Digesting Memories

Growing up, I've always hated eating boiled eggs. The yellowish-blue ball of hardened yolk would lodge in my throat and had to be washed down by gulps of water. When I left for college, I swore that I would never touch another boiled egg except during Easter. But every day during the summer in Beijing, I would wake up to sugared tomatoes, steamed buns, chewy wooden ears . . . and two boiled eggs. Waipo would faithfully repeat the secret to her father's longevity (he died in a traffic accident when he was ninety), and watch me patiently until I squirmed and ate everything on my plate.

But after the summer, when I returned back to America and had to figure out my own breakfast every morning, I would always reach for the eggs and start boiling my water. I still grit my teeth when I ate them, but somehow I wanted to keep doing it. To show her that I hadn't forgotten.

When Chelsea left for college, I also took it upon myself to continue her idiosyncratic habit of mixing cereal with yoghurt, even though I used to tease her about it.

Other times, I was obsessed with baklava, barbeque chicken pizza, subway chicken teriyaki sandwich and co. because each bite was a way of holding onto them and pretending that they're still there to force me to eat those things.

And right now, I would really like some Pear and Gargonzola.