Egg Love



Recently, a co-worker gave me half a dozen fresh eggs.  I knew exactly what to make.  My palette and memory, at times, feel that the word "Mom" is synonymous with the word "food".  Man, could Mom cook.  If I had to divide Mom's brain into subsections, food would surely take up 80% of her brain capacity.  If she was not cooking, she would be thinking about what to feed us for the next meal, washing dishes from the previous meal or going to/from the Asian market.  With the eggs I received from Cole, I started making one of my favorite dishes, soy sauce eggs.  It is a savory dish composed of meat and eggs simmered in a brown sauce. 

 

This is my third attempt at this dish.  The first time, I was newly engaged and wanted to make a nice dinner.  My taste buds were dissapointed with the overly boiled eggs and bland sauce.  It was one of multiple poor attempts at recreating Mom's dishes.  Jeremy sat there and ate every bit of it. His compliments did not alleviate my dissapointment.  I wanted so badly to get a taste of her food.  It was the one thing I could do to bring her back a bit, and I failed. 

 

I  made the dish a second time.  I was now a Mama.  The girls had already gone to bed, and Jeremy had fallen asleep with Bennet.  So, it was just me, my eggs and a myriad of bottles filled with brown liquid.  I started taking out what I could find that could potentially create the sauce...soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, seasame oil.  As the dish cooked, I put some jasmin rice into the rice cooker.  Twenty mintues later, my kitchen smelled like home and my rice was ready.  I sat at my kitchen table and took a bite.  It was perfect.  As the egg and pork went down my throat, the tears came up.  I did it.  It tasted just like Mom's. It took me eight years to figure it out.  My tears salted my bites, and I was escastic. 

 

Today is my third time to make this dish.   The eggs were dimpled from poor peeling execution, and, once again, I guessed at my work.  With one successful execution in the bag, I simply cooked.  I thought of her as I peeled the eggs.  How come her eggs were so smooth?  I thought about her as the sauce slightly splashed when I dropped the eggs in the pot. She would have surely made a comment about the stain on my shirt.  I took a bite of the fatty beef.  It was good, and she would have approved, "Con, child, it's good.  Next time put in more sugar, một chút đường.  It's good."

 

When I sit down to eat this tomorrow, I'll think of Mom.  I am not sure if there will be tears this time.  I am confident that as I finish the meal, my brain will start to think about Wednesday's meal for Jeremy, Bennet and Ruby.  I have found peace in making heart-meals for my family, and I am grateful.