

“Oh, Mama,” I let out a sob.

Her passing was sudden. Coronary artery disease, we were told. I didn’t know the details; I wasn’t listening to anyone who was explaining what happened to my mother. Maybe one day I would ask my brother what really happened to her heart. For now, my own heart has a huge missing hole that I wasn’t sure would ever be filled again.

My mother was at once a typical Chinese mother of the previous generation, and also a woman moving with the times. She didn’t think sons were valued more than daughters. She believed that women should earn their own money and not rely on husbands for their livelihoods and therefore she was very hard on me to ace in school when I was a kid. She believed that no one should touch the broom on the Lunar New Year because it would bring bad luck. But she thought wearing black was perfectly alright during the Lunar New Year. She believed if one didn’t finish every grain of rice in one’s bowl, his or her spouse would be pockmarked. She thought it was great that Facebook was invented. My mother was a woman who lived with strong values and I have always felt fortunate that my mother was not like some of my friends'.

I removed the stack of recipes from the folder and tried to read the words through the tears. There must be about 30 of them here, all various dishes that she had made over the years, all my favourites. There was Sliced Ginger Fish With Lily Bulb, there was Double Boiled Coconut Soup With Chicken, and of course, curry chicken. I found a few recipes for Chinese cakes too, the ones she used to make when I was little.

The clock on the wall read quarter past two in the morning. Sleep wasn’t going to come anyway, so I pulled out the recipe for steamed cake, read through the ingredients, and started retrieving them one by one from the cabinets and placed them on the counter. I stuck the recipe onto Fridge Number Two and went to work, measuring out the oil, cake flour, brown sugar and evaporated milk. I filled the wok with enough water, placed the steamer rack in the middle. When the batter was ready, I poured it into a lined tin, placed it on the steamer rack, put the lid on the wok, and set the timer for thirty minutes. I sat back down on the floor and watched the clock ticked on. Three in the morning. I hugged my knees and rested my forehead on my arm.

“Mei, you should get some rest,” a soft voice said beside my ear. 

I was slowly being dragged into wakefulness.

“I have turned the stove off, everything is fine now, and will be fine. You need to rest,” the voice continued.

I forced my eyes open, not yet fully awake and just managed to escape from sleep's grasp. I looked at the clock - six thirty in the morning.

“Damn!” I cursed and jumped up, fully awake. I had missed the timer. 

Then I saw that the stove was turned off, the lid of the wok slightly ajar. I stood, unable to move, trying to remember if I had actually done those things before I fell asleep. 

“Mei, what are you doing?” My father walked into the kitchen, eyes still red, hair disheveled.

“Oh, I steamed a cake for breakfast,” I said, turning around to face him. 

“You didn’t sleep?” He asked.

I shook my head, still trying to piece together in my head what had happened in the last couple of hours.

“Oh dear, go get washed up and maybe get a nap? We have quite a lot to do today,” he said softly. 

“It’s okay, I’ll wash up, get coffee with you and we can head out,” I said. He nodded and went into the bathroom.

I walked slowly to my old bedroom, feeling tears in my eyes. Only my parents addressed me as Mei, the Chinese word for little sister. That voice I heard… it couldn’t be, could it? But it must be. My mother, always watching out for us, for me, was still watching out for me. I smiled, understanding now that she would always be with me.

Suddenly, I knew how that huge missing hole in my heart can be filled.