My favorite dish is 面片 - though we called it “ 面片儿”, with our Beijing accents.
The words are meaningless—piece of dough—but in our house we knew it as the dish I loved best. The rich chicken broth with lettuce, tomatoes, green onion plus who-knows-what other combinations of spices and seasonings my mother added. The key ingredient that made it especially delicious were the thin slices of pre-made dumpling skins, instead of noodles.
The laying of the dumpling skins was crucial. I would often join my mother at this critical juncture, to supervise and assist. After the main ingredients had been added to the broth and were happily bubbling up all its hidden flavors, my mother would call me into the kitchen (if I wasn't already hovering nearby). Together we’d peel apart each of the dumpling skins and lay them gently across the top of the boiling stew. I would climb up on a stool to reach the pot.
If there were any finishing touches after that, they were quick. I would have already set the table by the time my mother called my sister in to eat. Then the three of us would assume our usual places for dinner. My mother had tinkered with this dish to perfection. All there was left to do was eat. This I did happily, in between jostling with my older sister to share any news I hadn't already told mom about my day.
I can still remember the texture of the dish as I bit into knots of dumpling skins, the creaminess of the soup broth in my mouth, and the way it slid down my throat. I can almost taste the broth of tomato and spices, but I cannot name a single spice.
That was my favorite meal: 面片. And one of my favorite moments with my mother. I was twelve years old the last time she made it.
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By high school my favorite dinner was lamb masala and yellow daal, with jasmine rice and paratha at Akia’s house.
The Malaysian style paratha pulls apart in perfect buttery layers. Akia's parents always kept stockpiles of the 50-count family packs you get at the Pakistani grocer; we'd bring one in from the garage whenever we ran out in the kitchen.
Akia's parents ran a catering business. They also had four kids and a grandmother at home. It seemed as if they always cooked for a dozen people at once, her mom minding the rice while her dad seasoned daal, one grilling meat while the other packed everything in aluminum trays.
The smallest plate at Akia’s was a dessert plate they used to stack Naan. I always grabbed this plate first until someone yelled at me to “grab a proper plate!” as if I’d starve with so little. No one ate at the same time, and everyone was always coming and going. Whenever I arrived I’d give Akia’s grandmother a kiss at her seat on the porch, grab a plate, and eat. I was always exactly on time for dinner.
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My favorite lunch at school was anything that ended with Auntie Eastin’s angel food cake.
Auntie Eastin baked for her high school homeroom, but always saved slices for Akia and me. She liked Akia best, but made it a point to feed me. It was an unspoken thing between us, as long as I came to school, there’d be food. Sometimes when I fell asleep in her office with the curtains closed, I’d find chocolates on the table when I woke up.
Auntie Eastin’s angel food cake was decadent and dense, filled with that extra measure of love which can only be found in certain desserts that were made with others in mind. Maybe she only saved me some cake as a bribe to get me to class. After all, Auntie Eastin would be the one calling home, when my first-period class reported I was missing again. When she called though, I always came running, even when there was no cake.
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My dad tried making 面片 a few times, early on in those four short years when we lived together until I turned eighteen, in the silent weeks when he was home between those months-long trips to China.
By then I was the only one who knew about 面片; I mentioned it once to my dad when he asked what I liked to eat. Later that week he made 喝的汤, knotted soup, a common dish in China, made with rolled up dough balls instead of noodles. He used dough balls even though I’d told him about the dumpling skins.
He might have tried once or twice to get it right, but it came out all wrong. There were too many of his own innovations. Sometimes he’d add mushrooms, sometimes he'd add egg or bleh celery. He bought the dumpling skins at one point, but nothing else about the dish was the same. Still, I’d eat my portion, the two of us sitting together at the table in silence. If our mouths were full, at least we didn’t have to talk.
I do think my dad tried. But he never knew how the dish was made, and I couldn’t remember.
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By the time I got to college, my favorite dessert was Mrs. Jasper’s handmade truffles.
Mrs. Jasper was K’s mom, and she was a genius at baking. She brought to her kitchen all of her Haitian Creole flavors. Every time we drove down during college she made us mousse and creme brulee, orange rum cakes and dous makos fudge. She'd always send us back with supplies too, a week's worth of frozen truffles that never lasted more than two days.
Mrs. Jasper tried to teach me her recipes a few times. She had a patience and tenderness for each step in recipes that I struggled to learn. I was still coming out of the days when peanut butter was the main staple in my diet, my go-to dinner in the years I was alone. But Mrs. Jasper’s kitchen had hibiscus and orange blossom, black walnuts and cacao beans you ground by hand to make chocolate. We whipped fresh raspberries with butter to fill the centers of macaron shells freshly baked with almond flour. There were so many rare and wonderful ingredients in each bite, I always felt special being offered such carefully-curated delights. Mr. and Mrs. Jasper were the ones that made it to my college graduation, cameras in one hand and a basket of all my favorite homemade desserts in the other.
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During school breaks my favorite meal was chiles rellenos stuffed with cheese, pepian chicken stew, and Maria’s tortillas.
Maria is Elvira's mother. She tells stories as she cooks—romances from her youth, pranks she used to pull on the nuns at school in Guatemala City, egged on by her classmates. Every dish she made had a story too—a grandmother who sent notes to her lover stuffed inside the rellenitos, a weepy aunt who seasoned her food with the salt from her tears.
At Elvira's house we always ate together, and we always linked arms and said grace before dinner. Maria never forgot to mention me to God: “Thank you for bringing Ala to our table. We pray she finds her way, and knows she always has a home here.”
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But if no one else remembers 面片, I remember.
I remember my mom in the kitchen, the sounds of broth simmering and knives chopping. I remember the accompaniment of soft music, or a narrator reading an audiobook rented from the library, the voice drifting through the steam. I remember the warmth radiating from the pot as we laid down dumpling skins, the warmth of my mother’s smile as she guided my hands showing me how to place each one down gently, without splashing up the boiling stew.
I remember the thin veil of steam on my mother’s glasses, the light sheen of sweat beneath her short hair as she cooked. That self-styled bowl cut that mirrored my own, the one I got teased for straight through middle school but never minded because I wanted to look like my mother.
I remember the smell of unknown spices, the taste and texture of each unnamed ingredient. I remember the unspoken words I love you that were shared each time this meal was prepared.
I remember 面片, my favorite dish in past tense. The dish I crave most only exists now in a twelve-year-old’s memories of her mother’s kitchen.
I remember 面片 - even if everyone else has forgotten, even if I forget sometimes, too.
Contributor Notes
Ala is a Muslim American daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes in English, Python, memories, and Javascript. When not programming, she contemplates life and love in her essays @alalafox. She is passionate about racial equity and Oakland.
