photo: my grandma cooking in her kitchen (on a less busy occasion) in San Gabriel, CA
As soon as I amble through the door, the pungent aromas of my grandma's food hits me. The overpowering fish sauce, piquant sour fish soup, and milky ambrosia of sweet Thai dessert invade my nostrils as I pass through the kitchen. This is my grandmother's house. The warm lights illuminate my grandma, Mà, in the eye of the storm. As always, she's forgotten her apron, her sleeves are haphazardly rolled up, and her worn hands are busy stirring and systematically banging pots and pans around while she's on the floor making egg rolls. Inhaling deeply, I can nearly taste every dish as I devour the kitchen with my eyes. We greet Mà with a hug, and soon she puts us kids to work.

"Aurey, go get the more jelly from the fridge in the garage!" she orders, chopping up some bell peppers in record time, all while not even sparing her task a glance. Yes, she actually has to specify the one in the garage, because that's just how many fridges she has. My cousins are assigned to the sweltering stoves, and my brother is running to the backyard for fresh green onion, mint, and tomatoes. But my sister is the luckiest, having the privilege of pounding peanuts to little bits as a salad topper. It's ridiculously satisfying, plus you get to furtively pop pieces of the salty snack in your mouth as long as you don't get caught. In the meantime, Mà is a formidable force that keeps the whole machine running, moving with a charged purposefulness that many would think lends to precision, yet actually gives way to a careless ease in the approximation of ingredients.

When all the shredded jelly is added to the Thai dessert, the fried egg rolls are shining in all their oily glory, the famous eggs with pickled vegetables are plated, and the chicken salad is topped with the pounded peanut bits, everyone is positively drooling as we set the table for the adults. Putting out bowls of steaming kernels of perfect white rice along with chopsticks and soup spoons, dinner is served!

But before we can chow, we grandkids have one last responsibility. "Mà jia beng! Gong jia beng!" (Mà, eat rice! Gong, eat rice!) Both wave us off, saying variations of "Go eat!" Turning around slowly, an animated sweat droplet appears on our foreheads. "Great, two down, a whole room full of aunts and uncles to go," our cousin groans, speaking for us all. Despite our grumbling, we parade around the house and shout these three simple words in Teochew to tell them "We respect you," and they wave us off to say "Thank you."

When all our respects are paid, we jump over one another to our kids' table, ready to eat to our stomachs' content. A loud ruckus of chatter, noisy chewing, and a random football game on the TV nobody's watching is the sound of happiness. The grease of stir-fried noodles and eggs contrast and balance out the crunch of fresh vegetables. In his haste to grab an egg roll, my cousin burns himself and the glittering piece of greasy goodness hops between frantic hands before plopping into the salad. "You better eat the salad!" we holler at him, laughing until we clutch our stomachs. "Yeah, yeah..." he replies sullenly staring at the already peanutless salad in disdain. As we continue shoving our faces with mouthfuls of glutinous white rice and bursts of sizzling savory, sour, and sweet dishes, I can't help but feel that all is right in the world.

During dinner, Mà passes each of us a big piece of fish. We glance at one another, and none of us really wants it, but we all put on our sweetest saccharine smiles and try our best to honestly thank her. The way I see it, this is her way of telling us "I love you." And by gulping down these pieces of fish, even if we have to douse it in flaming fish sauce, we are replying "We love you too."

These are the evenings spent at my Mà's house, the ones full of laughter, congratulations, and catching up with all of my mom's family. These are the evenings that are unchanging, even as everyone who sits at the dinner table is rapidly changing. As every family does, we have times when yelling bounces off the walls and fills everyone with unease. But no matter what, when dinner is served and chopsticks go up, we put our arguments aside for the night. Every time we gather together for someone's birthday, the holidays, Chinese New Year, or Ma's liver transplant birthday, these simple gestures of respect and love stay the same. But of course, dinner at Mà's house would not be dinner at Mà's house without the delicious dishes of fresh food and the never-changing bowls of steaming rice.